web3privacy now

Privacy Policy

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Privacy is central to why Web3Privacy exists. We aim to collect less information, avoid advertising surveillance, and support people’s control over their data. This policy explains the information our services process, why we process it, and the limitations of our current setup.

1. Who is responsible

Web3Privacy collective (“we”, “us”, or “our”) is the unincorporated movement behind Web3Privacy Now, also known as W3PN. It is an informal collective, not an incorporated company or foundation.

Web3Privacy collective acts as the controller for personal data where we determine the purposes and means of processing through our websites and services.

For all privacy questions, requests, objections, and complaints, contact:

web3privacynow@protonmail.com

Dyne.org foundation supports us with receiving donations and payment administration. This arrangement does not make Dyne responsible for operating our websites or controlling our mailing list and community-service data. Its involvement in payments is described below.

2. Scope

This policy applies to web3privacy.info, fundraising.web3privacy.info, and other current or future subdomains of web3privacy.info operated by Web3Privacy collective.

It covers our public websites, documentation, fundraising pages, newsletter registration, community services, and related communications.

The information processed depends on the service you use. Reading a public page, registering for a newsletter, posting on a forum, and using a tool with locally saved preferences involve different processing.

If a service introduces additional processing, we will explain it through an updated policy or a supplementary notice before it begins. This policy does not authorise unspecified future uses of personal data.

Independent platforms linked from our services also have their own privacy notices.

3. Our approach to privacy

We do not sell personal data or use our website analytics to create advertising profiles.

You can browse our ordinary public information pages without subscribing to a newsletter, creating an account, or making a donation.

We do not request sensitive personal information for ordinary browsing or newsletter registration. Please avoid including unnecessary sensitive information in messages, forms, or public contributions. Never send passwords, private keys, or wallet recovery phrases.

Technical information can still be personal data. An IP address, email address, public profile, or blockchain transaction may identify someone or be linked to them. Aggregated statistics do not mean that all underlying processing is anonymous.

Reading this policy or continuing to browse is not consent to processing that requires consent.

4. Hosting, website delivery, and technical records

When you access our services, our infrastructure processes information needed to receive and answer your request. Depending on the service, this includes:

  • Your IP address.
  • The requested page or resource and the time of the request.
  • Browser and operating-system information.
  • Referring-page information, where your browser transmits it.
  • Response codes, errors, and security-related information.

We use this information to deliver content, investigate problems, prevent abuse, and maintain reliable services.

Our main website, self-hosted analytics, and community forum run on a Hostinger server in Frankfurt, Germany. Automated server backups are stored separately in Lithuania. The fundraising website also uses Cloudflare infrastructure. Our documentation website uses GitHub Pages.

Access logging is enabled on parts of our infrastructure, including the main website and analytics endpoint. Other applications and providers maintain their own operational records. Cloudflare may also receive network-error reports from browsers.

We therefore do not claim that visiting our services produces no technical records.

Further information is available in the privacy notices of Hostinger, Cloudflare, and GitHub.

5. Website analytics

We operate a self-hosted installation of Plausible Community Edition at analytics.web3privacy.info.

At the date of this policy, Plausible is enabled on the main website and on the fundraising website.

The main website’s analytics configuration measures:

  • Page views, visits, referral sources, and campaign information.
  • Approximate location and browser, operating-system, and device categories.
  • Active engagement time and scroll depth.
  • Outgoing-link clicks and destination URLs.
  • File downloads and their URLs.
  • Form-submission events and configured page-error events.

The fundraising website’s analytics configuration measures page views, visits, referral sources, and campaign information; approximate location and browser, operating-system, and device categories; outgoing-link clicks and destination URLs; and events in the donation flow, such as opening the donation form and where on the page it was opened, the selected amount, frequency, currency, and payment method, the wallet type and network used, copying a payment address, clicks through to the card-payment page or Giveth, and a shortened error message when a payment attempt fails. It also records partnership enquiries started on the partners page, with the chosen path, tier, and number of selected interests, as well as video plays and share clicks. These events do not include wallet addresses, transaction identifiers, names, or email addresses.

