Privacy
We built this site to explain how attention is captured and exploited. It would be strange to exploit yours.
Most privacy policies exist to explain, in the least legible way possible, why a site is doing things you would object to if they were explained plainly. This one is different.
What happens when you visit
We measure aggregate traffic — how many people visited a page, roughly which country they came from, what kind of device they used — with one cookieless tool: Plausible, which is open source and which we run on our own server, so the figures never leave it. We see "200 people in Germany read the page about attention economics today." We do not see you. In the same way we count how far people get through each of the three demos, step by step, which links to other organisations are followed, and how often someone uses the button at the foot of a page, or a demo, to send it to another person. A link sent that way ends in a short tag — ?ref=demo-share or ?ref=page-share from the buttons, ?ref=share-whatsapp and its kin from the share page's links, ?ref=handout-parents and its kin from the QR code on a printed handout — so we can also count visits that arrive through each of them. The tag names the route, never the sender. At the foot of most pages we also ask "Did this page help?": pressing Yes or No sends one anonymous count for that page, and nothing else; if you then choose to tell us what was wrong, that is an ordinary email you write yourself. With each page view Plausible also notes how far down the page was read and for how long, as a percentage and a number of seconds, and each demo counts a click on one of the links under its "One thing to do now". All of this tells us whether the site leads anyone to act. These are counts, not people: nothing identifies who read a page, tried a demo, clicked a link, shared it or answered the question, or whom they shared it with. We keep the counts with no end date: Plausible, as we run it, has no setting that deletes them after a time. Cloudflare, our host, also keeps standard server logs.
A correction, because this page was wrong. Until 20 September 2026 this page said two tools were running. Neither was. The Plausible script had a stale address and had been returning "not found" for months, and the Cloudflare Web Analytics tag was never switched on — it sat in the page source as a disabled placeholder. So for that period the site collected no analytics at all, which is less than we told you, not more. One working tool, named above, replaces both. The corrections log records it.
No cookies are set. No fingerprinting. No cross-site tracking. No profile is built. You are not followed across the web after you leave. The contact and volunteer pages add one check that is Cloudflare's, not ours, described under the forms.
It is cookieless by design and does not identify a person. You do not need to consent to anything to use this site, because there is nothing to consent to.
One deliberate exception. The Tracking & Targeting demo loads three real advertising and analytics trackers, once, so that it can honestly test whether your browser blocks them — and only when you press the test button on that page; opening the page loads nothing. That page says so at the top and beside the button. They are the only third-party trackers anywhere on this site. Each request carries what any image request carries — your IP address, this site's address (not the demo page's: the site asks your browser to leave the rest of the address out), and any cookie your browser already holds for that company (Google or X). That cookie is the cross-site identifier the demo exists to show you. If your browser accepts cookies from other sites, two of the companies set one in reply: X a cookie called muc_ads that lasts two years, and DoubleClick (Google) a test cookie that lasts fifteen minutes. They are X's and Google's cookies, not ours, set only after you press the button; the demo page names them before you do, and you can delete them in your browser's settings. Nothing else is sent, and we store nothing.
If you use one of the site's forms
The contact form and the volunteer form keep what you type into them — your name if you give it, your email address and your message, and on the volunteer form the languages, kinds of help, background and time you tell us about — with which form it was, the language of the page and the time it arrived. Nothing else: not your IP address, not your browser or device, and no cookie. It is emailed to the project's mailbox at Proton (Proton AG, in Switzerland) and also kept in a key-value store on the site's own Cloudflare account, both read only by the project, to reply to you or to follow up an offer of help. The copy in the store is deleted automatically after 12 months at the latest; the email is kept like any message you write to us directly: until it is answered and no longer needed, and you can ask for it to be deleted. To have either deleted sooner, email privacy@attentionmachine.org.
The contact and volunteer pages also run Cloudflare Turnstile, a check that a form is being sent by a person rather than a program, in place of a puzzle to solve. It loads from Cloudflare on the contact and volunteer pages only, in a small frame of its own above the Send button, and gives the form a one-time token that the site checks with Cloudflare and then discards; nothing from it is kept with your message. According to Cloudflare's Turnstile privacy addendum, it processes your IP address, a TLS fingerprint (a technical signature of your browser's secure connection), your browser's user-agent header, and the site's key and address, to tell people from bots, and — on Cloudflare's own account — to improve that detection; not, it says, to identify, profile or target anyone. Cloudflare's cookie policy lists the cookies its bot checks may set (__cf_bm, cf_clearance and kin); it does not say which, if any, Turnstile sets here, and the addendum calls what Turnstile processes strictly necessary for telling people from bots. Because of it, the forms need JavaScript; the email addresses on those pages do not.
