The small print

Privacy & analytics

This site is operated by Markus Waas from New Zealand. This notice covers readership analytics and comments. Updated 14 September 2026.

Your analytics choice

Google Analytics uses cookies to measure which pages people read, visits, engagement, device/browser information and approximate location. Google receives your IP address and uses it for location and service operations such as spam detection. Google says raw IP addresses are discarded after use. See its IP address guidance.

Analytics starts automatically for visitors identified in New Zealand, Australia and the United States, unless they have opted out. Elsewhere, or when location is unavailable, it waits for opt-in. Country detection happens on our hosting provider Netlify; we do not send your IP address to a separate geolocation service.

We respect saved opt-outs, Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track. You can change your preference here or through “Privacy & analytics” in the footer. Browser privacy signals take precedence.

What is shared and stored

Google receives analytics data when analytics is enabled. Our integration disables Google Signals, advertising personalization and advertising consent. It does not send names, email addresses or wallet addresses as analytics fields. Arbitrary URL query parameters and fragments are excluded; campaign labels may be retained, so they should never contain personal information.

The first-party _ga and _ga_* cookies distinguish visitors and sessions and can last up to two years, with their expiry renewed by visits. Your explicit preference is stored in this browser’s local storage until you change it or clear site data. Automatic regional eligibility is not saved as consent. Disabling analytics removes this site’s GA cookies. This preferences page does not load GA.

Google and Netlify may process information outside New Zealand. See how Google uses information from sites using its services, Google’s privacy policy and Netlify’s privacy policy. Hosting also involves operational requests and logs needed to deliver and secure the website.

Comments

Disqus loads only after you press “Load comments”. That connects your browser to Disqus, which processes information and may use cookies under its own privacy policy. Your analytics choice does not automatically load comments. Existing comments remain with Disqus.

Questions or access requests

You can ask about information held about you, or request access or correction, through the contact page. For New Zealand privacy concerns, you can also contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.