1. What Are Cookies?
Cookies are small text files placed on your device when you visit a website. They are widely used to make websites work efficiently, to improve performance, and to provide information to site operators. Cookies may be set by us (“first-party cookies”) or by third parties whose services we use (“third-party cookies”).
2. Cookies We Use
We use the following categories of cookies on this website:
2.1 Strictly Necessary Cookies
These cookies are required for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually set in response to actions you take, such as setting your privacy preferences, filling in forms, or navigating between pages.
- gdpr_consent — stores your cookie-banner choice (Accept / Decline). Expires: 365 days.
- session_id — maintains your session across page loads. Expires: session.
2.2 Performance and Analytics Cookies
These cookies let us count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of the site. They help us know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site.
- _pk_id.* / _pk_ses.* — self-hosted Matomo (Piwik) analytics. No data is sent to third-party services. Expires: 13 months.
2.3 Functional / Preference Cookies
These cookies enable enhanced functionality and personalisation, such as remembering your language, theme, or region. If you do not allow these cookies, some services may not work properly.
- lang — remembers your preferred language. Expires: 365 days.
- theme — remembers light / dark preference. Expires: 365 days.
2.4 Marketing Cookies
We do not use marketing or advertising cookies on this website, and we do not allow third-party advertising networks to set cookies when you visit our pages.
3. Cookies Set by Third Parties
Some cookies are set by third-party services that appear on our pages — for example embedded videos, fonts, or maps. These third parties may use cookies to deliver their services and may set their own cookies on your device. Their use of cookies is governed by their respective privacy and cookie policies.
- Google Fonts (fonts.googleapis.com / fonts.gstatic.com) — functional, delivers web fonts. See Google Privacy Policy.
4. Legal Basis for Processing
Under the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive, the lawful bases for processing personal data through cookies are:
- Strictly necessary cookies: legitimate interest in operating the website (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR). No consent required.
- Analytics, functional, and preference cookies: consent (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR). You may withdraw consent at any time.
5. How to Manage Your Cookie Preferences
You can manage cookies in several ways:
- Via our cookie banner: when you first visit the site, the banner shown in the bottom-left corner records your choice.
- Via your browser: most browsers let you view, delete, and block cookies. See your browser’s help documentation for instructions.
- Via privacy-focused browser extensions such as uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, or DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials.
6. What Happens If You Decline Cookies
If you click Decline in the cookie banner, only strictly necessary cookies will be set. The site will continue to function, but some features (such as remembering your language or theme preference) may not work, and we will not be able to measure anonymous usage statistics to improve the site.
7. Do Not Track (DNT)
Our site honours the Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals sent by your browser. When such a signal is detected, we treat it as a Decline of non-essential cookies.
8. Changes to This Cookie Policy
We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time. Material changes will be announced on this page with a revised “Last updated” date and, where required, a fresh consent prompt.
9. Contact
If you have any questions about this Cookie Policy or the cookies we use, please contact us at privacy@freevm.net.