Last updated: 6 September 2026
Who I am
I'm James, and I run this site from the UK. It's a personal thing, not a business. Got a question about any of this, or want to know what I've got on you? Email me via contact form or reach out on Mastodon (@semaj@social.lol)
Just reading?
The blog runs on Bear Blog, which is about as privacy-friendly as hosting gets: no tracking scripts, no ads, no cookies for readers. I can see rough stats (page views and where people came from), but none of it points back to you, and there's no cookie banner because there's nothing to consent to. Bear explain their side of it here.
Photos
Images load from a CDN (DigitalOcean Spaces) rather than straight off the blog. This is managed by Bear Blog. When your browser grabs a photo, that CDN can see your IP, same as any file download. Their policy is here.
Maps
A few posts have an embedded map. When it loads, your browser pulls the map software from a CDN called unpkg and the map imagery from OpenStreetMap, and both see your IP when it does.
The guestbook
My guestbook is run by Guestbooks by Meadow. If you sign it, whatever you type (a name or handle, your message, a link if you add one) gets stored by them and shown publicly. It also sets a cookie to keep track of your session. None of that happens unless you decide to post something; reading it costs you nothing. Their terms are here. Left a message and want it gone later? Just tell me and I'll delete it.
Getting in touch
My contact form is Letterbird, made by the Good Enough lot. Send me a message and your name, email and what you wrote get passed through them and land in my inbox so I can reply. That's all I do with it. Good Enough cover their bit here.
Webmentions
Posts support Webmentions through webmention.io. If you reply on your own site and send one over, the link to your post (and the public bit linking back to me) goes through webmention.io and might show up publicly under mine. Anything already showing there is pulled in from that service. If you like or share a post to my site on an ActivityPub compatible server, your profile image and account may be linked on the post. Let me know if you want me to remove these from a particular post.
The like button
Some pages have a little reaction button from bubbles.town. When a page loads it checks how many likes it's got, and adds one if you tap it. Which means they see the page address and your IP.
Cookies
Reading the site: none. The guestbook sets one, and only if you use it. No ad or tracking cookies anywhere, ever.
Links out
I link to loads of other sites, and some are referral or affiliate links (Exist.io, my energy tariff, that sort of thing), so I might get a small credit if you sign up through one. Once you click off somewhere else, you're on their site under their rules, not mine.
Your rights
This being the UK, you can ask to see what I hold about you, have it corrected or deleted, and object to how it's used. Realistically the only thing I'd ever have is a guestbook message or an email you've sent me, so a quick message to me sorts it out.
Changes
If any of this changes, I'll update the page and the date at the top.
That's about it. Thanks for reading, and enjoy the blog.