Cookie Policy

What cookies are

Cookies are small text files that websites store on your device. They are used to remember preferences, support functionality, and, on some sites, measure usage or deliver advertising.

Not all cookies are the same. Some are necessary for the site to work. Others are optional and should only be set with your consent.

How Halo uses cookies

By default, Halo sets only essential cookies. If you choose a display currency, we also set a preference cookie that remembers that choice. We do not use advertising cookies or behavioural retargeting cookies.

Our analytics provider runs from the moment you arrive, but until you accept analytics cookies it runs in a cookieless mode. In that mode it counts your visit and how you use the site, and it stores nothing on your device: it sets no cookies and writes nothing to your browser’s storage. The identifier your visit is counted under is worked out on the provider’s servers and never reaches your device, so there is nothing there for it to read on a later visit and nothing for you to clear. If you accept analytics cookies, it switches on cookie and local storage persistence and session recording, which lets it link your activity across visits.

If you arrived from a link on one of our partner sites, such as a comparison site, we set one cookie that remembers which partner sent you, so that we can pay that partner a commission if you buy. It is set by our server rather than by a script, and it is marked so that scripts running in your browser cannot read it. It lasts 30 days, so a partner is still credited if you come back later and buy without clicking their link again.

If you arrive from a different partner’s link before it expires, the newer one replaces it and the 30 days start again. Only a partner link does this: moving between pages on our own site, and following links in emails we send you, never change it.

The cookie consent banner appears across haloesim.com, including the homepage, destination pages, help articles, blog, checkout, and the order portal.

Cookies in use

The table below lists the cookies Halo sets directly on haloesim.com. Cookies set by Stripe during payment are described under Stripe checkout cookies, and the cookies our analytics provider sets if you accept analytics are described under Analytics.

Cookie name	Purpose	Category	Duration	Provider
__cf_bm	Tells people apart from automated traffic	Essential	30 minutes	Cloudflare
halo_consent	Remembers your cookie choices	Essential	12 months	Halo
halo_currency	Remembers the display currency you picked	Preference	12 months	Halo
halo_internal	Leaves the Halo team’s own testing out of our usage figures	Preference	12 months	Halo
halo_ref	Remembers which partner site sent you	Essential	Up to 30 days	Halo
halo_rfr	Remembers the referral link you followed	Essential	30 days	Halo
halo_att	Remembers which ad brought you here	Essential	30 days	Halo

__cf_bm protects the site from abuse. halo_consent holds your choices only; it is set only while you have accepted analytics or marketing cookies, and deleted if you withdraw that choice. halo_currency holds the currency code only, and is set only when you choose a currency yourself.

halo_internal holds nothing but the value 1: no identifier, nothing about you, and nothing that can be linked back to a person. It enables no tracking of any kind; it only tells the measurement we already run to discount what it sees. Visiting a Halo link no longer sets it on any device, and where one is already present it marks an order as our own testing only if that order is placed with a Halo team email address; visiting a Halo link ending in ?internal=0 removes it. It is never set for a visitor and is not part of your cookie choices, because it records a decision we make about our own devices rather than one you make about yours.

halo_ref lets us pay a partner a commission if you buy. It holds the partner’s name and a random reference for that visit, so we can tell one visit from a partner apart from another. It holds nothing about you. It is set by our server when you arrive from a partner link, and is not readable by scripts in your browser. If you later arrive from a different partner link, it is replaced and the 30 days start again. It is strictly necessary for partner referrals, because without it we could not credit the partner site that sent you, so it is set whether or not you accept marketing cookies and your cookie choices do not change it.

halo_rfr lets us apply a friend’s referral discount when you buy. It holds their referral code and nothing else: nothing about you, and nothing that identifies your visit. It is set by our server when you follow a Halo referral link, and is not readable by scripts in your browser. It is strictly necessary for the referral you followed the link to claim, because without it the discount could not reach your checkout, so it is set whether or not you accept marketing cookies and your cookie choices do not change it. A code you type at checkout is used instead of it.

halo_att stores the ad campaign and the ad platform’s click reference for the ad that brought you here, so we can see whether that ad paid for itself. It is a first-party cookie set by our server, lasts 30 days, and the only thing we send back to the ad platform is, for each order that came from one of its ads, that click reference with the time and value of the order.

Stripe checkout cookies

Payment is handled by Stripe, and Stripe sets its own cookies to process the payment securely and detect fraud.

Depending on what you are buying, those cookies are set either on haloesim.com or on Stripe’s own domain.

