By Parallax Abstraction
v1.0 (July 27, 2025)
TL;DR: I consider privacy very important and take it seriously. This blog doesn't monetize and while the Ghost platform does require people to sign up to comment and optionally, get emails of new posts, I do not and will not ever share your data with any third-party for any reason.
I don't think a big privacy policy full of legalease is needed for a site like this, but since you can sign up for an account, I should probably have one, so here it is. I wrote this myself and am not a lawyer.
If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me via the email form here.
Personal Data Collected
When you sign up for an account, your email address is collected and associated with a password for authentication purposes. An account is not necessary to read the site, but is required to post comments and to sign up for the email newsletter with new posts. You also have to provide a display name to post comments, but it doesn't have to be your real name. No other personal data is collected.
Analytics Data
Currently, only Ghost's internal analytics system is used to track usage of the site. No third-party analytics tools are used. Ghost collects data on what parts of the sites are visited, as well as how many people are subscribed to the email newsletter, how many open new entries and how many click on links within them.
This data is used to see what posts people seem to be gravitating towards so I can find more topics to talk about.
Data Security & Retention
I self-host this site, meaning no third-party company is involved in storing any part of it. The data is stored in an encrypted database on a Linux server that I maintain and secure in accordance with IT industry best practices. That said, nothing is 100% secure and a breach is always possible.
Passwords are hashed and not visible in plain text form by anyone. Nonetheless, using a unique and random password for your account is strongly encouraged. A password manager like Bitwarden can make this much easier.
Due to limitations of the Ghost platform, users cannot currently delete their own accounts, but can request that I do so by contacting me. If Ghost adds account self-deletion in the future, I will enable it. I reserve the right to retain any comments left by users who are deleted, though Ghost will change the name displayed on them.
Data will be retained for as long as is needed to keep the site running. Should I decide to shut down the site at some future point, I reserve the right to retain the site's content indefinitely, but will delete all account data.
Cookies
The site uses browser cookies to facilitate its functionality, including analytics. This is standard practice on virtually all web sites. None of them are used for tracking or advertising purposes. You are free to disable cookies for the site in your browser if you choose, but I cannot guarantee how it will impact your experience.
Email Provider
For sending out newsletters and service emails such as password resets and multi-factor authentication codes, a third-party service called MailJet is used. This is a well known mass mailing provider with a good reputation and which is recommended by Ghost. Their privacy policy is available here.
Data Sale, Transfer, Disclosure & Scraping
This site is not intended to generate profit and is not monetized in any form beyond occasional use of affiliate links (see below). No data of any kind is or will ever be sold or have its ownership transferred to third-parties for any purpose.
User data will never be voluntarily disclosed to a third-party, unless legally required by law enforcement. This is exceptionally unlikely to occur, even more so given the limited nature of what data is collected.
The site is available to be scraped by search engines and as a result, comments posted by users can be part of that. I do not authorize AI trainers to scrape the site and have implemented some measures to minimize that, but many AI companies don't respect those.
Affiliate Links
There is an official affiliate links policy here.
Data collection by these third-party affiliates is subject to their own privacy policies and you are encouraged to review them before using the affiliate links.
Use By Minors
Geek Bravado does not permit users under the age of 13 unless they have their parent or guardian's explicit consent. I reserve the right to request verification of this consent if I suspect a user to be under 13 years of age and to delete and/or ban their account should they not be able to provide it. Minors with said consent are subject to all other terms of this policy.