Privacy promise

The internet is based on data packages being sent between machines. The IP address is the only way to route the content requested to your device. Momentarily processing it in the matter described is technically absolutely inevitable for operating a website.

Most websites store small pieces of data in your browser. Sometimes it is just a simple variable to ensure the pages work well in your browser or remembers some preference you set, but often these contain IDs that enable the website owner or a third party to recognise you again later. Some sites store a “fingerprint” of your browser in their servers that does not even require a cookie. While settings cookies are harmless, cookies containing identifying IDs or server-side fingerprinting may enable some party to track you around the web.

Websites are often assembled from files that may be loaded from various third parties, e.g. scripts for interactive features, media files (images/videos) or fonts. This is commonly invisible to the user by default, unless using specialised means to look “under the hood”. This potentially enables the parties hosting such files to protocol your file requests, and log your IP address, which could (with great effort, but nonetheless) be traced back to you. At least in theory, they could even track you around the web, if other websites load resources from the same servers.

Whenever you load a file from a web server, that server may write a so called log file, containing information about the files requested, along with some more or less identifiable data on who retrieved it. This leaves a trail of your browsing habits on such website and, unless the IP address is anonymized, could help identify you afterwards.

Websites often use third-party services (such as Google Analytics) or self-hosted alternatives (e.g. Matomo) to analyse their traffic, commonly setting a cookie with a pseudonymous identifier, in order to identify returning readers.

Data transferred unencrypted over the internet can be intercepted by others (it is particularly easy on public WiFi networks; this may expose your browsing behaviour (what pages do you open, what content is transmitted, what do you fill in a form).

This feature is not related to personal data, but is an additional protection of your privacy. Since other websites may track you (in contrast to this site), a third party could otherwise learn that you visited this website from a “referrer” fields as you load their page. (This feature works in almost all current browsers).

All these services will track you once you arrive on their site, but as this website is set to disable referrers they won’t know that you visited this website (unless you use a really old browser or Opera Mini).

It is common practice on the web to “embed” content (e.g. videos, but also slide shows, Twitter messages etc.) from the service they originate from. For this purpose, files have to be loaded from third-party servers. This potentially enables the provider of the embedded content to register what content you accessed and on what website you found it. Furthermore, if you have previously interacted with that service, its provider could connect this information with a profile (which may be pseudonymous or even personally identifiable, especially if you are a registered user of that service).

On many websites, you have the possibility to leave a comment related to a published piece of content, which will then be displayed publicly. Many websites require you to enter a name (which can be a pseudonym) and e-mail address. As you submit your comment, some data is inevitably being processed. Privacy issues arise if your comment can be traced back to you as an individual, either based on your name/e-mail or the IP address of your computer, in case of a technical malfunction even publicly.

Spam in comment forms is a real problem for website owners, leading to a lot of work overhead. Hence, software can be used to detect spammy submissions. Many sites rely on using external services for that (Akismet, most prominently, as it comes bundled with Wordpress), transfering your personal data to a third party. This website uses a local solution (called AntispamBee) to protect your personal data.

Webmentions are a mechanism used to notify other websites when you refer to them on your own website. Your server sends a signal to this server, which then verifies that your content indeed links back. It is, however, possible to send Webmentions on another person’s behalf; this creates an edge case where it could not be the intention of the site owner to have their content processed.

Commonly, received webmentions are displayed as comments on a web page. This means that a copy of your content is displayed on the website you link to in your own post.

When subscribing to an email newsletter, its provider needs to store and process some information about you. As your identity (i.e. the email address) has not been confirmed at this point, only absolutely necessary information is stored. The email address is only kept for the duration necessary to facilitate the opt-in confirmation process; its pseudonymous hash value, however, will be kept for longer, due to protocol requirements for legal reasons. Every activity related to your subscription is written to the log file, either identified by your email address (for a few weeks until confirmed or after successfull double-opt-in) or its cryptographic hash (e.g. after not confirming or unsubscribing).

Double opt-in is a common standard to ensure ownership of an email address. The only directly identifiable data kept in the database is the email address; pseudonymous data are the cryptographic hash and the IP addresses logged for legal reasons.

Email on the internet is generally sent unencrypted; internet providers involved in its transport can in theory read their contents and/or the meta data contained within. This newsletter is no different – it’s essentially just a normal email from me to you. This newsletter is self-hosted on my servers, whereas many newsletters are managed through third-party services. If a third-party provider is involved, yet another party has access to that data and (at least in theory) would even allow to connect your profile over several newsletters. Hence, I chose to not hand your data to any such service, except – as technically absolutely necessary – as I send out the individual messages. A lot of newsletters also make use of tracking features that register when you open an e-mail or click on a link. The widespread practice to track reads/opens on a personally identifiable level literally allows the sender to watch over your shoulder. I find that creepy, and I have zero interest in such data in the first place.

When unsubscribing, your email address is scheduled for permanent deletion from the subscriber database after a grace period of two weeks (to be able to troubleshoot potential issues or to protocol malicious use patterns). For legal reasons, the log file and the cryptographic hash of your email address are kept for three years (the hash is a pseudonym, which cannot be reversed to find out the email address, but allows to find a log file based on a provided email address later).