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Privacy Policy for The FY Times

Last Updated: Just now. Pay attention this time.

1. Our Unwavering Commitment to Knowing Almost Nothing About You

This document is the Privacy Policy ("Policy," "the Vow of Silence") for The FY Times (hereafter, "the Website," "We," "Us"). Its purpose is to inform you, the user, about the data we collect, why we collect it, and—more importantly—the vast universe of data we actively and aggressively avoid collecting. By using this Website, you consent to the data practices described in this statement, which primarily involve us leaving you the hell alone.

We hold your privacy in the highest regard, not because we are saints, but because the effort required to manage, protect, and inevitably leak your personal data is far too much trouble. Our business model is based on providing content, not on harvesting your soul for advertising revenue. Therefore, this policy is a testament to our core principle: if we don't need to know it, we don't want to know it.

2. The Deliberate and Glorious Absence of Personal Data Collection

In a world obsessed with data, we are a sanctuary of ignorance. To protect your privacy with the ferocious determination of a paranoid hermit, we have purposefully designed our Website to function without collecting most forms of Personally Identifiable Information (PII).

Specifically, we DO NOT under any circumstances, collect, store, or have access to:

  • Your Email Address: We do not have a newsletter. We do not have user accounts. We do not have a contact form. There is nowhere on this Website for you to type your email address, and if you find such a place, it is a trap laid by entities far more sinister than us.
  • Your Name, Address, or Phone Number: We have no use for this information. We will not be mailing you artisanal cheeses or calling you on your birthday.
  • Your Financial Information: As we sell nothing, there is no mechanism for us to request your credit card numbers, bank accounts, or the password to your cryptocurrency wallet.

Our commitment to this principle is so profound that we have entirely forgone the use of traditional contact forms, which are often leaky buckets of personal data. Your privacy is more important than our convenience.

3. How to Contact Us (The Approved, Arm's-Length Method)

Should you feel an overwhelming urge to communicate with us—be it with praise, criticism, or a particularly compelling conspiracy theory—you will not find a contact form or email address here. Instead, we direct you to the public squares of the internet where your identity is your own business.

You may contact us via:

By using these third-party platforms, you are subject to their respective privacy policies. We take no responsibility for what happens to your data over there. That's a dragon you'll have to slay yourself.

4. The Necessary Evil: Anonymous Analytics Data

Here we must confess our one and only sin. In order to not be flying completely blind, we need to know if anyone is actually reading this stuff. For this purpose, we use Google Analytics, a service that helps us understand how visitors engage with our Website. This is the only type of data we actively collect.

What Google Analytics tells us:

  • Aggregate Visitor Numbers: How many people are visiting the site. This helps us gauge whether we are shouting into the void or just a sparsely populated room.
  • Engagement Metrics: Which articles are popular, how long people stay on a page, and what links they click on. This helps us write more of what you like and less of what you don't.
  • Technical Data: The type of browser (e.g., Chrome, Firefox) and device (e.g., mobile, desktop) being used, and the country of origin. This helps us ensure the site works correctly on different screens and in different regions.

What Google Analytics does NOT tell us:

  • Who you are. All of this data is anonymized and aggregated. We cannot use it to identify a specific individual. You are a statistic, a number, a beautiful, anonymous blip on a graph. And that's how we both like it.

This information is used exclusively for internal purposes to improve the Website's layout, content, and overall user experience. We do not share this data with any other third parties, besides Google, who are already collecting it anyway.

5. Cookies: The Digital Crumbs of Analytics

To make Google Analytics work, our Website, like virtually every other website, uses "cookies." A cookie is a small text file placed on your device by a web server. It is not a virus. It cannot run programs. Its primary purpose in our case is to help Google Analytics distinguish between a new visitor and a returning visitor. It's a digital headcount mechanism. You can configure your browser to reject cookies if you wish, though this may impact your experience on other, more needy websites.

6. Your Rights and Choices

Even as an anonymous user, you have rights. If you are uncomfortable with our use of Google Analytics, you have the right to opt-out. Google provides a browser add-on that allows you to prevent your data from being used by Google Analytics. You can download and install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on for your web browser.

7. Data Security: Fort Knox for an Empty Vault

We take the security of your data seriously. Since we collect no personally identifiable information, the primary risk is the analytics data. This data is stored on Google's secure servers. We trust that Google, a multi-trillion-dollar corporation, has a slightly better security budget than we do. In the unlikely event of a breach, we promise to inform you that the anonymous traffic data we have might have been compromised, and we can all share a moment of collective indifference.

8. Changes to This Policy

We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time, although, given our minimalist approach, it is hard to imagine how it could get any more private. Any changes will be posted on this page. Your continued use of the Website after such modifications will constitute your acknowledgment of the modified Policy and your agreement to abide and be bound by it.

9. A Final Word

In summary: we don't know who you are, we don't want to know who you are, and we've built our platform to reflect that. Your privacy is safe with us because it was never in our possession to begin with. Now go read something interesting.