Privacy Policy

Who We Are

The Thinking Press is an independent publisher in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This policy explains what we collect when you use thethinkingpress.org, why, and what you can ask us to do with it. We keep it short because we collect little.

What We Collect

When you write to us through a contact form, we keep your name, your email address, and your message, so that we can answer you.

When you join a launch list or the Founding Readers list, we keep your email address (and your name, if you give it) so that we can write to you about that book or about the Materia Medica.

When you create a Club account, we keep your name, your email address, a securely hashed form of your password (never the password itself), when you joined, and your standing in the Club. If you use the shelf, we keep the entries you save and the private notes you write there; no one but you sees them on the site. If you turn on the weekly entry, we keep that choice. If you choose a username, other readers see it with your name and can tag you with it. If you give a phone number or a birth date in your account details, we keep them privately: they are never shown to other readers, and you can change or clear them at any time. If you apply for Executive Membership, we keep what you send with it (your account of your work, the web pages you name, and the files you attach) privately, for the founder to read; the files are never published. Your deposit is taken and, if the application is declined, returned through our payment processor, Stripe.

If you sign in with Google, Google tells us your name, your email address, and that Google has verified it, along with an identifier for your Google account so that we recognize you next time; we receive nothing else from Google, and never your Google password.

If you change your email, the account and everything in it moves to the new address, and the old address is removed from it.

When you write a review, we keep it with the name you choose to show, your rating, and your email address (which is never shown).

When you use Messages, we keep your conversations so that you and the reader you write to can read them. Every message is encrypted before it is stored. Only the two of you read your conversations on the site; the press does not read them, except the messages a reader reports to us, which we read to deal with the report. When you delete a message you sent, it is erased from our database, not hidden; a copy may remain in Cloudflare’s encrypted backups for up to thirty days before it is gone. The members’ directory lists you only if you choose, by your name alone.

When you keep a journal, your entries are yours alone: each is encrypted before it is stored, with a key the site holds, so that nothing in the database or its backups can be read without it, and no one at the press reads your journal. The names of symbols and entries found in what you write are noted beside each entry, for you; nothing is sent to any other company, and nothing of it is used for anything else. You can download your journal as a text file, and delete any entry or all of it, at any time.

When you use Esoterica, the boards’ messages are kept so the boards can be read. Public boards, and the names readers post under there, can be read by anyone and appear in search engines, unless the board’s keeper turns that off; boards by invitation are seen only by their members and the moderators. While you have a board open, we note that you are there and when you are typing, so others see it; that note lasts only seconds. A message a moderator removes is kept, hidden, so that a removal can be reviewed or appealed; a message you delete yourself has its words erased, and a board you keep and delete is erased with everything in it. When you edit a message, its earlier versions stay with it, and anyone who can read the message can see them; deleting the message erases them too. Your reactions and your votes in polls are kept and shown with the message. When someone mentions you by name, we note it so it appears under Mentions, and, unless you turn these emails off, we email you a link to it.

Images, files, and voice messages you send are kept with the message they belong to. Photographs are re-drawn in your browser before they are sent, which removes hidden details such as where they were taken. On a public board, anyone who can read the board can open them; in Messages, they are encrypted like the messages and erased with them. When a message links to a page, we fetch that page’s title, description, and site name to show a preview; we fetch no images from other sites.

Some features are done by machine, on Cloudflare’s servers (Workers AI), and nothing is sent to any other company for them. Each new message on Esoterica is read by an automatic check, and the few that may touch the guidelines are shown to the moderators; the check removes nothing. Messages on Esoterica are also turned into an index of their meaning, so that a search can find them by meaning as well as by their words; the index goes when the message does. When you ask, a message is translated into your language, or a board’s recent messages are summarized for you; translations and summaries of board messages are kept for a while so they need not be made again, while a translation in Messages is shown to you and never kept. Voice messages are written out as text, shown beneath them; in Messages that text is encrypted like the message.

When you buy or preorder anything, or become a paying member, the payment is taken by Stripe. Card details go to Stripe and never reach us; we receive a record of the purchase, your email address, and, for a membership, the state of your subscription.

Cookies and Analytics

When you sign in to the Club, we set one cookie that keeps you signed in. It holds a random token and nothing else, and it is not used for advertising.

We use Google Analytics to understand, in aggregate, which pages are read and how visitors arrive; Google sets its own cookies to do this. We may also use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which counts visits without cookies. The site also keeps its own count of the pages it serves: for each page it records the day, the page, the site that linked to it, and a one-way hash of the connection that changes every day and cannot be turned back into an address or followed from one day to the next. We do not sell your information, and we do not use it for advertising.

Who Else Handles It

The site runs on Cloudflare, which stores the site’s data, including messages, boards, and the files sent in them, and whose Workers AI does the machine features described above. Stripe processes payments. Resend sends the Club’s emails (confirmations, password resets, notices of new messages, and the weekly entry). Google provides the analytics and, if you choose it, signing in. Each handles your information only to provide its service, under its own privacy policy.

Email

We email you only about what you asked for: an answer to your message, the release of a book you signed up for, your Club account, a note that someone has written to you in Messages (never the message itself, and you can turn these off), and, if you turn it on, the weekly entry. Every weekly entry carries a link that stops it at once, and you can turn it off from your account page.

Keeping and Deleting

We keep your information for as long as it serves the purpose you gave it for. You can ask us at any time to show you what we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it, including your Club account and your notes; write to us through Public Inquiries. Records of payments are kept as the law requires.

Children

The site is not directed at children under thirteen, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. Esoterica is for readers eighteen and older.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with its date.

See also the Terms of Sale and Use.