Cookie Policy
This Cookie Policy explains how ATHENA GENEALOGY LLC ("Athena Genealogy," "we," "us," or "our") uses cookies and similar technologies on our website athena-genealogy.com (the "Site").
1. What Are Cookies?
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device when you visit a website. They are widely used to make websites work efficiently and to provide information to site owners. Cookies can be "session" cookies (which expire when you close your browser) or "persistent" cookies (which remain on your device for a set period).
2. Cookies and Storage We Use
Here is a complete list of cookies and browser storage items used by our Site. Items marked "analytics/advertising" are subject to your consent choice: in regions where opt-in consent is required they are not set until you accept, and elsewhere they are enabled by default until you opt out via "Cookie Settings."
| Name | Type | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| athena_region | Cookie (essential) | Stores your country code, set by our edge middleware from your IP country, so the correct consent model is applied for your region | 30 days |
| athena_consent | localStorage | Stores your consent choice (accepted/declined) for analytics and advertising tools | Persistent (until cleared) |
| _fbp | First-party cookie (Meta Pixel) - analytics/advertising | Pseudonymous browser identifier used by Meta to attribute ad performance | 90 days |
| _fbc | First-party cookie (Meta Pixel) - analytics/advertising | Click identifier, set only if you arrived from a Facebook/Instagram ad | 90 days |
| _ga | First-party cookie (Google Analytics) - analytics/advertising | Distinguishes unique visitors so Google Analytics can aggregate site usage | 2 years |
| _ga_XGW53S722C | First-party cookie (Google Analytics) - analytics/advertising | Persists session state for our Google Analytics property | 2 years |
3. Analytics and Advertising
Our Site uses two tools. Visitors in the EU, UK, and EEA see an opt-in consent banner, and neither tool loads until they accept. Visitors everywhere else (including the United States) have both tools enabled by default and can opt out at any time:
Google Analytics 4 - a website analytics service provided by Google LLC. It sets the _ga and _ga_* first-party cookies and measures aggregate traffic, session counts, traffic sources, and the same conversion events as the Meta Pixel below (page_view, generate_lead, schedule). We have enabled IP-anonymisation and disabled Google Signals, advertising personalisation, and ad-data-sharing. Google may still process pseudonymous data on servers in the United States; see Google's Privacy Policy.
Meta Pixel (Facebook Pixel) - an advertising and conversion-tracking tool provided by Meta Platforms, Inc. It measures the effectiveness of our advertising on Facebook and Instagram by recording three events:
- PageView - whenever you view any page on our Site
- Lead - when you complete our eligibility pre-screening form and proceed to schedule a call
- Schedule - when you finalise a consultation booking through Calendly
Meta receives a pseudonymous browser identifier, your IP address, the page URL, and the event type. Meta uses this data to measure our ad campaigns and may use it to build advertising audiences (e.g. lookalike audiences). For California residents we send the Limited Data Use (LDU) signal, which instructs Meta to apply CCPA-restricted processing. For more information, see Meta's Privacy Policy.
You can change your choice at any time through "Cookie Settings" in the footer (available to all visitors) or, where the consent banner is shown, by clicking "Decline." If consent is off, neither Google Analytics nor the Meta Pixel is loaded.
4. Third-Party Cookies
The Meta Pixel and Google Analytics cookies described in Section 2 are first-party cookies (stored on athena-genealogy.com) but share data with Meta Platforms, Inc. and Google LLC respectively. Beyond these, our Site does not set any other third-party cookies. We do not use:
- Google Tag Manager
- Google Ads conversion or remarketing tags
- TikTok Pixel
- LinkedIn Insight Tag
- Any other advertising or retargeting cookies
Our Site loads a custom font from Framer's CDN. This is a standard web request that does not involve tracking cookies, though the CDN server may log your IP address as part of standard web server operations.
Our contact form uses Cloudflare Turnstile for spam protection. The Turnstile script loads only when you interact with the contact form; Cloudflare, Inc. may process your IP address and technical browser signals to distinguish humans from bots. Turnstile is a security service and is not used for advertising.
5. Social Media Links
Our Site contains links to external social media profiles (Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube). These are standard hyperlinks - we do not embed social media widgets, share buttons, or tracking pixels from these platforms. Clicking a social link will take you to the respective platform, which has its own cookie and privacy policies.
6. Managing Your Preferences
You can manage your analytics preference at any time by:
- Clicking "Cookie Settings" in our website footer to open the preference dialog
- Clearing your browser's localStorage for this site
Since we only use a single localStorage entry and no traditional cookies, standard browser cookie-clearing functions may not affect our analytics preference. Use the "Cookie Settings" dialog for the most reliable control.
We also honor the Global Privacy Control (GPC) browser signal: if your browser sends GPC and you have not made an explicit choice, we treat it as a decline.
7. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated "Last Updated" date. We encourage you to review this page periodically.
8. Contact Us
If you have questions about our use of cookies:
ATHENA GENEALOGY LLC
Email: info@athena-genealogy.com