How we use cookies and similar technologies.

Credit Consensus Index may use four primary categories: Strictly Necessary technologies required for website operation, security, privacy choices, and essential functionality; Functional technologies for optional settings; Analytics technologies that help us understand how readers find and use our research; and Advertising & Affiliate technologies for advertising, attribution, referrals, and conversion measurement.

Where applicable law requires consent, we should wait for consent before activating relevant non-essential technologies. Where law provides sale, sharing, or targeted-advertising opt-outs, we should provide an appropriate privacy control in addition to cookie settings.

A cookie is a small piece of data stored on or associated with your browser or device when you visit a website. Cookies can remember preferences, maintain a session, measure usage, identify referrals, support security, record privacy choices, and support advertising. Some exist only during a browsing session; others remain for a defined period unless deleted earlier.

Not all tracking or storage uses traditional browser cookies. Credit Consensus Index and its service providers may use pixels, tags, scripts, local storage, software development kits, server-side identifiers, referral parameters, click identifiers, device or browser information, conversion identifiers, and similar technologies. This policy may refer to them collectively as cookies and similar technologies.

First-party cookies are generally set through CreditConsensusIndex.com and may support website functionality, consent settings, security, preferences, and analytics. Third-party technologies may come from analytics providers, advertising providers, affiliate networks, financial partners, embedded media providers, or consent-management services. Those parties may process information under their own privacy policies and contractual relationships with us.

Credit Consensus Index organizes cookies and similar technologies into the categories below. The actual technologies deployed should be reflected in our preference interface and technical inventory rather than copied from a generic list.

Strictly necessary technologies support website security, fraud prevention, load balancing, session management, consent records, privacy choices, opt-out requests, form protection, malicious-traffic prevention, and essential website functions. They generally cannot be disabled through ordinary Cookie Preferences, though browser settings may block them and cause parts of the site to stop working.

If you reject non-essential cookies or change individual settings, we may need to store that preference. The preference record itself should not be treated as optional tracking.

Functional cookies help provide enhanced features or remember choices that are not strictly necessary for the basic website, such as display preferences, interface settings, optional embedded features, navigation choices, and convenience during repeat visits. If disabled, the core website should generally remain accessible, though optional features may work differently.

Analytics technologies may collect pages viewed, entry and exit pages, referral source, time on page, device category, browser, approximate geographic information, navigation paths, link interactions, site errors, and aggregate engagement patterns. This helps us understand which studies readers use, how they find the site, which pages are difficult to navigate, and where technical problems occur.

Analytics may influence future research and product decisions, including interest in credit repair, credit-builder products, secured cards, debt consolidation, or credit scores. It does not change the underlying AI results within an existing study. Before publication, our development team should maintain an accurate list of analytics technologies actually deployed.

Credit Consensus Index is a commercial publication. Advertising and affiliate technologies may identify referrals, attribute conversions, measure affiliate performance, determine whether a commission is owed, measure advertising campaigns, display advertising, limit repetition, and understand commercial interactions.

We may earn compensation when a reader clicks a link and completes a qualifying action, such as applying for a product, requesting information, enrolling in a service, opening an account, or completing another qualifying action. Tracking may use cookies, click IDs, referral IDs, URL parameters, conversion tags, or server-side attribution. Read our Affiliate Disclosure.

Advertising technologies may process page views, device and browser information, advertising interactions, referral information, approximate location, and online activity. Depending on context and law, this may be treated as targeted advertising, cross-context behavioral advertising, sale, or sharing. We do not intend to sell lists of readers for cash, but some laws define sale or sharing broadly; privacy preference information is available through Your Privacy Choices.

Credit Consensus Index does not currently provide a cookie-preference center, category-level controls, or a consent banner. The website's cookie and tracking behavior is described in this policy.

The browser preference saved on the Your Privacy Choices page is not connected to cookie, analytics, advertising, or affiliate controls. We will update this policy if those controls are implemented.

Cookie Preferences controls categories of browser technologies where technically applicable. Your Privacy Choices addresses legal rights involving sale, sharing, targeted advertising, and certain sensitive-data processing. The two may be connected technically, but should not be treated as identical concepts. A valid opt-out should apply to the covered processing, not merely delete one cookie.

