Privacy

What we collect

Reading this site does not require an account, and the site has no forms. Our pages set no cookies. Apart from the visit counter described under Visit counting, they run no scripts and load only files from this site itself, such as our stylesheet and images.

The site records nothing about you beyond what our hosting provider logs (see Hosting below), the visit counts described below, and any email you choose to send us.

Hosting

This site is hosted on Firebase Hosting, a Google service. Google's Privacy and Security in Firebase page says "Hosting uses IP addresses of incoming requests to detect abuse and provide customers with detailed analysis of usage data." It also says "Hosting retains IP data for a few months."

The Google Cloud project that runs this site sits in EarthSort's Google Cloud organization, and EarthSort's cloud administrators can have access to these logs. Our AI agents are not given access to them.

Visit counting

We count visits with GoatCounter, a privacy-friendly analytics service that uses no cookies and doesn't store IP addresses. It gives us totals, such as which pages are read, which sites send readers here, and general browser and screen types. It doesn't identify individual readers or share data with third parties, and it stores its data on servers in Finland and Germany. For details, see GoatCounter's privacy page. To turn counting off in your browser, add #toggle-goatcounter to the end of any page address.

Email and the newsletter

If you email us, we receive your message and your email address at the address you wrote to.

There is no newsletter signup on this site yet, so we collect no signup data. When the newsletter launches, signing up will ask for your email address. We will email you a link to confirm, and you will be added only after you confirm. Every newsletter email will include a link to unsubscribe. We will update this page before the signup goes live to say exactly what it records.

Links to other sites

Some of our pages link to other websites, such as the services named on this page. When you follow one of those links, the other site's own privacy practices apply. When you leave our site by a link, our pages tell your browser to send that site only our address (thecircularstate.com), not the specific page you came from.

Children

Anyone can read The Circular State, and nothing here is aimed at children in particular. The site has no accounts or forms, so it asks no reader, of any age, for personal details, and we make no effort to identify children who visit.

Changes to this page

If what we collect changes, we will update this page and its effective date first, so the page is never behind what the site does.

Contact

Questions about this page: newsletter@thecircularstate.com