Privacy Policy

Summary

MakerRadar is a read-only directory. You can browse every listing, read every issue, and open every product link without an account, without signing in, and without giving us your email address. This page states exactly what is stored or transmitted when you visit, and what is deliberately not collected.

What we collect

Anonymous counters. The site keeps two numbers, not a log: how many times the site has been opened, and how many times each listing page has been opened. Neither carries your IP address, a browser fingerprint, or any cross-site identifier. The details of both are below.

Product view counts. Each listing keeps a counter of how often its page has been opened by a reader. Your browser remembers locally (in localStorage, on your device — never sent to us) that it already counted a given listing for seven days, so refreshing does not inflate the number. Signed-in staff views are excluded on the server.

Site visit count. The footer can show how many times the site as a whole has been opened. This is one aggregate number — a tally, not a log — and it is incremented the same way: your browser flags the current tab in sessionStorage (on your device, never sent to us) so reloading or browsing several pages counts once, and only the fact that this tab was already counted reaches the server as a single "add one" request. It uses no cookie, no IP address, no fingerprint and no identifier of any kind, and staff sessions are excluded on the server. Because the same person on two devices is two opens, the number is published as visits, never as visitors.

Google Analytics. When analytics is enabled, MakerRadar uses Google Analytics 4 to measure aggregate traffic: visits, pages, and referrers. It runs in Consent Mode: until you accept in the cookie banner it writes no analytics cookies, and the pings Google may still receive carry no identifier for you or your device. Google processes what it receives under its own terms — see Google's Privacy Policy. We do not enable advertising personalization, and we do not sell or share your data.

First-party preferences. Your light/dark theme choice is stored on your device in localStorage. A language choice, where offered, is remembered in a first-party PARAGLIDE_LOCALE cookie. Neither is used for tracking.

Hosting logs. Our hosting provider keeps standard request logs (IP address, user agent, timestamps) for security and abuse prevention. We do not build a browsing profile from them. Short-lived rate limits on the visit counter, the listing-view counter and the submission endpoint are keyed by IP in memory for a few seconds; the address is never stored with a count.

What we do not collect

No email address is needed to read anything here. There are no marketing pixels, no session recordings, and no social embeds that phone home before you interact with them. We do not run an advertising network today; if Google AdSense is ever enabled, this page will be updated before it goes live, and ad personalization stays off unless you accept.

Accounts and payments

MakerRadar has no public accounts and takes no payments. Staff sign-in sets a single session cookie scoped to the admin area. If accounts or paid features are ever introduced, this page is updated first to describe what would be collected and why.

Cookies you may see

• cookie_consent — set by MakerRadar when the cookie banner is enabled. Remembers whether you accepted analytics; kept for one year.
• PARAGLIDE_LOCALE — set by MakerRadar. Language preference, where a choice is offered.
• _ga and _ga_* — set by Google Analytics when analytics is enabled. They distinguish visitors and sessions, and are only written after you accept.
• A session cookie — set only when staff sign in to the admin area. Visitors who never sign in never receive it.

Your choices

When the cookie banner is enabled, it lets you accept or reject non-essential cookies, and the Cookie settings link in the footer reopens it at any time, so a choice can be withdrawn. Rejecting analytics does not affect your ability to read the directory.

To clear what is stored on your device, delete this site's cookies and its local and session storage in your browser — that removes your consent record, your theme choice, the view-count marker and the visit flag in one step. Closing the tab already drops the visit flag on its own. Because our own event records carry no personal identifier, there is nothing for us to look up and delete on our side; if you still want something removed, contact us through the contact page and we will handle it manually.

Data sharing

We do not sell personal information. Data may be processed on our behalf by our hosting and analytics providers, and disclosed where we have a legal obligation to do so or to protect rights and safety.

Links to other sites

Product links open the maker's own website, and those clicks carry two parameters so the destination can see where the visit came from: utm_source=makerradar.fyi and utm_medium=directory. Nothing else is added — no identifier, no change to the path — and deleting the parameters opens exactly the same page. This is the only kind of link we tag: founder profiles, links inside editorial copy and every other outbound link stay plain. MakerRadar reads nothing back from the tag; the point is that a listed maker can see referrals arriving from this directory, which is what encourages a working product to stay listed and to link back.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. Material changes get a new date at the top of this page.

Contact

Questions about this policy: use the contact page.