You can read All Common Ground’s pages without an account; only the community’s private spaces need one. We do count visits and record how pages get used. This page lists the services that run when you read, what each one collects, and what you can do about it, and what we keep if you ask to join the community.
When you read
There is no cookie banner here. These services load as soon as a page opens:
- Hosting. The site runs on Pressable, a WordPress host owned by Automattic. Like any web host, its servers see your IP address, the page asked for and your browser type when they deliver a page.
- Our host’s visit counter. Pressable counts visits on the sites it hosts with a small script from secure.gaug.es, which Pressable describes as Fathom Analytics, previously known as Gauges. It set no cookie in our test. It receives the page address, the page you came from, the page title and your browser type, and Pressable says it tells visitors apart with an anonymous code made from your IP address and browser that changes every day.
- Google Analytics. Loaded through Google Tag Manager, it records which pages you view, how you got here, and your device, browser and rough location. It also logs how far you scroll, clicks on links that leave the site, file downloads, searches made on the site (with the words searched), video plays, and when a form is started or sent, though not what you type in it. It sets two cookies on this site, _ga and _ga_PF68G1E7MC (Google sets them for two years; Chrome caps cookies at 400 days, about 13 months, and Safari deletes cookies set this way after 7 days without a visit). Your browser contacts Google, so Google receives your IP address; Google says Analytics doesn’t log or store it, and uses it to protect the service and to tell roughly where visitors are. Google’s advertising storage is switched off here.
- Microsoft Clarity. It records how a page gets used (clicks, scrolling, mouse movement and the page as you see it) so a visit can be replayed, along with your device, browser and rough location, which Microsoft says it works out from your IP address. Microsoft says Clarity always masks what you type into input boxes and dropdowns, and by default also masks numbers and email addresses shown on the page. This site uses that default setting. In our test it set two cookies on this site, _clck (a year) and _clsk (a day), and kept a short ID (_cltk) in your browser’s session storage, and Microsoft set its own cookies on clarity.ms and bing.com (MUID, CLID, MR, SM, ANONCHK and SRM_B). Microsoft says MUID is also used for advertising. Microsoft says it keeps recordings for 30 days (a random sample, and any we save, for up to nine months) and heatmaps for up to nine months. For visitors in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, Microsoft says Clarity waits for a consent signal before setting cookies and limits what it collects without one; this site has no consent banner.
- Matomo. Analytics software that Eric Gajewski’s company, EKG Marketing, runs itself on a server it rents, so your visit is not handed to an analytics company. It records which pages you view, how long you stay, where you came from, the links and downloads you click, and your device, browser, screen size, language and rough location. It works out the location from your full IP address, then stores the address with its last two parts removed, and it keeps what it records with no deletion date set. It sets two cookies on this site, _pk_id (13 months) and _pk_ses (30 minutes), plus _pk_ref (six months) if you arrive from another site, to remember where you came from.
- Fonts. The typefaces load from Google Fonts, so your browser asks Google’s servers for them. Like any web request, that sends Google your IP address, your browser type and this site’s address.
- Videos. A video shows as a still picture, loaded from YouTube’s image server (i.ytimg.com), until you press play, so Google’s servers see your IP address and browser when the picture loads. Pressing play loads YouTube’s player from its privacy-enhanced address (youtube-nocookie.com), and from then on Google receives your visit under its own privacy policy. Google says views in that player aren’t used to personalise your YouTube browsing.
- The gatherings map. The map on the Gatherings page loads its code from unpkg.com and its map tiles from OpenStreetMap’s servers, which receive your IP address and browser when the map draws.
Google Analytics is set to delete event-level data after 14 months and user-level data after 14 months, and the 14 months starts again whenever the same browser comes back.
How to say no
Nothing on this site depends on these services. Block them and every page still works.
- Most of them at once: a content blocker with the standard privacy lists (uBlock Origin, for example) usually stops our host’s visit counter, Google Analytics, Clarity and Matomo. It usually does not stop Google Fonts, and nothing stops the host’s request logs. Blocking cookies in your browser stops the cookies, but the services still receive your visit.
- Google Analytics: Google’s opt-out browser add-on (for Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge) stops Google Analytics from using your visits on sites that use Google’s standard scripts. It doesn’t affect the other services listed here.
- Matomo: open the Matomo opt-out page and untick the box. It sets a cookie on our analytics server, so it covers one browser, is lost when you clear your cookies, and doesn’t work if your browser blocks third-party cookies. There, use a content blocker.
- Microsoft Clarity: Microsoft says Clarity supports Global Privacy Control, a signal Firefox, Brave and DuckDuckGo can send.
- Do Not Track: don’t count on it. Pressable says its visit counter respects it, but Fathom’s documentation says its script ignores it unless that’s switched on, and we can’t see that setting. Microsoft says Clarity doesn’t respond to it, and our Matomo is set not to respond to it either.
When you ask for an invite
- What we keep: what you type into the form (your name, email address and message), with the time, the address of the page you sent it from, your IP address, and your browser and device type. It is stored on the site and emailed to us through Brevo, our email service.
- By email instead: the invite link on the home page opens an email to us rather than the form. That message sits in our mailbox like any email, not on this site.
- Analytics on this page: the services above run here too. They can record that a form was sent, but not what you typed.
- Spam screening: Akismet, a spam plugin, is installed on the site, but our form software isn’t set to send your submission to its service, so your words stay on this site.
- Email copies: the site’s own email log keeps a copy of each message for 14 days. Brevo logs each message (when it was sent, its subject line and whether it arrived) with no set end date. Since 7 October 2026 Brevo is set not to store the text of new messages; the text of earlier ones stays in that log until it is deleted.
- Want it deleted? Ask through the Request an Invite form and we will delete the entry on the site and our copy of the email.
If you join the community
The community runs on FluentCommunity, software installed on this site, so what you post is stored in our own database, not on a social network. You join by invitation; there is no open sign-up. Your account holds your name, email address and a scrambled (hashed) password, plus your profile and what you post.
- Who can read what you post: it depends on the space. Anyone who opens the community pages can read the open spaces, signed in or not. A private space’s name is visible, but only its members can read what’s posted there, and a secret space isn’t listed for anyone outside it. No site can stop a person copying or screenshotting what they can see.
- The member map: you can choose to put yourself on the community map. You type a place, our server looks it up with OpenStreetMap’s search service (Nominatim), and we store a deliberately blurred point, never your exact location, with the place name. You choose whether it shows on the members-only map, the public map, or neither, and the public map blurs it further.
- Signing in: the sign-in tool (Fluent Auth) isn’t set to keep a log of sign-ins.
- Leaving: ask through the Request an Invite form and we will close your account.
What we never do
We don’t sell or rent anything about you, show ads, or run advertising tags of our own. Microsoft’s cookies, listed above, include MUID, which Microsoft says it also uses for advertising. We never sign you up for anything.
All Common Ground is run by Eric Gajewski. Questions about this page go through the Request an Invite form. Last updated October 7, 2026.