Cookies and Local Storage

01The short version

This site uses Google Analytics 4. It is switched off until you answer the banner, and switched off is a real denial rather than a label: the instruction that blocks storage is sent before the Google script is even requested, so there is no window in which a cookie can be written while you have not decided.

Accepting sets the cookies listed below. Declining sets none at all. Either way the site looks and works exactly the same, and nothing about the choice is remembered anywhere but in your own browser.

02Cookies set only if you accept

These are set by Google Analytics, on this domain, and only after you press Accept. Until then none of them exist.

• _ga — distinguishes one browser from another so repeat visits are counted as the same visitor rather than as new ones. Expires 2 years after your last visit. Set by Google Analytics.
• _ga_66QPQE6PH4 — holds the state of your current session for this specific property: when it started and whether it is still running. Expires 2 years after your last visit. Set by Google Analytics.
• Google may also read cookies it has already set on its own domains, google.com and doubleclick.net, when building advertising audiences. Those are not set by this site and are governed by Google's policies, not ours.

03What happens if you decline

No cookies are set and no identifier is created. The Google script still loads, but with storage denied, so what it sends is an anonymous count of the page view with no way to connect it to you, to your previous visits, or to any other site.

That anonymous count is why we can still say roughly how many people read a page and which countries they were in, without knowing anything about any individual. It is deliberately the weakest form of measurement that is still useful.

You will not be asked again, and you will not be shown a second banner, a nag, or a reduced version of the site.

04What is recorded if you accept

Which pages you viewed and in what order, how you arrived — a search, a link, a social post or an advert — the approximate location Google derives from your IP address, and general details of your device and browser.

Your IP address is used to work out that approximate location and is not stored by Google Analytics 4 in the process. We never see it, and we do not upload names, email addresses or anything else from an enquiry into Google.

Accepting also allows Google to include you in advertising audiences, which is what lets us show later adverts to people who have visited the site. You can turn that off for every site at once using the Google links below.

05The one thing stored either way

Your answer to the banner is saved in your browser's local storage under the key voicsk-consent. Its value is a single word — either accepted or essential.

Local storage is not a cookie. It is never attached to a request, so unlike a cookie it is never transmitted to us or to anyone else. It exists purely so the banner does not ask you the same question on every page, which is why it is stored even when you decline.

If you have visited before under the site's previous name, an older key is migrated to the current one on your first visit and then removed, so you are not asked twice.

06Our own analytics, which uses no cookies

Separately from Google, the site keeps a first-party record of a few events — that a booking button was pressed, for instance — with the page path it happened on and the referring page. This is what the site's own dashboard reads.

It uses no cookie and no identifier of any kind, so there is nothing in it that follows you between visits or between sites. It runs only if you accept, on the same choice as everything else.

07Embedded video, if you press play

A service or solution page may embed a video hosted by YouTube, Vimeo or Loom. Nothing is loaded from those services until you interact with the player.

Once you do, that platform is likely to set cookies of its own, governed by its policy rather than ours. YouTube embeds use its no-cookie mode, which reduces but does not eliminate this. If you would rather avoid it, do not play embedded video.

08How to change or clear your choice

• To change your answer: clear this site's storage in your browser and reload. The banner will appear again, and any Google Analytics cookies are removed at the same time.
• In Chrome or Edge — Settings, then Privacy and security, then Third-party cookies or Site settings, then View permissions and data stored across sites, find voicsk.com, and delete.
• In Safari — Settings, then Privacy, then Manage Website Data, find voicsk.com, and remove.
• In Firefox — Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Cookies and Site Data, then Manage Data, find voicsk.com, and remove.
• To opt out of Google Analytics on every site at once, install Google's own browser add-on from tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
• To turn off personalised advertising across Google's products, use the ad settings at myadcenter.google.com.
• Blocking storage for this site entirely also works. The banner will reappear on each visit, because remembering that you answered it is the only thing the storage was for.

09Server logs

Separately from anything stored in your browser, our host records ordinary request information in order to serve the site and keep it available. Your IP address is hashed on arrival and only the hash is kept, purely to count requests per sender so the forms can be protected from automated abuse.

The privacy policy sets out what is collected, why, how long it is kept and how to have it removed.

10If this changes

This page was rewritten before Google Analytics went live, not after. If we add anything else that sets a cookie, this page changes first and the banner asks you again. We will not quietly start setting cookies under a notice that says we do not.

Questions: voicsk.agency@gmail.com.