Cookie policy
⚠ Draft for legal review — Swiss and cantonal. Written against the revised Federal Act on Data Protection and art. 45c of the Federal Act on Telecommunications, alongside the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive for visitors in the EU. Note the difference: Swiss law works on an opt-out basis for cookies — it asks that users be informed and given the chance to refuse — while EU law requires prior opt-in. This site applies the stricter EU standard to everyone, which is a deliberate choice and is described in section 2. Have a lawyer admitted in Switzerland confirm it, and check this text against the site as actually configured before publishing.
Last updated: [DATE]
1. What a cookie is
A cookie is a small file a website stores in your browser so it can recognise that browser on a later visit. Some are needed for the site to work at all; the rest are optional, and optional means you decide.
2. How we ask
On your first visit a notice appears with two equally prominent buttons — Accept all and Necessary only — and a panel where you can choose category by category. Nothing non-essential is set before you choose. Refusing is exactly as easy as accepting, and takes the same number of clicks.
You can change your mind whenever you like through the Cookie settings link in the footer, which reopens the same panel. Withdrawing consent is as easy as giving it (Article 7(3) GDPR).
Swiss telecommunications law would let us set non-essential cookies as long as we told you and let you refuse. We ask first anyway, for every visitor, wherever they are. It is the stricter of the two standards and the simpler promise to keep.
3. What this site actually sets
3.1. Strictly necessary — no consent required
gd_age_ok— records that you have confirmed you are over 18. 30 days. First-party.gd_consent— records your cookie choices, so you are not asked again on every page. 12 months. First-party.PHPSESSIDor an equivalent session cookie — set by the server only where a page needs it. Session only. First-party.
These fall within the exemption for cookies strictly necessary to deliver the service you have asked for. They are never used to profile you.
3.2. Analytics — off until you say otherwise
[If an analytics tool is enabled, list each cookie here with its name, purpose, duration and provider, and say whether IP addresses are anonymised. As shipped, this site sets no analytics cookie at all.]
3.3. Marketing — none
We currently set no marketing or advertising cookie of any kind, and no third-party tracking pixel. The category exists in the panel so that it is honest if that ever changes.
4. Third parties
The fonts and every script this site loads are served from our own domain. Nothing on this site contacts a third-party server while you read it — no font CDN, no social widget, no embedded map. That is deliberate: a request to an external host would hand your IP address to that host before you had agreed to anything.
5. Not a cookie, but worth saying
Your light/dark display preference is kept in your browser’s local storage under gd-theme. It never reaches our servers, it identifies nobody, and clearing your browser data removes it.
6. Managing cookies in your browser
Every browser lets you see, block and delete cookies from its own settings — Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge all offer this under Privacy. Blocking the strictly necessary ones means the age check will reappear on every page load.
7. Complaints
Questions about cookies on this site go to [CONTACT EMAIL]. If you are not satisfied, you may contact the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (edoeb.admin.ch). Visitors in the European Economic Area may instead go to the supervisory authority where they live or work.