In either case the cookies are set by Stripe, not by Halo, and are governed by Stripe’s privacy policy. They are strictly necessary to take your payment and to detect fraud, so under PECR Regulation 6(4)(b) they do not require consent.

Analytics

Unless you accept analytics cookies, our analytics provider runs in a cookieless mode. It counts your page views and how the site is used, and it stores nothing on your device: no cookies, no local storage, no session storage, and no identifier of any kind. Your visit is counted under a privacy preserving value worked out on the provider’s servers, which is why nothing has to be kept on your device for the count to work.

PECR Regulation 6 governs storing information on your device and gaining access to information already stored there. In cookieless mode we do neither, so this falls outside Regulation 6 and does not require consent. Accepting analytics cookies is what brings it inside Regulation 6, which is why it happens only if you say yes.

If you accept analytics cookies, it switches to storing an identifier in a cookie and in local storage, and session recording is enabled. It can then link your activity across sessions. This happens only after you accept. Session recording never runs on our checkout pages or on any page of your order portal, even if you have accepted analytics cookies. Those two areas are excluded outright.

Local storage and session storage

Halo also uses your browser’s local storage and session storage. These are not cookies, but the same rules apply to them, so they are listed here.

• halo_best_score: your best score in the game, as points and destinations collected. Set on the game page only, and it never leaves your device.
• halo_audio_muted: whether you have muted the game’s sound. Set on the game page only.
• halo_haptics_enabled: whether you have turned the game’s vibration feedback off. Set on the game page only.
• halo_tutorial_state: whether you have completed the game’s tutorial, and when, so it is not shown again on your next visit. Set on the game page only.
• motion: whether you have turned reduced motion on or off.
• halo_recent_destinations: destinations you have recently viewed, stored as country codes and timestamps, so we can show them to you again.
• halo_cookie_consent: the cookie choices you made and when you made them, kept for 12 months. Written only when you use the consent banner.
• halo_visitor_id: a random identifier held in local storage, not a cookie, created when you first open the support chat, used to keep a chat conversation together across page loads. This one does leave your device: it is sent with your chat messages so the conversation can be kept together, and, once you have accepted analytics cookies, identifies those messages in our product analytics; before that the id is used only to keep your chat together.
• halo_chat_state: your current chat conversation, held in session storage and discarded when you close the tab.
• halo_hal_greeted: whether Hal’s greeting has been shown in this tab, held in session storage and discarded when you close the tab. Set by Halo. It holds no identifier.

Apart from halo_visitor_id, none of this leaves your device. You can clear all of it at any time through your browser settings.

Managing your preferences

The consent banner offers Accept all, Reject, and Manage preferences, which opens a panel with separate controls for analytics and marketing cookies. Essential cookies cannot be turned off: they are permitted without consent under PECR Regulation 6(4)(b) because they are strictly necessary for the site to function. Halo sets no third-party advertising or retargeting cookies. halo_att only records which ad brought you here. The partner referral cookie, halo_ref, is strictly necessary and these controls do not change it.

Once you have made a choice, the banner does not reappear for 12 months. To change or withdraw that choice before then, use the Cookie settings control in the footer of any page. It reopens the same panel with your current choices shown, and saving takes effect straight away: withdrawing analytics consent stops the cookied tracking and the session recording on the spot, and analytics returns to the cookieless mode described above. Clearing the site’s stored data through your browser settings also works, and brings the banner back.

If you want to block all cookies, including essential ones, you can do so through your browser settings:

• Safari: Settings > Privacy > Block All Cookies
• Chrome: Settings > Privacy and Security > Cookies and other site data
• Firefox: Settings > Privacy and Security > Cookies and Site Data
• Edge: Settings > Cookies and site permissions > Manage and delete cookies

Blocking essential cookies may prevent checkout and other site functionality from working correctly.

Third-party services

Halo uses a small number of third-party services that may process data in connection with your visit:

• Our hosting and edge network provider (hosting, CDN, security): sets the __cf_bm essential cookie described above.
• Stripe (payment processing): sets cookies during payment. Stripe privacy policy.
• Our product analytics provider (EU-hosted): counts your visit without storing anything on your device, and stores an identifier on your device only if you accept analytics cookies.

None of these services places advertising or retargeting cookies on haloesim.com.

Updates to this policy

If we introduce further non-essential cookies, for example a marketing pixel, we will update this policy and make sure they are not set without your explicit consent.

Material changes will be announced on the site. The current version is always displayed at the bottom of this page.

Contact

For questions about cookies, email legal@haloesim.com.

For broader data protection questions, see our Privacy Policy.