Dennis Hackethal’s Blog

My blog about philosophy, coding, and anything else that interests me.

Privacy Policy

Last updated 2023-06-10.

Read this privacy policy carefully to understand how Dennis Hackethal’s Blog (“we”, “us”, “our”) processes your information. If do you not agree with this policy, don’t visit this blog. By visiting this blog, you consent to the processing of your information as outlined below.

If you have questions about this policy, email us at blog@dennishackethal.com.

Information collected

We collect and process information you provide when you browse this blog and/or contact us via email or by writing a comment, and/or when you buy a Pro article.

The types of information we process depend on whether you leave comments and whether you contact us via email, and what information those communications contain. We cannot predict that; that is up to you.

Certain other types of information are processed automatically because that’s how the tech behind the internet works. When you visit this blog, we process any information your browser sends. That is also out of our control. Usually, this information includes:

Any website processes this information when you visit it; this blog is no exception. See below for the kinds of information collected and processed by third parties.

Note that your location can be inferred from your IP address. If that is a concern, use a VPN (at your own expense and risk).

When you begin purchasing a Pro article, our payment provider, Stripe, may process additional information and make it available to us. That information includes your card type, expiration date, issuing financial institution, country, last four digits of your credit-card number, your postal code (if you’re in the US), IP address, internet service provider, operating system, browser, device brand, device model, your card’s average transaction amount, the standard deviation for your card, and ancillary information, including but not limited to whether your card is a debit and/or prepaid card. This information is repeated to you when you begin buying a Pro article. Note that Stripe stores your financial information in a PCI-compliant manner, which is an industry-wide security standard around payments.

When you leave a comment, you can (but need not) leave your real name. But we prefer that you do, and we are more inclined to approve comments from real people.

Note that leaving a comment transmits information as you type. This is to generate a preview of the comment for you before you submit it. But we usually only read the final versions of comments.

Note also that comments are public. Anything you write may be displayed publicly. Emails to us usually remain private, but we don’t promise you secrecy.

Tracking technology

We do not currently use fingerprinting because we think it’s unethical, but we may consider it in the future if it becomes necessary to ensure the security of this blog.

We do not use cookies or cookie-like technology (such as local storage). We do not store anything on your device.

We do use web analytics offered by plausible.io, a “privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative”. Read their privacy and data policies.

Data sharing

The collected information is shared and processed internationally with third parties. We use:

  1. Heroku as a server, owned by Salesforce. Privacy policy
  2. Mailgun to send emails. Privacy policy
  3. Redis to store information. Privacy policy
  4. plausible.io for web analytics, as stated above. Privacy policy and data policy
  5. Papertrail by Solarwinds to log visits to this blog. These server logs contain IP address, time of visit, and a unique ID per visit. Privacy policy
  6. Stripe to process payments when you buy Pro articles. Privacy policy
  7. Proton to receive and respond to user inquiries. Privacy policy

Note that these third parties may use cookies or cookie-like technology.

We do not sell any collected information.

We do not knowingly collect information from minors, nor do we target minors, ie people under the age of 18.

CCPA, CDPA compliance

This blog doesn’t need to be CCPA or CDPA compliant.

Data retention

Server logs are stored for 7 days. Information in and associated with comments is stored in perpetuity to display comments on the site and guard against spam. If you send us an email, we'll store it for one year to provide satisfactory customer service. All other information is potentially stored in perpetuity – check the respective third-party privacy policies above for data-retention limits.

Request to delete information

Most of the information stored is going to be next to impossible to associate with you anyway, but email us and we’ll see what we can do. Whether we are obligated to delete your information depends on the laws of your country.

We don’t like to delete comments. Think before you write.

Legal basis (EU, UK)

We process information based on your consent and/or to protect and enact our legitimate interests, including offering this blog to the public, preventing fraud, ensuring the security of this blog more generally, improving this blog by eg diagnosing problems, and responding to user inquiries. We also process information to fulfill orders of Pro articles.

You can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us, but note that this has no effect on information already processed. The best way to stop producing processable information is to stop visiting this website.

Security

No technology is ever 100% secure, but we follow industry standards to keep your information safe. This blog is a very low-stakes environment so there’s really no need to worry. Just don’t divulge anything in comments that you might later regret. That said, visit and use this blog at your own risk. You are responsible for your security, not us.

Updates to this notice

We may revise this privacy notice without notifying you. Your continued use of this site implies agreement. You are obligated to check this privacy notice for changes from time to time – the date of the last update will be posted at the top.

This privacy policy is part of the terms.