Privacy policy

The short version

IndexGG has no accounts, no login, no comments and no newsletter. There is nothing here to sign up for, so there is no name, email address or password to store. We ourselves do not build profiles of the people who read it or sell data about them.

The site is paid for by adverts from Google. Google and its advertising partners use cookies and similar technology to show those adverts and measure them, and can use what they learn to build a profile of your interests and personalise adverts to it, as described below. In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland they only do that with your consent, which you give or refuse in Google’s consent message and can change at any time. Some US state laws count letting them do this as a sale or sharing of your personal information by this site; the section for the United States says how to opt out.

Who is responsible

IndexGG is run from the Netherlands by its operator, who decides what the site itself collects. Write to hello@indexgg.com about any of it, or see the contact page. For the adverts, Google decides for itself how it uses the data it collects, under its own privacy policy, which is linked below. For Google Analytics, Google processes data on our behalf and the operator stays responsible for it.

What is collected automatically

Like every web server, ours records a line per request: the page asked for, the time, the browser’s user agent string, and the IP address the request came from. These logs exist so the site can be kept running and abuse can be stopped. They are not linked to any identity and are not used for advertising.

Requests reach us through Cloudflare, which provides the site’s network and security layer and sees the same details for the same reason. The pages also run a small check in your browser that looks for signs of automated software (a headless browser announcing itself, for instance) and, when it finds them, stops adverts being requested and analytics being sent for that visit. Nothing from that check is stored or sent anywhere.

Cookies and similar storage

What can be stored in your browser while you use IndexGG, and by whom:

• Your light or dark theme choice, kept in your browser’s local storage (not a cookie) so the page does not flash the wrong colour on your next visit. It never leaves your device.
• Your consent choices, in the cookies FCCDCF (about 13 months) and FCNEC(about 12 months), which Google’s consent tool sets on this site’s own domain to remember what you chose in its messages.
• Google Analytics cookies, _ga and _ga_YHK90MEQ92, which let a return visit be recognised as one and last up to two years. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland they are only set if you agree to analytics; see the Analytics section.
• Advertising cookies from Google and its partners, such as __gads and __gpion this site’s domain and others on Google’s own domains, used to show adverts, limit how often you see the same one, measure them, prevent fraud and, where you allow it, personalise them. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland they are only set with your consent.
• A Cloudflare security cookie, such as __cf_bm or cf_clearance, which Cloudflare can set when its bot protection checks a visit or you pass one of its challenges. It is short-lived, exists only to protect the site, and is not used for advertising or analytics.

Google lists the cookies it uses and what each does at policies.google.com/technologies/cookies.

Advertising

This site shows adverts served by Google AdSense. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve adverts based on your previous visits to this and other websites. Google’s use of advertising cookies lets it and its partners show you adverts based on your visits to this site and other sites on the internet.

As a result of those adverts, Google and other third parties may place and read cookies in your browser, use web beacons (tiny images or scripts that report that something was seen) and similar technology, and receive your IP address and details of your browser and device. Your IP address reaches Google with every advert request, whatever you choose, because that is how your browser talks to Google’s servers.

If you are asked for consent and refuse, Google still shows adverts, but only non-personalised or limited ones: chosen from the page you are reading and coarse information such as your general location, and in the case of limited ads without storing or reading anything on your device for advertising.

Google explains how it uses information from sites that use its services at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites, and how it handles personal data in its advertising products at business.safety.google/privacy.

You can opt out of personalised advertising from Google at Google’s ads settings, and out of personalised advertising from many other vendors at aboutads.info or, in Europe, youronlinechoices.eu.

Your consent, and how to change it

If you visit from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, Google’s consent message asks you before any cookie or identifier is stored on or read from your device for advertising or analytics. It is Google’s own consent management platform, which works to the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework: it names every advertising partner and what each one wants to do, and lets you agree or refuse for each. Some partners rely on their legitimate interest rather than consent for some purposes, such as measuring whether an advert was seen; the message lists those too and lets you object.

