Privacy

This page documents every piece of data TechDug handles: what it is, why it exists and when it goes away. Design goal: collect as little as possible and keep it for as short a time as the job allows.

Data inventory

Server logs

Like nearly every web server, ours writes an access log line per request: IP address, requested page, browser user agent and timestamp. The logs serve security and keep the service running. Old entries are cycled out, so nothing in them is older than roughly 14 days.

Spam limiting

When you submit a comment or a contact message, your IP address is checked briefly to throttle spam. The check happens in memory; the address is never written to the site’s database.

The comment form

Two inputs: a name, which can be anything you like, and the comment. The form has no email field.

A new comment sits in a moderation queue. After approval it appears publicly under the post with the name and the date. If no moderator approves it within 30 days, the system removes it.

The contact form

Four inputs: name, email address, topic and message. They are used for one purpose: reading your request, replying and doing what it asks. After 90 days the message is removed automatically.

Author profiles

Authors are invited. Their public profile (name, handle, portrait, short bio, optional website link) and their published posts are visible to everyone; that is the point of publishing. Any author can request removal of a post or of the entire blog.

Cookies

Exactly one cookie exists, and only administrators ever get it: a session cookie set at sign-in so the site can tell they are signed in. If you read or comment, your browser stores nothing from us.

Third-party requests

A few files come from outside providers. Downloading them sends that provider your IP address and browser details, as any web request does:

• Google Fonts (fonts.googleapis.com, fonts.gstatic.com): the typefaces used throughout the site.
• Unsplash (images.unsplash.com): the photographs on the home page.

Those providers’ own privacy policies govern those requests. Beyond them, no outside service receives data about your visit. The site runs over HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt certificates, so traffic between your browser and the server is encrypted.

Non-goals

• Reader profiles, or tracking anyone from page to page or from site to site.
• Analytics, advertising and tracking pixels. With no advertisers, there is nobody to sell attention or personal data to, and we sell it to no one.
• Mailing lists. Commenters never hand us an email address to begin with.

Data requests

You are entitled to ask for a copy of what we hold on you, a correction, or deletion, for instance of a comment you left or a message you sent. On the contact page, select Data / privacy request and give enough detail to locate the item, such as the post and the name you used. We may ask one question to confirm the request really comes from you.

Changelog policy

Any change to how data is handled is reflected on this page, and the “last updated” stamp above moves with it. A new kind of collection would be documented here before it starts, not after.