Privacy

This website

Visit counts. The site uses Google Analytics to count visits: which pages get opened, which sections and links get used, whether someone starts or sends a message with the contact form and whether it went through, where visitors came from, and the rough location and kind of device Google works out from each visit. It gets each page's address with everything after a ? or # cut off. It also gets the label on my own links saying where I posted them, like Threads or a QR code, and only if it's on a short list I set up. It never sees what you write in the form. Advertising features and Google Signals (Google's tracking across devices) are switched off. The detailed records are deleted after two months, and after that only totals are left, like how many visits a page had.

Cookies. Google Analytics keeps two small cookies in your browser so it can tell a return visit from a new one. They last up to two years unless you clear them. The site sets no other cookies. It remembers the color palette you pick in your browser's own storage, which never leaves your device.

Not being counted. Open sunwave.studio/#analytics-exclude once, and this site stops counting you in that browser. Google also has a browser add-on that turns Google Analytics off on every site.

Hosting. Netlify hosts the site and keeps the ordinary logs every web host keeps, like your IP address and which page you asked for, to run and protect the service. I don't use those logs to track anyone.

Writing to me. If you email me, call me or use the contact form, I use what you send only to reply to you. I don't add anyone to a mailing list or sell what you send. Your email or call reaches me through the usual email and phone companies.

The apps I post with

I post my own writing to my own accounts on Threads, Instagram, YouTube, X and Bluesky. To do that without copying and pasting everything five times, I set up a small app on each of those sites. They're set up for my accounts only, and nobody else can sign up for them. Where a site tells them whose account they've reached, they check it's mine, and if it isn't they refuse it and keep nothing.

Here's everything they do:

• They post what I've approved, to my accounts. That's the whole job.
• They keep the sign-in keys for my accounts on my own computer, along with each account's name and ID (and my YouTube channel's name), so they can check they're posting to the right place. When I swap in new keys by hand, the old ones stay on the same computer as a backup.
• They keep those keys working. Some of them run out, so once a day my computer renews the ones that are due. If that fails, it sends me a message on Telegram saying which site broke. That message is about my account and nobody else's.
• They don't collect, store, sell or share anything about you. They don't read your posts, your profile or your messages.

The YouTube app uses YouTube API Services, and what Google does with your information is covered by Google's Privacy Policy. The app's use of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. In plain words: it uses my YouTube account to upload my videos and to check it's still connected to my channel, and for nothing else.

If you reply to one of my posts, that reply lives on Threads, Instagram, YouTube, X or Bluesky, under their privacy rules, not mine.

Cutting an app off

You can remove any app from your own account whenever you like, mine included:

• Google and YouTube: myaccount.google.com/permissions
• Threads: Settings, then Account, then Website permissions
• Instagram: Settings, then Website permissions, then Apps and websites
• X: Settings and privacy, then Security and account access, then Apps and sessions, then Connected apps
• Bluesky: Settings, then Privacy and security, then App passwords

Deleting your data

My apps don't hold any data about you, so there's nothing of yours to delete there. Visit counts aren't tied to your name, and the detailed records go after two months anyway.

If you've written to me and want your messages deleted, or you think I've got any of this wrong, email hello@sunwave.studio and I'll sort it out.