Katie Tutorials is run by one person. There is no company behind it, no advertising, no newsletter and nothing for sale, so there is very little to collect and almost no reason to collect it.
This page says what is recorded when you visit, who else sees it, how long it stays and how to have it removed. It is written to be read, not to protect me. If any of it is unclear, ask and I will make it clearer.
Contents (11)
Who is responsible
The site is run by Katie, who publishes the lessons here and the videos on the YouTube channel of the same name. Anything on this page, including a request to see or delete what is held about you, reaches me through the contact page, and it arrives in my own inbox.
What is recorded when you just read a page
Two things record something. The first does not ask you for anything first. The second, Google Analytics, asks first if you are in the European Union, the United Kingdom or Switzerland.
The web host keeps a server log. Every website has one. Each request writes down the address you connected from, the page you asked for, the time, and which browser and operating system you use. I look at it only when something is broken. The host clears these logs on its own schedule.
Google Analytics counts visits. It records which pages are opened, how long they stay open, which site or search brought you here, your approximate country and city, and your device and browser. Google Analytics does not store your IP address, it is not connected to any advertising, and Google signals is switched off. In the European Union, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, nothing is stored on your device until you choose Accept in the banner; before that, Google receives only cookieless signals that carry no identifier. You can change your choice at any time, or block Google Analytics on every site with Google’s opt-out browser add-on.
The typefaces used here load from this site’s own server, not from Google. There is no Google advertising and no Tag Manager.
Cookies
If you leave a comment, WordPress offers to save your name and email address in a cookie so you do not have to type them again. That happens only if you tick the box, and the box is not ticked for you.
Google Analytics sets two cookies, _ga and _ga_4RC9EZ8EG5, so that it can tell one visit from the next. They last up to two years. In the European Union, the United Kingdom and Switzerland they are set only after you choose Accept.
Signing in to the admin area sets cookies as well, but the only person who does that is me.
That is the whole list. No advertising cookies, no social network scripts. You can block or delete all of it in your browser settings, and every page here will work exactly as it did before.
If you leave a comment
Comments are open on the lessons. The form asks for a name and an email address, and WordPress also records the IP address the comment came from and your browser’s user agent string. That is standard WordPress behaviour, and it is what makes spam manageable.
Your name and your comment are published on the page. Your email address is not published and is never used to send you anything, because there is nothing to send.
If you have a Gravatar account, WordPress sends a hashed version of your email address to Gravatar so it can return your picture. If you do not have one, nothing is sent.
Comments stay until you ask for yours to be removed. Ask and it goes, and I will tell you when it has.
If you email me
The contact page gives one address, [email protected]. A message sent there passes through Cloudflare, which forwards it to my own inbox at Google’s Gmail. Cloudflare does not keep the message itself, only a short delivery record: the sender, the address it was sent to, the subject and the time.
Nothing is saved on this site. I reply from the same address, and the reply is sent through Brevo, an email delivery service, which keeps a similar delivery record. You are not added to anything, because there is nothing to be added to.
I delete the email once the conversation is finished.
How the read counter works
Each lesson counts how many times it has been opened. That count is what the Popular tab on the front page is ordered by, because I would rather show you what people actually read than what I think matters most.
The count is one number per lesson. To stop a refresh counting twice, the site stores a one way hash of your address for one hour and then throws it away. A hash cannot be turned back into an address, it is not joined to anything else, and no record is kept of who read what.
What this site does not do
- No advertising, and no advertising network. There are no ads on any page.
- No products. No signals, no courses, nothing for sale, which means there is no payment information anywhere on this site.
- No email list. Nothing here asks for your address, and nothing is ever sent to it.
- No selling or sharing. Nothing collected here goes to anyone beyond the services named above, which need it to do their job.
- No profiling and no automated decisions about you.
How long things are kept
- Server logs: on the host’s own schedule.
- Comments: until you ask for them to go.
- Contact emails: until the conversation is over.
- The read counter’s hash: one hour.
- The per lesson count: a running total, with nothing in it that points at a person.
- Google Analytics: visit data for 2 months, user data for 14 months; its cookies for up to two years.
Your rights
If you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, the GDPR gives you the right to ask what is held about you, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, to object to it being used, and to complain to the data protection authority in your country. Several other countries give similar rights, and I apply them to everyone rather than checking where you are first.
The legal basis, in the language the regulation uses: the server logs and the read counter rest on legitimate interest in keeping the site working and knowing which lessons are worth writing more of. Google Analytics rests on your consent in the European Union, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and on legitimate interest elsewhere. Comments and contact messages rest on your consent, which you give by choosing to write.
In practice a request here is nearly always one of two things: remove my comment, or delete the message I sent you. Write through the contact page and I will do it and confirm it. I will not ask you to prove who you are beyond what I need to find the right comment or email.
Children
This site is not for children. Trading is not for anyone under 18, and neither is anything written here. I do not knowingly collect anything from anyone under 18. If you believe I have, tell me and it will be deleted.
Changes to this page
If what the site collects ever changes, this page changes with it. It will not be widened quietly.