Welcome to Hellenic Grounds! This Cookie Policy explains how we use cookies and similar technologies on our website, [Your Website URL] (the “Website”). It also details your choices regarding these technologies.
We are committed to transparency and compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (“GDPR”) and the specific guidelines issued by the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (HDPA) on cookies.
1. What are Cookies?
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. They are widely used to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the website owners.
Cookies can be “persistent” or “session” cookies:
- Session Cookies: These are temporary cookies that remain on your device only while you are Browse and are deleted once you close your web browser.
- Persistent Cookies: These cookies remain on your device for a longer period (they have an expiration date) or until you manually delete them. They are used to remember your preferences and settings when you return to a website.
Cookies can also be “first-party” or “third-party” cookies:
- First-Party Cookies: These are set by the website you are visiting (i.e., by Hellenic Grounds).
- Third-Party Cookies: These are set by a domain other than the one you are visiting (e.g., by analytics providers, advertisers, social media platforms).
2. How Hellenic Grounds Uses Cookies
We use cookies for various purposes, categorized as follows:
a) Strictly Necessary Cookies (Always Active – No Consent Required) These cookies are essential for the Website to function properly and to provide you with the services you explicitly request. Without these cookies, certain parts of our Website would not work, or certain services (like keeping items in a shopping cart) could not be provided.
Legal Basis: Legitimate Interest (as they are essential for the provision of the service you have requested). Examples (common names, your specific ones may vary):
PHPSESSID(or similar): Session cookie to maintain your session across pages.cookie_consent_status: Stores your cookie consent preferences.authentication_token: For logged-in users to keep them authenticated.- [Add any other strictly necessary cookies used by your site, with a brief purpose. e.g., “Cookies related to shopping cart functionality.”]
b) Performance/Statistics Cookies (Requires Your Consent) These cookies collect information about how visitors use our Website, such as which pages are visited most often, how much time users spend on certain pages, and if they encounter error messages. This information is aggregated and helps us understand and improve the performance and usability of our Website.
Legal Basis: Your explicit consent. Examples (common names, your specific ones may vary):
_ga,_gid,_gat(Google Analytics cookies): Used to collect anonymous information and report website usage statistics.- [Add any other analytics cookies used by your site, with a brief purpose and duration. e.g., “Hotjar cookies for heatmaps and session recordings.”]
c) Functionality/Preference Cookies (Requires Your Consent) These cookies allow our Website to remember choices you make (such as your username, language, or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personalized features. They can also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts, and other parts of web pages that you can customize.
Legal Basis: Your explicit consent. Examples (common names, your specific ones may vary):
lang: Remembers your preferred language.user_preferences: Stores your custom display settings.- [Add any other functionality cookies used by your site, with a brief purpose and duration.]
d) Marketing/Tracking Cookies (Requires Your Consent) These cookies are used to deliver advertisements more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement and help measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. They are usually placed by advertising networks with the website operator’s permission. They remember that you have visited a website and this information is shared with other organizations, such as advertisers.
Legal Basis: Your explicit consent. Examples (common names, your specific ones may vary):
_fbc,_fbp(Facebook Pixel): Used to track visitor activity for Facebook advertising.__gads,__gac: Google Ads cookies for measuring ad performance.- [Add any other marketing/tracking cookies used by your site, with a brief purpose and duration. e.g., “LinkedIn Insight Tag for targeted advertising.”]
3. Third-Party Cookies
Some cookies on our Website are placed by third-party services that appear on our pages. These third parties may use their own cookies to collect information about your online activities across different websites and services. We do not have direct control over these third-party cookies.
Examples of third-party services that may set cookies on our Website include:
- Google Analytics: For website analytics.
- Social Media Platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter): If we embed social media widgets or share buttons.
- Advertising Networks (e.g., Google Ads): For displaying personalized ads.
- Video Hosting Services (e.g., YouTube, Vimeo): If we embed videos.
- Payment Processors (e.g., Stripe, PayPal): For secure payment processing (though they primarily handle transaction data, some may use necessary cookies).
You should review the respective privacy and cookie policies of these third-party services for more information about their data processing practices.
4. Your Cookie Choices and Consent
When you first visit our Website, you will see a cookie consent banner asking for your consent to use cookies.
Key features of our cookie consent mechanism, in compliance with HDPA guidelines:
- Granular Choice: You will be able to accept all cookies, reject all non-necessary cookies, or customize your preferences by category (e.g., accept only statistics cookies, but reject marketing cookies).
- Equal Options: The “Accept” and “Reject” (or “Decline”) options will be presented with equal prominence, size, and color to avoid influencing your choice.
- No Pre-Ticked Boxes: We do not use pre-ticked boxes for non-necessary cookie categories. Your consent must be a clear, affirmative action.
- Easy Withdrawal: You can change or withdraw your consent at any time by clicking on the [“Cookie Settings” / “Manage Cookies” button/link] usually found in the footer of our Website. Withdrawing consent is as easy as giving it.
- No Cookie Walls: Access to our Website content and services is not blocked if you choose not to consent to non-necessary cookies.
- Re-prompting Consent: We will periodically re-ask for your cookie preferences (e.g., after [e.g., 6 months or 1 year]), even if you previously accepted or rejected cookies, to ensure your consent remains current.