Privacy Policy
In short
- No accounts, sign-ups or comment boxes.
- One form, for adding a light to the map. What you send is emailed straight to the site owner and stored nowhere else.
- No analytics, no advertising, no tracking pixels, and no tracking cookies.
- Nothing is sold, rented or shared for marketing. Ever.
- Like every website, the server keeps a short technical log of visits.
- A few interactive pages remember your progress in your own browser. That data never reaches us.
- If you email us, your message is used only to reply.
- The XaTuring app collects nothing. Your journal, your questions and everything you make stay on your phone, unless you choose to share them.
- Who runs this site
- What is collected
- Cookies and browser storage
- Outside services
- Why the data is used
- How long it is kept
- Sharing
- Your rights
- Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control
- Children
- Security and transfers
- The XaTuring app
- Changes and contact
1. Who runs this site
xaturinglives.net is the home of the XaTuring Project, a personal, non-commercial site run by John J. Coughlin in the United States. For the purposes of data-protection law he is the “controller” of the small amount of personal data described below. You can reach him through the contact page.
The XaTuring app has its own publisher and is covered in section 12.
2. What is collected
Server logs
When your browser asks for a page, the web server automatically records a standard technical log entry. It typically includes:
your IP address;
the date and time of the request;
the page or file requested and whether it loaded;
the referring page, if your browser sends one;
your browser and operating system, as reported by your browser.
These logs are used only to keep the site running, secure and free of abuse. They are not combined with other data or used to build profiles of visitors.
Email you send
If you write to the project by email (through the contact page), your email address, name if you give it, and the content of your message are received. They are used only to read and answer your message.
If you send a ritual, poem, artwork or link for the Shrine or the Spread of the Worm map, it is published only with your permission, credited the way you ask. Sending a link through the submission form gives that permission for the map. You can ask for it to be changed or removed at any time.
The map submission form
The Add Your Light form asks for a link, its kind, a title, the name or handle to show on the map and, optionally, the year it was made, a short description and your email address. Here is what happens to it:
Everything you enter is sent by email, through the host’s own mail server, to the site owner. It is not saved in a database and is not passed to any form service or other company.
Each submission is checked by hand. Only the link, title, name or handle, kind, year and description can appear on the map.
Your email address is optional, is used only if there is a question about your link, and is never published.
To stop flooding, the form keeps a one-way scrambled code made from your IP address, with the times you submitted. The code cannot be turned back into your address and is deleted after one hour.
The form sets no cookies.
What is not collected
The site does not use analytics tools, advertising networks, social-media tracking pixels, fingerprinting, or newsletter sign-ups. It has no accounts, logins, payment pages or comment sections, and the submission form is its only form.
3. Cookies and browser storage
The site itself sets no cookies. Some interactive pages save your progress in your browser’s local storage so you can pick up where you left off. This data stays on your device; it is never sent to the site or to anyone else.
| Page | What is saved on your device |
|---|---|
| Start Here | Which steps of the path you have ticked off |
| The Warding of the Gates | Which wards you have sealed |
| Spawning a Daemon | The daemons you have designed |
Other tools on the site, such as the Hash Sigil, the Rite of Inheritance letter, the device wallpaper and the calendar download, work entirely inside your browser. Whatever you type into them is not sent anywhere. The Rite of Inheritance never asks for passwords and you should never enter them.
To clear saved progress, use the reset button on the page where there is one, or clear this site’s data in your browser settings.
The hosting company may set a strictly necessary security cookie if its systems need to check that a visitor is not an automated attack. Such a cookie is used only for security, not for tracking.
4. Outside services
A few outside services are involved in delivering the site or in specific pages. Each receives your IP address when your browser contacts it, as with any web request, and handles it under its own privacy policy.
| Service | When | Why |
|---|---|---|
| SiteGround (web hosting) | Every visit | Stores and serves the site; keeps the server logs described above. Privacy policy |
| Google Fonts | Every visit | Supplies the “Share Tech Mono” typeface. Privacy policy |
| Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation) | Only on Sortes Wikipediae, when you draw a page | Fetches a random article. Privacy policy |
| Google Public DNS | Only on Descent of the Name, when you run the lookup | Looks up the domain name you descend through. Privacy policy |
Links to other sites. The site links to many other pages, including other XaTuring shrines, Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp and the Internet Archive. Once you follow a link you are on their site and under their privacy policy.
AI services. The Oracle of the Worm and other workings may invite you to use an AI chat service of your own choosing. Nothing is sent to it by this site; what you type there is governed by that service’s own policy. Leave out other people’s private details and anything you would not want made public.
5. Why the data is used
For visitors in the European Union, the United Kingdom and similar jurisdictions, these are the legal bases:
Server logs and security: legitimate interests in running a secure, working website.
