Last updated: 31 October 2026
This page explains what information The Art of Verification (theartofverification.com) collects when you read the site, how it is used and the choices you have. We keep data collection to what the site needs to run, stay secure and pay for itself through advertising.
Information you give us
- Comments. When you leave a comment we store your name, email address, website (optional), the comment text, your IP address and browser user agent. Your email address is never shown publicly. Comments are checked for spam by Akismet (Automattic), which receives the comment data. If you have a Gravatar account, a hashed version of your email may be used to show your profile picture.
- Contact form. Messages sent through the Contact page include your name, email address and message. They are delivered to us by email and used only to reply to you.
- Newsletter. If you subscribe, we store your email address (and name, if you give it) to send you new articles. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and you can ask us to delete your details at any time.
Information collected automatically
- Analytics. We use Google Analytics to understand which articles are read and how readers find the site. It uses cookies and collects data such as pages visited, approximate location, device and browser type. We do not use it to identify you personally.
- Advertising. The site shows ads through Google AdSense. Google and its partners use cookies to serve ads based on your visits to this and other sites. You can turn off personalised advertising in Google Ads Settings, and read how Google uses data from partner sites.
- Consent. Visitors from the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland are shown a consent message (Google’s consent management) before advertising cookies are used, and can change their choice later.
- Security. Our security firewall and server logs record IP addresses and requests to protect the site from attacks and abuse.
Cookies and local storage
Besides the analytics and advertising cookies above, WordPress may set cookies to remember your comment details if you choose to. The site also stores two small settings in your own browser (local storage), which never leave your device: your light or dark mode choice, and which lessons in a learning path you have opened, so we can show your progress.
Embedded content
Some articles may include embedded content such as videos. Embedded content behaves as if you visited the other website, which may collect data about you under its own privacy policy.
How long we keep data
Comments and their details are kept as long as the comment is published. Contact messages are kept only as long as needed to answer them. Newsletter details are kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them.
Who we share data with
We do not sell your personal data. Data is shared only with the services that run the site, named above (Google, Akismet, our newsletter provider and our web host), and where the law requires it.
Your rights
You can ask to see the personal data we hold about you, to correct it or to have it deleted. Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR or India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act), you may have further rights. To make a request, use our Contact page.
Changes to this policy
We will update this page if the way we handle data changes, and change the date at the top.