Cookie Notice
Last updated: 8 August 2026
Nothing optional runs until you say yes. Here is the complete list either way.
This notice sits alongside our privacy notice and explains the storage technologies used on The Nordic Compendium.
1. What we mean by cookies
A cookie is a small text file placed on your device by a website. We use the word loosely here to cover related technologies as well: local storage, session storage and small tracking pixels. The legal rules under the EU ePrivacy Directive treat them the same way, and so do we.
They matter because some of them can be used to recognise a device across visits. That is why anything beyond the strictly necessary requires your permission first.
2. Your control, and what happens by default
- When you first arrive, every optional category is off. Nothing in the statistics or marketing categories loads until you allow it.
- Declining is exactly as easy as accepting. Both are single buttons of equal prominence in the banner, and there is no dark pattern that makes refusal harder.
- Your choice is stored on your own device for up to 180 days, after which we ask again.
- You can change or withdraw your choice at any moment through the control at the bottom left of every page, or here: privacy preferences. Withdrawal takes effect immediately.
- Refusing everything optional does not restrict your access to any content on this site.
3. The four categories
Strictly necessary — always on
Storage without which the site cannot do what you have asked. This includes remembering your privacy choice, which is itself a legal requirement: we must not ask again in a way that ignores your decision. These are exempt from the consent requirement and cannot be disabled.
Preferences — off by default
Remembers small choices such as a dismissed notice or a language setting, so that the site behaves consistently on your next visit.
Statistics — off by default
Aggregated, pseudonymous counts of which chapters are read and how people arrive. We use this to decide what to research next. We do not use it to identify individuals.
Marketing — off by default
Allows an advertising platform to measure whether a campaign led to a visit and to limit repetition of the same advertisement. This is the category to decline if you want no advertising measurement at all.
4. The specific items
The following is the complete list of storage this site can set. Items marked conditional appear only after you have allowed the relevant category.
| Name | Type | Category | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| fc_consent_v1 | Local storage, first party | Strictly necessary | Records which categories you allowed and when, so we honour your choice on every page | 180 days |
| Session identifier | Cookie, first party | Strictly necessary | Set by the hosting layer to serve pages and mitigate abuse | Session |
| _ga, _ga_<ID> | Cookie, third party (Google) | Statistics — conditional | Distinguishes devices to count visits in aggregate | Up to 24 months |
| _gid | Cookie, third party (Google) | Statistics — conditional | Distinguishes devices over a short window | 24 hours |
| _gcl_au | Cookie, third party (Google) | Marketing — conditional | Attributes a visit to an advertising campaign | Up to 90 days |
| Frequency control | Cookie, third party | Marketing — conditional | Limits how often the same advertisement is shown to you | Up to 13 months |
If you install and configure additional tags on this site, this table must be updated to match. An inaccurate cookie table is a compliance failure in itself, and advertising platforms do check.
5. How the consent signal is passed on
Where Google technologies are used, this site implements Google Consent Mode v2. In plain terms:
- Before you decide, all consent signals except security are set to denied, and no identifying storage is created.
- When you decide, the signals are updated to match your actual choice, individually for advertising storage, advertising user data, advertising personalisation, analytics storage, functionality and personalisation.
- If you decline, Google receives an explicit denial rather than silence, and behaves accordingly.
Google's own information about how it handles data in this context is published at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites and in the Google Privacy Policy.
6. Fonts and other embedded resources
This site loads its typefaces from Google Fonts. That request reveals your IP address to Google as a technical necessity of delivering the file, and no cookie is set by it. If you would prefer that no request leaves for a third-party domain at all, the typefaces can be self-hosted — and publishers operating in the EU may wish to do exactly that, since at least one German court has treated the third-party font request as a data protection issue in its own right.
We do not embed video players, social widgets, comment systems or share buttons, all of which typically set storage before anyone has agreed to anything.
7. Controlling storage in your browser
Independently of our banner, every major browser lets you block or delete cookies and site data. The controls sit under privacy or site settings in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge and their mobile equivalents. Private or incognito windows clear site data when closed.
Two things worth knowing. Blocking all storage may break parts of many websites, though not the reading of ours. And deleting our record of your choice means we will ask you again on your next visit, because we will no longer know what you decided.
8. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control
There is no agreed standard for how websites should respond to the Do Not Track header, and we do not act on it. We do recognise the Global Privacy Control signal where a browser sends one, and treat it as a refusal of the marketing category.
9. Changes
If we add or remove a technology, this notice is updated and the version date at the top changes. Where a change introduces a new purpose, we ask for your consent again rather than assuming your earlier answer still applies. Questions go to [PRIVACY EMAIL].