At ExplainTheWeb.com, our mission is to decode the internet and teach you how web architecture and privacy actually work. Because of what we teach, we hold ourselves to the highest standard of transparency regarding your own data.
1. The Plain-English Executive Summary
If you don’t want to read the entire policy, here is exactly how we handle your data:
- We don’t sell your data. We never sell, rent, or broker your personal information to third parties.
- We track site performance, not individuals. We use Google Analytics 4 to see which tutorials are popular. This data is aggregated and does not identify you personally.
- We use security infrastructure. Your connection is routed through Cloudflare to keep the site fast and block malicious bots.
- You control your footprint. You only provide personal data (name/email) if you choose to leave a comment.
2. What Data We Collect and Why
A. Information You Voluntarily Provide (Comments) When you leave a comment on our articles, we collect the data shown in the comments form (name, email, and website). We also collect your IP address and browser user agent string to help with automated spam detection.
- Note on Gravatar: An anonymized string created from your email address (a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. After approval of your comment, your Gravatar profile picture is visible to the public.
B. Information We Automatically Collect (Analytics & Security)
- Google Analytics 4 (GA4): We use GA4 to understand how visitors interact with our digital atlas. This collects aggregated data such as your device type, browser, general geographic region (e.g., your city or country), and the pages you visit. We use this strictly to improve our educational content.
- Cloudflare (CDN & Firewall): Our website infrastructure is routed through Cloudflare. Cloudflare temporarily processes IP addresses to detect DDoS attacks, block malicious bots, and serve the website to you faster.
3. How We Use Cookies
Cookies are small text files saved to your browser. Here is exactly what we use them for:
- Comment Convenience: If you leave a comment, you may opt-in to saving your name and email in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again. These last for one year.
- Performance Tracking: Google Analytics uses cookies to distinguish between unique users and track session data.
- Future Monetization Notice: ExplainTheWeb is currently ad-free. However, as the site grows, we may introduce display advertising (such as Google AdSense or Monetag) to fund our infrastructure. When activated, these third-party networks will use cookies to serve personalized or contextual advertisements. We will update this policy accordingly when that happens.
4. Who We Share Your Data With
We do not share your data with anyone other than the foundational infrastructure providers required to keep this site running safely:
- Google (For site analytics)
- Cloudflare (For site security and speed)
- Automattic / Akismet (For spam detection in the comments section)
5. How Long We Retain Your Data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue. Analytics data is retained based on the standard GA4 data retention window (typically 14 months) before being automatically deleted.
6. Your Rights Over Your Data
If you have left comments on this site, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
7. Contact Us
If you have any questions about this privacy policy, the technical infrastructure of this site, or wish to exercise your data rights, please contact the site architect, Tanzeel Ali:
Email: [email protected] (Note: This email is monitored specifically for site infrastructure, corrections, and privacy requests).
