Privacy Policy

A8C Ventures LLC (“we”) operates a8c.xyz. This page describes how we currently handle information when you visit.

What We Collect

When analytics is active, we collect pseudonymous usage data — data that is not linked to your name or email by us, but which our analytics provider may associate with a random identifier in your browser. Categories include:

• Interactions with content: page views, scroll depth, clicks on links and calls-to-action (including the destination URL of a link you click), time on page, which essays you navigate between within a visit, and — if you select a passage of essay text and use the in-page share affordance — the selected text itself, recorded so we can see which passages readers find worth sharing. We tag the outbound share URL with analytics parameters so that referral visits from that share can be attributed back to the original essay.
• Device and browser data: browser name and version, user-agent string, operating system, device type, language preference, screen and viewport dimensions.
• Traffic source data: referrer URL and UTM parameters, which we may normalize into a channel name such as “twitter” or “linkedin.”
• Approximate location derived from your IP address: country, region, city, postal code, and approximate latitude and longitude (typically accurate to tens of kilometers). Our analytics provider derives these from your IP at ingest. Our hosting provider sees your IP when it serves the page and uses the two-letter country code to decide whether to show you a consent prompt; we do not retain the raw IP address in our own systems beyond hosting-provider logs.

Personal information enters our records when you provide it directly — for example, by emailing us, subscribing to our newsletter, or sending us a Build or Advise inquiry.

Build & Advise Submissions

When you submit an inquiry through our Build or Advise form, we collect the contact details you enter: your name and work email (required), and optionally your company, role, a LinkedIn URL, a short, free-text context note, and an optional “how you heard about us” note — along with a non-identifying selector for which page you came from and what you’re after. We ask you to keep the context high-level; the field is length-limited and is not the place for confidential material.

We use these details to respond to you and to maintain a record of the inquiry. Specifically, we (1) store your inquiry as a contact and a deal in HubSpot, our customer-relationship provider; (2) deliver a notification to ourselves through our transactional-email provider, Resend; and (3) associate the inquiry with a first-party web-analytics identifier — so we can understand which page or essay led you to reach out — using the product-analytics service described in “Storage and Consent” below, and only where analytics is permitted. If you go on to engage a paid service, the invoice payment is processed by our banking provider, Mercury. These providers process the data on our behalf in the United States. We apply a per-IP rate limit to the endpoint to deter automated abuse. Submitting the form does not subscribe you to a newsletter, and we do not sell your information — we use it to follow up on your inquiry.

What you go on to share with us afterward is handled under the “Unsolicited Submissions” section of our Terms of Use; please don’t send anything you consider confidential without a separate signed agreement in place.

Storage and Consent

When analytics is active, we use your browser’s localStorage to maintain a randomly-generated identifier across visits. The identifier is a random string used to recognize return visits.

Visitors located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland see a consent prompt before any analytics data is collected. If you decline, no identifier is written and no analytics events are sent. We record your choice (accept or decline) in your browser’s localStorage as strictly-necessary storage so we do not ask again on every page; this is the only thing stored until you accept analytics, and it is exempt from consent requirements under the ePrivacy Directive Art. 5(3) because it is necessary to give effect to your choice.

If a consent prompt was shown to you, you can change your choice at any time using the Privacy preferences link in the site footer — that link is only displayed to visitors in jurisdictions where consent is required (EEA, UK, or Switzerland) and only after they have made a choice. Consent records expire after 13 months in line with CNIL guidance, at which point we re-show the banner so you can confirm your choice with fresh information.

Regardless of jurisdiction, we honor the Global Privacy Control signal as an opt-out. When your browser sends GPC, no analytics is initialized, no identifier is written, no consent prompt is shown, and no A/B variant is assigned — you see the default version of the site. GPC is the single opt-out mechanism for visitors who do not see the consent prompt; we do not currently honor the legacy Do Not Track header.

