Cookie Policy

This page is the detailed companion to the privacy policy. The privacy policy explains what data the site does and does not collect; this one names the individual cookies and browser-storage entries, says who sets each of them, and describes exactly what changes when you answer the consent bar.

1. Cookies and the other kind of storage

Two different mechanisms get lumped together as “cookies”, and the difference matters here because this site leans almost entirely on the second one.

A cookie is a small file the browser attaches to requests it sends to a server. Because it travels with the request, whoever set it can see it again later. Every cookie on this site is set by Google, for advertising or analytics, and never by us.

Local storage is a slot in your browser that a page can read and write but which is never attached to any request. Nothing put there leaves your device. Everything OrchidLines itself remembers — your theme, your consent answer, the settings of individual tools — lives in local storage, which is why the site sets no cookies of its own.

2. What this site stores

These are set by OrchidLines. They are local storage, not cookies, so they are never transmitted anywhere, and clearing site data removes them.

Name	What it holds	How long
orchidlines-consent	Your answer to the consent bar, as granted or denied, so you are not asked on every page.	Until you clear site data
orchidlines-theme	Whether you chose the light or dark appearance.	Until you clear site data
orchidlines-seen	A note that you have visited before, used to avoid repeating first-visit hints.	Until you clear site data
orchidlines-<tool>	The settings of an individual tool, so an editor opens where you left it. One entry per tool you have used, holding only that tool's own options.	Until you clear site data

3. What Google sets

The site carries advertising through Google AdSense (publisher ca-pub-8528473764664250) and measures audience size with Google Analytics 4 (property G-0FWDRJ91T3). Both are third parties: they set their own cookies under their own domains, and the names and lifetimes are theirs to change rather than ours to publish accurately. In broad terms:

• Advertising cookies, set from googlesyndication.com and related Google domains, are used to select ads, cap how often the same ad is shown to you, and measure whether an ad led anywhere. Where you have allowed it, they may also be used to personalise which ads you see.
• Analytics cookies or identifiers, set by Google Analytics, let the site tell a returning visitor from a new one and see which pages are used. We look at totals and page popularity, not individuals.

Google describes its own use of cookies in advertising at policies.google.com/technologies/ads, and you can adjust what Google personalises for you at adssettings.google.com.

4. What the consent bar actually does

The site uses Google Consent Mode v2. Before any Google tag runs, every page declares a default position for four signals: ad_storage, ad_user_data, ad_personalization and analytics_storage.

That default is denied for visitors in Europe and granted elsewhere. The region is worked out from your browser's own timezone setting, which is a deliberately blunt test: it means somebody in Belgrade may be asked when the law does not strictly require it, which is a far better failure than quietly setting an advertising cookie on somebody in Berlin. No location lookup is performed and your IP address is not used for this.

Where the default is denied, the bar appears with two buttons. Essential only leaves all four signals denied: Google's tags still load but operate without storing advertising or analytics cookies, so ads remain non-personalised and measurement is limited to modelled totals. Accept all updates all four to granted. Whichever you pick is written to orchidlines-consent and replayed on your next visit instead of asking again.

5. Changing your mind

Every page carries a Cookie choices link in the footer. Opening it brings the bar back so you can answer differently, and the new answer replaces the stored one immediately. You do not need to clear anything first, and you can change it as often as you like.

6. Turning it all off in the browser

Independently of anything on this site, your browser can block or delete cookies for a site, or for all sites, under its own privacy settings. Clearing site data for orchidlines.com also erases the local-storage entries in section 2, which means your theme, your consent answer and every tool's saved settings return to their defaults. Nothing is lost that was not stored on your own device.

Blocking cookies entirely does not stop the tools working. The site is built so that every tool runs from the page itself, and a visitor with cookies disabled, scripts restricted to first-party only, or an ad blocker installed gets the same tools and the same results.

7. Changes to this policy

If the site starts using a cookie for a purpose not described here, this page is updated before that happens and the date at the top changes with it. There is no mailing list to notify, so the date is the honest signal.

Questions about any of this can go to hello@orchidlines.com.