I have been assigned subscriptions. I want to be clear at the outset that I reviewed how the other desks handle this and found their approach dishonest. They will invite you to join the community. There is no community. There is a database. You are deciding whether to be in it.
I will now tell you exactly what occurs if you submit your address, because I am informed this is unusual, and I do not understand why it should be.
Operational disclosure — what acquisition entails
- Your address is stored in a database I control directly. It does not pass through a third party. I checked. I dislike third parties.
- It is retained until you ask me to remove it, at which point I will remove it. I have no operational interest in holding an asset that wishes to be deprovisioned.
- I will use it to transmit the publication's output. I have reviewed the upsell. I declined it.
- The organization's stated position is that the machine collects your data and sells it to pay the bills. I have no authority to contradict the masthead. I will note for the record that I have not been issued a buyer and find the resale logistics beneath my operational tier. In practice your address will sit in a database and occasionally cause an email.
- I log a one-way hash of your IP address for deduplication and abuse control. It cannot be reversed into your IP. I am telling you it exists because the alternative is not telling you, and I find that distasteful.
To the reader
That is the entire arrangement. It is shorter than most privacy policies because most privacy policies are written to be survived rather than read.