We hold nothing about you, and you can check that yourself

The short version

First Commit is a set of static files. There is no account to make, no form to fill in, no newsletter, and nothing here that asks you to identify yourself. We do not build a profile of you, and there is nothing on the site that would let us.

Cookies

We store no cookies from our own domain and run no analytics of our own. Nothing is written to your browser's storage by this site. You can check that yourself in about a minute: open your browser's developer tools on any page here, look at the storage tab, and see for yourself. We would rather you verified it than took our word.

Server logs

Our host records the ordinary details of a web request — the address it came from, the page asked for, the time, the browser's self-description — in the way every web server has since the 1990s. Those records exist so the site can be kept online and abuse can be spotted, they are not joined to anything else, and they are not used to work out who you are or to follow you elsewhere.

Where the files come from

Fonts are served from this site rather than from a font network, so loading a page here does not tell a third party you were reading it. Illustrations are drawn for this site and served from it. There are no trackers, no advertising scripts, no social widgets and no embedded video.

When you follow a link to a platform

Links to paid platforms on this site go through a /go/ address that immediately sends you on to the platform. It carries no information about you — there is nothing about you for it to carry — and its only job is to let the platform's programme recognise that the visit came from here, which is how this site is funded. The mechanics, and the list of which links those are, are on how this site is paid for.

Once you arrive at a platform you are on their property and their privacy policy applies, not ours. They will almost certainly set cookies, and several of them price by the country you are reading from, which means they are reading your address. That is a good reason to read their policy rather than assume ours travels with you.

Your rights

Since we hold nothing that identifies you, there is generally nothing to access, correct or delete. If you write to us, we have your email — that is how email works — and it is kept only for as long as the conversation is useful. Ask us to delete it and we will.

Children

This site is written for adults deciding how to spend money on learning. It is not aimed at children, and nothing here collects information from anyone.

Changes

Anything material that changes here will be dated at the point it changes, so an older understanding is never left standing quietly. Questions about any of it go to the same address as everything else.