Automatic form measurement records a submission event, not the contents of the form fields. The form itself may separately collect information you provide, such as an email address.

Plausible does not use analytics cookies or persistent visitor identifiers stored in your browser. It processes connection information to derive a daily, site-specific identifier. Event and session records are stored to calculate the aggregated statistics shown in the dashboard.

This approach reduces tracking but does not make every stage of processing anonymous. Server logs are separate from the analytics database. URLs and campaign parameters can also contain identifying information.

Our current tracker configuration does not enable revenue tracking or arbitrary pageview properties. The fundraising events described above carry only the properties listed there. We do not intentionally send newsletter email addresses or form-field contents to Plausible.

Plausible’s data policy explains the software’s general approach. Its statements about managed hosting do not determine the settings of our self-hosted installation.

6. Cookies and storage on your device

Cookie-free analytics does not mean that all our services are free of cookies or browser storage.

Depending on the feature, we use cookies, local storage, session storage, or browser databases for purposes including:

  • Maintaining account sessions and security.
  • Remembering preferences and navigation state.
  • Saving information locally within a tool.
  • Remembering newsletter registration.
  • Preserving fundraising campaign parameters during a browsing session.

The main-site newsletter interface can store the email address you submit in your browser’s local storage. This is separate from the subscription record stored on our server.

The fundraising website uses session storage for campaign parameters. Other tools may store preferences or user-created information locally.

Session storage generally lasts for a browsing session, although browser restoration features may preserve it. Persistent storage can remain until the application removes it or you clear it. Unsubscribing from a newsletter does not automatically clear your browser’s stored information.

Account-based services, including the forum, use cookies or equivalent mechanisms to associate requests with an account and provide their features.

You can inspect, restrict, or delete site storage through your browser settings. Doing so may sign you out or remove locally saved information.

Consent requirements depend on the purpose and applicable law, not merely on whether a technology is called a cookie. This policy does not replace consent where consent is required.

7. Newsletter and communications

When you subscribe through the main website, we store your email address and registration time to maintain the mailing list and provide the updates you requested.

Subscription is optional. Donating, creating a forum account, or contacting the team does not automatically subscribe you.

At the date of this policy, this registration system collects subscriptions in preparation for newsletter mailings. You can withdraw your subscription by contacting web3privacynow@protonmail.com. When sending begins, each newsletter will include an unsubscribe mechanism.

We will not measure whether you open our newsletters or include tracking pixels for that purpose.

The current registration system does not operate subscriber-specific click tracking. Website analytics may nevertheless record visits attributed to a shared newsletter campaign link. This is separate from identifying which subscriber opened an email or clicked a link.

Before introducing a mailing provider or additional subscriber-level measurement, we will explain the processing and obtain consent where required.

Removing an address from the mailing list stops its use for newsletter distribution. A record of the administrative removal may remain in the audit trail, and earlier copies may remain in backups as described below.

If you contact us, we process your email address, message, attachments, and correspondence information to respond and manage the matter you raised. Our privacy contact uses Proton Mail. Ordinary email correspondence is not necessarily end-to-end encrypted throughout its journey.

Forum verification messages, account messages, and notifications are separate from the newsletter. The forum is configured to use Mailgun’s EU email endpoint. Providing these messages involves processing recipient addresses, message contents, and delivery information. See Mailgun’s privacy notice and Sinch’s Data Processing Agreement.

8. Accounts, contributions, forms, and public information

If you create a community account, the relevant service processes account information such as your email address, username, authentication records, and preferences.

Participation may also involve processing profile information, posts, messages, searches, uploaded material, notifications, and moderation records. Account activity and contributions may be associated with IP addresses and technical records.

Public profiles and posts are available to their intended audience and may be indexed, copied, or quoted. Please consider what you disclose about yourself and others. Private messages and restricted features still involve processing by the service and access by authorised administrators where necessary.

Forms collect the information you enter for the purpose explained alongside the form. If you submit a file, we also process the file and relevant metadata to provide the requested feature.

Our websites publish information about contributors, speakers, projects, and events. This may include names or pseudonyms, biographies, affiliations, photographs, and profile links. Sources include the people concerned, event organisers, submissions, public repositories, and public profiles.

