Privacy policy

Last updated: 2026-05-11

Summary

Read Stacks is operated by Paulo de Vries (sole proprietor, Netherlands). We collect minimum data needed to provide the service, never sell personal data, and comply with GDPR (EU/UK) and CCPA (California).

What we collect

• Email (if subscribed): for the weekly stack newsletter + account login. You can unsubscribe with the link in every email.
• Reading history (Pro tier): chapters you've viewed, stored to enable progress tracking + bookmarks. Not associated with profiling.
• Usage analytics: via Plausible (privacy-first, cookieless, aggregated). See Plausible's data policy.
• Payment data (Pro/Founder/Deluxe): processed by Stripe; we never see your card number. See Stripe's privacy policy.

What we do NOT collect

• Browsing data outside readstacks.com
• Social-media profile data (TikTok engagement is anonymous to us)
• IP addresses beyond temporary security/rate-limit logs (purged after 7 days)

Affiliate & advertising

Read Stacks links to books via Bookshop.org affiliate links and Amazon Associates. We earn small commissions on qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. Free-tier chapter pages may display AdSense ads in the future — when added, this section will be updated to disclose Google's use of cookies for personalized ads.

Cookies

Read Stacks uses essential cookies only (session, auth, CSRF). EU/UK visitors see a cookie banner per ePrivacy Directive compliance.

Your rights (GDPR + CCPA)

• Right to access your data (email hello@readstacks.com)
• Right to deletion (we'll remove all account data within 30 days)
• Right to portability (we export your reading history as JSON on request)
• Right to object to processing
• Right to withdraw consent (cookie banner allows reversal anytime)

Data retention

• Newsletter email: kept until you unsubscribe
• Pro account: kept while subscription active + 90 days post-cancellation
• Reading history: kept for active subscription + 90 days post-cancellation
• Billing records: 7 years per Dutch tax law

Third parties

• Cloudflare: DNS, CDN, registrar
• Plausible: privacy-first analytics
• Stripe: payments (Pro+ tiers)
• Buttondown or ConvertKit: email delivery (final choice pending Track 2 Week 1)
• Bookshop.org + Amazon: affiliate links (no data sharing — affiliate IDs only)

Children

Read Stacks is not intended for users under 13 (COPPA) or under 16 in the EU (GDPR child data).

Contact

Privacy questions: hello@readstacks.com