Not much to hide.
The Nerd Net has no ads, no third-party analytics and nothing that follows you from site to site. We count visits from our own server logs and a few anonymous counters, and this page lists the little we do store, so you can check it.
Last updated 26 October 2026.
The short version
- We don't use advertising, third-party analytics or tracking pixels, and we don't sell or share your data. If that ever changes, this page will say so first.
- To see how many people read the site, we count visits from the web server's own logs, plus a few anonymous counters for trivia, polls and Desk Pals. The counts keep no IP addresses.
- The only personal information we collect is what you type into the contact form.
- The cookies we set are the ones the site needs to work. Everything else is a preference stored in your own browser.
- Fonts are served from this site, so your browser doesn't contact Google or anyone else to draw a page.
Who we are
The Nerd Net is a small independent website run by one person. To reach us about anything on this page, use the contact form.
Cookies
These are the cookies the site sets. All of them belong to this site and none are used for advertising or to follow you around the web.
| Name | What it does | How long |
|---|---|---|
the-nerd-net-session | Keeps the site working from page to page. | Up to 2 hours |
XSRF-TOKEN | Protects the contact form from forged requests. | Up to 2 hours |
nerdnet_cover | Remembers which homepage cover you were shown, so it stays the same during the day. | Set by the cover switcher |
Our host, Cloudflare, may also set a security cookie to tell real visitors from bots. That is a security measure and not a tracker.
Browser storage
Some features keep a small note in your browser's own storage. It never leaves your device and nobody else can read it. Clearing your browser data removes it.
- Theme: light, dark or black, if you chose one.
- Trivia streak: your daily answers and streak.
- Polls: that you've already voted, so the poll can show results.
- Trivia, poll and Desk Pals counting: a note that this browser has already been counted today, so reloading the page doesn't count twice.
- Screensaver and homepage motion: the options you picked.
- Background settings: the settings behind the small cog at the bottom left of each page, and the score from the background game if you play it.
- Sharing: the Mastodon server you enter, so the share button can remember it.
Desk Pals
The pals themselves collect nothing from you. They read the page they are standing on (its title and headings) to make their remarks, and that happens in your browser: the pals send nothing anywhere. They set no cookies and store nothing in your browser. The flock you choose lives only on the page and in the link you copy, which contains nothing but the names and sizes of the pals.
We do measure how the Desk Pals page and the script are used, in two ways:
- On the Desk Pals page: when you open it, add a pal to your flock, or copy the link or the code, your browser tells us that it happened and we add one to a daily count (for example "sheep was added"). Like the trivia and poll counts, these hold no IP address, cookie or anything that identifies you.
- When a website uses the script: if you visit another website that has added the Desk Pals script from us, your browser fetches that script from our server. Like any file, the request goes into the server log described below (your IP address, the time, your browser and the address of the page you were on). Each day we turn the log into totals: how many times the script was loaded, by roughly how many visitors, and the names of the websites that load it (the site's name only, not the page and not you). We use these to see whether the pals are being used and which sites to say thank you to. We don't build a profile of you or follow you from site to site.
The contact form
If you write to us, we receive the topic you picked, your name, your email address and your message. We use them to read your message and, if you want one, reply. We keep the message in our admin and email it to the site owner. We don't add you to a mailing list, and we don't share your message with anyone. We delete messages once they have been dealt with, and in any case within 12 months. To have yours deleted sooner, ask through the form.
What the server records
- Visits: to run the site, the server keeps your IP address and browser type next to your session for up to two hours.
- Trivia, poll and Desk Pals statistics: when you scroll a trivia question or poll into view, answer, vote or share it, your browser tells us that it happened, and we add one to a daily count for that question or poll. For trivia we also count which answer was picked. The counts hold no IP address, cookie or anything that identifies you. We use them to see which questions people enjoy and to run unanswered ones again.
- Spam limits: the contact form and polls count how often one connection uses them. The counter holds a scrambled form of your IP address, not the address itself, for at most a day.
- Hosting: the site sits behind Cloudflare and runs on a web server. Both process your IP address to deliver pages and defend against attacks, and the server keeps ordinary logs for security and fixing faults. Each log line holds your IP address, the time, the page you asked for, the page that sent you and your browser type. The live logs are rotated away after about five weeks. A compressed copy of each day's log is kept for up to 12 months, for security and so the statistics below can be checked, and then deleted.
- Visit statistics: once a day we turn that day's log into a summary for the site owner: how many people visited, which pages they read, which sites sent them, what kind of device they used, and the words they typed into the site search. The summary holds totals and top-ten style lists only. It has no IP addresses and nothing that identifies a visitor, and it is kept for as long as the site runs. We do not use cookies, tracking scripts or any third-party service to produce it.
Links to other sites
Stories and the "From around the web" section link to other websites. Those sites have their own privacy practices, and we have no control over them. The Nerd Net doesn't currently use affiliate links. If that changes, those links will be marked and this page will say so.
Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us what we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it. If you are in the UK or the EU, you can also object to how we use it and complain to your data protection authority. Use the contact form and say what you'd like.
Changes
If what we do changes, we'll update this page and the date at the top.