We use this information to explain our work, present projects, and document community activities. Public availability does not remove data-protection rights. Contact us to request a correction, object to a publication, or ask about removal.

9. Donations and payments

Our card-payment links use payment facilities involving Dyne.org foundation and Stripe.

Dyne.org foundation is a Dutch foundation with its published address at Haparandadam 7-A1, 1013AK Amsterdam, Netherlands, and KvK registration number 34237525.

The organisations handling a payment may process donor contact details, payment information, transaction records, and information needed for security, fraud prevention, accounting, or legal compliance.

Under our current arrangement, Web3Privacy collective receives financial summaries from Dyne rather than individual donor names, email addresses, or full card details. If you contact us about a donation, we also process the information you provide in that correspondence.

See Dyne’s privacy policy and Stripe’s privacy policy for their respective processing.

For cryptocurrency donations, privacy depends on the network and transaction type. Wallet addresses, amounts, timestamps, and transaction identifiers may be publicly visible and linkable to other activity.

We process transaction information needed to verify contributions and calculate fundraising totals. A wallet address is not necessarily anonymous. We cannot erase transactions from a decentralised blockchain or guarantee anonymity for a cryptocurrency donation.

10. External resources and services

Some pages load resources from external providers, including fonts, images, video thumbnails, videos, maps, project information, and cryptocurrency prices.

A direct request from your browser to another provider discloses your IP address and technical request information. It may also disclose referrer information or allow that provider to recognise an existing session.

Some external resources currently load when a page is displayed, before you click the associated content. A privacy-enhanced video player does not mean that no information reaches the provider.

Relevant providers include:

ProviderUsePrivacy information
Google and YouTubeFonts, images, videos, and maps on relevant pagesGoogle Privacy Policy
GitHubDocumentation hosting, repositories, and public project or profile informationGitHub Privacy Statement
CoinGeckoCryptocurrency price information; some pages request it directly from your browserCoinGecko Privacy Policy
TallyLinked forms for relevant enquiries or submissionsTally Privacy Policy

A link to another provider’s policy does not transfer responsibility for our integration choices or replace any consent required for that integration.

12. Recipients and international processing

Information may be accessed by collective members and technical administrators who need it for the relevant activity, and by providers involved in hosting, communications, payments, forms, or other services described above.

Providers may act as processors on our instructions or as independent controllers for particular purposes. For example, payment providers have their own compliance responsibilities.

We may disclose information where a binding legal requirement applies or where disclosure is necessary and lawful to address abuse or protect legal rights.

Our principal Hostinger server is in Germany, and its automated server backups are in Lithuania. Both are within the European Economic Area. This does not mean all processing remains within the EEA: provider support, subcontractors, global delivery networks, email services, and external content can involve other countries.

The relevant international-processing arrangements include:

  • Hostinger: its Data Processing Addendum covers VPS services and provides for Standard Contractual Clauses for applicable transfers to countries without an adequacy decision.
  • Cloudflare: its Data Processing Addendum forms part of its standard service terms. It provides for transfers covered by the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and Standard Contractual Clauses for restricted transfers, as applicable.
  • Proton Mail: its privacy policy identifies server locations in Switzerland, Germany, and Norway. Switzerland benefits from an EU adequacy decision.
  • GitHub: its privacy statement describes international processing and its use of Standard Contractual Clauses and the Data Privacy Framework.
  • Mailgun/Sinch: the forum uses the EU email endpoint. The provider’s Data Processing Agreement describes contractual safeguards for international transfers. An EU endpoint alone is not a guarantee against all access or processing outside the EEA.

Payment and external-content providers describe their processing locations and transfer arrangements in the policies linked above.

The linked documents provide information about these safeguards. You can also contact us to request information or a copy of safeguards relevant to your data, subject to necessary redactions.

Public information you publish through our services can be accessed worldwide. Public blockchain transactions are distributed according to the operation of the relevant network.

13. Retention and deletion

There is no single retention period for all information. Retention depends on the purpose, the system involved, any outstanding request or dispute, and applicable legal requirements.

