Cookie Policy
The cookies and similar storage this site uses — analytics and anti-spam only — what each one is for, how long it lasts, and how to turn them off.
Last updated
1. The short version
Yes — this site uses a small number of cookies, but not many and not for advertising. TechProbe.io sets no cookies of its own. Every cookie described below comes from a Google service we use for two things only: measuring how the site is used, and keeping spam out of the contact form. There is no cross-site tracking, no advertising profile, and nothing here is sold or shared with data brokers.
2. What a cookie is
A cookie is a small text file a site asks your browser to keep and hand back on later visits. Related technologies — localStorage, sessionStorage and similar — do much the same job with a different mechanism. This policy covers all of them, and “cookie” below means any of them.
3. The cookies this site can set
Both services below are configured through environment variables and are only present when they are switched on. If analytics is not configured, no analytics tag is loaded and none of its cookies exist; the same is true of reCAPTCHA.
Analytics — Google Analytics 4
| Cookie | Set by | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|
_ga | techprobe.io (first party) | Distinguishes one browser from another so visits can be counted | 2 years |
_ga_<property-id> | techprobe.io (first party) | Holds the session state Google Analytics 4 uses to group page views into a visit | 2 years |
We use analytics to answer plain questions — which pages people read, which they leave, how many enquiries the site produces. The measurement tag is deliberately loaded late, once the browser is idle, so it never competes with the page itself. Google’s handling of the data it receives is covered by its Privacy Policy, and Google describes its own use of cookies here.
Anti-spam — Google reCAPTCHA v3
| Cookie / storage | Set by | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|
_GRECAPTCHA | google.com (third party) | Lets reCAPTCHA score whether a contact-form submission is human, without showing you a puzzle | About 6 months |
| reCAPTCHA local & session storage | Google’s reCAPTCHA frame | Working state the anti-spam check needs while the page is open | Session, or until cleared |
This is the one piece of storage the site genuinely depends on: without it, the contact form cannot tell you apart from a bot, and it stops accepting messages. reCAPTCHA loads only when you interact with the form. If you would rather not touch it at all, email us directly at [email protected] — the form is a convenience, not the only door.
What we do not use
- No advertising, retargeting or conversion-tracking pixels.
- No social network embeds or share buttons that phone home.
- No session, login or preference cookies — the site has no accounts and stores no settings.
- No fingerprinting, and no fonts or scripts loaded from third-party CDNs. Fonts are served from our own domain.
4. How to control cookies
You are in charge of these, and nothing on this site breaks if you refuse them:
- Your browser. Every major browser can block or delete cookies, per-site or entirely — usually under Settings → Privacy. Blocking analytics cookies costs you nothing here.
- Google Analytics opt-out. Google publishes a browser add-on that stops Analytics collecting data on any site you visit, this one included.
- Private browsing. An incognito or private window discards all of this when you close it.
- Blocking reCAPTCHA will stop the contact form working. Email us instead — we read that inbox.
Blocking cookies from google.com specifically will disable the anti-spam check; blocking first-party cookies on techprobe.io will disable analytics. Everything else on the site — every page, the API docs, the content — works either way.
5. Consent
Analytics cookies are non-essential. Where the law of your location requires consent before they are set, we rely on that requirement being met before analytics runs, and the opt-outs in section 4 remain available to you at any time. The reCAPTCHA cookie is used strictly to protect the form against abuse. If you believe our handling of consent falls short in your jurisdiction, tell us at [email protected] — we would rather fix it than argue about it.
6. Changes
If we add or remove a service that sets cookies, this page changes with it and the date at the top moves. It is the inventory of record: if a cookie is not listed here and it came from this site, we want to hear about it.
7. Related
What we do with personal data more broadly — including the enquiry you send us — is set out in the Data Privacy Policy.