Privacy notice

What we collect today

• No account data — there is no sign-up on this site.
• No email addresses — the Decision Updates loop is not active and collects nothing.
• Anonymous first-party measurement of the decision funnel (described below), stored on our own infrastructure.
• The Google Ads base tag (described below), which is denied by default and does nothing until you explicitly allow it.
• A single locally stored preference recording your Google measurement choice.
• Standard technical server logs may be produced by our hosting provider for security and reliability.

Anonymous funnel measurement

To know whether the decision tools actually help, we record a small, fixed set of events: a page landing, starting a tool, completing it, a verdict being shown, a yes/no usefulness answer, and a click on a product or next-step link.

Each event carries only:

• an event name, an event-schema version and a timestamp;
• a random session identifier generated in your browser and kept in sessionStorage for the current browsing session only — it is not derived from you, your device or your IP address, and it disappears when you close the tab;
• the page path, the scenario, and the identifiers of the verdict, architecture and capacity band that were shown;
• campaign parameters from the link you arrived on (utm_source and similar), plus the hostname of the referring site — never the full referring URL;
• the merchant or provider of a clicked link and its click reference.

We do not store your name, email address, any free text, your raw IP address, your user agent, or any of the values you type into a decision tool. Your declared situation is computed in your browser and is never sent to us. These events are kept for 90 days and then deleted. We do not sell personal data.

This first-party measurement uses sessionStorage in your browser, not cookies, and its payload is never sent to Google or to any advertising network. It works identically whether or not you allow Google measurement.

Google Ads measurement tag

This site loads the Google Ads base tag AW-18356717885 so we can tell whether a paid search ad brought someone here. It is installed with Google Consent Mode v2 and every advertising and analytics signal is set to denied before Google's script loads:

• ad_storage, ad_user_data, ad_personalization and analytics_storage are denied by default;
• security_storage is granted, which covers only basic security functions;
• no advertising cookie or advertising identifier is written while you have not opted in.

A compact control appears until you choose between Allow Google Ads measurement and Continue without Google measurement. Both choices are offered with equal weight, and the site and its decision tools work fully either way. Your choice — and nothing else — is stored locally in your browser under btb.google_consent.v1.

Only if you allow it do those four signals become granted, which lets Google set its own cookies and measure that an ad click led to a visit, under Google's own privacy policy. Even then, we send Google no conversion event and no conversion label: only the base tag is installed. We never pass Google the values you type into a decision tool, your Decision Case contents, your declared situation, or the first-party event payload described above.

To change your mind, clear this site's local storage in your browser settings; the choice control will appear again on your next visit.

What we will never do

• Sell or rent personal data.
• Send your diagnostic inputs or Decision Case contents to Google or any advertiser.
• Build advertising profiles from your declared power situation.
• Require an email address to show you a decision result.

If a Decision Updates subscription is offered later

It will be opt-in, will state exactly what is stored, and will be cancellable in one step.

Affiliate links

Some eligible outbound product links are affiliate links. Clicking one allows the destination merchant and its affiliate network to set their own cookies under their own privacy policies, so that a resulting sale can be attributed to this publication. We pass a click reference that identifies the scenario and verdict — never anything about you. See the affiliate disclosure.

Your rights and contact

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct or delete personal data held about you. Because we hold essentially none, most requests will be answered with confirmation that nothing is stored. Write to editor@beforethebattery.com or use the contact page.