Newsletter records. We keep your subscription while it remains active. On withdrawal, your address is removed from the active mailing list. Administrative records concerning that removal and backup copies are separate from the active list and are not used to resume newsletter delivery.

Correspondence and form submissions. Retention depends on whether the enquiry, contribution, or collaboration remains active, whether follow-up is needed, and whether records are necessary for an applicable obligation or legal claim. These records do not all have an automatic expiry date.

Accounts and public contributions. Account information is retained to operate the account and related community features. Public contributions may remain as part of a discussion or project history. Closing an account and removing contributions are separate actions; requests are assessed in light of your rights, other people’s rights, and applicable legal exceptions.

Operational logs. The main web server is configured to rotate non-empty access and error logs daily and retain fourteen rotated files. This describes the rotation mechanism rather than a guaranteed fourteen-day deletion deadline for every record. Application logs, incident records, and provider records are separate.

Forum records. The forum is configured to clean up its email-delivery logs after ninety days. Its search-log retention setting is up to 365 days, with an additional size limit that may remove records sooner. These settings do not apply to account information, posts, or all security records.

Analytics. Historical event and session records are retained for traffic comparisons and assessment of our resources and campaigns. The current self-hosted installation does not automatically delete these records after a fixed number of months. Changing the daily visitor identifier does not delete historical records. Continued retention remains subject to necessity, applicable law, and requests we can associate with the relevant data.

Administrative audit records. Administrative actions, including mailing-list removals, can be recorded for accountability and security. These records currently have no automatic expiry setting. They are separate from the newsletter distribution list and may need to be addressed separately when handling an erasure request.

Automated backups. Hostinger currently provides weekly server backups, retaining the two most recent weekly restore points and replacing the oldest as new backups are created. The forum also creates its own weekly application backups and is configured to retain five copies. These are separate backup cycles. See Hostinger’s backup documentation.

Other recovery copies. Deployment and recovery copies may exist outside those automated cycles. They do not all have a uniform automatic expiry period. Removing information from a live application therefore does not necessarily remove every earlier copy immediately. Erasure requests must take account of these copies as well as live records. Restoring a backup does not cancel a previously fulfilled erasure request.

Browser storage. Locally stored information remains according to the browser and application behaviour described above. You can remove it through your browser’s site-data controls.

Payment and blockchain records. Independent payment providers retain records according to their own responsibilities and legal requirements. Blockchain records may remain indefinitely and cannot be deleted by us.

The absence of automatic deletion does not remove our obligations to limit retention and address applicable rights. Contact us if you want information about a particular record or wish to request its deletion.

14. Your rights and choices

Depending on applicable law and the circumstances, you may:

  • Request access to your personal data and a copy of it.
  • Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information.
  • Request erasure or restriction of processing.
  • Object to processing based on legitimate interests.
  • Receive portable data where the right to portability applies.
  • Withdraw consent without affecting processing lawfully carried out before withdrawal.
  • Object to direct marketing at any time.

Send requests to web3privacynow@protonmail.com.

Under the GDPR, we must respond without undue delay and normally within one month. Where necessary because of complexity or the number of requests, this can be extended by up to two further months; we must explain the extension within the first month. Requests are normally free.

We may ask for proportionate information to verify identity. If we cannot identify records as relating to you, we will explain the limitation. We do not need to collect additional identifying information solely to make otherwise unidentifiable records identifiable.

You may complain directly to a competent supervisory authority, including where you live, work, or believe an infringement occurred. You do not have to contact us first. See the EDPB directory of authorities and its guidance on individual rights.

15. Security and automated decisions

We use measures intended to protect information, including encrypted website connections and access controls. No internet service can guarantee absolute security or anonymity.

We do not use the processing described in this policy to make solely automated decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects on individuals. Technical controls may automatically limit requests or flag activity for security or moderation.

16. Changes and contact

We will update this policy when our practices change and show the revision date above. Material changes will be communicated through an appropriate channel, including the affected service.

Where a new purpose requires additional information or consent, changing this policy alone is insufficient. The necessary information or consent must be provided before that processing begins.

For all privacy matters concerning Web3Privacy collective:

web3privacynow@protonmail.com