Privacy

The Plumbline collects no personal data about you. None. There are no accounts and no logins, no tracking, no analytics, no advertising, and nothing is ever sold, rented, or shared. The site is a set of static files with no database behind it, so there is, quite literally, nowhere for your data to go. What follows is the complete and honest version, including the handful of outside services that are technically involved in delivering the site to your browser.

WHAT THE SITE ITSELF DOES

Everything you read here is pre-built and served as plain files. The site sets no cookies of its own, runs no analytics, and asks you for nothing. You can read the entire board without giving up a single piece of information about yourself, and the source that produces every page is public on GitLab, so you can verify this rather than take our word for it.

THIRD PARTIES THAT DELIVER THE SITE

A static site still has to reach you, and two services help with that. They each receive limited technical data in the ordinary course of serving a web page, under their own privacy policies, not ours:

Cloudflare hosts and delivers the site. Like any web host, it keeps standard access logs (your IP address, the page requested, the time) to deliver pages and protect against abuse. We do not use these logs to identify or track you.

Google Fonts serves the typefaces. When your browser loads a font, it makes a request to Google, which exposes your IP address to Google for that request. This is the only third party that loads on a plain reading visit. If even this is more than you want, the fonts can be self-hosted to remove it; that is a known, deliberate tradeoff and we are happy to make it.

IF YOU SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE

The optional newsletter signup and the donation widget are provided by Equipoise, an embedded third-party tool from Equipoise LLC. If you choose to subscribe, your email address goes to Equipoise, not to us. If you choose to donate, your payment is handled by Equipoise and its payment processor (Stripe); your card details go to them and are never seen, handled, or stored by The Plumbline. Both are entirely optional, the entire board is free whether you give or not, and you can unsubscribe at any time using the link in any email.

Their handling of your information is governed by their own policies: Equipoise's privacy policy, terms of service, and support pages, and Stripe's own privacy policy.

STORAGE ON YOUR OWN DEVICE

One feature, the "what changed since you were last here" board diff, keeps a single timestamp in your browser's local storage so it can show you what moved since your previous visit. That value lives on your own device, is never transmitted to us or anyone else, and clearing your browser storage removes it. It is a convenience, not a tracker.

COOKIES, ANALYTICS, ADVERTISING

The Plumbline sets no cookies, runs no analytics or measurement of any kind, and carries no advertising or third-party trackers. There is no consent banner because there is nothing to consent to.

YOUR DATA AND YOUR RIGHTS

Because we hold no data about you, there is nothing on our side to access, correct, export, or delete. If you have subscribed or donated and want your information with Equipoise or Stripe accessed or removed, you can contact them directly, or write to us at the address below and we will help relay the request.

CHILDREN

The Plumbline is a general-audience economics instrument and is not directed at children. Since we collect nothing from anyone, we collect nothing from children either.

CHANGES

If this policy ever changes, the updated version will be posted here with a new date. Because the whole site is version-controlled in public, the full history of this page is auditable on GitLab.

CONTACT

Questions about privacy can go to jay@mindtonic.org. The Plumbline is a project of Mindtonic, Inc.

Last updated: 13 June 2026.