Privacy

What we measure

We use Google Analytics 4, loaded with Google's standard analytics tag. It tells us which pages people find useful and where the site is confusing, which is how we decide what to publish next. Analytics and the newsletter service described below are the only third-party layers on the site today. Analytics loads lazily, after the page is usable, so it stays out of the way. If it isn't configured, or a tracker blocker stops it, it quietly does nothing and every page works the same.

Here is the whole list of what we record. Which page you opened. Which section, topic cluster, format and stage of the reading journey that page belongs to, so we can see which subjects earn attention rather than which individual URLs do. Which link you followed to move on, described by the part of the page it sat in (the reading rail, the body text, the navigation) and by the page it pointed at. How far down a long piece you reached, measured by named landmarks such as reaching the sources list, not by a scroll percentage. Whether you used one of the calculators, and if so whether you ran it, how many times, and whether you exported the result. Which file you downloaded, if you downloaded one of our datasets. Whether you switched the light or dark theme.

Google adds its own standard measurements on top: your device type, browser and screen size, whether you scrolled to the bottom, and whether you clicked a link that leaves the site. It estimates a rough region (country or area) from the IP address your browser sends with any web request, which Google then discards; we do not see your raw IP. It also keeps a repeat-visit count, so the same browser isn't recorded as a brand-new visitor on every page.

We never record anything you type, with one exception you control: the newsletter form sends the email address you typed, and only when you press Subscribe. The calculators run entirely in your browser, your numbers are never sent anywhere, and the analytics layer drops any value that isn't on a short fixed list of things we are allowed to send. That list holds page paths, section names and tool names. It holds no free text and no search terms.

Today's analytics does not include your name, email, or an account identifier, and it does not include advertising identifiers or cross-site tracking data. We do not sell your data to anyone, and there are no advertising or social trackers on the site. If what we measure ever changes, we update this page first.

Newsletter signup (Buttondown)

The site has one form that sends data anywhere: the newsletter signup. (The calculators are forms too, but they submit nothing.) If you type your email address and press Subscribe, that address is sent to Buttondown, the service that hosts the LatentEval newsletter. The address carries a short tag naming which part of the site the form was on. That is the only time the form sends anything.

• Nothing until you submit. The form runs no JavaScript and records nothing as you type.
• Double opt-in. Buttondown emails you a confirmation link first; you are not subscribed until you click it.
• What Buttondown keeps. Along with your address, Buttondown records the signup time, the IP address the signup came from, and the referring site (the site's address only, never the page you were on), as its proof that you opted in. There is no setting that turns this off; it is how the service documents consent.
• No email tracking. Open tracking and click tracking are turned off for the newsletter.
• Leave anytime. Every newsletter email has an unsubscribe link, and you can ask us to delete your address entirely; the about page has the address to write to.

Why there is no cookie banner

We would rather explain what we do than make you click a box about it. A banner is worth showing when a site sells your attention to advertisers. This one doesn't, so we have turned that machinery off at the source instead.

Google's advertising signals are switched off in our configuration, so nothing here feeds remarketing lists or ad audiences. There is no cross-site or cross-device tracking, and no attempt to recognize you anywhere else on the web. Your IP address is used once to guess a country and is then discarded by Google rather than stored. Our measurement data is kept for fourteen months and then deleted.

If you would rather not be counted at all, blocking analytics for this site in a content blocker works, and so does adding ?analytics=off to the end of any page address on this site, which switches measurement off in that browser until you visit a page with ?analytics=on. Nothing on the site behaves differently either way.

Accounts and payments

If LatentEval ever adds a feature that needs an account, a sign-in, or a payment, or that collects more than this page describes, we update this page first, before it ships, to explain plainly what it would store and why. We do not quietly expand what we collect without saying so here.

Cookies

We don't set first-party cookies that identify you, and there are no advertising or social-tracking cookies on the site. The only cookies that may appear are the ones Google Analytics sets, and only when analytics actually loads.

If you'd rather refuse them, you can block cookies for this site in your browser settings, use a content blocker, or turn on your browser's tracking-protection setting. The site keeps working either way, because none of the research ever depended on analytics.

Questions

If something here is unclear, the about page explains who publishes LatentEval, and the methodology page shows how the research is produced and what it's based on. For how to read a finding and the uncertainty behind it, see the disclaimer. Every page we publish is listed on the site map.