Privacy Policy

The short version: your email address, and basic analytics about how you read the newsletter.

When you subscribe, we collect your email address. When you read an issue, our newsletter platform (Beehiiv) records whether the email was delivered, opened, and which links you clicked. When you visit this website, our privacy-focused analytics (Plausible) records pageviews, referrers, and country — no cookies, no individual tracking.

We do not collect: your name, phone number, physical address, payment information, or any other personal data unless you voluntarily provide it (for example, by replying to an email).

The short version: to send you the newsletter and to make the newsletter better.

Your email is used to deliver the weekly newsletter and any account notifications. Aggregate analytics (open rates, click rates) help us understand what content works and improve future issues. We do not sell your email or your reading habits to anyone, ever.

The short version: we use a small number of vendors to operate the newsletter. Each has its own privacy policy.

Our infrastructure relies on:

• Beehiiv — email delivery, subscriber list, and analytics for issues.
• Cloudflare — domain hosting, DNS, and website CDN.
• Plausible — privacy-focused website analytics (no cookies, no fingerprinting).
• Supabase — backend database for editorial content and (encrypted) subscriber backup.
• Google Workspace — our team email and reader replies.

None of these vendors have access to read the editorial content of your reading habits except in the aggregate metrics they provide back to us.

The short version: we use no tracking cookies on this website.

No tracking cookies. Our analytics provider (Plausible) is cookie-free and does not fingerprint visitors. Pageviews are aggregated; we cannot tie a visit back to an individual person.

No advertising cookies. We do not use Facebook Pixel, Google Ads tags, retargeting pixels, or any third-party advertising infrastructure.

One functional cookie may be set on subscription. When you submit the signup form, our server may set a brief session cookie to prevent duplicate submissions. It expires within an hour and contains no personal data.

Email click tracking is not a cookie. Links inside newsletter emails route through a tracking subdomain (elink747.mail.theaustinnewsletter.com) so we can count clicks per issue. This records that a link was clicked, but does not place a cookie on your browser or device.

Why so little.We don’t need a cookie consent banner because we don’t set tracking cookies. The newsletter business doesn’t require knowing who individual readers are; we sell sponsorships against aggregate readership, not against individuals.

The short version: unsubscribe at any time from any issue. Email us to delete your data entirely.

Every newsletter issue includes an unsubscribe link in the footer. Clicking it removes you from the list immediately. To delete your subscriber record entirely (rather than just unsubscribing), email carissa@theaustinnewsletter.com and we will purge your email from Beehiiv and our Supabase backup within 30 days.

The short version:while you’re subscribed, indefinitely. After you unsubscribe, 90 days for compliance, then deleted.

Active subscriber records are retained while you are subscribed and for 90 days after unsubscription, after which we delete them from both Beehiiv and our Supabase backup. Aggregate analytics (issue open rates, click rates without personal identifiers) are retained indefinitely for editorial purposes.

The Austin Newsletter is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13, we will delete it.

We may update this policy when our practices change. Updates appear here with the revised date. Material changes (anything that affects what we collect or how we use it) will be announced in the newsletter so you can review before they take effect.

Questions about this policy? Email carissa@theaustinnewsletter.com.

Mailing address available on request and in the footer of every newsletter issue.