Privacy

A site that writes about privacy should say plainly what it does with yours. Here it is.

Before you choose

When you first open a page, we load nothing from any other company and set no cookies. You see a short question asking whether we may count your visit with Google Analytics and, on articles, whether Google may choose ads from your interests. Nothing about that choice is sent anywhere; it is stored only in your own browser.

In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, while the site carries ads, the question comes from Google instead: Google's own consent message, which the law there requires for ads, asks about both ads and Google Analytics, and you are not asked twice. That message is loaded from Google when you open a page, and Google keeps your answer in a cookie. Our own server works out from your connection's country, as passed on by Cloudflare, which of the two questions you get; nothing is stored.

Counting visits without cookies

Every page you open sends one small note to our own server: which page it was, and the name of the site that sent you here (for example google.com), nothing more of that address. It sets no cookie and stores nothing in your browser, and no other company sees it. To tell one reader from another within a single day, our server mixes your IP address and browser type with a random value that is replaced every day and never kept, then stores only the result; the IP address itself is not stored. The notes are counted and deleted every 10 minutes. We keep only the totals: views per page, visits per day, and which sites send readers.

If you allow analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 to count visits and see which articles are read, so we know what is useful. It sets cookies and sends Google the page you viewed, the page that sent you here, your browser and device type, and an approximate location that Google works out from your connection. Google says Google Analytics 4 does not log or store IP addresses.

We have switched off Google signals and advertising features, so this data is not used to personalize ads. We keep it for 14 months. We never see who you are.

Ads

Articles carry ads served by Google AdSense, which pays for the site. Ads load only after you have answered the question and start reading (your first scroll or tap), and never on pages like this one.

When ads load, Google receives the page you are reading, your IP address, your browser and device type, and uses cookies or similar identifiers to limit how often you see an ad, count ad views and clicks, and detect fraud. If you allowed it, Google may also choose ads based on your interests. If you said no, we ask Google for non-personalised ads only: they are chosen from the page you are reading and your approximate location, not from a profile of you. Google still uses cookies for frequency capping, reporting and fraud prevention.

In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, Google's own consent message (see above) decides instead: it lets you choose exactly what Google may do, and Google Analytics is loaded only if you allow analytics there. You can review Google's advertising data practices at How Google uses information from sites that use its services and switch off personalised ads for your Google account at My Ad Center.

We never see who you are, and we do not pass Google anything about you beyond what your browser sends when an ad loads.

If you say no

Google Analytics is not loaded and no analytics cookies are set. If you had allowed analytics earlier and then say no, we delete the analytics cookies we can reach. On articles, the ads you see are non-personalised.

Changing your mind

Use Privacy choices at the bottom of any page to see the question again (in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, Google's message).

Email alerts

If you sign up for email alerts, we keep your email address on our own server, with the date you confirmed it. We use it only to send what you asked for: one email on Fridays with the week's new articles, and an alert when privacy news needs you to act. We never sell, share or rent it.

You have to confirm by clicking a link in the first email; if you don't, we delete the address after 7 days. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing deletes your address from our list at once.

The emails are delivered for us by Resend, an email delivery service, which handles your address only to send them. We do not switch on open or click tracking: the emails contain no tracking pixels and their links are not rewritten. When you sign up we do not store your IP address; it is held in memory for up to an hour only to stop one visitor flooding the form.

The data breach tracker

On the data breach tracker, the "Help, I've been breached" button adds one to a counter for that breach. We store only the number of readers who pressed it for each breach, never who pressed it: no name, no account and no IP address. Your browser remembers that you pressed it for that breach, so it counts you once; that note stays in your browser and never reaches us.

If you ask us to email you when a company has another breach, we keep your email address and the companies you asked about, on our own server, and use them only for those alerts. You confirm by clicking a link in the first email; if you don't, we delete the address after 7 days. Every alert has a link that stops the alerts and deletes your address at once. The emails are sent by Resend, as described above, with no tracking.

My breaches keeps the companies you add in your own browser; they never reach us. If you turn on alerts there, your browser gives us an address at its push service (Google, Mozilla, Apple or Microsoft) through which we can wake your device. We keep only that address, the day you turned alerts on and the day a push last reached it: never your list, and no IP address. At most once a day, on a day with new breaches, we send an empty push to every device that asked. Your device then downloads the same list of new breaches everyone gets and checks it against your companies itself. Turning alerts off, or "Forget everything", deletes the address; so does your push service telling us the address no longer works.

Check a breach letter reads what you paste in your own browser. The text is never sent to us or anyone else, and is not stored, not even on your device. That page loads no analytics.

Ask the tracker sends your question to Anthropic, whose AI model answers it from the tracker's records. We do not store the question, only a count of questions per day. So that one visitor cannot use up the day's questions, a scrambled form of your internet address is kept in memory for the day, never written to disk. That page loads no analytics either. Please do not type personal details into it.

Other things we receive

Every web request passes through our hosting providers, Cloudflare and our server, which keep short-lived technical logs (your IP address, the page requested, and your browser type) to keep the site running and secure. If you email us, we receive your address and your message and keep them only as long as needed to answer. We do not sell or share any of it.

Contact

Questions about this page: [email protected].