Privacy Policy

Who runs this site

The Existential Bookstore (existentialbookstore.com) is a personal book-review site run by Jason Flanzbaum in Delray Beach, Florida. It is a reading journal made public, not a store. Questions about this policy go to jay@existentialbookstore.com.

What is collected

• Reading the site. No account and no sign-up are needed. The hosting provider keeps ordinary server logs. Page views are counted with Vercel Web Analytics, which does not use cookies and does not identify you.
• Newsletter. If you subscribe, your email address is stored with Buttondown, the newsletter service. You confirm the subscription by email first. Every issue carries an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing removes you from the list.
• Purchase links. The buy buttons pass through a redirect on this site that records which book and store you chose, the time, the page you came from, your browser's user-agent string, and a shortened one-way hash of your IP address. This exists to count clicks. The hash cannot be turned back into your address. Once you reach Amazon or Bookshop.org, their own privacy policies apply.
• Admin sign-in. Only the owner and his staff sign in, through GitHub. A session cookie is set for them alone. Visitors are never asked to sign in.

Text messages and phone calls

This site runs a private writing tool that texts and calls the site owner about the books he is reviewing, so that he can answer interview questions in his own words. The only phone number in that system is the owner's own, which he entered himself in the site's admin settings. Phone numbers of visitors and subscribers are never collected, and the tool accepts no recipient other than the owner.

No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Text messaging originator opt-in data and consent will not be shared with any third party. Messages are delivered by Twilio, which acts only as the carrier connection.

The program details, message frequency, and how to stop are in the SMS terms.

Services this site relies on

Each of these receives only what it needs to do its job:

• Vercel for hosting and cookie-free page-view counts.
• Supabase for the database that holds the reviews and click counts.
• Buttondown for the newsletter list and sending.
• Twilio for the texts and calls sent to the owner.
• Resend for email sent to the owner.
• Deepgram for transcribing the owner's recorded answers.
• Anthropic for drafting the interview questions the owner is asked.

Cookies

The public pages set no tracking cookies. The only cookie this site sets is the sign-in session for the owner and his staff.

Your choices

Unsubscribe from the newsletter with the link in any issue. To have your newsletter record deleted, or to ask what this site holds about you, email jay@existentialbookstore.com.

Changes

When this policy changes, the new version is posted here with a new date at the top. See also the Terms of Use.