Cookies
Last reviewed: 9 August 2026
Why there’s no banner. There are only strictly necessary and preference cookies here — the ones the site needs to work, and the ones that keep something you asked for, like the language — and those are exempt from asking for consent under article 22.2 of the Spanish LSSI. There are none for analytics, none for advertising and none from third parties. If there were, you’d have the banner in front of you before reading this.
The ones there are
| Name | Where | What for | Life |
|---|---|---|---|
farolillo_sesion |
The Lantern | A random number with nothing inside it, so you don’t lose your place in the queue if you reload the page. It identifies nobody and doesn’t outlive the night. | 12 hours |
faro_quien |
The Lighthouse | To remember that you already confirmed your email, so signing up each day is one button and not another email. It’s signed, so nobody can pass for you. | 180 days |
puente_quien |
The Bridge | A random number, signed and with nothing inside it, so we know you already laid your brick today. It doesn’t know who you are and isn’t joined to anything. | 1 year |
globo_hecho |
The Globe | That you have already asked, or already answered, this round. It is signed and carries which round it is inside, so it becomes worthless on its own when the next one starts. It carries no name and no number that leads to you, and that fact exists nowhere else. | 1 year |
postal_hoy |
The Postcard | Today’s date, signed, so it knows you have already left your postcard. That fact exists nowhere else: there is no list of people here to check it against, so the only way to know is to ask your browser. It carries no name, and no number that leads back to you. | 2 days |
insomne_idioma |
The whole house | Which language you want to read this in, Spanish or English. Two letters and nothing else. It has to be a cookie and not something else because three different places read it: the front page and the legal pages, which are still pages with no JavaScript; the three apps; and the server, which sends emails and notifications hours later with nobody in front of a screen. | 1 year |
insomne_panel |
The admin panel | To keep the session of whoever administers the site. You’ll never see it. | 24 hours from the last visit |
They’re all HttpOnly except the language one: the page has to read that
one too in order to know which language to draw itself in, and all it says is “es”
or “en”.
What isn’t a cookie but also stays on your device
- The city you chose in The Lantern is kept in the browser’s local storage, so you’re not asked again. It doesn’t leave your device.
- The time zone you set by hand, in each app, for the same reason: so you’re not asked again. It’s a zone name — “America/Montevideo” — and it doesn’t leave your device either: what’s sent to the server with each request is that name, so it knows what time to open the house for you, and nothing else is stored with it.
- The postcards you have hidden from your view, in the browser’s local storage. When you press “this shouldn’t be here”, no longer seeing it happens entirely on your device and depends on nothing else: that is why it is kept there, and why it works with no network. It is a list of photo identifiers, it says nothing about who you are, it never leaves your device, and it keeps the last two hundred.
- A copy of the page and the drawings, kept by the service worker, so it opens fast and so the scene is still there if one day there’s no network. They’re files, not data about you.
How to get rid of them
From your browser’s settings, clearing the data for insomne.es. You can
also block the site’s cookies: The Lantern will still work, though you’ll lose
your place in the queue when you reload, and in The Lighthouse you’ll have to confirm your
email every time.