Privacy Policy

The site collects basic usage data when you visit: which pages you view, roughly where you’re visiting from, what browser and device you’re on, and what page sent you here. That happens through the analytics and advertising services described below, which also set cookies of their own.

The “Where is Downtown?” tool stores the area you draw so it can be added to the heatmap. Your drawing is saved against a one-way, salted hash of a randomly generated browser identifier, so you can come back and update your submission, and a separate salted hash of your IP address, which is used to limit spam. Your raw IP address is never stored, and nothing about a submission is tied to who you are.

The site uses Google AdSense to show ads. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this and other websites. You can turn off personalized ads in Google Ads Settings, and opt out of many other vendors’ advertising cookies at aboutads.info/choices or youronlinechoices.com. For how Google uses data from sites like this one, see Google’s Privacy & Terms.

I use Vercel Analytics to see aggregate traffic, like which pages get visited and roughly where visitors come from. I use it to see which tools people use.

I don’t sell your personal information. The data described above passes through the third-party services the site runs on, mainly Google for advertising and Vercel for hosting and analytics, each with its own privacy policy. Anonymous, aggregated data, like the downtown heatmap, is shown publicly on the site.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and use the opt-out links above for personalized ads. With cookies blocked, the downtown tool won’t remember that you’ve already submitted.

If this policy changes, I’ll update the date at the top.

Email questions to observingthecity@gmail.com.