Cookie Policy

No cookie, no local storage key and no other storage technology here stores, encodes, queues or transmits a photograph. All 14 face and style tools compute their results inside your browser using Google MediaPipe. There is no photo upload endpoint on our servers, so nothing exists for a cookie to point at. Clear every cookie we set and no image of yours is affected, because none ever left your device.

Cookies and local storage behave differently from each other too.

Cookies gave a stateless protocol a memory: a shopping basket, a login session, a language choice. Your browser saves the file and returns it automatically.

Local storage and session storage are separate browser features. Both keep small values on your device, but neither attaches automatically to a network request. A script on the page has to read them deliberately. Local storage persists until cleared. Session storage vanishes when the tab closes.

Pixels, web beacons and SDK identifiers reach similar ends by other means. A pixel is a one-by-one image request whose only job is telling a third party that a page loaded. The only pixels here come from Google Analytics and Google AdSense.

The difference matters for control. Blocking cookies in your browser settings does not always clear local storage, and clearing local storage leaves cookies untouched. Most browsers offer a single "clear site data" action that removes both, which is what we'd suggest for a clean slate. Which domain set the value determines who can read it.

First-party cookies and storage come from thefaceshapedetector.net itself. Ours stay inside the strictly necessary and preference categories described below, and they hold no name, email address or account identifier, because the public site has no account system and no login.

Third-party cookies come from another domain whose script or frame loads into the page. Here those domains belong to Google: google-analytics.com and analytics.google.com for measurement, and doubleclick.net, googlesyndication.com and google.com for advertising. Google acts as an independent controller of what it collects that way, governed by its own policies at https://policies.google.com/technologies/cookies. The table names what each domain sets.

Inventory covers every category we operate and the identifiers you're most likely to find in your browser's storage inspector. Advertising vendors rename identifiers periodically, so read those rows as representative rather than exhaustive.

Strictly necessary

Necessary storage is the only kind set without asking. It carries no analytics value and goes to nobody. One key guards the contact form against forged and automated submissions. The other records your consent choices, which is unavoidable: without it the banner would appear on every page view.

These cannot be switched off through our banner, because the site stops working correctly without them. Browser-level blocking still works, at the cost of a broken form and a banner that never stops returning.

Preference

Preference storage exists so the site behaves the way you last left it. The theme key records light or dark. Dismissed-notice keys record which in-page notices you closed. Quiz progress sits in session storage so a stray refresh doesn't wipe twenty answers.

None of those values reaches us. Scripts on your own device read them, and they never appear in a network request. Clearing them costs you the preference and nothing else.

Analytics

Analytics tells us which tools and articles get used, on which devices, and where the experience breaks down. We use Google Analytics 4. The _ga identifier and the property-specific key are pseudonymous: they identify a browser rather than a person, and no method exists here for resolving one to a named individual. Google truncates IP addresses before storage.

Those identifiers expire two years after your last visit. Reporting retention is set to 14 months, after which granular data is deleted and only aggregates survive. Analytics loads only after consent where consent is required.

Advertising

Advertising is why The Face Shape Detector charges nothing. We use Google AdSense, drawing on Google's DoubleClick ad serving infrastructure. These cookies do three jobs: choose which ad to show, cap how often you see the same one, and measure whether an ad led anywhere.

Personalized advertising means Google may use the browsing history associated with your browser, across this and other participating sites, to select an ad it predicts is relevant. Refuse personalization and ads still appear; they are simply chosen from page context and coarse signals such as approximate location rather than a profile. Google describes the mechanics at https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads.

For the avoidance of doubt: the analysis your browser performs on a photograph never feeds advertising. The image is never serialized, never uploaded, and never handed to an advertising script. Whether advertising cookies load at all depends on your consent.

Consent comes first in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. We ask before any analytics or advertising cookie is set, and until you choose, only strictly necessary storage exists. Refusing takes one click and costs nothing, because every tool works identically either way.

