Privacy
Privacy policy
What we collect when you read or comment, and what we do with it.
Last updated: September 26, 2026.
Who is responsible
Poetry Connection is published by Gunnar Bengtsson, a private individual in Sweden, who is responsible for the personal data described here. You can reach him through the contact page.
Reading the site
Reading Poetry Connection needs no account, and the site sets no cookies of its own. Like every website, our host receives the technical details of each request (such as your IP address and browser) to deliver the page and keep the site secure; we don’t use them to identify you.
Statistics
We use Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages are read. It sets cookies and receives information about your visit, which Google may process in the United States under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework. We don’t use it for advertising.
In Europe (the EU, the EEA, the UK and Switzerland), we ask first: Google Analytics is loaded only if you choose “Allow statistics”. Elsewhere, it runs when you visit, and you can switch it off at any time. We tell the two apart from your browser’s time zone, not from your location; if your browser is set to a European time zone, you’ll be asked.
Cookies
The site sets no cookies of its own. When Google Analytics runs (see above), it sets these:
- _ga: tells visits apart, kept for 2 years.
- _ga_<ID>: keeps the state of a visit, kept for 2 years.
Wherever you are, you can allow or refuse statistics at any time with Cookie settings at the bottom of every page. If you refuse, Google Analytics stops and its cookies are deleted. Your choice is remembered in your browser’s local storage (not a cookie), so we don’t ask again on every page.
Comments
When you comment we store your comment, the name you give, your email address, the date, and the country your connection comes from (provided by our network provider, Cloudflare; your IP address itself is not stored). Your name, comment, date and country are published once the comment is approved. Your email address is never published. We keep it so we can reach you about your comment, for as long as the comment is on the site.
To stop spam, we keep a scrambled, one-way code made from your IP address for one hour, to limit how many comments can be sent in a row. It can’t be turned back into the address.
We publish comments because you have asked us to, and we keep the related details on the basis of our legitimate interest in running a moderated, spam-free discussion.
Messages to us
When you write to us through the contact page, we store your message, name, email address, the date and your connection’s country, and use them only to answer you. We delete them when they are no longer needed for that, or when you ask.
Who else handles the data
The site is hosted by WPX Hosting, and traffic passes through Cloudflare. Both process data only to run the site. Google handles analytics data if you agree to it. We don’t sell personal data or share it with anyone else.
Your rights
You can ask to see the personal data we hold about you, have it corrected or deleted (including removing a comment and the details stored with it), object to how we use it, or receive a copy of it. Write to us through the contact page, naming the poem and the date of your comment, and we’ll reply within a month. If you think we have handled your data wrongly, you can complain to the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection (IMY) or the data protection authority where you live.
Changes
If this policy changes, we’ll update it here and change the date at the top.