Privacy

Short version: we keep very little, and none of it is for sale.

Reading

You do not need an account to read anything. We use Google Analytics (GA4) to count visits. It sets first-party cookies (named like _ga) in your browser to tell one visit from the next. It measures the pages you view, roughly where you are (country or city, from an anonymized IP address), your device, browser and screen size, how you got here, how far you scroll on a story, and a few actions: opening a story, voting, posting a comment, signing in, submitting a story, using the essay filters, and clicking a link that leaves the site (including our Amazon links). Those actions are recorded as events such as vote or comment_posted. We do not send your name, email, username or the text of a comment to Google. We turn off Google’s ad personalization and advertising features. Analytics does not load if your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control. You can also block it with a content blocker or by clearing cookies, and you can opt out for good with Google’s browser add-on. Our host, Vercel, keeps ordinary server logs. No ad trackers.

Signing in

Optional. You sign in with Google, through Supabase. Google gives us your name, email address and profile picture, and nothing else: no contacts, no Gmail, no Drive. We store those three, plus the username you choose. They run your account and nothing more. We do not sell them, share them, or use them for ads, and we do not email you unless you write first.

Your sign-in session lives in your browser’s local storage, not in a tracking cookie. You can revoke our access any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

Votes and comments

Thumbs and comments are stored with your account, or, if you are a guest, with a random id kept in your browser. Counts are public. Who voted is not shown. Comments are public, under your username, or under a name the server invents from your guest id if you are a guest. Do not post anything you would not want read by strangers.

To curb spam we store a salted hash of your IP address next to votes and comments. The raw address is not kept in our database and the hash cannot be turned back into it.

Submitting a story

The submit form stores what you type (title, description, and the name and email if you give them) plus a salted hash of your IP address, used only to limit spam. A person reads it. Nothing you send is posted publicly.

Where it lives

Account, vote and comment data sits in Supabase, hosted on AWS in US East (N. Virginia). The site is served by Vercel. Visit counts are handled by Google Analytics.

Affiliate links

Some links go to Amazon through our Associates tag, thievnsden0c-20. Amazon may set its own cookies when you follow one. We earn a small commission on qualifying purchases.

Google user data

Our use of information received from Google follows the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Data from Google is used only to provide your account on this site.

Deleting your data

Email thievnsden@gmail.com from the address on your account. We delete the account, username, votes and comments. Guests: tell us which comment and it goes.

Children

Accounts are for people 13 and older.

Changes

If this changes, this page changes, and the date above moves. Questions: thievnsden@gmail.com.