Privacy notice
This page explains, without jargon, what reaches me when you contact the site, how I use it, and what say you keep over it. This is a one-person review practice. There is no mailing programme, no sales team, and no shared mailbox doing the rounds of an office.
Who is responsible
This site belongs to Maris Kellan, who reviews how answer engines describe publishers and their archives. Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and similar laws, the person accountable for the information described here is the operator of answer-engine-optimization.org. With a privacy question, or to exercise one of your rights, write to hello@answer-engine-optimization.org.
What reaches me
When you send the case form, this is what arrives:
- Your name and email address, so I can write back and address you correctly.
- A second way to reach you, if you add one (phone, LinkedIn, Signal), for the times email is not your preference.
- Whatever you describe about the case: the reader question, the answer you are seeing, and the publication or section you want checked. Only name and email are needed; the rest is for you to share or keep back.
I use these details for a single purpose: to answer the case you sent. No list is created, your details are not passed to anyone else (the lone exception is the payment service mentioned below, and only if a payment actually happens), and nothing is gathered or mined past our own exchange. Stored with the message are the time it was sent and a salted SHA-256 hash of your IP address, which is what holds back automated abuse. The raw IP is never recorded, nor are browser fingerprints or device traits.
What I leave alone
- No tracking cookies. The analytics I rely on runs cookie-free and keeps no per-visitor identifier.
- No retargeting pixels, no marketing-automation tags, and no ad-network trackers are built into the site.
- No automated profiling, and no automated decisions that produce a legal effect for you.
- No sale or sharing of personal information with commercial partners. That is simply not how this review practice makes its living.
My legal basis for processing it
Case messages are handled under GDPR art. 6(1)(b), as steps taken at your request before any possible engagement. The IP hash that protects the form from abuse rests on GDPR art. 6(1)(f), a legitimate interest in keeping the form usable. Where payment-outcome data exists, it is processed on the contractual basis.
How long it stays
- Case messages: kept for the run of the engagement and 24 months after, so the thread of the work stays intact, then deleted. Cases that do not become work are kept for 12 months and then deleted.
- Payment records: kept for as long as tax and accounting law requires (commonly 5–6 years), then deleted.
- IP hashes: kept for 90 days, which covers abuse protection, then deleted.
- Email threads: kept while we are working together, or for 24 months after our last contact, whichever lasts longer.
Your rights
Under GDPR and comparable laws you can ask to see your information, correct it, delete it, move it elsewhere, restrict how it is used, or object to its use. For any of these, write to hello@answer-engine-optimization.org and I will respond within 30 days. If you believe the law has been broken, you may complain to your local data-protection authority.
Where the data sits
The servers behind this site are in European Union (Germany). If any further processors (email provider) happen to sit outside the European Union, those transfers depend on standard contractual clauses together with the safeguards each one publishes.
Updates to this notice
I revise this notice whenever the way I handle information shifts in a way that matters. The "Updated" date at the top marks the live version. When a change is material, I note it on the home page for 30 days so returning readers catch it.