Privacy
Your privacy on The Refuge
This site is run by one author, Michael Bath. Here is everything it collects, why, who else touches it, and how to have it changed or removed.
The short version
- The site collects only what it needs: your email address when you sign up or unlock a book, your order details when you buy, and a record of each sign-in when you use a key.
- Your information is never sold or rented, and the site carries no advertising trackers.
- Every Reader’s Circle email can be stopped with one click or one reply.
- Write to michael@therefugeseries.com to see, correct or delete what we hold about you.
When you sign up or unlock a book
Joining the Reader’s Circle asks for your first name and email address. Unlocking the rest of Book One’s audiobook or graphic novel asks for your email address, and Tell me when asks for your email address and which book you are waiting for. All of these go to Web3Forms, a form service, which passes them to Michael by email. A Circle join or an unlock also goes to Kit (kit.com), the mailing-list service that keeps the Reader’s Circle list and sends its email, with a note of where you signed up. Kit first sends you one email asking you to confirm; until you press its button, no Reader’s Circle email comes to you. We use your address for what you signed up for: Reader’s Circle news, or the one note you asked for when a book arrives.
Kit, like most mailing-list services, records when you joined and confirmed, and whether its emails are opened and their links clicked, so Michael can see what readers find useful. Kit’s own privacy policy covers what Kit does.
If you send a review from the review form, it goes from your own email program to press@therefugeseries.com, and, as the form says, Michael may publish it with your first name and city. When you write to any @therefugeseries.com address, Cloudflare delivers the message to Michael’s mailbox.
When you buy
Gumroad runs the checkout and takes the payment; this site never sees your card. Gumroad tells the site about each sale: your email address, what you bought, the price and Gumroad’s fee, the country Gumroad associates with the purchase, your order number and license key, and whether the order is later refunded. The site keeps that record in its own database (Cloudflare D1) for Michael’s accounts and so it knows the purchase is yours. Your license key is stored only in encrypted form, and about once a day the site asks Gumroad whether each purchase still stands, so a refunded key stops working. Gumroad’s own privacy policy covers what Gumroad does.
When you sign in to listen or read
Signing in with your license key, or with a private beta key, sets one cookie, rfg_session, which keeps that browser signed in for up to 90 days. The books need it to open; it is used for nothing else. Each sign-in attempt is recorded with its time, whether it worked, your country (as Cloudflare reports it from your connection) and the description your browser gives of itself. Where you stopped in each recording or book is saved, so you can pick up on another device.
Private podcast feeds
If you ask the Listening Room for a podcast feed, the site makes you a private address that only works for your purchase or beta key. It records when a podcast app last read the feed, how many times, how many recordings it started, and the app’s name as the app reports it. You can replace the address at any time, and the old one stops working.
The private beta
Beta listeners sign in with a key Michael gives them. The site keeps only a fingerprint of the key and the name Michael gave it. When you press Flag this moment, the book, the chapter, the second you were at and your note go to Michael.
What stays on your device
The site remembers a few things in your browser’s own storage so you don’t have to repeat them: your place in the free audiobook, which books you have unlocked, the name and email you joined the Circle with, any Tell me when requests, notices you have dismissed, and a small tally of your visits that never leaves your device. Clearing this site’s data in your browser removes all of it.
Services that see your connection
- Cloudflare hosts the site, the recordings and the pictures, and protects them from attacks. Like any web host, it handles your IP address to deliver each page. Cloudflare Web Analytics counts visits for Michael without cookies and without following you to other sites.
- Google Fonts serves the site’s typefaces. Your browser fetches them from Google, which sees your IP address.
- YouTube plays the trailers, in its privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com), and only after you press play. YouTube’s own policy applies from then on.
- Links to Amazon, Gumroad, Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube take you to those sites, under their own policies.
Who we share it with
Only the services named on this page, and only to run the site, the store and the mailing list. We don’t sell or rent personal information, and we don’t share it for advertising. If the law requires us to disclose something, we will disclose that and nothing more.
How long we keep it
Sign-ups: until you leave the list or ask us to delete you. Sale records: as long as tax and accounting rules require. Sign-in records, listening places, flags and feed records: while your access lasts, or until you ask us to remove them. The site’s database is copied once a week into private storage, so the records can be restored if something goes wrong.
Your choices and rights
Write to michael@therefugeseries.com to ask what we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it. We answer within 45 days. (A sale record may be kept, in part, for as long as tax rules require.) To stop emails, use the link at the foot of any Reader’s Circle email, or reply and say so.
If you live in California, you have the right to know what personal information we collect and how we use it, to have it corrected or deleted, and to opt out of its sale or sharing. We don’t sell or share it, so there is nothing to opt out of, and you won’t be treated differently for asking about any of this.
Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control
Some browsers send a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal. The site doesn’t track you across other sites and has no advertising to switch off, so it behaves the same either way. Because nothing is sold or shared, a Global Privacy Control signal is honored by default.
Children
The books are written for adults, and the site isn’t meant for children under 13. We don’t knowingly collect a child’s information; if you believe a child has given us theirs, write to us and we will delete it.
Keeping it safe
The site runs only over HTTPS. License keys and podcast feed addresses are stored encrypted, beta keys only as a fingerprint, and the sales ledger opens only with Michael’s own key. No way of storing information is perfect, so the site keeps as little as it can.
Changes to this page
If this page changes, the date at the top changes with it. If a change matters, Reader’s Circle members hear about it by email.
Contact
Michael Bath, The Refuge series · michael@therefugeseries.com