Privacy

A visit is a random id that lives in your browser tab and ends when the tab closes. It isn’t a cookie and it doesn’t follow you to your next visit. We never store your IP address or your device’s fingerprint, and we never record what you type. When you copy text from a page, we keep how long it was, what kind of thing it came from (a paragraph, a quote or the email address, for example) and the heading of its section. On our public pages we also keep up to 160 characters of the copied text itself, because it’s our own writing and it shows us which lines people keep. We keep none of the copied text when it comes from a private page (a team’s circle, an audit report, the studio) or looks like an email address or a phone number, and copying out of a field you type in isn’t recorded at all.

With that id we record the pages you read, where the visit came from (the other site’s name, or the campaign tags on our own links), your screen’s width class and the display settings you ask for, the first kind of input you use, the links and buttons you use, how far down a page you read, and how long you spend with each section. We keep these counts for as long as the site runs, and since none of them can be tied to a person, we publish them: Open numbers shows the last thirty days.

Vercel hosts the site, and two of its tools run on every page: Web Analytics, which counts page views, and Speed Insights, which measures how quickly pages load on your device. Neither uses cookies.

Vercel tells one visit from another by a code made from the request, which it throws away after a day. With each page view it records the page, the site you came from, your country and city, your device type, and your browser and operating system. Like every host, it also keeps short-lived request logs so it can run the site. Vercel describes all of this in its own privacy notes.

The character game. If you play with colleagues, the circle keeps the name you give, your choices and your three, your guesses at how many colleagues will keep each one, and each week’s answer you give to its check (held, slipped or didn’t come up, and a line on what happened if you add one). If you share the link for people outside your team, it also keeps their answers, which carry no name, email or account: you see how they answered, never who. It deletes all of it once nobody in the circle has used it for 90 days. The others in the circle see your name, and see your three once they’ve played. Your weekly answers show without your name unless you choose to put it on them. The first player’s name appears on the invitation the link shows. Played on your own, the game is saved only in your browser, and the calendar reminder it offers is made in your browser and sent nowhere.

Teach it your brand. The writing you paste or load is cut into paragraphs and only the paragraphs are kept, never the file. A Word or PDF file is sent to us only to read its text, from memory, and is dropped as soon as the text is returned to you. With them we keep your description of the brand, any rules you set, your on and off calls, and the last test’s result, behind a long private link with no account. The paragraphs and your calls are sent to an AI model to make the checker’s calls, and are not used to train anything else. It deletes all of it once nobody has used the link for 90 days, or the moment you press delete. The kit you can download, and the calendar file for your monthly recheck, are made in your browser from those calls and are not sent anywhere. To keep the model calls affordable we limit each visitor to a few sessions and tests a day, counted from a one-way hash of your address and the date, deleted after a day.

The Big-Mad Study list. If you ask to hear when the study opens, we keep your email address, write to you once when it opens, and then delete the address.

The Big-Mad Study pilot. If you’re one of the few people trying the study’s questions, your own page keeps when you agreed and each answer you send: the number, where it went, and what happened, if you wrote it. Your answers are stored under a random code, not your name. Bob’s name for you is stored once, beside that code, and shown only in his studio. Nobody reads answers as they arrive. They’re used only to check the questions’ wording, never analyzed or published, and you can delete them all from your page whenever you like. We keep the note that you took part, so you aren’t asked into the study itself.

Texts with the Big-Mad Study. The study’s text number isn’t live yet. When it is, and you take part by text, we keep your phone number to know which answers are yours, apart from what you tell us, and remove it before anything is analyzed. We only ever reply to texts you send, and never send marketing. We don’t share, sell or rent your mobile number, or your agreement to receive texts, with anyone. Twilio carries the messages for us and nothing else. Message and data rates may apply; reply STOP to stop and HELP for help. The terms for texting are on the terms page.

