Privacy, in plain words
There is no account and no sign-in. Your answers stay on your device.
What is saved on your device
Your walk while you are in it (with the areas you named before you began, if any), your finished results, your answer to “Does this sound like you?” if you give one (kept next to that result), and one setting (motion). If you play, the thinkers you have found, the guesses of each game and the days you played are kept in the same place, and the “Delete my play data” button on the Play page removes them. They live in your browser. Pressing “Delete this result from this device” removes one result. Clearing this site’s data in your browser removes everything.
What we count
So we can see whether the site works for people, it counts a few plain things about each visit: which page was opened, how far through the walk people get, which part of the result page was opened, which link or site brought the visit here, whether the device is a phone, a tablet or a computer, whether the page was opened inside another app’s own browser (such as Facebook’s; only the app’s name), and the country your host reports. In the walk it also counts which question or stage was on screen when you left, which question’s “I don’t understand” was opened (the question, never what you answered), how many times you pressed Back, how many areas you named before you began and how many times you said you have no view (both as plain numbers), and a short note if the page hit an error: the kind of error, the technical message your browser gives for it, and the place in our own code where it happened, with anything in quotation marks or that looks like an address or a number removed first, so what you typed is never part of it. When you press “Borrow” or “Buy” under a book, it counts that press with the name of the book and the page, and nothing else. It does not count your answers, your address, or what your browser says about itself.
There is no cookie. A random number names one visit, and it is forgotten when you close the tab. Nothing goes to any other company; the counts are stored by this site's own server. If your browser sends “Do Not Track” or the Global Privacy Control signal, nothing is counted at all.
What leaves your device because you chose it
Your answers, your result and the PDF are made on your device, and none of it leaves unless you press a button that says so. There are four such places.
Send my answer under your result sends your answer to “Does this sound like you?”, the reasons and words you added, the question you picked as unclear if you picked one, the next steps you tapped, how you found epchē, which link brought you here, the name and blend of your result, how many answers you gave and the version numbers. It never includes your individual answers or anything that says who you are.
Anything you would like to tell us is the last step under your result (an email is optional there), and the same thing is on the Contact page, where you can report a mistake or suggest a thinker, a philosophy, an idea or a book, up to five things in one message. From the Contact page an email address is needed, so that we can ask a question if something is unclear. A message holds the things you picked from our list and the quick words you tapped about them, the words you typed, the page you came from if you came from one, a link if you gave one and your email. The email is used only to reply to that message. It is not added to any list, and no newsletter or repeat messages are sent. To stop floods of messages, a one-way scrambled form of your network address is kept with the message. It cannot be turned back into your address, and it is used only to count how often one person sends. Nothing is published, and nothing you suggest is added to the site until it has been checked against the same rules as everything else. These messages are kept in a private database in the EU and read only by the person building epchē, for up to 24 months or until you ask for them to be deleted, whichever is first.
Also send my walk is a box under that last step, and it is off unless you tick it. It sends the walk itself with your message: your answers (including the ones where you said neither fits you or you have no view), the areas you named under “Anything you care about most?” on the start page if you named any, the cards you placed, how you settled each clash, how long you took on each question, which questions you opened an explanation for, how many times you pressed Back, your result and any reaction you gave. It is kept in the same private database in the EU, read only by the person building epchē, to see how the walk behaves and where it gets people wrong. It is never sold or passed on. It is kept until you delete it, which you can do from your result page at any time, or for 24 months after you sent it, whichever is first.
Send on the blog's “What would you like answered here?” box sends the question you typed, and nothing else: no name, no email, nothing about your device. It is kept in a private database in the EU, read only by the person building epchē, to decide what to write next. It is kept until it has been answered or is removed. Please do not write anything private in it.
The person responsible is the one building epchē. To ask for something to be deleted, or to ask what is held about you, write to epche.contact@gmail.com.
Pictures you share yourself
The Share button makes pictures on your device. A picture shows your result's name, your blend, the philosophies closest to you and, if you took the walk, your sky as stars. It never shows your answers. Nothing is sent to us when you save or share one: it goes where you choose to post it. We count that someone pressed Share, not which design or who.
A separate link, which you copy yourself with "Copy a link so a friend can compare", holds your mix of philosophies and your answers to the 19 comparison questions (each one of: first side, second side, a bit of both, or not asked). Nothing else. The end of that link, after the # sign, is never sent to any server, so when a friend opens it their own browser compares the two results on their device and nothing about it reaches us. A picture you share on its own carries none of this, and a friend's own answers never leave their device.
Links that go somewhere else
“Translate” opens Google Translate in a new tab, but only when you click it, and it sends only the wording of that one idea. “Read more” links open encyclopedia pages when you click them. Nothing else is sent.
“Talk it through” makes a prompt from your result on your device and copies it when you ask. If you paste it into a chatbot, that is your own choice, and what you type there is under that service’s own rules. We never see it.
“Borrow” and “Buy” under a book open a library search or a bookseller in a new tab, but only when you press them. We count the press (which book, and whether it was borrow or buy, as above) and nothing about you is sent. If the “Buy” link carries epchē’s own partner code, it tells the shop that a purchase came from here; the shop then follows its own rules about you, which are not ours.
What we never do
No ads, no scripts from other sites, no selling or sharing of data, no fingerprinting, and no contacting anyone who did not ask to be contacted. Leaving a way to reach you is that asking. The fonts are served by this site too.