You agree to the privacy policy below, and the Privacy Policy for Substack, the technology provider.
This is not an official privacy policy, but I wanted to be transparent about what I do with the data that Substack shares with me.
Subscriptions: if you subscribe, Substack shows me your email address. I do not sell, share, or monetize this information, but I periodically back up the subscriber list. This is so that if platform takes a turn for the worse, I can still reach you and possibly migrate to another newsletter service.
Likes, shares, comments: on Substack, all these activities are public and are linked to your profile; that profile may be identifiable depending on what you opted to share. The usual internet rules apply: while you can edit or delete public posts, it’s not always possible to put toothpaste back in the tube.
Activity metrics: I get stats about article views, link clicks, and so forth. I occasionally look at the info to understand which articles appeal to readers, but I am not pawning off any of it.
Third-party integrations: some articles embed videos that are hosted on Vimeo; their business model is to charge me money, not to show you ads. As for outgoing links: I try to link to high-quality sites, but if you open someone else’s page, it’s out of my hands.
Beyond this, Substack corporate privacy policy applies. In common with most online platforms, the policy is fairly open-ended — but as with Vimeo, they currently make money by charging for a specific service, not following you around.