Cookie policy

Last updated: 2026-08-28

1. What cookies are

Cookies are small text files that a website writes to your device so that it can recognise the browser on a later visit. Other browser storage, such as localStorage, works in a similar way.

2. Does this website use cookies

We set no cookies of our own for visitors. Browsing, reading the news or making a donation will not get you a cookie from us.

We use no analytics, statistics, advertising, remarketing or social network tracking cookies whatsoever. We do not track your browsing and we build no profiles.

There is one exception, and you switch it on yourself: pressing play on an expert video starts the YouTube player, and Google writes cookies. Until you press it, YouTube is not contacted at all. More on this in section 5.

3. What is written to your device after all

Two exceptions, both of them necessary for the website to work:

3.1. The sign-in cookie

Name: payload-token

Who it is for: to recognise a signed-in content administrator so that they can edit the website.

Who it is written for: only to the association’s staff and editors who are signed in to the content management system. It is never written for an ordinary visitor.

Type: strictly necessary, first-party.

Validity: until you sign out or until the session ends.

3.2. The light or dark theme preference

Where it is stored: in the browser’s localStorage, not in a cookie.

Who it is for: to remember that you chose the light or dark theme, so that the website opens the same way next time.

When it is written: only when you press the theme switch yourself. If you press nothing, nothing is written.

Who it is shared with: nobody. This preference stays in your browser and never reaches our server.

4. Why we do not ask for consent

Article 69 of the Law on Electronic Communications of the Republic of Lithuania requires consent where information is stored on a device that is not necessary to provide the service you have explicitly requested. Both of the measures described above are necessary: one makes it possible to sign in to the system, the other carries out a choice you have made yourself. That is why there is no consent banner on the website and we do not show one needlessly.

Nor do we show a separate consent banner for video, because until you press the play button nothing is written to your device and no data is sent to YouTube. Pressing it is your decision — and what follows from it is set out right here, in section 5, before you decide.

If we were to start using analytics or marketing cookies in future, we would ask for your consent before setting them and would update this policy.

5. Video and third-party cookies

5.1. Expert videos

The expert pages show YouTube videos. So that nothing about you is passed to Google when the page opens, the player is not loaded straight away:

• When you open the page you see only a still frame from the video and a play button. The image itself is fetched and served by our own server, so your browser never contacts YouTube and Google learns neither your IP address nor the fact that you are visiting this page.
• Pressing the play button loads the YouTube player. From that moment Google sees your IP address, your browser data and the video being watched, and may write its own cookies. We neither control these cookies nor see what is in them.
• We use the stricter youtube-nocookie.com mode, in which YouTube defers advertising cookies without dropping them entirely.

If you do not want Google to receive this data, simply do not press the play button — you can read all the rest of the page with no contact with YouTube whatsoever. How Google processes the data is described in its own privacy policy.

5.2. Other cases

There is no other embedded third-party content on the website: we use no maps, no social network buttons and no chat windows. Fonts are hosted on our own server, so no requests are sent to external services as you browse.

There are, however, a few cases in which you leave our website and arrive at another:

• When you donate by card you are taken to a page belonging to the payment service provider Stripe. Stripe’s cookies and privacy policy apply there — we neither control those cookies nor see what is in them.
• Links to social networks open in a new window. Once you follow such a link, the rules of the website concerned apply.

6. How to manage cookies

You can view, delete or block cookies at any time in your browser’s settings — every browser allows this, and you will find instructions in its help pages.

Because we set no cookies of our own, blocking them makes no difference to reading the website. Blocking cookies can stop only two things working: signing in to the content management system (which concerns editors only) and the YouTube player, which requires its own cookies.

7. Server logs

Not related to cookies, but worth knowing: like every web server, ours logs requests — the IP address, the time, the address and the browser type. These logs are used only to keep the website working and secure, and are kept for 30 days. More — privacy policy.

8. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. The current version is published on this page, with its date shown at the top.

9. Contact

Send questions about cookies to info@visuotinegynyba.lt or at Žalgirio g. 90, LT-09303 Vilnius.