Privacy

The short version

The Dough Report is built around anonymity. We publish financial stories from real people without attaching real names, and we take that seriously at every layer of the product. We collect as little as possible, we don't sell anything, and we don't run ads.

What we collect

When you browse the site, we don't ask you to create an account or sign in. With your consent, we use Google Analytics 4 to understand how people use the site — anonymized page views, which diaries are clicked, which CTAs are tapped, where people drop off in the submission form, and how many diaries are completed. IP addresses are anonymized before being processed. We also verify the site with Google Search Console so we can monitor search performance; Search Console reports aggregate, non-identifying data such as which queries surface our pages.

When you submit a diary, we collect the information you provide in the form: your occupation, age, city, salary, expenses, spending log, and answers to the background questions. We may also collect your email address if you opt in to be notified about comments on your diary or to receive our newsletter.

We use an anonymous draft ID stored in your browser so you can resume an unfinished submission. This ID is not linked to your name, email, account, or identity, and it is not shared with anyone. It exists solely so you can pick up where you left off.

What we don't collect

We don't collect your real name. We don't require an account. We don't track you across the web. We don't use your data for advertising. We don't sell or share your personal information with third parties for marketing purposes.

How published diaries work

Every diary goes through an editorial review before it's published. During review, we may lightly edit for clarity or readability, but we don't change your financial numbers or the substance of your story. Once published, your diary is publicly visible and indexed by search engines.

Even though diaries are anonymous, the combination of details in a diary (occupation, city, salary, specific expenses) could potentially allow someone who knows you well to recognize your story. We can't prevent that entirely, so we encourage submitters to consider this before sharing.

Cookies and tracking

We use cookies for basic site functionality (such as keeping your draft alive in the submission form) and, when you opt in via the cookie banner, Google Analytics 4 cookies (typically named _ga and _ga_*) for measurement. We don't use cookies for advertising or cross-site tracking, and we never set analytics cookies before you consent. If you decline analytics or withdraw consent later, the analytics scripts are not loaded at all.

Your privacy choices

Every new visitor sees a cookie preferences banner on their first visit with the option to accept all, accept necessary only, or reject. You can re-open the banner any time via the "Cookie preferences" link in the site footer. Your choice is stored locally in your browser and can be changed at any time.

To comply with consent rules that require us to be able to demonstrate a choice was made, we also record the decision itself in our database. The record contains four fields and four fields only: a random per-browser identifier (a UUID stored only in your browser's localStorage — not linked to any account, email, or session), the choice itself (accept all / necessary only), whether it was set automatically from the Global Privacy Control signal, and a coarse EU / non-EU / unknown region tag. We never log your IP address, user agent, or any other identifying detail when recording a consent decision.

We honor the Global Privacy Control (GPC) browser signal. If your browser sends GPC, we automatically treat that as a request to opt out of non-essential cookies and tracking, and we don't show the cookie banner.

For California (CCPA/CPRA), Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and other US state privacy law residents: The Dough Report does not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. To exercise any other privacy rights — access, deletion, or correction — email us at the address below.

Third-party services

The site is hosted on Vercel and our database runs on Supabase. We use Google Analytics 4 (for opt-in, anonymized measurement) and Google Search Console (for search-performance reporting). Each third-party service operates under its own privacy policy and terms of service, and may collect additional information once you interact with it.

Those third-party tools may have their own tracking, logging, or data-collection capabilities. The Dough Report does not control how they collect or process information once you interact with them, and is not liable, in any legal sense, for their data practices. We encourage you to review the policies of any external service you interact with through this site.

Changes to this policy

We'll update this page as the product evolves. If we ever start collecting more data or add new tracking, we'll note it here with the date. We won't retroactively apply new data practices to information you've already submitted without notifying you.

Contact

Questions about privacy, data removal requests, or anything else: thedoughreport@gmail.com