Privacy Notice

How R3nf Rites handles your information.

Last updated: 9 August 2026

Hi, I’m R3nf Rites. This page explains what happens to your information when you visit this site, sign up to my newsletter, use my contact form, or click a buy link. If anything here is unclear, ask me.

Who I am

R3nf Rites is the name I write and trade under. Under data protection law that makes me the “controller” of your information: the person responsible for looking after it.

Get in touch: use my contact form. I use a form rather than publish an email address, to cut down on spam.

What I collect, and why

If you visit the site: Cloudflare hosts these pages, so every request passes through them. They see your IP address, your browser type, and which page you asked for, and give me anonymous visitor counts from it. I also use Cloudflare Web Analytics, a cookie-free script that shows me which pages get read and how fast they load — more on how that works in “Cookies and analytics” below. My lawful basis for both is legitimate interest: I need somewhere to host the site, and a rough sense of whether anyone is reading it.

If you use my contact form: your message, and an email address so I can reply. A name is optional, and it doesn’t have to be your real one. I write under a pen name myself. The email is the only part I genuinely need, because without it there’s nowhere to send an answer. My lawful basis is legitimate interest: you got in touch expecting a reply, so I don’t need separate permission to use your details to give you one.

If you sign up to my newsletter: your email address, and optionally a name, so I can say hello properly instead of “Dear Reader.” Neither has to be real, an alias is fine. My lawful basis is consent: you asked to hear from me, and you can change your mind whenever you like.

Signing up takes two steps. You enter your address, then I send you an email asking you to confirm it. Nothing else is sent until you click that link, so nobody can add you to my list without your say-so. When you click it, EmailOctopus records your IP address and the time, which is how I can show that you agreed. Every email I send has an unsubscribe link at the bottom, and it works immediately.

Both forms run a spam check, Cloudflare Turnstile. It looks at your IP address and some browser and connection details to confirm you’re not a bot. My lawful basis here is legitimate interest too: without it the form fills with junk and real messages get lost. It doesn’t track you across sites or build a profile of you, and Cloudflare set out what they do with the information in their Turnstile Privacy Addendum. It’s automated, so on the rare occasion it misjudges someone, do just try again.

Cookies and analytics

This site doesn’t use tracking cookies, and nothing here follows you around the web.

The only thing kept on your device is whether you chose light or dark mode, stored in your browser so the site remembers next time. It says nothing about who you are, it never leaves your device, and clearing your browser data removes it.

I use Cloudflare Web Analytics to see which pages people read and how fast they load. It runs a small script in your browser, but it’s built not to use cookies or any other way of recognising you between visits, so there’s nothing to consent to. Cloudflare explains how it works in their Web Analytics privacy policy.

Cloudflare, who I use for hosting and spam protection, may occasionally set a short-lived security cookie of its own if it needs to check a visitor isn’t a bot. These are exempt from cookie consent rules because they’re strictly necessary for keeping the site secure, not for tracking you.

Using it for something else

I’ll only use your information for the reason you gave it to me. If that ever needs to change, I’ll tell you before it does, and explain what allows me to. Sending me a message doesn’t put you on a mailing list.

Who else sees it

Three companies handle information on my behalf. They only use it to do that job for me, they don’t contact you themselves, and I don’t sell or share your information with anyone else.

  • Cloudflare hosts this site, runs the spam check on both my forms, and provides the visitor analytics described above.
  • Resend delivers contact form messages to my inbox, so it handles your message and contact details.
  • EmailOctopus stores my mailing list and sends the newsletter. It’s a UK company and keeps the list on servers in Ireland.

BookLinker (GeoRiot Networks, Inc.) is different. It routes the buy links on my book pages, and decides for itself how long to keep the click data. In data protection terms that makes us joint controllers: we share responsibility for it, rather than one of us answering to the other. Bring any request or complaint about it straight to me. More in “Purchase links” below.

How long I keep it

  • Newsletter sign-ups: for as long as you want to hear from me. Unsubscribe and I stop emailing you straight away. I keep a note that you unsubscribed, so you don’t get added back by mistake, and you can ask me to delete that outright at any time. If you sign up but never click the confirmation link, your address sits unconfirmed and I clear those out at least once a year.
  • Contact form messages: I keep these while there’s still a reason to, such as an ongoing conversation or something I might need to refer back to. In practice that’s rarely more than a year after we stop talking. You can ask me to delete yours at any time.
  • Purchase link clicks: GeoRiot says it doesn’t store your IP address after processing the click. See “Purchase links” below.
  • Backups: the companies I use may keep backup copies for a while after I’ve deleted my own. How long is up to them, not me.

Buy links on my book pages use BookLinker (GeoRiot Networks, Inc., a US company). It works out roughly where you are from your IP address, then sends you to the Amazon storefront that sells the book in your country. My lawful basis is legitimate interest: a link that lands you on a shop you can’t buy from is no use to either of us.

Clicking one means GeoRiot processes your device and browser type, language, IP address, the page you clicked from, and which book. It doesn’t collect anything that identifies you directly, so no name and no email. GeoRiot says the IP address is only used to process the click and isn’t stored afterwards. If you go on to buy something, limited details of the purchase such as the number of items and the price may be passed back to them.

BookLinker sends your browser straight to Amazon with no page in between, so it sets no cookies and runs no scripts on the way.

GeoRiot says it can’t identify individual people from what it holds, so it can’t act on a request about a particular click. Bring anything you want to ask or complain about to me instead, through my contact form.

Once you land on Amazon, Amazon’s own cookies and privacy policy apply, not mine.

Sending information abroad

Cloudflare, Resend and BookLinker/GeoRiot are all in the United States, or send your information there to do their job.

The UK doesn’t automatically treat US law as protecting your information as well as UK law does. So Cloudflare and Resend both sign up to approved contract terms: the standard contractual clauses, with the UK addendum. These hold them to UK standards wherever your information goes. BookLinker says it applies the same kind of clauses to the click data it handles.

You can read those terms yourself: Cloudflare’s data processing addendum and Resend’s data processing addendum both include the UK addendum. If you’d like a copy of any of this, ask me and I’ll send it.

My newsletter is different. EmailOctopus is a UK company and keeps my mailing list in Ireland, which UK law already treats as offering equivalent protection. The companies it uses to actually deliver the emails are US-based, and EmailOctopus is responsible for the arrangements covering that.

For how each company handles information generally, see Cloudflare’s privacy policy, Resend’s privacy policy, EmailOctopus’s privacy policy, and GeoRiot’s privacy policy.

Children

This site and my newsletter aren’t aimed at, or intended for, children under 13.

Your rights

You can ask me to:

  • show you a copy of the information I hold about you
  • correct anything that’s wrong or out of date
  • delete your information
  • limit how I use it
  • object to me using it, where I’m relying on legitimate interest
  • send your information to you, or to another service, in a form they can read. This one applies to newsletter sign-ups, where I rely on your consent

Ask through my contact form and I’ll reply within a month. If your request turns out to be complicated I’m allowed longer, but I’ll tell you if that happens rather than leave you waiting. The ICO’s website explains each right in more detail.

Unsubscribing is the quickest way to withdraw your consent, and there’s a link in every email. Withdrawing doesn’t undo anything I sent before you changed your mind, but it stops everything from that point.

If you’re unhappy

Tell me first: use my contact form and I’ll do my best to sort it out.

If you’re still unhappy, you can complain to the UK’s data protection regulator:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline: 0303 123 1113
ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint

Changes to this page

If I start doing something new with your information, I’ll update this page and change the date at the top.