Privacy Policy

Last updated: March 30, 2026

Our Approach

We value your privacy and try to collect as little data as possible. This page explains exactly what we do — and what we don't.

Anonymous Usage Data

We do not use any tracking scripts (like Google Analytics), we do not set any tracking cookies, and we do not collect personal data from visitors browsing the site. To provide transparency about the popularity of different countries and topics, we use a simple, privacy-friendly click counter that increments a number in our database when a page is visited — without storing IP addresses, cookies, or any personal identifiers. The server temporarily logs your IP address for security and error prevention, which is standard practice for hosting providers, but it is not linked to any personal profiles.

Email Notifications (Optional)

You can optionally subscribe to status change alerts for specific countries. This is entirely voluntary.

What we collect: Your email address.

Purpose: To notify you when the documented social media ban status of a subscribed country changes. We send at most one email per day per country.

Legal basis: Your explicit, informed consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), given via the Double Opt-In confirmation email.

Storage: Your email address is never stored in plaintext. We use a two-layer model:

SHA-256 hash — to prevent duplicate subscriptions (not reversible)
AES-256-CBC encryption — to send you emails (decryptable only by our server, key not stored in the database)

Retention: Unconfirmed subscriptions (pending) are automatically deleted after 48 hours. Confirmed subscriptions are retained until you unsubscribe.

Your rights: You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in any notification email. This immediately and permanently removes your subscription. You may also contact us (see Imprint) to request deletion of any data associated with your email.

No third parties: Your email address is never shared with, sold to, or processed by any third-party email service. Emails are sent directly via our hosting provider's SMTP server (Strato AG, Germany).

Third-Party Assets

We load design assets (Tailwind CSS) and mapping libraries (LeafletJS, CartoDB Tiles) from third-party CDNs. These providers may receive your IP address to deliver the files to your browser.

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