Privacy Policy

Last updated: February 2025

This policy explains what happens to information when you visit CrickPulse (referred to below as "the site", "we" or "us"). It applies to the website itself and to any newsletter or comment feature we run on it. It doesn't apply to other sites you reach by clicking a link on ours.

1. What we collect

Things you give us on purpose

Most people read the site and never send us anything. When you do send something, that's usually one of these:

• Comments or contact messages. Whatever name, email address and text you type into the form.
• Newsletter signup. Just your email address, plus the date you subscribed.
• Account details, if you ever register with us. Right now that would only be a username, email and a hashed password.

Things collected automatically

Like almost every website, our server and analytics tools log some basic technical details when a page loads. This is the ordinary stuff: your IP address, the browser and operating system you're using, roughly where in the world the request came from, which page you landed on, and which page you came from. We look at this in aggregate. Nobody sits around reading individual visitor logs.

2. Cookies

We use a small number of cookies and similar storage. They fall into three groups:

• Necessary. Session cookies that keep you logged in to the admin area and remember form state. The site doesn't work properly without these.
• Analytics. Used to count page views and see which articles people actually read. These are aggregated and we don't try to identify you from them.
• Advertising. If adverts are shown on the site, our ad partners may set their own cookies to limit how often you see the same ad and to measure performance.

You can clear or block cookies through your browser settings. Blocking the necessary ones will break parts of the site; blocking the rest is fine and won't stop you reading anything.

3. Third parties

We don't sell, rent or trade personal information. Ever. That's not a marketing line, it's just the policy.

That said, a few outside services do touch data as part of running the site:

• Hosting provider. Stores the site files and server logs on our behalf.
• Analytics provider. Receives the technical data described in section 1.
• Advertising partners, if ads are active. They receive cookie and approximate location data under their own privacy policies, which we'd encourage you to read.
• Embedded content. Some articles include videos or posts embedded from other platforms. Once that content loads, the platform in question can collect data as if you'd visited it directly.

4. How long we keep things

Server logs are kept for a short period for security and troubleshooting, then discarded. Newsletter subscriptions stay until you unsubscribe. Comments stay for as long as the article they're attached to is published, unless you ask us to remove them. Contact messages are deleted once they've been dealt with and there's no reason to keep them.

5. Security

We use HTTPS across the site, hash passwords rather than storing them as plain text, and keep the software we run up to date. No website can promise perfect security, and we won't insult your intelligence by claiming otherwise. If we ever become aware of a breach that affects your information, we'll tell you and the relevant authorities as required by law.

6. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of the following rights over the personal data we hold about you:

• Ask for a copy of what we hold.
• Ask us to correct anything inaccurate.
• Ask us to delete it, where there's no legal reason for us to keep it.
• Object to certain processing, or ask us to restrict it.
• Withdraw consent you previously gave, such as for the newsletter.
• Complain to your local data protection authority.

To exercise any of these, email us at the address in section 9. We'll respond within the timeframe the applicable law requires, usually 30 days. We may ask you to confirm your identity first, which is a normal precaution and not an attempt to be difficult.

7. Children

The site is written for a general audience and isn't aimed at children under 13. We don't knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has sent us personal details, get in touch and we'll remove it.

8. Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle data, we'll update this page and move the date at the top. For anything significant, we'll also mention it on the site itself rather than hoping you check this page regularly. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the updated policy.

9. Contact

Questions, requests or complaints about privacy all go to the same place: