Cookie policy

Legal framework. This policy applies Article 5 of Portuguese Law 41/2004 (ePrivacy, transposing Directive 2002/58/EC) and the GDPR. Non-essential cookies require prior, free, specific, informed and unambiguous consent; strictly necessary cookies, as well as storage or reading of information that does not amount to personal-data processing (such as aggregated, anonymous audience counters), are exempt.

Current cookie status. As of this policy date, margemx.com does not use advertising, social-media or profiling cookies. No Google Analytics, Meta Pixel, Hotjar, LinkedIn Insight Tag or equivalent tools that rely on cookies or personal identifiers. The site uses GoatCounter (goatcounter.com) as its audience-statistics tool: it sets no cookies, collects no personal data or full IP addresses, and does not allow individual visitors to be identified or tracked. Because this does not amount to personal-data processing or consent-based storage under Article 5 of Law 41/2004, no consent banner is shown for this purpose.

Storage actually used. (a) Browser sessionStorage with key "mx_intro_seen" prevents the intro animation from replaying during the same session. (b) Browser localStorage with key "mx_cookie_notice_seen" remembers that the informational notice was dismissed. (c) Technical session cookies that Vercel may set for security, load balancing and abuse prevention. These elements are not used for advertising or profiling.

Audience statistics (GoatCounter). The script https://gc.zgo.at/count.js sends the provider GoatCounter (based in the EU) an aggregated, anonymous per-page visit record. No cookie is set, no persistent unique identifier is generated, and the data is not combined with other sources to profile the visitor. The resulting reports show only aggregated counts (most-viewed pages, general traffic origin, device type), never the individual behaviour of a specific person.

AI system access logging (server-side). In addition to GoatCounter, the server logs a restricted subset of requests, with no cookies and no script running in your browser, in order to understand how the public content of the site is read and cited by search engines and artificial-intelligence systems. Two cases are logged: (a) requests from automated crawlers identified by User-Agent (for example GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Googlebot), for which the User-Agent, the page, the country and a cryptographic hash of the IP address, salted with a secret rotated monthly, are stored, from which the original address cannot be recovered, and the IP address in the clear is never stored; (b) human visits arriving from an AI platform (for example ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude), for which only the name of the referring platform, the page visited, the approximate country and city supplied by the infrastructure, and the date and time are stored, with no IP address and no User-Agent. In both cases the referring address is truncated to the domain and path, and the query string is discarded before anything is recorded, precisely so that the question typed into the AI platform is never stored. Normal browsing arriving from a search, a link or direct access generates no log entry.

Legal basis, retention and objection for AI access logging. The processing described in the previous point relies on the legitimate interest of the controller (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR) in measuring the visibility of its own public content to AI systems, weighed against the minimal impact on the data subject, given that no IP address is stored in the clear, no cookies or persistent identifiers are used, and no individual profile is built. Logs are automatically deleted after 30 days by a scheduled database routine. You may object to this processing, or request access to and deletion of the logs concerning you, at geral@margemx.com.

How to manage cookies and statistics. You can block or delete cookies and local storage in your browser settings (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Brave). Blocking local storage will only cause additional API calls and does not break any essential feature. Tracking-blocker extensions (e.g. uBlock Origin) typically block the request to GoatCounter with no impact on site navigation.

Updates. If advertising, social-media or personalisation tools based on cookies or personal identifiers are added in the future, a consent banner compliant with EDPB Guidelines 5/2020 will be introduced and this policy updated with the full cookie list (name, purpose, duration, provider, legal basis).

Rights and contacts. The controller is MargemX, Lda., Portuguese tax and registration number 519465911. You may exercise GDPR rights and lodge a complaint with CNPD (www.cnpd.pt). Contact: geral@margemx.com. The authoritative version is the Portuguese policy at margemx.com/cookies.