Privacy policy
Reading the manual needs no account. What an account stores, and the two analytics tags that run on every page, are both set out below.
What we collect
Reading this site requires no account. Creating a member account to post in the discussions collects only an email address, a display name, and a password. Passwords are never stored in plain text: we store a PBKDF2-SHA256 derived hash and a random salt, and cannot recover your original password.
Threads and replies you post are stored with your account and display name, and are visible to any visitor. Separately from all of this, and unless you have opted out, two analytics tags record aggregate traffic on every page, including pages you read while signed out.
Who controls this data
Real Life After AGI is published by Technology Geeks Inc., a company based in Georgia, USA, which is the controller of the data described on this page. For privacy questions, requests, or complaints, use the contact page or write to dringdahl@technologygeeks.com.
Legal basis for processing
Where the GDPR or a similar law applies, account and forum data are processed under two bases: contract — creating and running the account and discussion feature you asked for — and legitimate interest — keeping the site secure and working correctly. Analytics data is processed under legitimate interest in understanding site usage, balanced against your right to opt out, which is why Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control stop it outright rather than merely anonymizing it.
Analytics
Unless you have opted out — see the box below — the site loads Google Analytics 4 and Plausible on every page. Between them they exist for one thing: seeing which chapters get read, so editing effort goes where readers actually are.
Google Analytics records the page you viewed, your referrer, your device and browser type, and an approximate location — city or region — that Google derives from your IP address. It sets its own cookies to recognize a returning browser. That data is processed by Google as a third party under their own terms, and Google states that it does not log or store the IP addresses of readers in the EU, the UK, or Switzerland. We do not send it your email address, display name, or account ID, so analytics data is not tied to your member account. Ad personalization and Google Signals — the features that feed advertising and cross-site profiles — are switched off in the configuration.
Plausible is a second, independent measurement of the same page views, run for redundancy and cross-checking rather than deeper tracking. It is built specifically not to identify individual readers: it sets no cookies, stores no persistent identifier for your device, and does not follow you across sites. It records only the page viewed, the referrer, and coarse device/location data derived from your request, aggregated with other visitors' the same day. It cannot single you out, and there is no reader-level record for us to look up even if we wanted to.
If your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control, neither analytics script is requested and no measurement is sent — there is nothing to block, because nothing is loaded. Any tracker blocker achieves the same result. Every page, chapter, protocol and source stays fully readable either way; nothing here is gated on analytics running.
This is meant literally: opted out, the site makes no request to Google or to Plausible. Typefaces are served from this domain rather than Google Fonts specifically so that no request survives the opt-out to disclose your IP address.
Two limits worth stating. The check runs when a page loads, so if you turn the signal on mid-visit it takes effect on your next page rather than instantly. And opting out stops further collection but does not erase Google Analytics cookies already on your device — clear cookies for this site to do that. Plausible sets no cookies to begin with, so there is nothing of its to clear.
Cookies
Two kinds, and no consent banner because neither is used for advertising. A session cookie — httpOnly, so page scripts cannot read it — keeps you signed in for up to 30 days. The analytics cookies described above are written by the Google Analytics script; they are first-party cookies, stored against this domain rather than a Google one, though the identifier they hold is sent to Google with each measurement. Plausible sets no cookie at all — it does not need one, since it never tries to recognize a returning browser. The site sets no third-party cookies at all, and nothing here follows you to other sites. Your light or dark theme preference is not a cookie either: it is kept in local storage on your own device and never sent to us.
International data transfers
This site is operated from the United States. Account and forum data is stored in Cloudflare’s database infrastructure, which may process data in facilities outside your country, including the United States. Google Analytics is likewise a US-based service; Plausible’s analytics infrastructure is hosted in the EU by default, which limits how much of its already-minimal data processing leaves the EU in the first place. Cloudflare and Google both publish standard contractual clauses covering their transfers. Reading this site, or creating an account, means accepting that your data may be processed in the United States.
Your rights
Wherever you are, you can ask to see what we hold on your account, correct it, or have it deleted — the retention section below explains how. Depending on where you live, you may also have a right to receive your data in a portable format, object to processing, or lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. Because account data here is limited to an email address, display name, and your own posts, most of these requests are simple: write to the address above and we act on it directly, without routing it through a third-party verification process.
A note for readers everywhere
The practices on this page are written to the EU/UK GDPR framework’s core standard — data minimization, a stated legal basis, and rights of access and erasure — as the baseline for every reader, not only where a specific law requires it. Some countries, including Russia and China, separately require that their citizens’ personal data be stored on servers located within that country, or place other conditions on moving it across a border. This site does not operate country-specific storage, so account and forum data from any reader is stored on Cloudflare’s global infrastructure rather than exclusively within your own country. Weigh that before creating an account if it matters to you.
What we don’t do
We don’t sell or share your email address with third parties, run ad trackers or advertising cookies, sell or transfer analytics data, or use your account data for anything beyond operating the site: authentication, session management, and attributing your posts to your display name.
Children’s privacy
This site is not directed to children, and account creation is not intended for anyone under 16. We do not knowingly collect data from a child. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will remove it.
Data retention and deletion
Account and forum data is retained for as long as your account exists. Analytics data from Google Analytics is held by Google under this property’s retention setting, for which 14 months is the longest period available to a site like this one; it cannot be traced back to an individual reader from our side, because we never send an identifier with it. Plausible has no equivalent retention question to answer: it never records an event tied to an identifiable visitor in the first place, only same-day aggregate counts, so there is no reader-level record held anywhere to expire or delete. To request deletion of your account and its posts, write to the address on the contact page.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the revision date above changes with it, and the change is recorded in the revision log like any other substantive edit to the manual.