Privacy
This site uses no tracking cookies. For the newsletter we use Beehiiv. Details are below.
Newsletter (Beehiiv)
The sign-up form loads only when you click “Load the sign-up form”. Until then there is no connection to Beehiiv. From the click on, your browser sends its IP address to Beehiiv, Inc. (USA). On signup, your email address (and optionally your name) is transferred to Beehiiv, Inc. (USA). Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link in each email.
Hosting
This site is served via Netlify. Server logs are processed for operational purposes. Fonts (Inter, Space Grotesk, Material Symbols) are self-hosted — no requests are sent to Google Fonts or any other font CDN.
Book covers (Open Library)
Cover images in the Library are loaded from covers.openlibrary.org (Internet Archive). This transfers your IP address to the Internet Archive.
Affiliate links (Amazon)
Buttons labeled "Ad link" (or "Werbelink" on the German pages) are Amazon affiliate links. If you buy through them, Thomas Hefke earns a small commission at no extra cost to you. Amazon may set cookies and process data under its own privacy policy.
Book recommendation (Book Rx)
The book search at /en/empfehlung/ runs entirely in your browser. Your input is never sent to a server and is not stored anywhere.
Reading Card
The book search at /en/reading-card/ sends your query to openlibrary.org (Internet Archive, USA); this transfers your IP address. The cover is fetched from Open Library through our host Netlify's image delivery; your browser loads it from why-so-curious.com. The card itself is generated on your device. Your inputs (pages, reading time) never leave the browser and are not stored.
Storage in your browser
Some tools remember things in your browser, in localStorage or sessionStorage. These are not cookies. None of it is sent to a server. The data stays on your device.
- Tool pages in the toolkit: which steps you checked off, per tool (localStorage). They stay stored until you uncheck them or clear the site data.
- Curiosity Hour: your question, the duration, start and end time, and the parked distractions (localStorage), so the hour carries on after a reload. This is deleted when you start a new hour, or when you open the Curiosity Hour again more than six hours after it ended.
- Curiosity Check: your answers while you take the check, then your result as a ten-digit code (sessionStorage). Nothing gets lost on a reload, and your own result does not show up as a shared one. This is deleted when you close the tab.
- Tool wall in the toolkit: your main BLOCK, the time you have and, if you came from the check, your result code (sessionStorage), so the tool pages lead back to the wall as you left it. This is deleted when you close the tab.
- Turning between tool pages: the address of the page you leave, the address of the next page and the time (sessionStorage). It sets the direction of the page turn. This is deleted when you close the tab.
You can delete all of it at any time via your browser’s site data.