Privacy policy

This policy explains what happens to information when you visit Timeless Ticks. It is written to be read rather than survived, and it is short because there is very little to describe.

Last updated: September 4, 2026.

The short version

• The site asks you for no personal data. There is no account, no signup, no comment box and no contact form.
• The site sets no cookies of its own, and keeps nothing about you in your browser.
• Search runs entirely in your browser. Your browser downloads one index file and matches your words on your own device.
• Where the site uses a third-party service, starting with the company that hosts these pages, that service handles your request under its own privacy policy rather than this one, and what it can store on your device is something you can control through your browser and device settings.
• The only personal data we handle ourselves is what a web server has to handle to deliver a page to you, plus anything you choose to put in an email to us.
• We do not sell personal data, and we have nothing to profile you with.

Who is responsible

Timeless Ticks is the publisher responsible for the handling of information described here, and is what data protection law in some countries calls the controller of it. It is an independently owned publication rather than a division of a larger group, and who owns and funds it is set out on the ownership and funding page. Readers anywhere in the world are welcome and nothing here is restricted by country.

For any question about this policy, or to exercise any of the rights below, write to editors@timelessticks.com with "Privacy" in the subject line, or use the contact page. That address reaches the person responsible for the site, not a queue. There is no privacy department, no ticketing system and no vendor answering on our behalf, and we would rather say that plainly than imply a compliance apparatus we do not have.

What we collect directly

Nothing you type, unless you email us. There is no login, no newsletter signup, no comment box and no contact form. Nothing on this site posts what you type to a server for processing.

Search, stated precisely. The matching happens on your device. Your browser downloads one index file and searches it locally, and the words you type are not sent to us.

That is true of the header search box as well as the search page, and it takes a little explaining. Submitting either box does not make a request carrying your words. Instead the site sends you to /search/#q=your+words, and the part of an address after the # is a fragment, which browsers keep to themselves: it is not included in the request line, it is not sent to the server, and it therefore cannot appear in the server logs described in the next section. We built it this way deliberately, because a search box that quietly writes what you typed into a log file is not a search box that respects you.

There is one exception, and we would rather tell you than let you find it. If you browse with JavaScript blocked, the boxes fall back to being ordinary HTML forms, which is what keeps the site usable without scripting at all. In that case submitting one does load /search/?q=your+words, and those words do appear in the server logs like any other page address. If that matters to you, the search page lists every guide and every glossary entry in full, so you can browse to what you want without typing anything.

If you email us, we hold your message and address for as long as we need to deal with it and to keep a record of any correction it produced, and no longer than is reasonable after that. We do not add you to anything.

What is collected automatically

Server logs. The hosting infrastructure records ordinary technical information for each request: the IP address, the time, the page requested, the response status, the referring page and the browser user-agent string. This is the unavoidable mechanics of delivering a web page, and it exists for security, abuse prevention and diagnosing faults. An IP address counts as personal data under the privacy laws of several countries, which is why we name it rather than filing it under "technical data". We do not use these logs to build profiles and we do not combine them with anything else.

Cookies and third-party services

This site sets no cookies of its own. There is no account, no basket, no preference to remember and no measurement product of ours, so there is nothing for us to store. You should not need a consent banner to read a reference article.

Third-party services are a separate question, and an honest policy has to leave room for them. These pages are static files, but they are served by a hosting company, and a site like this one may over time use other outside services for delivery, for security or for counting readers. Any service like that handles your request under its own privacy policy rather than under ours, and it may be able to set a cookie or read other information from your browser. Where we add one, we will name it and link to its policy on the cookies page, and this page will say so as well.

What you can do about it. Cookies, local storage and similar identifiers are ultimately under your control rather than ours. Your browser can block them, clear them, or refuse them for a single site, and browser and device settings offer tracking protection, private browsing and system-level privacy controls that apply to any site you visit, including this one. You do not have to take our word for what runs here either: open your browser's site data panel or network inspector on any page and check for yourself.

The cookies page keeps the current list, and explains the few things people sometimes mistake for tracking, such as the browser's own file cache.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us what personal data we hold about you, ask us to correct it, and ask us to delete it. We do not check where you live before answering. Some places give you a specific and enforceable set of rights: several United States states, the European Union and the United Kingdom among them, covering access, correction, deletion, portability, and the right to object to processing or to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal data. We do not sell or share personal data, and we answer requests from everyone the same way whether or not the law where you are obliges us to. You also have the right not to be treated worse for asking.

We hold what is described above for two reasons and no others: to run the site securely and to answer people who write to us. We do not profile readers and we make no automated decisions about you.

To make a request, email editors@timelessticks.com with "Privacy" in the subject line, or write through the contact page. We aim to reply quickly and in any case within one month. We will not ask you to create an account or hand over identity documents, because we hold nothing to match them against, and the honest answer to most requests is that we hold nothing about you at all beyond, at most, a line in a server log.

Complaints. If you think we have handled your data or your request badly, tell us first, because it is usually quicker. Depending on where you live you may also be able to complain to a regulator: in the United States that is generally your state attorney general, and in the European Union or the United Kingdom it is the data protection authority for your country. Coming to us first is not a condition of doing that.

Data retention

Server logs are kept only as long as the hosting infrastructure keeps them for operational and security purposes, which is a short period measured in weeks rather than years. Correspondence is kept for as long as it is useful for the matter it concerns and for any resulting correction record.

Where data is handled

The site is served from hosting infrastructure that may answer requests from more than one country, so a request from you may be handled outside the country you are in. The data involved is a line in a server log. We do not ask where you are, we do not treat readers differently by location, and we do not hand personal data to anyone else for their own purposes.

Security

The site is served over HTTPS. It is a static site, which means there is no database of readers, no login system and no user-submitted content, and therefore very little to breach. That is a design decision rather than an accident.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes materially, the date at the top will change and the change will be described here. Adding any outside service that can set a cookie or collect information about you counts as material, and it will be written down here and on the cookies page.

Related

See the cookies page for the specifics on cookies and local storage, and the terms of use for the rules that apply to the content itself.