Privacy Policy

Account data from Google sign-in: your name, email address, and profile image. We use this to create and identify your account.

Profile data you provide: the public username (handle) you choose, and any comments or questions you submit.

Usage data: which questions you open, mark as done, bookmark, or vote on, so we can show your progress and recommend what to study next. We also keep aggregate counts such as question views.

Optional product analytics: with analytics consent, we record browser events such as page visits, opening an answer, and starting checkout. We store these on our server with a random identifier kept in your browser's local storage. If you are signed in, events can also be linked to your account. We also measure unlocked lesson and concept opens, explicit progress saves, selected navigation links and source labels from referral or campaign links, without storing full query strings. With the same consent, account and paid-receipt screens can connect the browser identifier to server-verified account creation or payment, so we can understand which paths lead to a purchase. Private account URLs are not recorded. This is pseudonymous personal data. Declining stops these optional browser events; account, purchase, learning-progress and security records needed to provide the service remain separate.

Google Analytics: with analytics consent, Google collects usage information such as pages viewed, approximate location derived from IP, and device and browser type. Google Analytics does not load before you allow analytics. Our own optional browser analytics follows the same choice.

Google Ads: advertising is a separate optional choice. Where configured, the Google Ads tag loads only if you enable Advertising in Privacy choices. It measures advertising conversions and supports personalized advertising. Allowing analytics alone does not authorize advertising storage, advertising user data or advertising personalization.

Payment data: when you buy access, our payment providers (Razorpay, PayPal) process the transaction. We receive a confirmation and a reference, the amount, and the access window. We do not receive or store your full card number or UPI credentials.

To provide the Service: authenticate you, unlock the content you are entitled to, save progress and bookmarks, and run discussions.

To operate and improve the product: understand which questions are useful, prevent abuse and fraud, and provide support.

To communicate with you about your account, purchases, or support requests. We do not sell your personal data.

When you subscribe to FDE Field Notes, we store your email address, subscription status, signup source and page, and a token for unsubscribing. A newsletter subscription is completely free and does not require an account. If you have an account, we also store your newsletter and product-update choices separately.

Both choices start off for new accounts. Existing email choices are preserved when we separate the settings. Your newsletter subscription does not depend on having Premium and continues until you turn it off or unsubscribe. Turning off Product updates does not turn off the newsletter.

You can manage these choices on your account page or use the unsubscribe link in an email. We keep subscription and suppression records to honor your choices and avoid sending again after an opt-out. Delivery records use a hash of the email address, campaign status and provider references to prevent duplicate sends. Contact [email protected] for correction or deletion requests.

Resend processes recipient addresses and message content to deliver our emails. Required receipts and factual account notices are separate from these optional subscriptions. Newsletter subscription is also separate from your optional browser analytics and advertising choices.

If you apply for an internship, we store your account reference, name, contact email, location, availability, application answers and résumé link so we can review your application. Applying does not subscribe you to marketing emails. We do not download or host your résumé.

Application details are available to authorized reviewers and sent to our recruitment inbox through Resend. Contact [email protected] to request correction or deletion. Deleting your account removes the linked application and queued notification; an email already delivered must be deleted separately from the recipient inbox.

Where the GDPR applies, we rely on: performance of a contract (to deliver access you purchased), legitimate interests (to secure and improve the Service), consent (where required, e.g. certain cookies), and legal obligation (e.g. tax records).

Where India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 applies, we process your personal data for the lawful purpose of providing the Service you have signed up for, with your consent given at sign-up.

Strictly necessary cookies are always on: we use them for authentication and session management (to keep you signed in) and to remember your theme preference. The site cannot function without them, so disabling them will prevent sign-in from working.

When you start checkout, we temporarily remember the payment method for up to ten minutes and the page you were reading for up to one hour in this browser tab. This lets you finish signing in and return to your material after payment. This functional session storage is separate from optional analytics; it is not a record of your browsing history.

Site search sends your query to our server to find matching public titles and summaries. The search feature does not save queries on the server or send them to analytics services. This browser tab remembers your latest query, content filter and position for up to thirty minutes so you can return to your results. With analytics consent, we record which result destination you open, without the search text.

The paper library remembers your current search and scroll position in this browser tab so you can return to your results. Saved searches are used for up to thirty minutes. Search text stays in browser history state and session storage; it is not sent to our servers or analytics services.

Use Allow analytics to enable our own product analytics and Google Analytics, or Decline optional to leave both analytics and advertising off. Customize lets you choose analytics and advertising separately. Both are off until you choose. Refusing does not affect sign-in, purchases, content access or saved progress.

Privacy choices in the footer lets you review or withdraw your choice. Changing an active Google choice refreshes open site pages to unload the running tags. We remove the corresponding analytics identifiers and accessible first-party Google measurement storage when you decline. Withdrawal stops future optional collection; it does not automatically erase records already collected or cookies held on other websites. Contact us for a deletion request.

We remember your choice in an essential preference cookie for up to 180 days and use a local-storage entry to notify other open tabs. Our optional analytics ID is created only after analytics consent. An older Accept choice requires a fresh choice under these disclosures; an older Decline stays declined.

Cloudflare provides content delivery, security and aggregate traffic measurements separately. Its Web Analytics beacon is cookieless and does not use our optional browser identifier. Google sign-in and payment-provider connections also have their own functions and are not disabled by declining optional tracking.

Service providers who help us run the product include our hosting provider, Cloudflare, Google for authentication and consented measurement or advertising, Resend for service emails and subscribed newsletters, and payment processors Razorpay and PayPal. Our first-party product analytics stays with our hosting infrastructure; Google measurement and advertising are separate collections subject to Google's policies.

If you submit a question and we publish it, the question text (and, if you were signed in, your public handle) may appear publicly on the site and in our open-source question repository. Do not include anything private or confidential in a submission or comment.

We may disclose data if required by law, or to protect our rights, users, or the Service.

We keep account data while your account is active. Payment records are kept as long as required for tax and accounting law. Published contributions may remain on the site after account closure, in line with the licence in our Terms. You can ask us to delete your account; we will remove personal data that we are not legally required to keep.

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or export your personal data, to withdraw consent, and to complain to a data-protection authority. To exercise any of these, contact us using the details below and we will respond within the time required by applicable law.

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your data, but no method of transmission or storage is completely secure and we cannot guarantee absolute security. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any unauthorized access to, alteration of, or loss of data that occurs despite our use of reasonable measures, and the limitation of liability in our Terms & Conditions applies to this Policy.

Our providers may process data in countries other than yours; where required we rely on appropriate safeguards for international transfers.

The Service is not intended for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect data from children.

This Policy is governed by the laws of India, and the courts at Bengaluru, Karnataka, India have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute relating to it, subject to any mandatory data-protection or consumer rights that apply to you and cannot be waived.

We may update this policy; the “last updated” date reflects the latest version, and your continued use of the Service means you accept the current version.

For any privacy request or question, use the contact form on the site or email [email protected].