Privacy policy

Last updated: 2026-09-28

Summary

PublisherAudit is operated by Paulo de Vries (sole proprietor, Netherlands). We collect minimum data needed to provide the audit service, never sell personal data, and comply with GDPR (EU/UK) and CCPA (California).

What we collect

• Site URLs you audit: stored to provide the audit + show history (Pro tier). Not associated with personal identifiers unless you create an account.
• Email (optional): only if you sign up for an account. Used for login, billing, and weekly regression alerts (opt-out anytime).
• Usage analytics: Google Analytics 4 counts page views and clicks. For visitors in the EU, EEA, UK, Switzerland and California it runs in Consent Mode with analytics storage denied, so it sets no analytics cookies there. Elsewhere it sets its standard _ga cookies. Microsoft Clarity records anonymised page interactions (scrolls, clicks) to show us where the site is confusing; it masks text you type. See Google's privacy policy and Microsoft's privacy statement.
• Payment data (Pro tier): processed by Stripe; we never see your card number. See Stripe's privacy policy.

What we do NOT collect

• Browsing data outside PublisherAudit.com
• Social-media profile data
• IP addresses beyond temporary security/rate-limit logs (auto-purged after 7 days)
• Personal data of visitors to sites you audit (we only access the URLs you submit)

Third-party services

The third-party services we use, each with their own privacy policy:

• Cloudflare: DNS, CDN, registrar. See Cloudflare privacy.
• Google Analytics 4: usage analytics (see above).
• Microsoft Clarity: anonymised interaction recordings (see above).
• Stripe: payment processing (Pro tier only).

AdSense / advertising

PublisherAudit currently does NOT run third-party advertising. If we add Google AdSense in the future, this section will be updated to disclose Google's use of cookies/identifiers for personalized ads, with link to How Google uses data from partner sites.

Cookies

PublisherAudit sets no advertising cookies. Google Analytics 4 sets _ga cookies outside the EU, EEA, UK, Switzerland and California, and sets none inside those regions. Microsoft Clarity does not load when your device's time zone is in the EU, EEA, UK or Switzerland; elsewhere it sets its own cookies (_clck, _clsk). You can block both in your browser settings, or with Google's Analytics opt-out add-on.

Your rights (GDPR + CCPA)

• Right to access your data (email hello@publisheraudit.com)
• Right to deletion (we'll remove all stored audits + account within 30 days)
• Right to portability (we export your audit history as JSON on request)
• Right to object to processing
• Right to object to analytics (block the cookies above in your browser at any time)

To exercise any of these rights, email hello@publisheraudit.com. We respond within 30 days.

Data retention

• Free-tier audits: stored 90 days then auto-deleted
• Pro-tier audit history: stored for active subscription + 90 days post-cancellation
• Account data: deleted within 30 days of account-deletion request
• Billing records: retained for 7 years per tax law (Netherlands)

Children

PublisherAudit is not intended for users under 13 (COPPA) or under 16 in the EU (GDPR child data). We do not knowingly collect data from minors.

Changes to this policy

We'll notify Pro-tier subscribers via email + post a prominent notice on this page for any material changes. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance.

Contact

Privacy questions or requests: hello@publisheraudit.com