Privacy Policy

SummaryMaps Journal ("we", "us", or "the Journal") is a small editorial site that publishes essays about mindmaps, education, books, and new releases. We collect the minimum amount of data needed to run the site, send our newsletter, and understand how readers find us. This page explains exactly what is collected, why, and how to remove it.

What we collect

Newsletter subscribers. When you submit the newsletter form, we store your email address and the date you subscribed. That's it. We do not collect your name, location, or any other personal details.

Analytics. We use Google Analytics 4 to understand which essays readers enjoy and where our traffic comes from. Google may set cookies and collect data such as your approximate location (from IP), device type, browser, referring URL, and pages viewed. Google Analytics anonymizes IPs by default.

Advertising. We display ads via Google AdSense to help cover hosting and email costs. AdSense and its partners may use cookies and device identifiers to serve more relevant ads. You can review Google's ad practices and opt out at policies.google.com/technologies/ads.

Server logs. Like every website, our servers receive standard request data (IP address, user-agent, timestamp) when you visit a page. These logs are kept short-term for security and debugging.

We do not collect. Names, addresses, phone numbers, payment information, or any sensitive categories of data. We have no user accounts for readers.

How we use it

• To send you the weekly newsletter if you subscribed.
• To understand which essays resonate and improve the editorial mix.
• To serve ads that keep the journal free.
• To detect and prevent abuse (spam, scraping, etc.).

We do not sell your data. We do not share it with third parties except the service providers below.

Third-party services

• Resend — delivers our newsletter emails. Your email address and the message content are processed by Resend on our behalf. See Resend's privacy policy.
• Google Analytics & Google AdSense — analytics and advertising. See Google's privacy policy.
• Cloudflare — DNS and traffic protection. Standard server logs only.
• MongoDB Atlas — stores our articles and subscriber list.

Cookies

We do not set cookies of our own beyond what's needed to make the site work. Google Analytics and AdSense set their own cookies as described above. Most browsers let you block or delete cookies from settings; doing so will not break the site, but may affect ad relevance and our analytics.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can:

• Unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time — every email contains a one-click unsubscribe link, or you can email us (below) and we'll remove you within 48 hours.
• Request a copy of any data we hold about you.
• Request deletion of your email and any associated records.

If you are in the EU/UK, you have additional rights under GDPR. If you are in California, you have additional rights under the CCPA. To exercise any of these, email privacy@summarymapsjournal.com.

Data retention

Newsletter subscriber emails are kept until you unsubscribe or request deletion. Analytics data is kept for 14 months per our Google Analytics configuration. Server logs are kept for up to 30 days.

Children

The Journal is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect data from them. If you believe a child has subscribed, contact us and we will delete the record.

Security

We take reasonable measures to protect the data we hold (encrypted connections, principle of least access, modern hosting). No online service can guarantee perfect security; if a breach affecting reader data ever occurs, we will notify affected subscribers promptly.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, we update the "Last updated" date at the top. Material changes will be announced at the top of the newsletter.

Contact

Questions, requests, or concerns? Email privacy@summarymapsjournal.com. We read every message.