Privacy & Disclosure

Short, because we collect very little. Last updated 2026-06-22.

What we collect

We don't require an account to read the site, and we don't ask for personal information to use it. If you subscribe to the newsletter we store your email address, and the state you chose if you gave one, so we can send you the right note; our email provider delivers it and handles unsubscribes.

If you sign up for the weekly week-outside note, we also keep the ZIP code you chose, with our email provider only, so each Sunday's note can be worked out for it. A ZIP identifies an area, not you. Stopping the weekly note with the link in any issue clears the ZIP at once; unsubscribing from our email altogether clears it at the next weekly run.

When you sign up, we also record which page you signed up on, and which site sent you here as a short name such as “pinterest”, “google” or simply “referral”. It is one word and never a web address. Before you sign up it is held in your browser only, for the length of your visit; it is not a cookie and cannot follow you to another site. If you do sign up, that one word is kept with your signup at our email provider, so we can tell which writing brings people here. If you join the Birch Year Club, the same word, with the name of the link you joined from, travels to Stripe as the reference on your checkout, for the same reason.

If you buy a guide

Checkout is handled by Stripe as merchant of record: Stripe is the seller on the transaction and the only party that sees your card details. They never reach us and we could not store them if we wanted to. From a completed purchase we keep your email address, which product you bought, and the payment's identifier, because those three things are what lets us send your download, re-send it when you lose it, and refund you. Stripe's own privacy policy covers what they do with the payment itself.

If you buy from the shop

Your cart is kept in your browser, on your device, until you check out. When you do, the items in it are sent to our server, which asks Shopify for a checkout page and sends you there. Shopify receives your network address with that request, as it would from your own browser a moment later. Shop pages carry no advertising.

Checkout is run by Shopify for Steady Compass Goods, the company behind Birch Compass. Your name, address, email and payment details are entered there, not on this site. Shopify's own privacy policy covers what it does with them.

When you place an order, Shopify tells our server, and our server passes your name, shipping address and email to Printify, the print partner that makes and ships each piece. That is the only thing your address is used for, and our own records keep none of it: they hold the order number, the items and the amounts, so we can answer questions about an order. Tracking emails come from the store when your order ships.

A printed book is printed and shipped by Lulu, a book printer. For a book, our server passes Lulu the same name, shipping address and email, and the phone number you gave at checkout, because Lulu's carrier requires one; if you gave none, Lulu gets ours instead. We pass them for nothing but printing and delivering the book, and our records keep none of them.

If you have an account or join The Birch Year Club

An account is your email address. To sign in we email you a six-digit code through Resend, the service that sends our sign-in and membership mail; a code lasts 15 minutes, and we keep only a scrambled form of it. Signing in sets one cookie that keeps you signed in on that device for up to 60 days and does nothing else; signing out, or signing out everywhere, ends it. Your browser also keeps a note that you have signed in, so the menu can say Account instead of Join; it holds no address and no code.

For an account we keep your email address, encrypted, and the date you made it. A member can also choose a home ZIP, which we keep with the account so the sky calendar can be worked out for it. The calendar link is private to you; we keep only a scrambled form of it, and getting a new link stops the old one.

The membership is billed by Stripe as merchant of record, the same as a guide, so your card stays with Stripe. From Stripe we keep the membership’s state: which membership it is, whether it renews, and when the paid year ends.

Your account page shows everything we keep for you, and one button deletes it: the account, your ZIP and your calendar link. Records of payments stay with the payment, as the law requires.

On-device personalization

If you enter a ZIP code to personalize the site, the resulting location (and your light/dark theme choice, and quiz or journal progress) is saved in your browser's localStorage on your device only. For personalization the lookup happens in your browser against data files the page already loaded, and nothing is sent to us. The one thing that does leave the device is a forecast lookup, described next: the dashboard's week module uses your saved ZIP the same way the Your week outside page does. Clearing your browser storage for this site removes the saved location completely.

Your week outside, and the sky calendar

The pages that do send a ZIP are Your week outside and the dashboard's week module: a forecast has to be looked up for a place, so the ZIP you enter there (or the saved ZIP the dashboard shows) goes to our server, which asks the National Weather Service for that area's forecast. It is used for that lookup and nothing else. We keep forecasts in a cache by place, and there is no record of who asked for which one; the request logs on our forecast service are switched off. The National Weather Service sees requests from our server, never from you. The night sky calendar link on that page carries your ZIP as well, because the calendar is worked out for it, and your calendar app fetches it from us about once a day.

Advertising

To keep the site free we show display ads served by Google AdSense. Google and its partners may use cookies to show and measure ads. Manage personalization in your Google Ad Settings or opt out at aboutads.info. We do not currently show a consent banner; if ad-personalization rules in your region require one, Google serves non-personalized ads there or we will add the prompt before personalized ads run.

Analytics

We use Cloudflare Web Analytics, a cookieless count of page views measured by our host. It sets no cookies, builds no personal profiles, and does not follow you to other sites.

Affiliate links

Some links are affiliate links, mainly Amazon Associates. If you buy through one we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend things we'd genuinely suggest. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Email us.