Privacy & Cookies

This site (gigilevens.com) is run by GiGi Levens, based in the Netherlands. For anything about your data — including the requests described below — email the contact form and it reaches me directly. Under the GDPR, I'm the "data controller" for this site.

What I collect, and why

1 · Analytics (self-hosted Matomo)

I want to know, in aggregate, which essays people read and how they found them. I use Matomo, an open-source analytics tool I host myself at analytics.gigilevens.com — your data is not handed to a third-party ad network like Google Analytics would.

It runs in a deliberately privacy-preserving mode:

• No cookies — first-party or third-party — so it can't follow you between visits or across sites.
• Your IP address is anonymised (the last part is masked) before it's stored, so measurements can't be tied back to you.
• Aggregate only. No individual visitor profiles or visit logs are kept — just totals. There are no user IDs, no device-model or screen-resolution tracking, only the major version of your browser and OS, and referrers are reduced to the sending site.
• Do-Not-Track is respected. If your browser sends a Do-Not-Track signal you aren't measured at all — which is also the simplest way to opt out completely.
• Short-lived & first-party. The data stays on my own server, is never shared, and the raw records are automatically deleted after 180 days.

Because this is anonymous, cookieless, and minimal, it relies on my legitimate interest in understanding how the site is used — which is also why you don't get a cookie banner.

2 · The newsletter (Brevo)

If you sign up for field notes, I collect your email address to send you a note when a new essay is published — nothing else. The list is managed by Brevo (a European email provider acting as my processor).

• Double opt-in. You confirm via a link in a confirmation email, so nobody is added without asking.
• Consent is the basis, and you can withdraw it at any time using the unsubscribe link in any email.
• Your address is kept until you unsubscribe, after which it's removed from the active list. Brevo's own privacy policy ↗ covers how they process it.

3 · The contact form

When you send a message through the contact page, I receive your name, email address, and message. I use them only to read and reply to you. The message is emailed to my inbox; it isn't added to the newsletter or any marketing list, and I keep our correspondence only as long as needed to deal with it. The basis is your consent in choosing to write, and my legitimate interest in replying.

Cookies & local storage

This site sets no cookies of its own — not for analytics, not for advertising, not for anything. That's why there's no cookie-consent pop-up.

Two honest caveats:

• When you click a share button or an external link (LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Reddit, WhatsApp, Email), you leave this site for theirs, and those services set their own cookies under their own policies.
• The newsletter sign-up submits to Brevo, and the confirmation step happens on a Brevo-hosted page that may set cookies necessary for that form to work.

Who else touches your data

• mijn.host — my hosting provider (EU), which stores the site and its server logs.
• Brevo — the newsletter provider (EU), if you subscribe.
• Matomo — self-hosted, so it's not a third party; the data stays with me.

I do not sell your data, and I do not use it for advertising or profiling.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can ask me to show you the data I hold about you, correct it, delete it, or stop using it, and you can withdraw consent at any time. Email me through the contact form and I'll sort it out. If you're not happy with how I've handled things, you can also complain to the Dutch data-protection authority, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens ↗.

Changes to this page

If the way the site handles data changes, I'll update this page and move the "last updated" date at the top. Material changes to the newsletter would be sent to subscribers.

Last updated 9 September 2026 · gigilevens.com