The shop performance audit and the reputation audit. If you ask us to audit a store or a website, we keep its address, your email and the report, and email the report’s private link to you, and only to you. We read only what the site shows the public. Part of each report is written by an AI model, Google’s Gemini, reached through Vercel’s AI Gateway: it reads the shop’s public product listings, or the site’s public pages, and nothing about you. For a shop performance audit, some of the store’s public product photos are sent to Google’s reverse image search, to find where else they appear. Each audit also emails us its address, your email and the report’s link, so we may write to you once about it. The form has one optional box: if you tick it, we may write to you once or twice a year to ask you to take part in our research, never paid for or required, and we keep that yes with the audit. Unticked, we use your email only for the report and that one note about it. Twelve months after you ask, the audit is deleted, with your email, your yes or no and the report; its link stops working then.

The position sort’s email. Your sort stays in your browser. If you ask us to email it to you, we send it once to the address you give, through Resend, and keep no copy of the sort. To stop one address being sent more than three a day, we keep a scrambled form of it (a one-way hash, which can’t be turned back into the address) with the time of each send, and delete each after seven days. We keep the address itself only if you tick the box to hear when the next tool opens, and then only until we’ve sent that one email.

Why customers pick you, from your website. When you give us a web address, we read that page, and up to five more beneath it or linked from the front page, the way any visitor sees them, and name ourselves in the request. Parts of what we read go to a language model through Vercel’s AI Gateway to propose the promises the page makes, and we keep none of it. Anything you paste or type stays in your browser. To stop one visitor from reading dozens of sites an hour, we keep a scrambled form of who asked (a one-way hash of the address and the day, which can’t be turned back into the address) with a count of its reads for the hour, and delete it after a day. If you choose to share with your team, we keep the promises you confirmed, your first name, each colleague’s first name, and each person’s answers, until nobody has used the team for 90 days. People on a team see who has answered, and each other’s answers only as counts, never beside a name, and only once they’ve given their own.

The letter. If you ask for the monthly letter, we keep your email address and when you asked. We send one email with a link to confirm it, and nothing else until you do; an address not confirmed within seven days is deleted. Once confirmed, the letter goes to it on the first Wednesday of each month that follows a month with dispatches. Every letter has a one-click link to stop it, which deletes the address, not just marks it.

Syrniki orders and tastings. An order keeps your name and phone number so we can call you to fill it; a tasting card keeps your ratings, your note, and your name and email if you give them. Both are emailed to us when you send them. We keep them until you ask us to delete them.

Booking a call. The booking link opens Google Calendar, so what you enter there goes to Google, under Google’s policy, and reaches us as the booking.

Email. When you write to us, your message stays in our inbox. We add no one to a list who didn’t tick a box to be on it, and we don’t send email anyone didn’t ask for: the only emails this site sends anyone but us are an audit’s report link and a position sort, each sent once to the person who asked for it, and the letter, to people who asked for it and confirmed their address.

The site sets no cookies for visitors. Some things are saved in your own browser so they’re there when you come back: your progress in the character game and the name you last played under, your position sort, the key that lets you back into a team you joined, whether you’ve asked not to be counted, and a few tool settings, like Fovea’s screen measurement. You can clear them any time by clearing this site’s data in your browser.

The free tools work in your browser. Fovea uses your camera to measure how far you sit from the screen; the video is read on your device and never recorded or sent anywhere. The Good Citizens check reads a page in your own browser and sends nothing to us.

Vercel hosts the site and runs its counting. Neon, through Vercel, holds the database. Resend sends the emails this site writes: to us, an audit’s report link to whoever asked for the audit, a position sort to whoever asked to have it emailed, and the letter to whoever asked for it. Google handles a booking if you make one, measures a store’s speed for its audit and searches for its public photos, and its Gemini model reads an audited site’s public pages. That’s everyone.

There are no ads here, no tracking pixels and no social media scripts. We don’t sell anything we keep, and we don’t share it with anyone else.

Write to privacy@goodcitizens.us and say what you’d like deleted: an email address, a Syrniki order, a tasting card, anything you’ve given us. We delete it and write back to say it’s done. The same address answers any question about this page.

Counting is the same for everyone, including browsers that send Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control, because nothing we count can be tied to you. If you’d still rather this browser weren’t counted at all: