Microstage — Cookie Policy

Last updated: 6 June 2026 Effective date: 6 June 2026

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1. About this policy

This Cookie Policy explains how Microstage uses cookies and similar technologies on the marketing website microstage.io, on the customer dashboard, and on the listener pages at microstage.io/p/… where visitors hear a live booth pitch. It complements our Privacy Policy — read that first if you want the full picture of how Microstage handles personal data.

2. What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small text file stored on your device by your browser when you visit a website. We also use related browser-storage features (such as localStorage and sessionStorage) — wherever we say "cookie" in this policy, we mean any of these.

3. Categories we use

We classify every cookie into one of three categories. Only the "strictly necessary" category is set before you make a choice in the cookie banner. Analytics and any future marketing cookies are loaded only after you click "Accept" in the banner or enable them in Cookie settings.

A. Strictly necessary

These are required for the site to work. They cannot be turned off in the cookie banner — opting out would break sign-in, the live listener page, or the ability to remember your cookie choice itself.

| Cookie | Purpose | Lifetime | |---|---|---| | microstage_session | Authenticated session for the customer dashboard, signed and encrypted by iron-session. | Session (cleared on sign-out) | | ms_consent_v1 | Records your cookie-banner choice (accept / reject / per-category settings) so we don't ask you again on every page. Also remembers the banner version so we can re-prompt when the policy materially changes. | 12 months |

B. Analytics (only loaded after consent)

We use Google Analytics 4 on the marketing site to understand which pages help people understand the product. We do not load GA on the listener page or on the customer dashboard. We do not use GA Signals (no advertising features) and we instruct GA to anonymise IP addresses. The analytics script is mounted only if you tick "Analytics" in the cookie banner (or click "Accept all").

| Cookie | Purpose | Lifetime | |---|---|---| | _ga | Distinguishes browsers for visit-level analytics. | 24 months | | _ga_<container-id> | Per-property session state for GA4. | 24 months |

C. Marketing

We do not currently set any marketing or advertising cookies. If we ever add one, it will require a separate, equally weighted opt-in in the cookie banner, and this policy will be updated and re-shown before any such cookie is set.

4. The cookie banner

When you first visit microstage.io we show a banner with three equal options: Accept all, Reject all, and Settings. None of the options is pre-selected and the Reject button is no less prominent than Accept (no dark patterns).

• Accept all — strictly necessary + analytics. (Marketing remains empty until we add any.)
• Reject all — strictly necessary only. The site fully works in this state.
• Settings — per-category toggles. Each category is off until you turn it on.

You can change your choice at any time via the Cookie settings link in the footer of every page on microstage.io. Changing settings takes effect on the next page navigation.

5. The listener page

The listener page does not load Google Analytics, ad pixels, or any third-party tracking. The only browser storage it uses is the strictly necessary state needed to keep an active call alive and to remember the listening-language selection across a page reload. No cookie banner is shown on the listener page because nothing beyond strictly necessary is loaded.

6. Server-side audit logs

Separate from cookies, we keep server-side logs that record requests to the platform (IP address, country code, user agent, timestamp). Logs are described in the Privacy Policy. They are not stored in your browser and you cannot disable them from the cookie banner; we retain them for security and abuse-prevention purposes per the retention schedule in the Privacy Policy.

7. Changes to this policy

If we materially change which cookies we set or how we group them, we will update this page and re-show the banner so you can review your choice. Non-material changes (a vendor renames a cookie, a lifetime shortens) will be reflected here without re-prompting.

8. Contact

Email legal@microstage.io with any cookie-related questions or to exercise your data-subject rights (described in the Privacy Policy).