Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 13, 2026.

The short version: this is my personal website. I keep anonymous, aggregate traffic stats so I can see which posts get read, and that is the extent of it. No ads, no user-level tracking, and nothing sold or shared. The only personal information the site stores is what you actively choose to submit, which today means comments and reactions on blog posts.

If you just read

Reading is anonymous. The site uses Google Analytics to count page views and see rough, aggregate traffic, which posts are popular and roughly which countries visitors come from. It is not tied to your identity, it is switched off on the admin area, and none of your personal information is sent to it. Google Analytics sets its own cookie holding a random visitor ID so it can tell a new visit from a returning one; that ID is not linked to you or to your comments. Google uses your IP address only momentarily to estimate country-level location and does not store it. If you block analytics, whether with an ad blocker, Do Not Track, or Global Privacy Control, the site works exactly the same.

If you sign in to comment or react

Commenting and reacting require signing in with Discord or LinkedIn. When you do:

  • The site receives your provider account ID, display name, and profile avatar from that provider and stores them alongside your comment or reaction.
  • Your comment text, your reactions, and the time you posted are stored.
  • Your avatar is stored as a link to the provider's image, not a copy. When anyone views a comment thread, their browser loads each commenter's avatar directly from Discord, LinkedIn, or Gravatar, so those providers see that request. (My own author photo is self-hosted, so it never does this.)
  • If your provider shares your email address, it is used only to compute a Gravatar avatar URL. The email itself is not stored.
  • Signing in sets an encrypted, HttpOnly session cookie that keeps you logged in for eight hours. A second small cookie remembers whether you prefer your provider avatar or Gravatar. Neither cookie tracks you across other sites.

Where it's stored

The site runs on a Linux server I build, harden, and administer myself, not a managed hosting platform, so no outside company has application-level access to its data. I documented building that server on the blog. It has no database: comments and reactions are stored as files in a private Git repository for version history and backups, and access to that repository is limited to me. The physical machine is rented from a data-center provider that supplies the hardware and network but has no part in the site or its data.

Like any web server, it keeps standard access logs, including IP addresses, for security and troubleshooting. Those logs stay on the server, are rotated, and are never used for tracking or profiling.

Spam protection

To keep out spam, the comment system holds your IP address in memory to rate-limit how often comments can be posted. The comment system does not write it to disk or attach it to your comment, and it is discarded when the server restarts.

Third parties

The site talks to a few outside services, and only for the reasons below. Each has its own privacy policy.

  • Google Analytics: collects the anonymous, aggregate traffic statistics described above, on the public pages only. No personal information is sent to it.
  • Discord and LinkedIn: only when you choose to sign in with one of them, to confirm who you are.
  • GitHub: hosts the private repository where content and comments live.
  • Gravatar: if your account has an email, your avatar may be requested from Gravatar using a hashed form of that email.

There is no ad network and no data broker in that list. The only analytics is the anonymous, aggregate kind described above, and the site itself runs on my own server, not a third-party host.

Your choices

  • You can delete your own comments at any time while signed in.
  • If you want your data removed entirely, including from backups, email me and I'll take care of it.
  • You can opt out of the anonymous analytics with any ad blocker, a browser Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control setting, or Google's own opt-out. The site behaves identically either way.
  • If you'd rather leave nothing at all, just read without signing in, and turn off analytics if you like.

Children

This site isn't directed at children under 13 and doesn't knowingly collect their information.

Changes

If this policy changes, I'll update it here and change the date at the top.

Contact

Questions about any of this: sean@seanstoves.com.