Cookies

What cookies are

Cookies are small text files that a website places on your device (computer, smartphone or tablet) when you visit. They serve to remember your settings, to analyse how the site is used, or to improve your experience. Besides cookies, a website may use other browser storage techniques – such as local storage (localStorage) – which serve a similar purpose but are technically not cookies. German law treats both the same way: § 25 of the TDDDG (Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act) applies to any storing of information on your device and any access to information already stored there, regardless of whether it is technically a cookie.

The current state

This website integrates Google Analytics 4; no advertising network is integrated. Because the consent baseline is set to denied for every visitor worldwide and this website carries no consent banner through which you could change it, measurement runs permanently without cookies: no analytics or advertising cookie is set, and no identifier is stored on or read from your device. What is transmitted are aggregated measurement signals — and, as with any request for a third-party resource, your IP address becomes visible to Google (see “Transfer to Google”). Beyond that, what is stored in your browser’s local storage is technically necessary information (see below) – nothing that would require your consent — plus, if and only if you deliberately open a page with ?internal=1, the internal-visit exclusion described further down.

In short: this website sets no cookies for analytics or advertising purposes. The measurement it does carry runs cookieless, because consent is denied for everyone and there is no consent banner that could change that. Should that ever change, every individual cookie will be named here.

Legal basis: § 25 TDDDG and the GDPR

In Germany, setting and reading cookies is governed by § 25 TDDDG (the Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act – the renamed successor to the former TTDSG; the section itself is unchanged in substance). Under § 25(1) TDDDG, storing information on your device, or accessing information already stored there, is as a rule permitted only with your consent. Where such storage then leads to the processing of personal data, the legal basis for that processing is Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR (consent) – not a legitimate interest. § 25(1) TDDDG expressly refers to the GDPR for how information and consent must be given.

The only exemption from the consent requirement, under § 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG, is for storage that is strictly necessary to provide a service you have explicitly requested (the “essential”, technically necessary category). Everything else – analytics and advertising in particular – is not necessary in this sense and may take place only after your active, prior agreement. A pre-ticked option or merely continuing to browse does not count as consent.

You can read the wording of § 25 on the official government portal. One note on the reference: for historical reasons the portal still lists the section under the old TTDSG path – gesetze-im-internet.de/ttdsg/__25.html – even though the statute is now called the TDDDG.

Technically necessary storage (essential)

So that the site can respect your choices, a small amount of information is stored in your browser’s local storage. These entries are technically necessary within the meaning of § 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG, serve exclusively to make the site work, and are therefore stored without consent. This is local storage (localStorage), and so technically not cookies:

• Your response to the language hint – so that the notice pointing to another available language does not reappear on every page view once you have closed it.
• The gr_int flag – but only if you deliberately open a page with ?internal=1 appended. An ordinary visit never writes it. What it is and what it does is set out below under “Excluding our own visits”.

Consent to analytics or advertising would be handled by a certified consent message (see below), not by an entry of this website’s own. No such banner is integrated, so no such choice is requested or stored, and the denied baseline stands.

These entries remain until you delete them. They contain no name, no email address and no identifier that could be used to build a user profile.

Analytics and advertising cookies: none

This website uses no analytics or advertising cookies. We deliberately keep no list of hypothetical cookies here, so as not to describe anything that is not actually being set. What is integrated is Google Analytics 4 for reach measurement — and no other Google service, in particular no advertising network. The tag runs in its cookieless mode, because the baseline is denied for everyone (next section) and no consent banner is integrated that could change it. Whether cookies were set would not depend on where you are – the next section describes the uniform baseline. If a cookie were ever actually set, a full overview will be published here – with the name, provider, purpose and storage duration of each individual cookie, and, for providers outside the EU, the relevant transfer safeguards.

Excluding our own visits

One exception, named here rather than passed over in silence: on every page view the measurement code checks whether the gr_int flag is present in your browser. That is our own exclusion for internal visits, so that our test traffic does not end up in the figures. It is written only when a page is opened with ?internal=1 appended — as a cookie with a lifetime of one year, and additionally in local storage. Without that, nothing is written, and nothing on this site links to it. It holds a single flag and nothing about you. You delete it by clearing this site’s data in your browser.

Transfer to Google

The analytics tag is loaded from servers of Google LLC (USA). Each page view therefore transmits connection data to Google — including your IP address, the address requested and details of your browser — even though no cookie is set and no identifier is stored on your device. The measurement itself stays aggregated and carries no recognition marker on your device; a transfer to a third country (USA) is nonetheless involved. Google relies for this on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework. How Google uses data, and how you set or switch off personalised advertising, is described at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

The baseline: denied, the same worldwide

This website controls analytics and advertising through Google’s Consent Mode v2. The technical baseline is identical for every visitor, regardless of location: every storage signal (analytics, personalised advertising) starts denied. There is no region where anything is on by default – not even on a legitimate-interest basis. An earlier draft of this page described a model in which visitors outside the EU/EEA received analytics and advertising cookies by default; the site's code never correctly shipped that model and it has since been replaced. Cookies are set — wherever you access the site from — only after an explicit, active consent action (legal basis: consent under Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR together with § 25(1) TDDDG).

This website currently runs no consent banner (CMP) — neither a hand-rolled one nor Google’s Funding Choices message. Without such a prompt there is no action through which you could consent; analytics and advertising signals therefore stay denied permanently until this website integrates a consent banner. That is precisely why the measurement this site does carry runs cookieless: for every visitor the denied baseline is final, not provisional.

Withdrawing or changing consent

While no consent banner is integrated, no consent can have been given — so there is nothing for you to withdraw. The button below is built to stay: once this website integrates a consent banner, it will reopen that banner's interface so you can change any consent you gave at any time with effect for the future (Art. 7(3) GDPR). Until then, clicking it has no effect.

Change cookie consent

Managing cookies in your browser

Independently of this website’s consent prompt, you can delete cookies at any time through your browser settings, or block them from being set in the first place:

• Chrome: Settings → Privacy and security → Cookies
• Firefox: Settings → Privacy & Security → Cookies and Site Data
• Safari: Settings → Privacy → Manage Website Data
• Edge: Settings → Cookies and site permissions → Cookies

Deleting cookies does not impair your use of this website. Note, however, that your choices (such as the dismissed language hint) are stored not in a cookie but in your browser’s local storage (localStorage) – deleting the cookies therefore does not undo them. To reset a choice you have already made, additionally clear your browser’s local storage.

Relationship to data protection

This cookie policy supplements our privacy policy, which describes what data we process, on what basis, and what rights you have. The website uses no analytics or advertising cookies; the measurement it carries does transmit connection data, including your IP address, to Google, as described above.

Contact

For any question about cookies and data protection, you can reach us at info@desymphony.com.

Last updated: aug 2026.