Replying to email: legitimate interests in answering people who write, or steps you ask for.
Publishing your contributions: your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
Map submissions: your consent, given by sending the form; and legitimate interests in preventing abuse for the short-lived rate-limit record.
6. How long it is kept
Server logs: kept by the host for a limited period for operation and security, then deleted automatically.
Email: kept only as long as needed to deal with your message and any ongoing correspondence. Ask, and it will be deleted.
Form submissions: the email is kept only as long as needed to review and add your light. Ask, and it will be deleted.
Form rate-limit records: deleted automatically after one hour.
Published contributions: until you ask for them to be removed.
Browser storage: on your device until you clear it.
7. Sharing
Personal data is never sold, rented or shared for advertising or “cross-context behavioural advertising”. It is shared only with the hosting provider that runs the site, or where the law requires it, such as a valid court order.
8. Your rights
Wherever you live, you may ask to:
know whether any personal data about you is held, and get a copy;
have it corrected or deleted;
object to or restrict its use, or withdraw consent you gave;
receive it in a portable format.
These rights come from laws such as the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation and US state privacy laws including the California Consumer Privacy Act. To use any of them, write through the contact page. Requests are answered within one month and free of charge. You will not be treated differently for using your rights. Because the site does not link log entries to names, you may be asked for enough detail (for example, the date and approximate time of your visit) to find any data about you.
If you are in the EU or UK and are unhappy with the reply, you can complain to your local data-protection authority.
9. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control
The site does not track visitors across sites, so it already behaves as a “Do Not Track” or Global Privacy Control signal asks. There is nothing to opt out of.
10. Children
The site is not directed at children under 13 (under 16 in the EU) and does not knowingly collect their personal data. If you believe a child has sent personal data, please get in touch and it will be deleted.
11. Security and transfers
All pages are served over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection. The site is run from the United States and its host may store data in the United States or other countries. By visiting, your request is processed wherever the host’s servers are located, under the safeguards the host provides.
12. The XaTuring app
The XaTuring app for iPhone and Android is published by YOU ARE WHO YOU CREATE, LLC, which is responsible for it. The app is built to collect no personal data.
No accounts, analytics, advertising or tracking. The app contains no analytics or advertising code and does not track you across other apps or websites.
Everything stays on your phone. Your practice journal, readings, sigils, wallpapers, saved sessions and settings are stored only on your device. The app also keeps a backup copy of your journal, kept sigils and progress in its own private storage on the phone, so they survive if the phone clears the app’s other storage. None of this is ever sent to us or anyone else. Deleting the app deletes it all.
Your questions stay with you. Questions you type into an oracle, names you give a device or model, and anything you write in the journal are never sent anywhere.
Exports go only where you send them. When you save a journal backup or readable copy, save an image, or share a reading or record, the app hands the file or text to your phone’s own share sheet. It goes only to the place you choose, such as your files, email or cloud storage, under that service’s own policy. Restoring a backup reads the file you pick on the phone; nothing is uploaded.
Built in, not fetched. The app’s fonts, images and altar animations are part of the app. Opening it does not contact any font, analytics or content service.
Sigils keep no words. The Hash Sigil turns your statement of will into a hash on the device and keeps only the hash, never the words.
Notifications are local. Feast-day and other reminders are scheduled on your phone, only if you turn them on. No push-notification service is used.
Saving images. On iPhone the app asks only to add images to your photo library, never to read it. On Android it can set your wallpaper when you choose to.
The app connects to the internet only in these cases:
| Connection | When | What the other side receives |
|---|---|---|
| xaturinglives.net | When the app refreshes the Web of XaTuring map and the Calendar of the Worm, each at most once a day, when you open Consecration of a Link, to show the site’s 88×31 button, and once per breath during the Ping Meditation, which times a request for the site’s small icon | A normal request for the map or calendar file, the button image or the icon, recorded in the server logs described in section 2 |
| Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation) | Only when you use Sortes Wikipediae | A request for a random article, under Wikimedia’s privacy policy |
| Pages you open | Only when you tap a link: for example the map submission form, an article from Sortes Wikipediae, or the Internet Archive from the Rite of the Last Packet | Whatever that site collects, under its own policy. Links open in your phone’s browser. The form is covered in section 2 |
The App Store and Google Play handle downloads, and any crash reports you agree to share with them, under Apple’s and Google’s own privacy policies. The app is not directed at children under 13 (under 16 in the EU).
Because the app sends nothing to us, we hold no app data about you to access, correct or delete; everything is already in your hands on your device. For questions about the app, use the contact page or the support address on the app’s store listing.
13. Changes and contact
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new effective date at the top. Questions or requests about privacy are welcome through the contact page.
XaTuring lives.