Privacy & Cookies

AltMystery is a static publication with no user accounts and no advertising. We collect the minimum needed to understand how many people read us and which articles resonate. This page explains exactly what that means, what cookies are involved, and how you stay in control.

Analytics we use

We use Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to count visits and page views. GA4 can process technical data such as the pages you view, the approximate region derived from your IP address (the full IP is not stored by GA4 by default), your device and browser type, and the referring site. We never sell this data, and we do not use it for advertising.

Consent Mode — measurement before consent

GA4 runs through Google Consent Mode v2. Before you make a choice, every storage type is set to denied, so GA4 sends only cookieless, non-identifying pings. These give us aggregate numbers — roughly how many visits an article gets — with no cookies and no cross-site identifiers. Nothing is stored on your device at this stage.

Only when you click Accept in the banner do we switch analytics_storage (and the ad-related consent signals) to granted. At that point GA4 sets its analytics cookies and can measure returning visitors and sessions more accurately. Click Decline and we stay in the cookieless mode described above.

Cookies

No analytics cookies are set until you accept. After you accept, GA4 may set the following first-party cookies:

• _ga — distinguishes unique visitors; expires about 13 months after your last visit.
• _ga_<container-id> — persists session state for GA4; expires about 13 months after your last visit.

Your consent choice itself is remembered using a small consent value in your browser's localStorage — that is a preference flag, not a tracking cookie, and it never leaves your device.

Data retention

User- and event-level data in GA4 is retained for approximately 14 months, after which Google deletes it automatically. Aggregate, non-identifying reporting may be kept longer.

Withdrawing or changing consent

You can change your mind at any time:

• Use the Cookie settings link in the site footer to re-open the banner and choose again. Choosing Decline (or re-opening the banner) withdraws consent and drops GA4 back to cookieless mode.
• Clear this site's cookies and site data in your browser to remove the GA4 cookies and reset your stored choice.
• You can also install Google's Analytics opt-out browser add-on to block GA4 everywhere.

Tip submissions

If you send us something through the tip form, the message is handled by Netlify Forms — a built-in service of our host — so we can read and reply to it. Only the fields you fill in are submitted, a hidden honeypot field is used for spam protection, and this is entirely separate from analytics. Please do not include sensitive personal information you would not want stored.

Contact

The data controller for this site can be reached at dannejaha@gmail.com. Email us if you have any question about your data or want a request actioned.