Privacy policy
What we collect, why, and how to make us stop.
Backbone is a small editorial publication. We are not an advertising business and we have no commercial interest in profiling readers, so this policy is short and the honest version.
What we collect
Analytics
We use a privacy-focused, cookie-free analytics service to count page views and see which explainers people read. It records the page requested, the referring site if any, an approximate country, and a general device type. It does not set tracking cookies, does not build a profile of you across sites, and does not store your full IP address. Aggregate counts are all we ever see; there is no way for us to identify an individual reader from them.
Server logs
Our web host keeps standard access logs — IP address, timestamp, requested file, browser user-agent — for security and troubleshooting. These are retained for 30 days and then deleted automatically.
Newsletter subscriptions
If you subscribe to the explainer digest, we store the email address you gave us, the date you subscribed, and whether each issue was delivered, opened, or bounced. That is the whole record. We use it to send the digest and to keep our sending reputation healthy — nothing else. Every issue carries an unsubscribe link, which removes your address from the active list immediately; we purge unsubscribed addresses entirely within 30 days.
Contact-form messages
Messages sent through the contact form, or to any of our published addresses, arrive in a normal email inbox and are kept as long as the correspondence is useful. Submitting the contact form does not subscribe you to the newsletter. Please don't send us personal health information — we can't advise on it and we would rather not hold it.
What we don't do
- We do not sell, rent, trade, or share your data with anyone for marketing purposes. There is no circumstance in which we would.
- We do not run advertising, retargeting pixels, or social tracking scripts.
- We do not accept sponsorship or advertising from anyone selling compounds, and so we have no advertiser to hand data to.
- We do not attempt to identify individual readers from analytics.
Cookie notice
Backbone sets no advertising or tracking cookies. Our analytics provider is cookie-free by design. The only cookie the site may set is a strictly functional one, remembering a preference such as dismissing a notice; it holds no personal data and expires on its own. Because we set no non-essential cookies, we don't show a consent banner — there is nothing to consent to. Any cookies your browser holds from other sites are outside our control, and you can clear or block cookies entirely in your browser settings without affecting how this site works.
Third-party embeds and services
A few things on these pages are served by other companies, and your browser contacts them directly when a page loads:
- Google Fonts serves the typefaces used across the site. Your browser requests the font files from Google's servers, which means Google receives the request, including your IP address.
- Unsplash hosts the photographs on our pages, delivered through its image CDN, with the same implication.
- Our email provider handles delivery of the digest and processes subscriber addresses on our behalf under a data-processing agreement.
Each of these operates under its own privacy policy, which we don't control. We deliberately keep the list this short.
Children
Backbone is written for a general adult audience and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has subscribed to our newsletter, write to us and we'll remove the address.
Your requests
Whatever your jurisdiction, you can ask us what we hold about you, ask for a copy, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Write to hello@readbackbone.org and we'll respond within 30 days. For newsletter data the fastest route is the unsubscribe link in any issue — it is immediate and needs no reply from us.
Security
The site is served over HTTPS. Subscriber data lives with our email provider under its own security controls. We keep the amount of data we hold deliberately small, which is the most effective protection available to a publication our size.
Changes to this policy
If we change what we collect or who processes it, we'll update this page and revise the date at the top. Material changes will also be mentioned in an issue of the digest.
Questions about any of the above: hello@readbackbone.org, or by post at the address above. See also our terms of use, which includes the medical disclaimer that governs all editorial content on this site.