Cookie Policy

1. What this policy covers

This policy is issued by Skyline Online LLC, trading as ChatNow, and covers chat-now.uk. It explains every technology we use to store information on your device or read information from it. A cookie is a small text file that a website places in your browser and reads back on later visits. The same rules apply to similar technologies: browser local storage and session storage, device identifiers, pixels, and any technique that collects information your device emits automatically, such as browser fingerprinting. The table in section 4 lists everything ChatNow uses; our device identifier is the chatnow_device cookie described below. When you use webcam or voice, your browser exchanges connection identifiers with our media servers solely to set up and carry the stream; this falls under the transmission exemption and is not listed as a cookie.

How the personal data collected through these technologies is then used is explained in our Privacy Policy.

2. The law that applies

Storing or reading information on your device is governed by regulation 6 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR), as rewritten by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 with effect from 5 February 2026. Regulation 6 prohibits storage or access, including instigating it through a third party, unless one of the exceptions in Schedule A1 applies. The exceptions we rely on are: consent given after clear and comprehensive information (paragraph 1); storage or access strictly necessary to transmit a communication (paragraph 2); and storage or access strictly necessary to provide a service you have requested, which expressly includes security, fraud prevention, authentication and remembering your selections (paragraph 3). We do not rely on the first-party statistics exception (paragraph 4), because Google Analytics sends data to Google for its own purposes and therefore does not qualify; we ask for consent instead.

We apply the ICO's Guidance on the use of storage and access technologies, finalised on 29 April 2026, including its standards for consent banners set out in section 5.

3. The categories we use and the basis for each

3.1 Strictly necessary (no consent required)

These items are genuinely necessary to provide the service you ask for. They are listed so that you know about them, and each relies on a specific limb of Schedule A1 paragraph 3:

• Session cookie (_chatnow_key): keeps your guest session or member login open as you move between rooms and pages, and protects forms against cross-site request forgery. Exemption: authentication and security.
• Device identifier (chatnow_device): an identifier that lets us enforce bans by device, apply the one-session-per-account rule and detect flood and spam patterns. Exemption: security and fraud prevention.
• Consent record (cn_consent): remembers the choice you made in the cookie banner so that we do not ask you on every page. Exemption: maintaining your selections.
• Age-check session token (cn_age): holds the yes/no result of the age check performed by AgeVerif for the current session. It contains no identity data. Exemption: strictly necessary to provide the service you requested, which by law we may only provide after age assurance.
• Cloudflare bot-protection challenge cookie (__cf_bm): set by Cloudflare, Inc., which protects chat-now.uk against automated traffic and denial-of-service attacks, to tell a genuine browser from a bot. Exemption: security.

3.2 Analytics (consent required)

Google Analytics 4 measures how visitors use chat-now.uk. We run it in aggregate mode with IP anonymisation, and we do not use it for advertising. Because the data is processed by Google LLC, these cookies are set only after you accept the "Analytics" category in the banner.

3.3 Advertising (consent required, off by default)

Third-party advertising partners may set cookies to show and measure advertisements. They are never set unless you accept the "Advertising" category. The current list of partners, with a link to each partner's policy, is in the cookie preference centre.

4. The cookies we set

No other cookie, local storage entry or identifier is used on chat-now.uk.

5. How we ask for your consent

On your first visit a banner appears before any analytics or advertising cookie is set. The banner follows the ICO's standards:

• the first layer offers "Accept all" and "Reject all" buttons of equal size and prominence, so rejecting takes exactly one click, the same as accepting;
• a "Manage choices" option opens granular controls for the two consent categories, Analytics and Advertising, each of which is off by default; there are no pre-ticked boxes;
• the banner links to this policy so that you have clear and comprehensive information before you decide;
• there is no cookie wall: you can use chat-now.uk in full after rejecting all non-essential cookies, and rejecting has no effect on the chat, on safety features or on Premium;
• closing the banner without choosing is treated as a rejection;
• we record the time of your choice, the version of the banner you saw and the categories you accepted, so that we can demonstrate consent.

Consent given for a purpose is not asked for again for the same purpose while your recorded choice remains valid (section 9), unless we add a new cookie or a new partner, in which case the banner is shown again.

6. How to change or withdraw your choice

Withdrawing consent is as easy as giving it. A "Cookie settings" link appears in the footer of every page of chat-now.uk; it opens the cookie preference centre, where you can switch either category off or on at any time. When you switch a category off, we stop setting the cookies in that category and delete the ones we control. Cookies set by third parties are deleted or expire according to the third party's rules; you can remove them immediately using your browser (section 7).

7. Controlling cookies in your browser

Every major browser lets you view, delete and block cookies through its settings, usually under "Privacy and security" or "Site data": you can block cookies from a specific site, block all third-party cookies or clear cookies whenever you close the browser. If you block or delete the strictly necessary cookies listed in section 4, ChatNow will not be able to keep you logged in, to remember your cookie choice or to hold your age-check result, and you will be asked to complete the age check again.

8. Third-party cookies and their policies

Cloudflare, Inc. sets the bot-protection challenge cookie on our behalf as our processor; its privacy policy is published on Cloudflare's website. Google LLC sets the Google Analytics 4 cookies only after your consent and processes the data under Google's privacy policy, published on Google's website. Advertising partners set cookies only after your consent; each is named in the cookie preference centre with a direct link to its own policy. Google, Cloudflare and any US-based partner receive data in the United States under the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (section 8 of the Privacy Policy). None of them receives your messages, profile fields, age-check result or special category data.

9. How long we keep your choice

Your choice is stored in the cn_consent cookie for 6 months. After that the banner is shown again and you are asked to choose afresh. The record of your choice that we keep for accountability (time, banner version and categories) is kept for the same 6 months and then deleted. If you clear your cookies, the banner reappears on your next visit.

10. Changes to this policy and contact

This is version 1.0 of the Cookie Policy, effective 22 September 2026. We update it whenever we add, remove or change a cookie or a partner, and we show the banner again whenever a change requires fresh consent. Earlier versions are listed on the Legal Documents Version History page. Questions about cookies, and complaints about how we use them, go to privacy@chatnow.fr; we acknowledge complaints within 30 days. You may also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF, helpline 0303 123 1113, https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/.