Privacy

This page describes what this site actually does today, not what a site like it usually does.

Before you choose

Nothing about you leaves your browser until you say it may. This site sets no cookies at all. It asks for no location, camera or microphone access, and there is no account system and no sign-in.

The only network requests the site makes beyond loading its own pages are to this same site: the search index, so that searching happens entirely in your browser, and a small configuration file describing what measurement is allowed to record. What you type into search is never transmitted anywhere.

Until you allow measurement, no request is made to any other company, and no identifier is created or stored.

If you allow measurement

FoodHQ asks once, near the bottom of the page, and the site works identically whichever you choose. If you allow it, a measurement service records how pages are used so that the gaps in the knowledge can be found — which searches return nothing is the single most useful thing this site can learn about itself.

What it may record is fixed in the software rather than promised here:

• Never the text you type. A search records only a shape — whether the query was one word, a short phrase or a question — along with how many results came back.
• Never the content of the knowledge. No statement, source name, citation or quoted passage is ever included in a measurement event.
• Only coarse categories. Interactions are recorded as kinds of page and kinds of action, not as an identifiable trail through the site.
• Nothing that identifies you. No name, address, email or account, because there are none to collect.

The list of permitted information is declared per event and anything else is dropped before it is sent. The search page itself is excluded from measurement entirely, as a second line: a route that could carry your words in its address is never measured at all.

What is stored on your device

One entry in your browser’s local storage, holding your answer and — only if you allowed measurement — a random identifier for the measurement service. No cookies are involved. If you turn measurement off, the identifier is deleted, so turning it on again starts a new one rather than rejoining the old.

Changing your mind

The Measurement link at the bottom of every page shows the current setting and reopens the choice. Turning it off stops further measurement immediately.

Sharing a page

The Share button uses your device’s own sharing feature where it has one, and otherwise copies the address to your clipboard. Both happen entirely on your device, and neither requires an account.

Changes

If this ever stops being accurate, this page changes first. If you are reading it, it describes the site you are on.