You can change or withdraw your choice at any time from Privacy and cookie settings. Google adds a link with that name to the page after you have answered, and wherever the message applies to you the same control is also in the footer of this site and just below. Withdrawing consent stops what happens from then on; it does not undo what was done while you had agreed.

Outside those places there is no consent to give, and the cookies above are set as described. The opt-out links in the Advertising section work from anywhere.

Images and files loaded from other sites

IndexGGdoes not host project icons, screenshots or downloadable files. Icons and screenshots are loaded directly from the host the author published them on, and every download link points at the author’s own release. That means your browser contacts those hosts, and they can see the request the same way any website you visit can. We do this rather than copying the files because they belong to their authors, and hotlinking with credit is the honest way to show somebody else’s work.

Links to another site carry rel="nofollow noopener" and a no-referrer policy, so the destination is not told which page you came from.

Analytics

IndexGG uses Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages people actually read. It is the only measurement product on the site.

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, no analytics cookie is set unless you agree to analytics in Google’s consent message. Until then Google Analytics receives only cookieless pings: that a page was viewed, with general details about the browser, but no cookie or identifier that could connect one visit to the next. Google may use those pings to estimate the visits it cannot count directly.

Elsewhere it sets its usual cookies, which is what lets a return visit be recognised as a return visit. Outside those regions the tag may also use Google’s advertising features, such as Google signals, where they are switched on for this site; inside them, only if you agree. Google Analytics does not log or store IP addresses.

You can block it outright with any content blocker, or with the browser extension Google publishes at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. Nothing on this site depends on it.

Legal bases

Where the GDPR or the UK GDPR applies, each use of your data that this site decides on rests on one of two grounds:

• Consent (Article 6(1)(a)) for storing and reading cookies and similar information on your device for advertising and analytics, and for personalised adverts. You give or refuse it in the consent message and can withdraw it at any time.
• Legitimate interests(Article 6(1)(f)) for keeping the site running and secure (the server logs, Cloudflare’s protection and the automated-traffic check) and for counting pageviews without cookies. You can object to these at any time by writing to us.

Your theme choice needs neither: it is stored at your request, stays on your device, and never reaches us.

Your rights, and how to use them

You can ask for access to the personal data held about you, and to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict or object to how it is used, to receive it in a portable form, and to withdraw consent, which does not affect what was done before you withdrew it.

Since we hold no account and no profile, the only personal data IndexGG keeps itself is the server logs, which age out on their own. Write to hello@indexgg.com about those, or if you believe something on this site involves you and should not, and we will look at it. The same address is the one for Google Analytics: Google processes that data on our behalf, so requests about it come to us, and the identifier in your _ga cookie is what lets it be found.

Advertising data is different. Google and its advertising partners collect it for their own purposes, each as a controller in its own right, so for that data they are the ones who can act on these rights. Google’s privacy policy explains how to use them with Google, and Google’s consent message, where it is shown, names every other partner with a link to its own policy.

You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority: the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens in the Netherlands, where this site is run from, or the authority where you live or work.

Data processed outside Europe

Google and Cloudflare process data in many countries, including the United States, so information collected through this site may be handled outside the European Economic Area. Where it is, they rely on the safeguards the GDPR provides for such transfers, such as the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses.

If you are in the United States

Some US state privacy laws, such as California’s, give you the right to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information for targeted advertising, and the adverts Google shows here can count as that. We do not sell data ourselves. To opt out of it here, use the “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” link where Google shows one, turn on Global Privacy Control in your browser, which Google honours as an opt-out for the adverts it serves, or use the opt-out links in the Advertising section. You can also ask us what we hold about you, or to delete it, at the address above.

Children

IndexGG is a technical reference for software. It is not directed at children, and it does not knowingly collect anything from anyone.

Changes to this policy

The date at the top of this page is the date it last changed. Because the policy describes what the code actually does, it is edited in the same change as the behaviour it describes rather than afterwards.