Global Privacy Control, or GPC, is a browser-based signal communicating a request about certain privacy practices. Where applicable law requires recognition, Credit Consensus Index should process a qualifying GPC signal as an opt-out without requiring a second click. Where required, it should opt the browser or device out of covered sale, sharing, or targeted advertising while allowing strictly necessary technologies to continue.

GPC and Cookie Preferences can coexist. A user may permit analytics while opting out of sale or sharing if that analytics activity is not covered in the relevant context. The architecture should reflect actual data flows rather than assuming every right can be represented by one universal toggle.

Preferences may be stored locally so users do not need to repeat selections. They may need to be renewed when cookies are deleted, a browser or device changes, consent settings materially change, or law requires renewed consent. Preferences are often associated with a particular browser or device and may not transfer across browsers, computers, phones, private browsing sessions, or cleared cookies.

Browsers can delete or block cookies, limit third-party cookies, clear site storage, and adjust privacy settings independently of our preference center. Blocking all cookies may affect functionality. Private browsing may remove session preferences when the session ends.

Credit Consensus Index may embed videos, social media, interactive media, or research tools. An embedded provider may set or use its own technologies. Where required, optional embedded technologies should not activate until relevant consent is available. For external video, privacy-enhanced embedding may be used where technically available and appropriate.

Disabling Advertising & Affiliate cookies may reduce attribution, but an ordinary hyperlink may still function. Referral information may also be communicated through the link itself; behavior depends on the affiliate system.

If a visitor disables optional tracking, Credit Consensus Index should not recreate the same tracking through another mechanism solely to defeat that choice. A legally required opt-out should not be ignored by moving identical targeted advertising from a browser cookie to an undisclosed server-side identifier. Privacy choices should be implemented according to their substance.

Consent-management systems may maintain the choice, selected categories, date or time, policy version, and technical information needed to honor that choice. These records may be necessary to remember preferences, demonstrate compliance, manage consent, and resolve technical problems, but should not be repurposed unnecessarily for unrelated advertising.

Cookies may be session cookies or persistent cookies. Where practical, the preference center or inventory should identify each deployed technology’s name, provider, purpose, category, and duration. Cookie-free analytics and server-side tracking can still process personal information and do not eliminate privacy obligations.

“Strictly necessary” should be used narrowly. Commercial usefulness, marketing performance, revenue generation, analytics convenience, or affiliate importance does not automatically make a technology technically necessary for a reader.

Cookie and privacy requirements vary by jurisdiction. Although Credit Consensus Index primarily publishes for the United States consumer-credit market, readers may visit from other locations. Where required, regional consent configurations may display different controls or defaults. Non-U.S. jurisdictions may require consent before certain non-essential storage or tracking technologies activate.

Credit Consensus Index is not directed to children under 13 and does not intentionally design advertising or affiliate tracking around known children. See the Privacy Policy for additional information.

Cookies and related technologies may help protect against fraud, malicious bots, unauthorized access, form abuse, and technical attacks. Security technologies may be classified as strictly necessary where appropriate.

Vendors and technologies may change. We may add analytics tools, change advertising providers, join affiliate networks, remove technologies, change consent-management providers, or modify tracking architecture. When changes materially affect this policy, we may update it.

The current version will display a Last Updated date. Material changes may also trigger updated consent choices, a new notice, or additional disclosures where appropriate.

Questions about cookies, tracking, or privacy preferences may be submitted through our Contact Us page.

Privacy contact:

Contact Us page

Cookie controls:

A cookie-preference center is not currently available

Your Privacy Choices:

Your Privacy Choices page

Mailing address:

Contact Us page

Use your browser or device settings to manage cookies and similar storage. The browser preference on this site does not currently control cookies or tracking technologies.

Use necessary technology to operate the website, explain optional tracking clearly, give users meaningful controls, and honor applicable privacy choices rather than making privacy settings intentionally difficult to use.

Privacy Policy · Affiliate Disclosure · Advertising Disclosure · Terms of Use · Accessibility