Last updated October 13, 2026. This page covers www.orbitalrecord.com and the newsletter. Questions or requests: privacy@orbitalrecord.com.
Our own statistics (no cookies)
To know which pages are read and where readers come from, the site sends small first-party measurements to our own server. They contain no cookies, no identifiers stored on your device and no personal data. For each page view we record:
- the page path and title, the referring site and any utm tags in the link you followed;
- screen width, browser language, and the browser, operating system and device type derived from the user agent;
- country, region and city, derived from your IP address by our host at the moment of the request (the IP address itself is not stored);
- how long the page was visible and how far you scrolled;
- a few interactions: clicks on links to other sites (for example to a paper on arXiv or doi.org), video plays, Slingshot launches and completed levels, use of the newsletter form, copied chart citations, RSS clicks and pages that were not found.
To count visits without cookies we compute a one-way hash of your IP address and user agent together with a random value that changes every day and is then deleted. The result cannot be turned back into an IP address and cannot link your visits across days. If your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control, we do not compute it at all and only count the page view. Automated traffic is filtered out.
Why: to improve the content and the site (our legitimate interest). Retention: raw measurements are deleted after 13 months; daily totals, which describe no individual, are kept.
Microsoft Clarity (only with your consent)
If you choose Accept in the banner, the site loads Microsoft Clarity, a behavioral analytics service. Clarity records how pages are used, including clicks, scrolling and mouse movement, and can replay sessions with text in forms masked, so we can find confusing or broken parts of pages. Clarity sets cookies, among them _clck (up to one year) and _clsk (one day), and Microsoft may set its own, such as MUID. Microsoft processes this data under the Microsoft Privacy Statement. If you choose Reject, Clarity is not loaded. You can change your choice at any time with (also in the footer); withdrawing consent tells Clarity to delete its cookies.
Your choice is stored in your browser's local storage (or-consent) so we do not ask again on every page.
Newsletter
When you subscribe we store your email address, the form and page you used, the referring site, the country derived from your IP address, and the time. When the cookieless statistics above can match your visit, we also note which channel brought you (for example search or a newsletter link). We use this only to send the newsletter and understand which pages lead to sign-ups. The newsletter is sent with beehiiv, which processes your address on our behalf and, like most email services, measures opens and clicks. A backup copy of the sign-up is kept in our hosting provider's private storage. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe link. To have your address and sign-up details deleted everywhere, write to privacy@orbitalrecord.com.
Hosting and embedded content
The site is hosted by Vercel, which processes IP addresses and request data to deliver pages and protect the service. Videos are shown as still images; YouTube (privacy-enhanced mode, youtube-nocookie.com) is contacted only when you press play. Links to papers and other sites take you to services with their own policies.
Your rights
Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR or the CCPA) you can ask for access to, correction of or deletion of personal data we hold about you, and object to its use. Our own statistics hold no data that identifies you, so in practice this concerns the newsletter. Write to privacy@orbitalrecord.com; we answer within 30 days. You can also complain to your data protection authority.