This site stores some data on your device inside your web browser, eg. Chrome, in the form of cookies, session storage, local storage, and indexeddb. These are all different methods of preserving information to help the website function, eg. keep you logged in so the server can show you pages that you have access to. Some are necessary for the website to work, some are function, eg saving preferences, some are for analytics, eg. tracking how many people are watching a particular video, and tracking/marketing cookies that are used by Google in their advertising business. All but the necessary cookies require your permission.
This site uses a service called Clerk to manage logged in state. As such all of those cookies and other storage are strictly necessary. It also uses Youtube's services to host the videos. As part of hosting the videos Youtube uses necessary, functional, analytics, and tracking/marketing cookies and other storage. These are required to access this site as per the Terms of Use, because otherwise Youtube will not display the video, but not strictly necessary, because Youtube do not need to require us to add them.
What are cookies, session storage, local storage, and indexeddb
Cookies are small text values stored on your device by your web browser. They allow websites to remember information about your visit, such as authentication status, preferences, and session data. Cookies are sent with every request to the same domain and persist until they expire or are manually deleted.
Local Storage is a web storage API that provides larger capacity (typically 5-10MB) than cookies for storing key-value pairs permanently in the browser. Unlike cookies, data stored in local storage is not sent to the server with every request and only gets cleared when explicitly removed by JavaScript or the user.
Session Storage is similar to local storage but data is limited to a single tab or browser window session. The data persists across page reloads within the same tab but is automatically cleared when the tab or window is closed.
IndexedDB is a low-level API for storing large amounts of structured data, including files and blobs. It provides a full database system with indexes and transactions within the browser, capable of storing significantly more data than local storage (often limited only by disk space).
Necessary items
1. Clerk & first-party cookies (mikejamesrust.com / clerk.com / clerk.mikejamesrust.com)
The following cookies and storage items are neccessary
Cookie Name
Domain
Purpose
Category
__client_uat
.mikejamesrust.com
Timestamp flag indicating whether a Clerk logged in session exists; used to sync signed-in state across tabs/domains without exposing the token itself
Necessary
__client_uat
.clerk.com
Same as above, Clerk's own domain copy
Necessary
__client_uat_DvlHvy3E
.clerk.com
Instance-specific variant of __client_uat (suffix ties it to your Clerk instance)
Necessary
__client_uat_li9CUjqJ
.mikejamesrust.com
Instance-specific variant of __client_uat
Necessary
__refresh_li9CUjqJ
www.mikejamesrust.com
Refresh token used to silently renew the session token
Necessary
clerk_active_context
www.mikejamesrust.com
Tracks which session/organisation context is currently active
Necessary
__client
.clerk.mikejamesrust.com
Main authentication cookie (long-lived, HttpOnly) — the core "is this user logged in" credential
Necessary
__session
www.mikejamesrust.com
Short-lived session token (JWT), used to authenticate requests
Necessary
__session_li9CUjqJ
www.mikejamesrust.com
Instance-specific variant of __session
Necessary
_cfuvid
.clerk.mikejamesrust.com
Cloudflare cookie used alongside rate-limiting/Bot Management to distinguish sessions; not itself a tracking cookie but worth flagging as Cloudflare infrastructure rather than Clerk
Necessary
__cf_bm
.clerk.mikejamesrust.com
Cloudflare Bot Management — distinguishes human traffic from bots, ~30 min lifetime
Necessary
Session Storage
Origin
Key
Purpose
Category
www.mikejamesrust.com
auth-synced-user_[id]
Flag Clerk uses to confirm auth state has been synced for this tab/session
Necessary
Local Storage
Origin
Key
Purpose
Category
www.mikejamesrust.com
__clerk_environment
Caches Clerk's environment/config (auth settings, instance config) so the SDK doesn't refetch it every load
Necessary
Site Local Storage
The following local storage items are necessary for the site's cookie consent functionality
Origin
Key
Purpose
Category
www.mikejamesrust.com
cookie_consent_given
Records whether the user has explicitly accepted cookies
Necessary
www.mikejamesrust.com
cookie_consent_rejected
Records whether the user has explicitly rejected cookies
Necessary
YouTube necessary cookies
Cookie Name
Domain
Purpose
Category
SIDCC, __Secure-1PSIDCC, __Secure-3PSIDCC
.youtube.com
Session continuity/security tokens tied to the SID family
Necessary
__Secure-1PSIDTS, __Secure-3PSIDTS
.youtube.com
Session timestamp tokens, part of the SID family
Necessary
__Secure-YENID
.youtube.com
Successor to __Secure-YEC, same bot-detection purpose
Necessary
Functional items
Cookies
Cookie Name
Domain
Purpose
Category
PREF
.youtube.com
Stores user preferences (playback quality, language, UI settings)
Functional
VISITOR_PRIVACY_METADATA
.youtube.com
Stores consent/privacy-state metadata for the visitor
Functional
Local Storage
Origin
Key
Purpose
Category
www.youtube.com (third-party, embedded)
yt-icons-last-purged
Housekeeping timestamp for when the player last cleared cached icon assets
Functional
www.youtube.com (third-party, embedded)
yt-player-bandwidth
Stores measured bandwidth/stall data to pick video quality
Functional
www.youtube.com (third-party, embedded)
ytidb::LAST_RESULT_ENTRY_KEY
Internal pointer into the player's local IndexedDB result cache
Functional
IndexedDB
Database
Store
Purpose
Category
YtIdbMeta → databases
—
Registry of which per-user YouTube databases exist on this browser
Functional
Analytics items
Cookies
Cookie Name
Domain
Purpose
Category
__Secure-YNID
.youtube.com
Analytics/preferences for YouTube (successor to VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE)
Analytics
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
.youtube.com
Measures bandwidth/usage and feeds video recommendations