This describes what this website does today, not what it might do under a different configuration. If it changes, the change is made here first and the date at the bottom moves.
Who is responsible
The Noorain Nexus is published by Noorain Fathima in Bengaluru, India, who is the person accountable for the data described here and the grievance contact for the purposes of India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act. The route to reach her is the contact page; there is no published address, because an address on a page is an address in a scraper.
At a glance
The sections below say the same thing in more detail.
| What | Why | Kept for | Who else sees it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your email address, if you subscribe | To send the newsletter you asked for | Until you unsubscribe or ask for deletion | The database host and the mail provider |
| Your name, email and text, if you comment | To publish the comment and reply to it | Until you ask for it to be removed | The database host |
| Your email and message, if you use the contact form | To answer you | Until it is dealt with, and on request after | The database host |
| IP address and browser string, with a comment | Spam and abuse triage | With the comment | The database host |
| A one-way hash of your IP, with a contact message | To stop one source flooding the form | With the message | Nobody |
| A random id in a cookie, if you react to an article | So one browser cannot count a reaction twice | One year, in your browser | Nobody |
| A sign-in cookie, for staff only | To keep an editor signed in | The session | Nobody |
| Request logs at the host | Serving pages, security, abuse prevention | Set by the host's plan | The host |
| Which pages are read, and roughly from where | Google Analytics, to see what gets read | Set on the Analytics property | |
| Advertising and ad profiling | Not used on this site | — | — |
Analytics
This site uses Google Analytics 4 to count visits and see which articles are read. It records the page you are on, roughly where in the world you are, and what kind of device and browser you used. It does not record your name, and you are never asked for one.
Three settings are applied to it, and they are in the site's own code rather than promises made here:
- Your IP address is anonymised before Google stores it.
- Google Signals is off, so your visit is not joined to a Google account.
- Ad personalisation is off, so nothing collected here is used to target advertising at you.
How long Google keeps it is set on the Analytics property itself. Google is a processor of this data; their privacy policy applies to what they hold. If you would rather not be counted, Google publishes a browser opt-out, and any tracker blocker will also stop it.
Cookies
Google Analytics sets its own cookies when you read a page — they are how it tells one visit from another. Everything else here is set only if you do something:
- Google Analytics. Cookies beginning
_ga, used to count visits and sessions. They do not follow you to other websites: advertising signals and ad personalisation are both switched off, described below. - A reaction id. If you react to an article, a random opaque value is stored in a first-party cookie for a year. It identifies a browser rather than a person, is never joined to an email, an account or an IP address, and exists so a count of reactions means distinct browsers rather than one person pressing a button repeatedly.
- A staff sign-in cookie. Set only for signed-in editors using the publishing system, and strictly necessary for that.
No cookie here is used for advertising or for profiling you across other websites.
Server logs
This site is hosted by Vercel, which receives every request in order to answer it. That means your IP address and browser string reach the host whether or not anything else on this page applies to you, and the host keeps its own request logs under its own policy and retention schedule. This is true of every website; it is listed because a privacy policy that omits it is describing an imaginary internet.
Comments
If you leave a comment, the name and text you enter are stored and shown once approved. Your email address is stored but never shown publicly; it is used to moderate and to reply. Your IP address and browser string are stored with the comment for spam and abuse handling and are never shown. Ask and your comment and everything attached to it will be deleted.
Newsletter
If you subscribe, your email address is stored with the date and the page you subscribed from, along with the date anything was last sent to it. It is not sold, shared or passed to anyone beyond what is needed to deliver the email.
Subscribing is confirmed: the address is held inactive and nothing is sent to it until you click a link in a confirmation email, which is what stops anyone signing up somebody else's address. Every dispatch carries an unsubscribe link that works in one click without signing in, and mail clients that offer their own unsubscribe button are told where to send it. Unsubscribing stops everything; ask and the record itself will be deleted.
The contact form
The form stores what you send — the kind of message, your email address and the message itself — so it can be read and answered. It also stores a short, truncated one-way hash of your IP address, used only to stop one source submitting repeatedly. The address itself is not stored, the hash cannot be reversed to recover it, and it is never displayed.
Who else sees any of this
- Vercel hosts the site and processes every request. Vercel's privacy policy.
- Neon hosts the database where subscriptions, comments and contact messages are stored. Neon's privacy policy.
- Google receives the analytics described above — pages read, approximate location, device. Google's privacy policy.
- Resend delivers the newsletter, and therefore handles the address of anyone subscribed to it. Nobody else's data passes through it — the contact form does not send email. Resend's privacy policy.
That is the complete list. Nothing is sold, and nothing is shared for advertising.
Reader accounts
There are none. You do not need an account to read anything here, and none is created for you.
External links and embeds
Articles link to other websites and may embed video. Once you follow a link or play an embedded video, that service applies its own privacy policy rather than this one.
Your rights, and how long a reply takes
You can ask what is held about you, ask for it to be corrected, ask for it to be deleted, or object to it being held at all. Use the contact page. Requests are answered within 30 days, and usually much sooner.
Under India's DPDP Act you may also raise a grievance directly with the person named above, and if it is not resolved, with the Data Protection Board of India.
Children
This site is written for a professional and technical audience and is not directed at children.
Changes
If this policy changes, the updated date at the foot of the page moves and the change is described here. Anything that would collect more than is listed above — advertising being the likeliest example — is written into this page, together with a consent mechanism for readers in the EEA and the UK, before it is switched on rather than after.