Privacy
You can read all of PlainHazard without an account, a form or an email address. What we learn about visitors comes only from the tools listed below, which count visits and serve ads. Kiznis Studio, the owner of PlainHazard, is the controller of that data.
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The tools on this site
| Tool | Its job | What it stores |
|---|---|---|
| Google AdSense | Shows the ads that pay for the site; in Europe it also shows Google's consent banner | Advertising cookies where you allow them |
| Google Analytics 4 | Counts visits and which pages are read | The _ga cookies once measurement is allowed; event data kept no longer than 14 months |
| Umami | Counts page views as totals | Nothing on your device; no identifier |
| Cloudflare | Delivers the pages and blocks abusive traffic | A security cookie (__cf_bm) only on traffic that looks automated |
| Sentry | Records errors on our server so they can be fixed | Nothing on your device; it runs on the server |
| Your browser | Remembers whether you chose the light or dark theme | One localStorage entry that never leaves your device |
What happens before you choose
- European Economic Area, United Kingdom, Switzerland: Google Analytics is not loaded at all until you allow measurement in Google's consent banner, and no advertising cookie is written until you allow advertising. A browser set to a European time zone where the banner does not load gets no Google Analytics.
- United States: ads and measurement run, and the opt-outs below apply. A browser that sends Global Privacy Control turns advertising storage and ad personalisation off on every page.
- Everywhere else: measurement runs after the page loads; advertising storage stays off, so ads are shown without advertising cookies.
Wherever advertising storage is off, Google's tags redact ad data, and when you arrive from a Google ad its click identifier is carried in the page's links (URL pass-through) instead of in a cookie, so the visit can be counted without storing anything on your device. In Europe this applies only after you allow measurement, because the tags load only then.
In the GDPR's terms, advertising and analytics cookies rest on your consent, which you can withdraw at any time from the banner's settings link or by clearing this site's cookies. Umami's page totals store nothing on your device and identify no one; they rest on our legitimate interest in knowing how many people the pages reach.
Where your data goes: Cloudflare (which delivers the pages), Google (advertising and analytics) and Sentry (error reports) process data in the United States, under their own transfer terms. Our web server keeps standard access logs (the address, the page, the time, the browser) for security and troubleshooting, deleted after seven days.
Searches stay private: when you use the site's search, analytics records the page without your search words, and a site you visit from the results learns only that you came from plainhazard.com.
Opting out in the United States
To pick ads, Google reads a cookie ID, your IP address and the rough location it gives, and the pages you open here. Some state laws call passing that to advertisers a "sale" or "sharing" of personal information. You can opt out with Global Privacy Control in your browser, at Google's ad settings, at the industry page optout.aboutads.info, or by writing to hello@plainhazard.com. We answer requests to know, correct or delete within 45 days; since the data is held by Google, we carry them out through Google's tools.
The disaster records
PlainHazard publishes federal records about places and events. It publishes no list of people: NOAA's fatality file records age, sex and the place of death, not names.
Your rights
Under the GDPR and similar laws you may ask what is held about you, have it corrected or erased, object to its use and complain to your data protection authority. The personal data in our own systems is the email you send us, kept until the matter it raises is closed, and the server access logs described above, kept seven days. The site is not directed at children under 13.
Who is responsible
The controller is Kiznis Studio, Lithuania, the owner of PlainHazard. Write to hello@plainhazard.com. Changes to this page are dated above.