Privacy Policy
This page sets out what personal information Great Wide Open collects, why we collect it, who handles it, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do with it. Our website address is https://greatwideopen.blog.
Who is responsible for your information
Great Wide Open is run by Dr Andrew Quin, who decides how and why your information is used and is responsible for looking after it (the “data controller” in law). If you have a question about anything on this page, write to admin@greatwideopen.blog.
The monthly letter
If you sign up, we collect your email address. We use it for one purpose: to send you the monthly letter, a single email each month with the news, insights and stories from the site. Our legal basis is your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
You will be asked to confirm your address by email before anything is sent. Every letter carries an unsubscribe link that works in one click, or you can write to us and we will remove you.
We never add people to the letter from the contact form or the comments, and we do not sell or rent the list.
The letter is sent through Kit (formerly ConvertKit), our email service. Kit holds your email address, records when you signed up and confirmed, which form you used and roughly where you are (worked out from your IP address), and sends the emails on our behalf. When you submit the sign-up form at the end of a post, your browser sends your email address directly to Kit. Kit is based in the United States and relies on the UK-approved data transfer safeguards described in its data processing addendum.
We keep your address for as long as you are subscribed. When you unsubscribe, Kit keeps a record marking you as unsubscribed so that you are not emailed again. If you would like your details deleted entirely, ask us and we will do it.
Contact forms
When you use the contact form we collect your name, email address and message. We use them only to reply to you, on the basis of our legitimate interest in answering people who write to us. We do not use them for marketing and we do not share them. Messages are checked for spam by Akismet, a service run by Automattic, and are stored on the site’s database. We keep messages for 12 months unless a conversation is still under way, then delete them.
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. Comments are checked by Akismet.
An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service, run by Automattic, to see if you are using it. Its privacy policy is available at automattic.com/privacy. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in running a moderated comment section.
If you tick “Notify me of follow-up comments by email” when you comment, we use your email address to send you those notifications, on the basis of your consent. They are sent through Jetpack, a service run by Automattic, and each one carries an unsubscribe link. We do not use your address for anything else.
The comment and its metadata are kept indefinitely, so that we can recognise and approve follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
Visitor statistics and cookies
We use two tools to understand how the site is used: Google Analytics and Jetpack Stats (from Automattic). They tell us which pages are read and how people find them, so that we can improve the site. We use them for aggregate statistics only. We do not use them for advertising, and we do not try to identify individual visitors.
Google Analytics uses cookies to recognise a browser between visits, and the individual-level data it holds is deleted after 14 months. We have switched off Google’s optional data-sharing settings that let it use this data for its own products, benchmarking and business recommendations.
You can switch Google Analytics off for this browser at any time:
To help pages load quickly, images are delivered through Automattic’s image network, so your browser connects to their servers when a page loads.
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience, so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies last for one year.
Who else handles your information
We use a small number of services to run the site: Kit (the monthly letter), Automattic (spam checking, comment profile pictures, comment notifications, the contact form, visitor counts and image delivery), Google (visitor statistics) and our web hosting provider. They handle information only to provide their service to us.
Some of these providers are based in the United States. Where your information leaves the UK, it is protected by the safeguards those providers have put in place under UK data protection law.
How long we keep your information
Monthly letter: for as long as you are subscribed. Contact messages: 12 months. Comments: indefinitely, for the reason given above. Comment notifications: until you unsubscribe. Google Analytics: 14 months for individual-level data.
Your rights
You can ask us to tell you what information we hold about you and give you a copy; to correct anything that is wrong; to delete your information; to limit or stop how we use it; and, where we rely on your consent, to withdraw it. To make a request, email admin@greatwideopen.blog. We will reply within one month.
This does not include information we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal or security purposes.
If you are unhappy
Please tell us first at admin@greatwideopen.blog. We will acknowledge your complaint and respond without undue delay. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.
User accounts and registration
We do not allow visitors to create accounts, register or log in to this website. No personal account data, profile details or login tracking cookies are collected or stored for general site visitors.
Last updated 29 September 2026.