Privacy Policy

We collect two types of information: data you voluntarily provide (contact forms, newsletter signup, account registration) and basic visitor analytics collected automatically when you browse our site.

Information you provide:

Information collected automatically:

We run our own self-hosted analytics system to understand how our website is used. We do not use Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, or any other third-party analytics service.

When you visit a page, our server records the page URL, your IP address, your country (determined from your IP), the referring URL, your browser's user agent string, and the time of visit. This data is stored in our own database on our own hardware.

• No tracking cookies — We do not set any cookies on your browser for analytics purposes. Each page view is recorded independently.
• No cross-session tracking — We do not track you across sessions or build a browsing profile. There is no persistent visitor ID.
• No third-party sharing — Analytics data is never sent to or shared with any external service.
• Full IP addresses are stored — Your complete IP address is recorded for country detection and visitor counting.
• Self-hosted infrastructure — All data is processed and stored on our own privately hosted servers, not in any cloud service.
• Data retention — Analytics data is retained for the lifetime of the website and is deleted when the website ceases to operate.

Your data is used only for the purposes described in this policy:

• To respond to your inquiries — When you contact us, we use your email to reply.
• To provide services — If you hire us, we use your contact info to deliver your project.
• To send updates (if you opt-in) — Only if you choose to receive tutorials or news.
• To manage your account — If you register, we use your info to provide account access.
• To understand our audience — We use analytics data to see which content is popular, where visitors come from, and how to improve the site.

We minimize our use of third-party services. However, the following external connections are made when you visit our site:

• Fonts — All fonts are self-hosted on our own servers. We do not load fonts from Google Fonts, Adobe Fonts, or any external font service. No third-party connections are made to display our website typography.
• VPS reverse proxy — Our website traffic passes through a VPS (Virtual Private Server) which acts as a gateway. This server handles SSL encryption and forwards traffic to our private hosting. The VPS does not store visitor data beyond standard server logs.

We do not use any third-party analytics (Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, etc.), advertising networks, social media tracking scripts, or external font/CDN services. Your browser connects only to our servers.

If we add payment processing in the future (such as PayPal or Stripe), this policy will be updated to reflect that before any payment data is collected.

We use cookies only for admin authentication. Regular visitors browsing the public website do not receive any cookies from us.

• No tracking cookies — We do not use cookies to track visitor behavior.
• No third-party cookies — We do not allow advertising or analytics cookies.
• No cookie consent needed for visitors — Since regular visitors receive no cookies, no cookie banner is required.

We believe in respecting your privacy. Here's what we never do:

• No third-party analytics — We don't use Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, or any external tracking service. Our analytics are fully self-hosted.
• No tracking cookies — We don't place any cookies on your device for tracking purposes.
• No cross-session tracking — We don't assign you a visitor ID or track your behavior across visits.
• No data selling — We never sell, rent, or give your data to anyone else.
• No advertising — We don't show ads or share data with advertisers.
• No user profiling — We don't build behavioral profiles about you.
• No spam — We only email you if you've asked us to or if it's related to your inquiry.

All data is stored on our privately hosted infrastructure. We do not use cloud hosting services like AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure for data storage.

• Contact form submissions — Stored in our database on our private server. Retained until manually deleted when the inquiry is resolved.
• Analytics data — Stored in our database on our private server. Retained for the operational lifetime of the website.
• Account data — Stored on our own server. Passwords are kept only as one-way hashes, never as text we could read. Retained until you delete your account, which you can do yourself at any time.
• Newsletter subscriptions — Email addresses stored in our database until you unsubscribe.

Our server infrastructure uses HTTPS encryption (SSL/TLS) for all data in transit. The website traffic passes through a VPS for SSL termination and is forwarded via an encrypted tunnel to our private hosting server.

You can request deletion of your data at any time by contacting us.

You have full control over your data. These rights apply regardless of where you're located:

• Right to access — Ask us what data we have about you.
• Right to correction — Request corrections to any inaccurate information.
• Right to deletion — Ask us to delete your data permanently.
• Right to withdraw consent — Unsubscribe from emails or close your account anytime.
• Right to data portability — Request a copy of your data in a usable format.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at contact@finkatana.com. We'll respond within 30 days.

We may send free tutorials, tips, and updates — but only if you choose to receive them.

• Newsletter subscription is opt-in only.
• Every email includes an unsubscribe link.
• We never add you to our mailing list without your explicit consent.
• Your email is used only for sending the content you requested.

Membership is optional. Every tutorial, guide, learning path and glossary entry on this site is free to read without an account, and always will be.

When you register an account at finkatana.com/register.html, we store exactly this and nothing else:

• Your username — chosen by you.
• Your email address — used to confirm the account, and to send you a password-reset link if you ask for one.
• Your password, as a one-way hash — never as text. We cannot read your password, and neither can anyone who obtains the database. There is no length limit and no rule about which characters you use.
• The IP address the signup came from, and the dates you registered, confirmed your email and last signed in — kept so we can identify and remove automated signups.

That is the complete record, and you can see it yourself on your account page. We do not collect a profile photo, a country, a date of birth, a phone number or any advertising identifier, and there is no field in which to supply one.

Your email address is never added to our newsletter by registering. Those are separate: the newsletter has its own opt-in, and registering does not enrol you in it. We email a registered member only to confirm the address, to send a password-reset link they requested, or to tell them if someone tried to register a second account with their address.

You can delete your account yourself, at any time, without asking us. The button is on your account page. Deleting erases your username, email address and profile from our records and signs out every device — it does not merely hide the account. It cannot be undone, and afterwards the email address is free to register again if you change your mind.

One thing deletion does not erase, and we would rather say so than let you find out. If we have done paid work for you, the record of that work — the project, the amounts and the dates — is kept. Your name, your email address and your profile are removed from it, so the record no longer identifies you: what remains is a job and a set of figures. We keep it because it is our own financial record of work we did and money we received. If you would prefer it removed as well, write to us and we will talk about it.

When you purchase services, your payment is processed securely:

• Card payments — Processed by secure, industry-standard payment providers. We never see or store your full card number.
• Cryptocurrency — Transactions occur directly on the blockchain. We only receive your wallet address to confirm payment.
• Bank transfers — Processed through standard banking channels.

We may update this policy as our services evolve. When we do:

• The "Last updated" date at the top will change.
• Significant changes will be announced clearly.
• If you have an account, we'll notify you of major changes.

We recommend checking this page occasionally. Continued use of finkatana.com after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

Questions about this policy? Want to exercise your data rights? Just want to say hello? We're happy to help.