Privacy policy
If you only read, we keep no profile of you. Our server keeps a short record of page requests with your IP address for 48 hours, and a cookie remembers your language. Your answers to tests and tools never leave your device. If you write in a discussion, we keep your post, your nickname, your email address and some technical details, as set out below.
Who is responsible
Mind the Signs is published by Cartwell Media Group in the Netherlands. We are responsible for the personal data on this website. You can reach us at info@mindthesigns.com. Our full details are on the contact page.
When you only read
This website shows no ads and runs no tracking or analytics scripts. We load no ads, trackers or fonts from other companies.
The website runs on a server rented from Hetzner in Germany. Cloudflare sits in front of it: it delivers the pages and protects the site against attacks. To do that, Cloudflare handles technical data such as your IP address and the type of browser you use.
Tests and tools
Your answers in the tests are scored inside your own browser. They are not sent to us and not saved anywhere. When you leave the page, they are gone.
Some tools, such as the friendship circles and worry time, remember what you entered so you can come back to it. They keep it in your browser’s own storage on your device. It is never sent to us. You can wipe it with the button in the tool, or by clearing this website’s data in your browser.
Cookies
We use only cookies that the website needs to work. None of them are for ads or for following you around the web.
- mts_lang remembers the language you read in, so the home page opens in that language next time. It lasts one year.
- mind-the-signs-session and XSRF-TOKEN are set only when you click in the reply box, report a post or open the link in our email. The first keeps you signed in, the second protects the form against misuse by other websites. They end after two hours without activity.
- mts_guest is set when you post before giving your email address. It links your post to this device so that you can see it while nobody else can. It is encrypted and lasts seven days.
- Cloudflare may set a short technical cookie of its own to tell people from bots.
- mts_theme is not a cookie but an entry in your browser’s own storage. It is kept only when you pick light or dark at the bottom of a page, removed when you choose System again, and never sent to us.
When you write in a discussion
You can write a post first and give your email address afterwards. Until you confirm your email address, your post is visible only to you, on the device you wrote it on. If you do not confirm it, we delete the post after 8 days. The link in the confirmation email works for two days.
When you post, we store:
- your text, the discussion it belongs to, and any post or passage you replied to;
- your nickname and email address, once you give them;
- the date and time, and the language of the page;
- your IP address. We delete it after 30 days;
- a scrambled code made from your IP address with a secret key that only we hold. We use it to spot the same post sent twice and to count reports fairly, and we keep it as long as your post exists;
- the country, region and city your IP address points to, and the name of your internet provider. We look these up on our own server, using a location database we keep there, so your IP address is not sent anywhere for this. We do not store map coordinates;
- the languages your browser asks for, your browser’s description of itself, and whether you use a phone, tablet or computer.
We use these details to publish your post, to keep spam, abuse and fake accounts out, and to see where a problem comes from. Other visitors never see them. Your email address is never shown. It is used to send you the confirmation link. We do not send newsletters.
When you post, we also note that you took part in that discussion. We do not email you about it.
Published posts are public and show your nickname. Anyone can read them, and search engines may find them.
How posts are checked
Every post first goes through automatic checks on our own server. These look for things like spam links, repeated posts and words that suggest someone may be in danger. If a post suggests that, it is held for a person to read.
After you confirm your email address, most posts are checked by an AI model. Posts the first checks have already held go straight to a person. For the AI check we send the text of your post, the title of the discussion and its language to OpenRouter, a service that passes the request on to a company that runs Anthropic’s Claude models: Anthropic itself, or a cloud service such as Amazon or Google. We do not send your nickname, your email address or your IP address. We tell OpenRouter to use only providers that do not use the text for training and do not keep it for their own use. A post the AI is unsure about is held for a person to read. If you think the AI held or removed your post by mistake, email info@mindthesigns.com and a person will look at it again.
Once a post is published, the same route is used to translate it into the other languages of this website. The translation is shown with a note, and readers can open your original text.
When someone reports a post, we keep the reason, any note they add, and a scrambled code made from their IP address and device with the same secret key.
Error records
For 48 hours the server keeps a record of errors, page requests and the emails it sends. This can include your IP address, your browser, the address of the page, your email address and nickname, and the text of your post. Only we can see it, and it is deleted after 48 hours.
Emails to us
If you email us, we use your address and message only to answer you and to keep a record of the conversation. We keep those emails as long as needed to handle your question, and up to two years after.
Who else handles your data
We do not sell personal data. These companies handle some of it for us, only to run the site:
- Hetzner, which hosts our server in Germany;
- Cloudflare, which delivers the pages, protects the site and forwards email sent to our address;
- OpenRouter, and the company that runs the model (Anthropic, Amazon or Google), which receive the text of posts for checking and translation, as described above;
- the service that delivers our confirmation emails, which receives your email address and the link.
Some of these companies are based in the United States or work outside the EU. Where that happens, the transfer is covered by the safeguards that EU law requires.
Why we are allowed to use it
We use your post, your nickname and your email address because you ask us to publish your post. We use the technical details because we have a real need to keep the site safe and free of spam.
What you write may say something about your health. Once your post is published, you have made it public yourself. Before that, while a post waits for your confirmation or for a person, and when we have it checked, we rely on your clear agreement: by sending the post, you agree that we store it and have it checked as described here. You can withdraw that agreement at any time by asking us to delete the post.
The reply box says this in one line, with a link to this page, right next to the button you press to post.
Sometimes the law requires us to keep or hand over something. We then do so because we are legally obliged to.
How long we keep it
- Posts you never confirm: deleted after 8 days.
- IP addresses: deleted after 30 days.
- The scrambled IP code and the other technical details of a post, such as country, city, internet provider and browser: kept as long as the post exists.
- Error records: deleted after 48 hours.
- Sessions: end after two hours without activity.
- Published posts, your nickname and your email address: kept until you ask us to delete them.
- Posts we remove: kept for 6 months after the decision, so we can explain it if you ask, then deleted together with their reports and check records.
- Posts we hold: kept until a person has decided on them, then treated like any other post.
- Reports with their scrambled code, and the record of our checks on a post: deleted after 6 months.
- Which discussions you took part in: kept until you ask us to delete your account.
- If we block an account, we keep its email address so the same person cannot sign up again.
Your rights
You can ask to see the data we hold about you, to correct it or delete it, to limit or object to how we use it, and to receive it in a file you can take elsewhere. To delete your posts or your account, email info@mindthesigns.com from the address you used. If you are not happy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Dutch data protection authority, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens.
Changes
When we change how we handle data, we update this page and the date at the top of it.