DarbNation

Privacy

Short version: I collect as little as I can, I never sell any of it, and you can ask me to delete what I have. I'm one guy with a website, not a data broker. The long version is still pretty short.

What I collect and why

Your email, if you sign up. The signup boxes send your email address to Kit, the newsletter service I use, so I can send you essays bi-monthly-ish. Every email has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. No hard feelings.

Comments. When you comment, I keep your name, your comment, the page it's on, and your email if you choose to give it. The email is optional and never shown to anyone. I check it against my Kit list, so subscribers skip the line and paid members get their badge. To fight spam I also keep a scrambled version of your internet connection's address (a one-way hash I can't turn back into the real thing), which lets me spot a bot posting forty times a minute. An AI (Anthropic's Claude) reads every comment against my house rules before it goes up. Anything iffy waits for me, a human with coffee.

The contact form. Your name, email, topic and message get emailed to me and saved in my own database, so nothing gets lost if an email bounces. Same scrambled connection address, same reason: rate limits. I check your email against my Kit list so I know if you're a subscriber.

Payments. Paid memberships run through Stripe, and one-time tips through Buy Me a Coffee. I never see your card number. Stripe tells my system your email and which plan you picked, and that gets noted in Kit so your perks show up.

Stuff that stays in your browser. The site remembers a few things on your own device, in your browser's local storage: which essays you've finished (so "read next" doesn't hand you a rerun), the name and email you last typed into a comment (so you don't retype them), whether you had Shuffle and Weirdness Mode on in the music video player (so it plays the way you left it), and a random code that lets you like a comment once and edit or delete your own. The name and email reach me only when you post a comment. The random code reaches me as a scrambled copy. The reading list and the player settings never leave your device at all. Clear your browser and it's all gone.

Cookies. DarbNation.com doesn't set any cookies of its own. YouTube videos play in YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode, and SoundCloud players come from SoundCloud. Both are other companies' players, and they may set their own cookies under their own rules.

Server logs. The site is hosted on Cloudflare. Like every web host, Cloudflare sees the basics of each visit – IP address, browser type, the page you asked for – to deliver the page and block attacks. I don't run Google Analytics, Facebook pixels, ad trackers or anything that follows you around the internet afterward. Cloudflare also counts visits for me with its Web Analytics, which uses no cookies and doesn't track you from site to site. I just see totals, like how many people read an essay and which countries they came from.

What I never do

I don't sell, rent or trade your information. No ad networks, no list swaps, no "partners." I don't even like sharing my fries.

Who else touches it

These are the companies that help run the place, each with its own privacy policy:

Unsubscribe, fix or delete

To stop the emails, hit unsubscribe at the bottom of any of them. To take back a comment, use Edit or Delete on it from the same browser you posted from. Want to see what I have on you, fix it, or have all of it deleted? Send me a note and I'll take care of it.

Kids

This site is for grown-ups, and some of the essays are rated R. I don't knowingly collect anything from anyone under 13. If you think a kid signed up or commented, tell me and I'll delete it.

MemeVault

MemeVault is a desktop app I built for myself to keep my memes and music videos in order. When I connect it to YouTube, it uses the YouTube API, with my permission, to read and edit my own YouTube playlists – nobody else's. Its sign-in token stays on my own computer. It collects nothing about you and shares no YouTube data with anyone.

MemeVault's use of information received from Google APIs follows the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. It runs under the YouTube Terms of Service and Google's privacy policy, and its access can be switched off anytime in Google's account permissions.

Changes

If any of this changes, I'll update this page and the date below. This version took effect November 6, 2026.

Last updated November 6, 2026