Privacy

This page says what The Query records about visitors and members, in plain language. We built our own tracking so that your data stays with us: there are no ad networks and no third-party analytics on this site.

What we record when you visit

• Which pages you open, how long the tab was visible, and how far you scrolled.
• Which buttons you click.
• Where you arrived from: the page that sent you, if your browser says, and any tags on the link you followed (for example which LinkedIn post it was in).
• Your browser type and your country, worked out from your connection. Our tracking does not keep your IP address. If you log in, the log-in service keeps the IP address of that log-in as a security record.
• To stop anyone flooding the site with requests, we count how many come from one address in a short time. The address is scrambled before it is stored, so the count cannot be traced back to it, and each count is deleted within a day.

The cookies we set

• vid: a random id for this browser, kept for up to 400 days, so that visits on different days are seen as the same browser.
• sid: a random id for the current visit. It ends after 30 quiet minutes.
• consent: your answer to the cookie question, the single word “accepted” or “declined”.
• If you log in, cookies that keep you logged in. These are needed for the site to work.

We do not fingerprint your device. If you clear your cookies or use a private window, we will not recognise you until you log in.

If you are in the EU, the UK, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland

We ask before setting the vid and sid cookies. Until you answer, nothing is stored on your device and no tracking script runs. If you decline, the only thing we store is the consent cookie holding the word “declined”, so that we do not ask you again. Either way our server still counts that a page was opened, with no id attached, so it cannot be tied to you or to your other visits.

In the member area

The course keeps a record of what you do in it, because it could not work otherwise: which steps you have opened, finished or skipped, what you wrote or picked, where you are in a video, the points you have earned, your weekly goal and streak, what you answered when you joined, and any test-out you take. Outside links are opened through our own address, so we know that you opened one and when. We do not see what you do on the other site.

• Notes you write on a lesson are private. Nobody else sees them, and they are in none of our reports.
• A picture you attach to an answer is stored privately and shown only to you, until you choose to share that answer with the community.
• While a video plays in a tab you are looking at, we record play, pause, jumps, speed, and which parts were played. This is our own record; the video host's viewer analytics and cookies are switched off.
• A picture or a file you attach to a post or a reply in the community is stored privately. It is shown, or handed over, only to members who can see that post. We record when a member downloads a file, and never the file's name.
• A message you send another member directly is private: it is read by you and by them. Nobody on our side reads it, with one exception. If either of you reports the conversation, an admin can read that conversation until the report is settled, and each time they do is written down. Our own reports count messages; they never hold what a message says, and neither does the email that tells you one has arrived. If you block a member, they can no longer write to you and are not told.
• Other members can find you in the member directory: your name, the line under it, your level and how many sections you have finished. You can take yourself off it in Settings. What you type into its search box is not sent to us.
• When you finish a section or a course, or reach a new level, we make a page that says so: your name as you gave it, what you finished, and the day. Anyone who has its link can open it without logging in. It is not listed anywhere, its address cannot be guessed, and we ask search engines not to list it, so in practice it is seen by the people you send it to. You can make any of these pages private in Settings, or on the page itself; from then on its link opens for nobody. When someone opens one of your pages we record that it was opened, and if they later join we can tell that they first came by way of it. If you press one of its share buttons, your browser opens LinkedIn with the page's address; what you do there is between you and LinkedIn.
• If you say you are coming to a live session, we record that, and we record when you press Join. The session itself happens on another service, such as Zoom or YouTube, under its own terms. We see nothing of what happens there, and we do not tell it which page of ours you came from.
• We keep the time you were last in the member area, to within an hour. It is how we know you have been away, which is the only thing it is used for.
• If you ask us for help, an admin can look up your account by your email address: what you have, and when you joined. Each time one does is written down.

If you have not accepted cookies: the tracking script does not run in the member area either. Your progress, answers, points and your place in a video are still saved, by our server, because the course cannot work without them. The finer detail (which parts of a video you played, how long a page was open) is not recorded.

When you give us your email

If you join the waitlist, we store the first name and the email address you give us. If you create an account, we store your email address. From then on we connect the browser you used to you, including what that browser did on this site before you signed up. If you open a link in one of our emails on another device, we connect that browser to you too.

The emails we send you

Besides the codes you log in with, members get a welcome when they join, and a reminder the day before and an hour before a live session they said they were coming to. Unless you turn them off, you also get a few nudges: one if you have not taken a first step after two days, one on a Thursday if you are short of your week's goal, and one or two if you have been away a while. Never more than one every two days. Emails about replies, mentions and messages in the community are separate, and each kind has its own switch.

Every email except a log-in code and a session reminder has a link at the bottom that stops that kind, with one press and no log-in, and the same switches are in Settings. A reminder stops when you take your name off the session. We do not record whether you open an email: there is no hidden picture in them. We do record when you press a link in one, and which email it was in.

Who else is involved

• Supabase stores our database and the pictures and files members attach, and handles log-in.
• Mux hosts our lesson videos.
• Vercel hosts the site.
• Resend delivers our emails.
• Cloudflare Turnstile checks that forms are filled in by a person.
• Klipy supplies some of the GIFs shown when a member finishes something, and the GIFs members add to posts and replies. Your browser asks it for the GIF directly, so it learns the address your connection comes from and what kind of browser you use, as any site you load a picture from does. We send it nothing about who you are, no cookie, and not the page you are on. When you search for a GIF to add to a post, the words you type go to it from your browser. They do not come to us, and we do not record them. A post keeps only which GIF it is. If you have not accepted cookies, your browser is never sent to it.
• Other sites that members link to in the community. When a post is saved, our server asks the page it links to for its title and its picture; that request says nothing about you. When that picture, or the still picture of a YouTube, Vimeo or Loom video, is on your screen, your browser loads it from the site it belongs to, so that site learns the address your connection comes from and what kind of browser you use, as any site you load a picture from does. We do not tell it which page of ours you are on. If you have not accepted cookies, your browser is not sent for these pictures: a drawn one is shown in their place. A video itself is loaded from YouTube, Vimeo or Loom only when you press play. From then on that service is showing you its own player, under its own terms, and may set its own cookies. We record that you pressed play and whose player it was, nothing more.

We do not sell your data or share it for advertising.

Your choice

You can turn our visitor cookie off or on here at any time, wherever you are.

Contact

Questions, or want your data removed? Email hello@query.community.