Privacy & Cookie Policy
Last updated: 4 August 2026
This policy explains what data madeirawalk.com collects, why, and what you can do about it. It is written to satisfy the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive, which apply to us because we publish from Madeira, Portugal, and because our readers are largely in the EU.
Who is responsible
Madeirawalk is run by two people — Artem Zymovets and Yuliia Buriak — based in Madeira, Portugal. We are the data controller for everything described here.
For any privacy question, or to exercise any of the rights listed below, email hello@madeirawalk.com. We answer within 30 days, as the GDPR requires.
The short version
We do not sell data. We do not ask you to create an account, and there is no form on this site that collects your name or email address.
Two things on the site are optional: Google Analytics 4, and Google AdSense advertising. If you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, neither may store anything in your browser until you agree: our cookie banner asks about analytics, Google’s consent message asks about advertising, and if you decline no analytics or advertising cookie is ever written. Everywhere else, analytics cookies are set by default and advertising cookies are not.
Cookies we use
A cookie is a small file a site stores in your browser. Below is every cookie this site can set.
| Cookie | Set by | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|
| mw_cookie_consent | Madeirawalk | Stores your answer to our analytics cookie banner (accept or reject) so we do not ask on every page. No identifier of you. | 6 months |
| FCCDCF | Google (Funding Choices) | Stores your answer to the consent message so we do not ask on every page. Holds the IAB TCF consent string describing what you agreed to — no identifier of you. | 13 months |
| _ga | Google Analytics | Distinguishes one browser from another so visits can be counted. In the EEA, UK and Switzerland, only set if you accept analytics. | 2 years |
| _ga_<container-id> | Google Analytics | Keeps analytics session state. In the EEA, UK and Switzerland, only set if you accept analytics. | 2 years |
| Google AdSense cookies | Choose and measure the ads shown on the site. Only set if you accept advertising cookies. Names vary by ad product. | Up to 2 years |
The consent cookies are strictly necessary — they exist only to honour your choice — so they are set without asking, which the ePrivacy Directive permits. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland everything else waits for your agreement.
Analytics
We use Google Analytics 4, provided by Google Ireland Limited. It tells us how many people visited, which trail guides they read, roughly where in the world they were, and which site sent them. We use it to decide which guides to write next.
We run Google Consent Mode v2. For visitors in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland every signal is set to "denied" by default: the Google tag may load, but it is not permitted to read or write a single cookie until you accept analytics in our cookie banner. For visitors elsewhere, analytics cookies are allowed by default and advertising cookies are not.
Google may transfer this data outside the EU, including to the United States, under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and Standard Contractual Clauses. Google retains GA4 event data for 14 months. If you would rather block it independently of this site, Google publishes a browser opt-out add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Advertising
This site carries advertising from Google AdSense, which is what pays for hosting and the time that goes into the guides. If you accept advertising cookies, Google may use them to choose which ads you see, to limit how often you see the same one, and to measure whether an ad worked.
If you decline, Google may not set or read advertising cookies. You will still see ads — they are simply chosen without any profile of you, which earns us less but costs you nothing.
Google acts as an independent controller for the advertising data it collects. What it does with that data is governed by its own privacy policy at policies.google.com/privacy, and you can review or change your Google ad settings at myadcenter.google.com.
Third-party content on our pages
Some of what you see is fetched from other companies. Those requests reveal your IP address to them, which is why they are listed here even though they set no cookies of their own on our pages.
| Service | What it does | Cookies |
|---|---|---|
| OpenStreetMap | Supplies the map tiles behind every route map. | None |
| Sanity CDN | Serves the photographs on every guide. | None |
| YouTube | Video embeds. Nothing loads from YouTube until you click play — before that we show a still image only. Clicking play loads YouTube, which does set its own cookies under Google’s privacy policy. | On play only |
| Vercel | Hosts the site. Keeps short-lived server logs, including IP addresses, to deliver pages and defend against attacks. | None |
Legal basis
Analytics and advertising cookies: your consent (GDPR Article 6(1)(a)). You can withdraw it at any time, as easily as you gave it, using the Cookie settings link in the footer of every page — withdrawing takes effect immediately and does not affect processing that already happened.
Server logs and the consent cookie: our legitimate interest in serving a working, secure website (GDPR Article 6(1)(f)).
Your rights
Under the GDPR you can ask us for a copy of any personal data we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, ask us to restrict how we use it, object to processing based on legitimate interest, and ask for your data in a portable format. Write to hello@madeirawalk.com.
In practice we hold very little: we have no account system and no mailing list, so unless you have emailed us there is usually nothing to retrieve beyond analytics data that is not linked to your name.
If you think we have handled your data badly, you can complain to the Portuguese data protection authority, the Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados (CNPD), at cnpd.pt — or to the supervisory authority in the EU country where you live.
Changes to this policy
If we add a service that changes what we collect, we update this page and ask for consent again rather than relying on the answer you gave to an older version.
Change your cookie choice
You can review or change your answer at any time: