Privacy

The short version

curedmeat.com does not ask for your name or your payment details, because it has nothing to do with either. The calculators run entirely in your browser: the numbers you type into them are sent nowhere and are not stored between visits. What the site does hold is a server log, an analytics record of which pages are read, and, if you chose to give it, an email address on a mailing list.

What is collected

Calculator inputs: nothing. Every calculator computes in the page. No calculator submits anything to a server.

Server logs. The hosting platform records an IP address, a timestamp, the URL requested, the referring URL if any, and the user-agent string, for every request.

Analytics. Page paths, an approximate location derived from your IP address, and your browser and device type, through Google Analytics. Described in the cookies section below.

Anything you type into a form. There are two. The newsletter form takes an email address and nothing else. The contact form takes an email address, an optional name, a subject and the message, plus the page you were on when you sent it. There is no phone field, no postal address field and no upload, and nothing sensitive should be sent through the message body either.

What it is used for

The information above is used for the following purposes:

• Serving the site, keeping it available, and diagnosing faults.
• Measurement and analytics: understanding which pages are read, from where, and on what kind of device, so that the reference is developed where it is used.
• Answering messages sent through the contact form, and acting on corrections reported through it.
• Sending the newsletter to people who asked for it, and measuring whether those emails are opened and which links in them are followed.
• Affiliate relationships: the site earns commission on qualifying purchases made through the links described on disclosures, and the affiliate network reports those purchases to the site in aggregate.
• Advertising and sponsorship, if either is introduced. Where that happens this page is updated to name the parties involved and the date at the top changes.
• Producing aggregate or de-identified statistics about how the site is used, which are not about any individual and may be published or shared.
• Complying with law, and enforcing the terms.

Personal information is not sold. The site does not share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising as the California statute defines that term, and the analytics settings described below are what keep that accurate.

Cookies and measurement

One cookie of its own, set by Google Analytics, which counts visits and shows which pages get read. It records a page path, an approximate location worked out from your IP address, and your browser and device type. Two settings are switched off deliberately: Google signals, which would let Google join a visit here to its cross-site advertising identity for you, and ad personalization signals, which would let the data feed ad targeting. With both off this stays first-party measurement and is not shared for cross-context behavioural advertising. Any content blocker will stop it.

Amazon sets its own cookies when you follow an affiliate link, under its own policy and from the moment of the click. Product images on the equipment and supplies pages are served from Amazon's image hosts, so loading those pages discloses your IP address to Amazon whether or not you click anything.

Turning either of those two analytics settings back on, or adding an advertising cookie, would change the legal position described here, and this page would be updated to say so with a new date at the top.

Processors and third parties

The hosting platform processes every request and retains server logs under its own retention schedule.

Google Analytics processes the measurement data described above.

The email providers. Newsletter addresses are held by Brevo, which stores the address and the record of what was sent to it. Messages from the contact form are delivered by SendGrid to an internal address. Each acts on this site's instructions for that purpose.

Amazon. The equipment and supplies pages, and some product pages, link to Amazon with an affiliate tag. If you follow one of those links, Amazon knows you arrived from this site and applies its own privacy policy from that point on. Nothing about you is passed to Amazon by this site beyond the fact of the click, which is inherent in following a link. Full detail on disclosures.

Fonts. The typefaces are self-hosted, served from this site's own domain. No request goes to a font provider when you load a page.

Information may also be disclosed where the law requires it, to professional advisers, or to a successor if the site or its assets change hands.

How long it is kept

Server logs are kept for the hosting platform's standard retention period. Analytics data is kept for the retention period configured in the analytics property, after which the provider deletes it. A newsletter address is kept until you unsubscribe or ask for it to be removed, and unsubscribing is a link in every email. Contact form messages are kept for as long as needed to deal with what they are about, and correspondence about a correction is kept as the record of why a published figure changed.

Hosting, logs and international transfers

This site is hosted on infrastructure operated by a third party, which processes requests on this site's behalf. Requests may be served from an edge location near you, and the providers named above operate internationally, so information may be processed in a country other than the one you are in, including the United States. Where that involves a transfer out of the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area it is made on the basis of the providers' standard contractual clauses or an equivalent mechanism.

Security

The site is served over HTTPS. API keys for the email providers are held as environment variables on the hosting platform and are not present in the published pages or in the source. No password and no payment information is collected, so none can be lost. No system is immune, and a guarantee of absolute security would not be worth giving.

Children

This is a technical reference for adults. It is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect anything from anyone under 13, or under 16 where local law sets that threshold.

Your rights

Under the UK and EU General Data Protection Regulation and under the California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia and Texas privacy statutes, you have rights of access, correction, deletion, portability and objection over personal information held about you, and a right not to be discriminated against for exercising them. In practice the personal information this site holds about a reader is a server log entry, an analytics record and, if you subscribed, an address on a list.

Requests come through the contact form. Server logs are not indexed by person, so a request for access will usually be answered by saying so; if you want a log entry removed, say approximately when you visited and from what address. A request is answered within the period the applicable statute sets, and an appeal against a refusal can be made through the same form.

This site does not sell personal information and does not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising as those terms are defined by the California Consumer Privacy Act.

Changes to this policy

This policy may be updated as the site changes. The date at the top of this page is the date of the current version, and a material change moves that date. Continuing to use the site after a change constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

Contact

Through the contact form, which is the only route in. No address is published on this site, because an address published on a site with several thousand pages is harvested rather than read.