A native reviewer or fact-checker who reviews pages through their own review link leaves a verdict and a note on each page, and may send the page's text with the changes they suggest to its wording. We keep those, the reviewer's name as we wrote it when we made the link, and the time — no IP address, no browser details, no cookie — in the same store. Their browser remembers the review link, so that the review box can appear under each page they read, and, if they switch the review page to English, that choice; nothing else is kept in it. Before anything they suggest is changed, we, or a person we have given their own link to decide on one language's feedback, read those verdicts, notes and suggested changes and record a verdict and a note for each page; we keep those, that person's name as we wrote it, and the time, in the same store and in the same way; that person's browser keeps only the same choice of language, if they make it.
Lawful basis: legitimate interest — answering a message you chose to send, or an offer of help you chose to make; and, for the Turnstile check, keeping the forms free of messages sent by programs.
If you subscribe to the newsletter
The newsletter has not launched yet. When it does, the provider will be named in the table below before the first email goes out. If you give us your email address, we will use it only to send you updates: never given to anyone else, never used for advertising, never sold. Every email will contain a one-click unsubscribe, and you can email us to have your record deleted entirely.
Lawful basis: explicit consent — you opt in, you can opt out at any time.
If you donate
Donations are made through Ko-fi, which handles the payment with its own processors. We never see your card number. We do receive your name (or the name you choose), your email address, the amount, and the date — and Dutch law requires us to keep financial records for seven years. We cannot delete them even if you ask; the law does not allow it. We say that plainly rather than hide it in a footnote.
We will not use your donor record to send you campaign emails unless you explicitly opted in when you donated. That opt-in is separate and optional.
Lawful basis: contract (processing your donation) and legal obligation (Dutch bookkeeping law, seven-year retention).
What we do not do
No advertising trackers. No Facebook Pixel. No Google Analytics. No LinkedIn Insight Tag. No behavioural profiling. No data sold or traded. No cookie consent banners — because there are no cookies to consent to. (Two exceptions: the demo page described above, which loads trackers in order to show you them, and lets two of them set a cookie, only when you press its button; and the Turnstile check on the contact and volunteer pages, described under the forms, which Cloudflare calls strictly necessary.)
We do not monetise your attention or your data. We are being set up as a foundation, not a business. Our only income is donations, which we disclose on the donate page.
The tools we use
| Tool | Purpose | Data sent | Their policy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Hosting, the store behind the site's forms, and the Turnstile check on them | Standard server logs, which include your IP address, kept by Cloudflare under its own policy (we do not receive them); what you type into a form, if you use one; on the contact and volunteer pages, what Turnstile processes (see above) | cloudflare.com · Turnstile |
| Proton Mail (Proton AG, Switzerland) | The project's mailbox, where each form message arrives as an email | What you type into a form, if you use one (see above) | proton.me |
| Plausible (self-hosted) | Traffic measurement | Cookieless, aggregate only; stays on our own server. Records the page, how far down it was read and for how long, clicks on links that leave the site or download a file, and the fact that a form was submitted — never what you typed into it | plausible.io |
| Ko-fi | Donations | Name, email, amount (if you donate) | ko-fi.com |
| Three demo trackers (Google Analytics, DoubleClick, X) | Blocker test on the Tracking & Targeting demo only | One request each: your IP address, this site's address (not the page's), and any cookie you already hold for that company. In reply, X may set a cookie that lasts two years and DoubleClick one that lasts fifteen minutes | Named on the demo page |
That is the complete list. When it changes, this page changes.
Your rights
Under GDPR, you have the right to know what data we hold about you, to correct it, and in most cases to have it deleted. Email us at privacy@attentionmachine.org. We will respond within 30 days.
The exception: donation amounts and dates, which Dutch law requires us to keep for seven years. We can tell you exactly what we hold; we cannot delete the financial record itself within that period.
Who we are
The Attention Machine is operated by a Dutch foundation (stichting) in the process of registration. We will update this page with the registered name and KvK number when registration is confirmed.
Questions
If something on this page is unclear, email us. If you think we are doing something wrong, tell us. We would rather know.
Sources
- Burgerlijk Wetboek (Dutch Civil Code), Book 2, article 10(3) — the board of a legal person, a foundation included, must keep its books and records for seven years; for tax purposes the same period is set by the Algemene wet inzake rijksbelastingen, article 52(4).