Privacy
What data Harness the Agents collects, where it lives, how long we keep it, and the rights you have over it.
The short version
We don't set tracking cookies of our own. Our default analytics is cookieless and runs on our own infrastructure. Google Analytics loads through Cloudflare Zaraz and fires only after consent where the law requires it. If you write to us through the contact form, we keep your message for 12 months and then delete it.
Who we are
Harness the Agents is an independent publication edited by Adam Maguire Wilson (adam.mw). It is the data controller for the personal data described on this page. You can reach the desk at any time through the contact page.
What we collect, and why
Contact form. If you write to us, we store your name, email address, subject and message, along with your browser's user agent, in our CMS database. We need the address to reply; the rest helps us route and read your note. We also store a salted hash of your IP address (a SHA-256 of the IP mixed with a secret pepper) so we can rate-limit abuse: five messages per hour per address. The hash is pseudonymous, not anonymous. We can't reverse it back to your IP, and when the pepper is rotated, old hashes stop matching anything current. That severing is deliberate.
Server logs. Cloudflare, our hosting provider, processes IP addresses, user agents and TLS metadata at the edge to deliver the site and keep it secure. That's their side of the glass; we don't mine it.
Newsletter. The signup currently stores nothing. When it does, this page will say what and where before it goes live.
Analytics
Two systems, and the difference between them matters.
Plausible is our default. It's cookieless, stores nothing on your device, and runs on infrastructure we control. The script is served from our own domain and events pass through our own edge, which is why it still works when ad blockers strip out third-party trackers. We run it to learn which pieces get read and where readers come from. It doesn't tell us who you are, and we don't ask it to.
Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager load through Cloudflare Zaraz, Cloudflare's tag manager. GA4 sets cookies and sends data to Google, so for visitors in the EU and UK it fires only after you opt in through Zaraz's consent controls. Decline, and GA4 never loads; Plausible carries on either way, because it never needed your data in the first place.
Cookies and storage
Everything this site can place on your device:
|
Name |
Type |
Purpose |
Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Cookie |
Remembers your chosen language |
1 year |
|
|
Local storage |
Light or dark preference |
Until you clear it |
|
|
Local storage |
Reduced-motion preference |
Until you clear it |
|
|
Local storage |
Text-size preference |
Until you clear it |
|
|
Local storage |
Spacing preference |
Until you clear it |
|
|
Cookie |
Cloudflare bot and challenge checks |
Session or short-lived |
|
|
Cookie |
Google Analytics, via Zaraz, after consent only |
Up to 2 years |
None of our own storage tracks you across sites. There is nothing here to build an advertising profile from, and we wouldn't know what to do with one.
How long we keep things
Contact messages are kept for 12 months, then hard-deleted by a scheduled job in the CMS. Aggregate analytics are held by the processors above under their own retention settings. Server logs age out at Cloudflare.
Who processes your data
Cloudflare: hosting, edge delivery, bot mitigation and Zaraz. Processes request metadata under its own data processing terms.
Google: GA4, only after consent, with data transferred to the US under Google's standard contractual clauses and Data Privacy Framework participation.
Plausible runs on our own servers. No third party touches it.
Your rights
You can ask what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, or object to us holding it. Write through the contact page; we answer within a month. For erasure of contact messages we look up your email address and delete what matches. If you'd rather take it further, you can complain to your local data protection authority.
Changes
This page changes when the site does. The date below is the honest one.
Last updated: 22 August 2026