Privacy
What ARNK collects, why, and who else sees it.
Last updated .
Questions and requests about your data go to hello@arnk.net.
Reading
Everything on this site can be read without an account.
Most posts link out to a source, and the link is just a link. The exception is a post whose source is a post on X or on Reddit: there we embed that site's own card, which loads from X or from Reddit and is subject to their policy rather than this one. It appears on no other page, and only on a post that links to one of them.
The Cookies section below is the whole list of cookies this site can set, ours and otherwise, and what each one does.
The site is served by Cloudflare, which processes the standard information a web server needs to serve a page and absorb attacks: your IP address, your browser's user agent, and the URL you requested. We do not build profiles from this information and we do not keep our own copy of it.
Cookies
Every cookie this site can set, and what each is for. There are no others.
Ours all begin arnk., so you can tell them apart in your browser's list.
| Cookie | Set by | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
arnk.theme |
ARNK | Set only when you choose light or dark, so the site opens that way next time. Holds no identifier and is not used for tracking. Clearing it returns the site to matching your operating system. |
arnk.consent |
ARNK | Set when you answer the cookie question, which the site asks in the EU, the EEA and the UK, and remembers your answer for thirty days. Holds the answer and nothing else. |
arnk.session |
ARNK | Set when you sign in, and keeps you signed in for thirty days after you last used the site. Carries no personal information and is signed so it cannot be forged. |
arnk.analytics |
PostHog, for ARNK | Recognizes a returning browser, so one reader coming back twice is not counted as two. In the EU, the EEA and the UK it is set only after you allow measurement. What is and is not measured is under Measurement; the data is held in the United States. |
| X's own | X | Set by X when their card loads, and only on a post whose source is a post on X. It is X's cookie, not ours: we neither read it nor receive anything from it, and what X does with it is governed by their policy. |
| Reddit's own | Set by Reddit when their card loads, and only on a post whose source is a post on Reddit. The same arrangement as X's: their cookie, not ours, and governed by their policy. |
In the EU, the EEA and the UK the site asks before it measures. A visitor from one of those countries sees a question at the foot of the page, with Accept and Reject side by side, and nothing is measured until it is answered. The answer is kept for thirty days and then the site asks again; to be asked sooner, clear this site's cookies. Signed in, Settings shows what this browser answered. Elsewhere the site measures without asking, as the law there allows, and this page says what that means.
Clearing your cookies clears all of them. Blocking the third-party ones costs you nothing on this site: measurement stops, X's and Reddit's cards fall back to a plain link, and everything else works as it did.
Measurement
We measure how the site is used, through PostHog. This section is the whole of what that means, and it is deliberately short enough to check.
What is recorded: the pages you open, and a small, fixed list of actions: using search, clicking a headline through to the source, clicking a sponsor's link, starting a sponsorship enquiry, voting, sending a comment, sending a submission, and starting and finishing a sign-in. Each one records what it needs and nothing more.
What is not recorded, anywhere: what you typed into the search box (we record how long it was, not what it said), or what you wrote in a comment or a submission. There is no session recording, so nothing plays back what you did on a page. There is no heatmap, no scroll tracking, no click tracking beyond the named actions above, and no advertising or retargeting pixel. We do not track you across other websites, and the data is never sold, shared with advertisers, or used to target anyone.
Links in the brief email carry tags in the address (utm_source=arnk-brief
and two more), so a visit that came from the email is counted as one. The tags
name the brief, not you.
If you are signed in, the events above are associated with your account by its internal identifier and your handle, so we can see that the same reader came back and which reader it was. The identifier is a random string, and the handle is the name you chose, which is already public on your profile page. Signed out, you are counted as an anonymous visitor with no profile attached.
Accounts
An account is required only to submit a post, vote, comment, or get the brief by email.
When you sign in with a provider (Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, or Apple), we receive and store your name, email address, and avatar URL from that provider. We request nothing else, and we never receive your password.
If you sign in with an email link instead, we store your email address.
You then choose a handle, which is your public identity on the site, and may add a bio. Both are visible to anyone.
The brief by email
The brief is the weekly roundup, sent on Friday mornings to readers who subscribe from their account. It goes to the email address on your account, and you can stop it at any time: the unsubscribe link at the foot of every brief works without signing in, your mail app's own Unsubscribe button does the same, and so does Settings.
For each brief we send, we record whether it was delivered, opened, or bounced, and which links in it were clicked. Opens are approximate: they are counted from an image loading, which some mail apps do on your behalf and others block. We use these to see whether the brief is worth reading and which notes readers wanted, which shapes the next one. They are not shared with anyone, sponsors included.
If mail to your address bounces permanently, or the brief is reported as spam, we stop sending it, and Settings will say so.
Public content
Posts, comments, and profiles are published on the open web and are indexed by search engines. Votes are private: we record that you voted so a vote cannot be cast twice, and how you voted is not shown to anyone.
Farmed aura points are calculated from votes on your posts and comments at the time your profile is viewed; they are not stored.
Submissions are reviewed by a moderator before they appear.
Processors
- Cloudflare: hosting, the database, and image storage.
- PostHog: product analytics, as described under Measurement. Data is processed on their US cloud.
- Resend: delivers sign-in email and the brief, and processes your email address to do it. It reports back what happened to each message, as described under The brief by email.
- Your sign-in provider (Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, or Apple): confirms your identity to us. We send them no information about what you read.
- X: only on a post whose source is a post on X, where their embed loads from X and they therefore see the request. We ask them not to tailor from it and we receive nothing back, but the request is theirs and so is what follows from it.
- Reddit: only on a post whose source is a post on Reddit, where their embed loads from Reddit and they therefore see the request, including the address of the page it was on. Reddit offers no way to ask them not to tailor from it, so we make no such claim. We receive nothing back.
We do not sell personal data, share it with advertisers, or run an ad network. Sponsorship on this site is a single weekly sponsor, sold directly and shown identically to every reader. A sponsor receives no information about you and cannot target you.
Retention and deletion
Account data is kept while the account exists. A session ends thirty days after you last used the site, or when you sign out.
To delete your account, write to hello@arnk.net. We will delete the account, its profile, its votes, and its subscription to the brief, along with the delivery record of every brief sent to it. Comments and posts that are part of a public conversation are anonymized rather than removed, so that replies to them remain intelligible: the text stays and your name is removed from it. To request that something you wrote be removed entirely, include it in your message and we will review it.
You may also request a copy of the data we hold about you, or ask us to correct it. Requests are handled by email and may take a few days.
Children
This site is a trade publication for people who work in the travel industry and is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child; if you believe a child has provided us with personal information, write to hello@arnk.net and we will delete it.
Changes
When this page changes, the date at the top changes with it. A material change to what we collect will be announced on the site, not only recorded here.
Contact
hello@arnk.net, for anything on this page, including requests about your own data.