Privacy Policy

This policy explains what information Ashen's Open Book at ashensrilanka.com (“the site”, “we”) collects, how it is used, and the choices you have. No account is needed to read or write in the book.

Information you give us

• Pages you write: the text and the optional name you enter are published publicly in the book and on the messages page. Don't include private information.
• Advertising and contact requests: the message and image you send, plus any name, email or phone number you choose to add. Only the site's administrators can see them.

Information collected automatically

• Reactions and read counts: stored as anonymous totals per page.
• Your browser's storage: the site saves your last page (bookmark), which pages you have already counted as read, your sound setting and your reactions. This stays on your device, and you can clear it in your browser settings.
• Abuse prevention: when you submit a page, a one-way hash of your IP address is used to limit how often pages can be posted. It is kept for about 10 minutes. Blocked spam attempts are logged for up to 30 days.
• Server logs: our hosting provider (Vercel) keeps standard request logs for security and reliability.

Services we use

• Google Firebase stores the book's pages, reactions and requests.
• Google reCAPTCHA checks that submissions come from people. Its use is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
• Google Gemini (AI) reads the text of submitted pages to check them for spam and inappropriate content, and to rate them.
• Google Analytics measures how the site is used (pages viewed, device type, approximate location), using cookies. You can opt out with the Google Analytics opt-out add-on.

Advertising and cookies

The site shows advertisements to cover its costs.

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this site or other websites.
• Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to this site and/or other sites on the Internet.
• You may opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings, or opt out of some third-party vendors' use of cookies for personalised advertising at www.aboutads.info.
• Learn more about how Google uses information from sites that use its services.
• Other ad networks (such as Adsterra) may also show ads and use cookies or similar technologies under their own privacy policies.

Where the law requires it (for example in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland), you'll be asked for consent before personalised ads are shown.

Children

The site is not directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from them.

Your choices and requests

• You can ask us to remove a page you wrote, or any page that contains your personal information.
• You can ask what we hold about you.

To do either, contact our contact page with the page number or details.

Changes

We may update this policy. The date at the top shows the latest version.