Privacy Policy

This page explains what happens to your information when you visit The Economic Blindspot. The short version: this site sells nothing, runs no advertising, requires no account, and sets no tracking cookies. What little information exists is aggregate traffic data plus whatever you choose to send by email or through the question form.

Who runs this site

The Economic Blindspot is a personal financial education publication written and operated by Zachary Schwartz. It is not a company and there is no team behind it. Anything on this page can be raised at theeconomicblindspot@gmail.com.

What is collected automatically

No website can be delivered without some basic technical information. This site is hosted on Cloudflare Pages. When you load a page, Cloudflare receives your IP address, your browser's user agent string, and the time and path of the request, and uses them to serve the page and to block attacks and abusive traffic. I do not have access to a log of individual visitors and I make no attempt to identify anyone from it.

If you type the address without the www, your request passes through Netlify first, which redirects you to the main address. Netlify receives the same basic request information while doing so.

Analytics

This site uses GoatCounter, a privacy focused analytics tool, to count traffic. GoatCounter sets no cookies, does not fingerprint your browser, and does not store IP addresses or any other personal data. What it records is aggregate: how many times a page was viewed, roughly which country a visit came from, which site linked here, and how many people clicked an e-book download or an article link. None of it is tied to a name, an account, or an individual person, and none of it follows you to other websites.

The purpose is narrow. It tells me which explainers people actually read, so I know what to write next.

What is stored in your browser

This site sets no cookies. It stores one item in your browser's session storage, named eb-disclaimer-ack-v1, which records that you dismissed the notice saying this site is educational and not financial advice. It exists so that notice does not reappear on every page. It holds no personal information, it is never sent to a server, and your browser clears it automatically when you close the tab.

Information you choose to send

The "Send a question" form is a Google Form. Anything you type into it, including your name or email address if you choose to provide one, goes to Google and then to me, and is used only to read and answer your question. Google's handling of that data is governed by Google's own privacy policy.

If you email me directly, I receive whatever your email contains, the same as any other email, and I use it to reply and nothing else.

You are never required to give a name, an email address, or any other detail to read anything here. Downloading an e-book does not ask for an email address.

What this site does not do

• Your information is never sold, rented, or traded.
• There is no advertising and there are no ad tracking networks.
• No profiles are built on individual readers.
• You cannot be added to a mailing list without asking to be.
• Nothing is shared with anyone beyond the service providers named on this page, and only to the extent they need it to do their job.

Third party services and embeds

Some pages embed content from Instagram. When an embed loads, Instagram can see that your browser requested it, and Meta may set its own cookies under its own policies. Links to Medium and LinkedIn are ordinary links, and those services learn about you only once you click.

Articles from Medium are fetched by this site's own server rather than by your browser, so reading the articles page tells Medium nothing about you. Medium sees you only if you click through to read the full piece.

How long information is kept

GoatCounter keeps aggregate counts indefinitely, since they contain nothing personal. Technical logs held by Cloudflare and Netlify are retained on their own schedules, which are short and outside my control. Question form responses and emails stay in the relevant Google account until they are no longer needed.

Your choices and controls

You can block the analytics script with any content blocker and the site will work exactly the same. You can browse with JavaScript turned off, in which case no analytics run at all, though the article and e-book listings will not load. You can clear session storage at any time through your browser settings.

Because this site does not track individuals across websites, there is nothing to opt out of in the sense that Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals are meant to address. There is no cross site advertising, no sharing with data brokers, and no sale of personal information.

If you have sent a question or an email and you want it deleted, ask and it will be deleted.

Security

This site is served only over HTTPS, with HTTP Strict Transport Security enabled, so traffic between your browser and the site is encrypted. The site is static, which means there is no reader database to breach, no login, and no stored passwords. No system is perfectly secure, but there is very little here to lose.

Where information is processed

The providers named on this page, being Cloudflare, Netlify, Google, GoatCounter, and Meta, operate internationally. Information they handle may be processed on servers outside your own country, including in the United States.

Changes to this policy

If the way this site handles information changes, this page will be updated and the date at the top will change with it. Meaningful changes will be described here rather than made quietly.

Contact

Questions, corrections, and deletion requests can go to theeconomicblindspot@gmail.com or through the contact page.