A/B Experiments

When analytics is active, we occasionally test different versions of small page elements — for example, the wording of a call-to-action button — to learn which version readers find clearer. Each visitor is randomly assigned to a variant, and the assignment is stored in your browser’s localStorage by our analytics provider so that the same visitor sees the same variant on return visits and so we can attribute resulting events to the variant they saw. The variant name (e.g. “control”) is recorded on related analytics events such as newsletter_signup_clicked; no additional identifier is created for the experiment.

A/B experiments are part of analytics and inherit the same on/off controls described above — if analytics is off for you (consent declined, GPC signal present, or the prompt not yet answered), no variant is fetched and you always see the default version of the element. We do not run experiments on safety- or fairness-relevant content; only on copy, layout, and discoverability.

Newsletter Subscriptions

Our newsletter is operated by Substack, Inc. You can subscribe either by submitting your email through a form on a8c.xyz, which we forward to Substack on your behalf, or by clicking a subscribe link that takes you to Substack’s site to complete subscription. In both cases your email address and subscription record are held by Substack and governed by Substack’s privacy policy. When you submit through a form on a8c.xyz, we do not store the email on our own servers; it is forwarded directly to Substack and discarded from the request after the response. We apply a per-IP rate limit on the submission endpoint to deter automated abuse; no other data about the submission is retained.

We may view aggregate metrics about the newsletter (subscriber counts, open and click rates) through Substack’s dashboard. We do not link an individual subscriber’s identity to that person’s visits to a8c.xyz; the analytics identifier described above is never associated with a name or email address by us.

How We Use It

We use this information to understand how visitors interact with the site, to maintain and secure it, and to respond to inquiries. Where the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies, our lawful basis for processing analytics data is your consent, given through the prompt described above. Outside those jurisdictions, our basis is legitimate interest in understanding how our content reaches readers. For email correspondence, idea submissions, and inquiry handling, our basis is your decision to contact us and our legitimate interest in evaluating and responding.

Third-Party Services

We rely on third-party providers for the following categories of service:

• Site hosting and edge delivery — serves the site to your browser and handles routing, edge caching, and request logging.
• Product analytics — receives the pseudonymous usage events described above for visitors who are not subject to a consent requirement, or who have given consent.
• Newsletter delivery — operates the newsletter subscription you reach via the “Subscribe” links described in the Newsletter Subscriptions section above.
• Transactional email — delivers the Build / Advise inquiry you send us to us as an email notification, as described in the Build & Advise Submissions section above.
• Customer-relationship management — stores the contact details from your Build / Advise inquiry so we can follow up and keep a record, as described in the Build & Advise Submissions section above.
• Payment processing — processes the invoice payment if you engage a paid service, and provides our business banking.

These providers may process data in jurisdictions outside your country of residence, including the United States. For the specific providers we currently use, contact hello@a8c.xyz.

Data Retention

• localStorage identifier: persists in your browser until you clear site data for a8c.xyz. Clearing your browser storage removes it.
• Analytics events at our analytics provider: retained for the life of the analytics project. Because the localStorage identifier is not linked to your name or email by us, individual deletion is most reliably accomplished by you clearing your browser storage. On request to hello@a8c.xyz, we will additionally request deletion of a specific identifier from the analytics provider.
• Email correspondence: retained as long as needed to respond and for our records, then deleted on a reasonable schedule or sooner on request.

Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, or delete personal information we hold about you; to object to or restrict our processing of it; and, where applicable, to receive a portable copy of it. California residents have additional rights under CCPA/CPRA, including rights to know, delete, correct, and limit; we do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

Because we do not associate the analytics identifier with your name or email, the most reliable way to delete analytics data tied to your visits is to clear your browser storage for a8c.xyz. For deletion or other requests related to email correspondence or newsletter subscription, email hello@a8c.xyz; for newsletter subscription data held by Substack, you may also submit a request to Substack directly. We respond within the timeline required by your jurisdiction.

Children

The Site is intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 16.

Changes

We may update this policy. Material changes will be reflected in the “Last updated” date above.

Contact

A8C Ventures LLC
hello@a8c.xyz