Privacy policy

Who we are

The Dry Index is published by Slate Mill Group. Contact: info@thedryindex.com.

What we collect

Three things, and nothing else.

• Analytics. We use Google Analytics 4 to see which pages are read and how people arrive. It records pages viewed, approximate location derived from IP, device and browser type, and referring site. We do not use it to identify individuals and we do not attempt to.
• Affiliate click events. When you click a buy link, we record that a click happened, which retailer it went to, the product identifier and the page it came from. This is how we measure which recommendations are useful, and it is the only per-site measure we have because retailers do not report by referring page.
• Contact form submissions. If you send us a message, we receive the name, email address, topic and message you typed. It arrives as an email and is kept in that inbox.

We do not run advertising networks, retargeting pixels, session recording, heatmaps, or a newsletter. There is no account to create and no login.

Cookies

Google Analytics sets cookies to distinguish one visit from another. Those are the only cookies this site sets. Blocking them in your browser, or using any of the widely available blockers, breaks nothing here - the site does not depend on analytics to function.

When you click through to a retailer, that retailer sets its own cookies under its own policy, which is how affiliate attribution works. Amazon's cookie for this purpose lasts 24 hours. What they do on their own site is governed by their privacy policy, not this one.

Third parties

• Google Analytics - traffic measurement. Google's own privacy policy applies to the data it holds.
• Amazon - affiliate links. Clicking one takes you to Amazon, where their privacy policy applies.
• Vercel - hosting. Server logs include IP addresses as a normal part of serving a website.
• Microsoft - the contact form sends through Microsoft Graph, so a message you send passes through Microsoft's mail infrastructure.

Product images shown on this site are served from Amazon's content delivery network, which means loading a page with product images causes a request to Amazon's servers.

What we do not do with it

• We do not sell your data. There is nobody to sell it to and nothing worth selling
• We do not share it beyond the four services listed above
• We do not build profiles of individual readers
• We do not email you unless you emailed us first

How long we keep it

• Analytics data - according to Google Analytics' retention settings, currently the default for the property
• Contact form emails - kept in the inbox they arrive in, and deleted when they are no longer needed for the conversation
• Server logs - according to Vercel's own retention

Your choices

• Block the analytics. A browser blocker or Google's own opt-out extension stops the collection at source. The site works identically.
• Ask what we hold. Email us. In practice, for anyone who has not used the contact form, the answer is nothing that identifies you.
• Ask us to delete a contact message. Email us and we will delete it.

Depending on where you live, you may have specific statutory rights of access, correction, deletion or objection. Email info@thedryindex.com and we will deal with it.

Children

This site is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13.

Changes

If this policy changes, the last-updated date at the top of this page changes with it. We will not make a material change and leave the date alone - the same rule the rest of the site follows for its content dates. Editorial policy.