Privacy

What we collect

Freshie Ferment is a reference website. It does not require accounts, does not collect names or email addresses, does not store personal profiles, and does not process payments. The only data collected is anonymous usage analytics.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) collects anonymized usage data when you browse the site. This includes pages visited, time spent on pages, approximate geographic region (country and city level — not precise location), device type, browser, and referrer URL. GA4 uses cookies to do this. IP addresses are anonymized by Google before storage. We never see your full IP address.

Cloudflare hosts the site and provides CDN services. Cloudflare may log standard web-server data (IP addresses, request times, user agents) for security purposes. This data is held by Cloudflare under their own privacy policy and is not shared with us beyond aggregate metrics.

We do not use advertising networks, retargeting pixels, social media tracking widgets, or any third-party analytics beyond GA4. There is no behavioral targeting infrastructure on this site.

How we use it

The analytics data is used to understand which pages are read most, which guides are most useful, and where to focus future editorial effort. The data is reviewed in aggregate (e.g., "the kimchi profile gets 500 visits per month") rather than individually (we cannot and do not associate visits with specific people).

No data is sold to anyone. No data is shared with third parties for marketing purposes. Aggregated, de-identified data may be discussed publicly (e.g., "the encyclopedia has X monthly visitors") but never individual visitor data.

Cookies

The site uses two categories of cookies:

Essential cookies — minimal cookies set by Cloudflare for security (bot detection, attack mitigation) and the language preference toggle (remembering your language choice between visits). These cannot be disabled without breaking site functionality.

Analytics cookies — set by Google Analytics 4 to measure usage as described above. These can be disabled by using browser tracking-protection settings, the Google Analytics opt-out browser extension, or by browsing in private/incognito mode. The site works normally without these cookies; you just won't be counted in our analytics.

We do not use marketing or advertising cookies.

Your rights

If you are in California (CCPA), the EU/UK (GDPR), or similar jurisdictions, you have rights regarding your personal data. Because Freshie Ferment does not collect personal data beyond anonymized analytics, most of these rights are not practically applicable here — there is no account to delete, no profile to download, no marketing list to unsubscribe from.

For analytics data Google holds about your visits: Google provides controls at https://myaccount.google.com/data-and-personalization to view and delete your Google Analytics data.

For Cloudflare-held data: Cloudflare provides controls at https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/ for data they hold on their service.

If you have other privacy concerns or believe data has been mishandled, contact [email protected] and we will respond within 30 days.

Children

The site is suitable for all ages but is not designed specifically for children. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has interacted with the site in a way that produced collected data, contact [email protected] for assistance.

Changes to this policy

This privacy policy may be updated as the site evolves. Material changes will be noted by updating the "Last updated" date at the top of this page and (for significant changes) via a banner notification on the site's homepage for at least 30 days.

Contact

Privacy questions or concerns: [email protected] (routed to [email protected] via Cloudflare Email Routing). We respond to legitimate privacy inquiries within 30 days.

Freshie Ferment is operated by Veryation, a sole-proprietorship DBA registered in San Mateo County, California. Veryation is operated by Matt Crittenden.