Outside those regions, analytics and advertising cookies may load on arrival in line with local law, and you keep the right to opt out using the controls below. Residents of California and comparable US states can exercise a "do not sell or share my personal information" right through the footer link or by writing to [email protected].

To withdraw consent later, use the cookie settings link in the footer. Your new choice records immediately and applies from the next page load. Withdrawal leaves cookies Google already placed untouched, so follow the browser instructions below to remove those identifiers too.

Editor note: replace this sentence with the registered legal entity name and postal address of the site operator, which must appear in the consent record for EEA and UK compliance.

Browsers give you the strongest controls available. Each major one lets you view, block and delete cookies, and each offers a private mode that discards all storage when the window closes.

• Chrome: Settings, then Privacy and security, then Third-party cookies to block them globally, and Delete browsing data to clear what is stored. Per-site control sits behind the icon to the left of the address bar.
• Safari: Settings, then Privacy. Intelligent Tracking Prevention blocks cross-site tracking by default. Manage Website Data removes storage for a single site. On iOS the path is Settings, Apps, Safari.
• Firefox: Settings, then Privacy and Security. Enhanced Tracking Protection offers Standard, Strict and Custom modes, and Strict blocks most advertising cookies. Cookies and Site Data clears or manages exceptions.
• Edge: Settings, then Cookies and site permissions. Tracking prevention offers Basic, Balanced and Strict. Balanced already blocks trackers from sites you have never visited.

Blocking at browser level lasts longer than any banner choice, because it applies before our scripts run. Industry opt-outs work differently again.

• Google advertising controls, including turning off ad personalization: https://adssettings.google.com
• How Google uses cookies in advertising: https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads
• Google Analytics browser opt-out add-on: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
• Digital Advertising Alliance opt-out, United States: https://optout.aboutads.info
• Your Online Choices, Europe: https://www.youronlinechoices.eu

The industry pages at aboutads.info and youronlinechoices.eu record your choice in a cookie of their own. Clear all cookies later and you'll set those opt-outs again. Blocking everything has consequences worth knowing.

Nothing about the analysis breaks. All 14 tools (face shape, eye shape, nose shape, lip shape, face symmetry, golden ratio, color analysis, skin tone, body shape, body type, Kibbe, attractiveness, celebrity look-alike and age estimation) run entirely in your browser and depend on no cookie at all.

What you lose is small and specific. The site forgets your theme and falls back to your operating system setting. Dismissed notices reappear. The consent banner returns every visit, because the record of your refusal is itself a cookie. Block strictly necessary storage and form submissions fail, so write to [email protected] instead.

Ads keep appearing whether or not you allow advertising cookies. Blocking makes them less relevant, not less frequent. What appears on this page can change, though, and here is how you'll know.

Reviews happen at least annually and whenever a third-party service is added or removed. Material changes, meaning a new vendor, a new category or a longer retention period, are announced with a notice on the site for at least 30 days, and where consent is required we ask again rather than assume your earlier answer holds.

Minor edits, such as clarified wording or a vendor's corrected duration, update the "Last updated" date at the top. That date always reflects the current version.

Questions about anything here go to [email protected]. Where a question concerns a cookie Google set rather than one of ours, we'll say so and point you to the relevant Google control, because data held on Google's systems is beyond our reach to delete on your behalf.

To recap what this policy covers: a cookie is a small text file your browser stores and returns, and everything The Face Shape Detector sets falls into strictly necessary, preference, analytics or advertising. None of it touches a photograph, because analysis runs inside your browser through Google MediaPipe, no image is transmitted to, received by, or stored on our servers, and no photo upload endpoint exists.

First-party keys come from thefaceshapedetector.net and hold no identifier tied to you. Third-party keys come from Google, listed in the inventory table with their durations: a session token, a 6-month consent record, _ga at 2 years, reporting retention at 14 months, advertising identifiers around 13 months. Consent comes first in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland. Browser settings, the Google controls and the industry opt-out pages give you four ways to refuse, and blocking everything costs a theme preference and a working form, nothing more.

Questions about any cookie named here go to [email protected].