What we know, and what we do with it.

Who runs this site

Spirituality Media (the “site”, at spirituality-media.com) is edited by Vincent Read, who is the person responsible for the personal data described here. The site publishes complete editions of classic texts, sold as printed books, and keeps an index of spiritual and philosophical media published elsewhere.

For anything about your data, write to vhlread@icloud.com.

What you give us, and why

The newsletter. If you subscribe, we store your email address and the time you subscribed, nothing else. It is used only to send the Sunday letter. Every letter carries an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing deletes the address.

The contact form. A message sent through the contact page is stored with your email address, your name if you gave one, the subject and the text, so that we can reply. It is used for nothing else.

An account. You may open an account to save favourites and a reading list in the Index. We store your email address, a password that is hashed (we cannot read it), and the items you save. Nothing in an account is shared or shown to anyone else.

Server logs. The site is hosted on Vercel, which keeps standard request logs (IP address, page requested, browser, time) for a short period to run and secure the service. We do not analyse them.

We never sell, rent or hand over any of this to anyone. There is no list to buy.

Ordering a book

The editions are printed to order and sold through Lulu (Lulu Press, Inc., United States). When you press an order button you leave this site for Lulu’s: your name, delivery address and payment details are given to Lulu and handled under Lulu’s privacy policy. Spirituality Media does not see your card, your address or your order, beyond the sales figures Lulu reports to the publisher.

Visit counts and the Meta pixel

Visit counts. The site uses Vercel Web Analytics to count pages viewed and visitors. It sets no cookie and keeps no profile: a visitor is counted from a hash that changes every day and cannot be traced back to a person or followed across sites.

The Meta pixel. Since October 2026 every page of the site loads the Meta pixel (Meta Platforms: Facebook and Instagram). It tells Meta that a page of this site was viewed, so that we can measure the advertisements we run for the editions and show them to people likely to be interested. Meta may set its own cookies on your device and, if you are logged in to Facebook or Instagram, match the visit to your account, under Meta’s privacy policy. We only ever see aggregate figures, never who you are.

You can stop the pixel by blocking it in your browser (an ad blocker or the browser’s tracking protection does this), and you can limit how Meta uses what it collects in your Facebook ad preferences. Nothing on this site stops working if you do.

There is no other analytics, advertising or fingerprinting script on the site.

Cookies and local storage

Set by the site. One local-storage key, smi-theme, remembers your light or dark setting. If you sign in, the sign-in token is kept in your browser’s local storage until you sign out. Neither is used to track you.

Set by Meta. The pixel may set the cookies _fbp and, if you arrived from a Facebook or Instagram ad, _fbc. See section 04.

Set by others when you use them. Index pages with embedded YouTube videos load YouTube’s player; when you press play, YouTube and Google set their cookies under their own policies. The contact form may show a Cloudflare Turnstile check, which sets a cookie of its own to tell a person from a robot. Outbound links to Amazon and other shops are affiliate links; their cookies apply from the moment you arrive on their site.

Legal basis

Under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): your consent for the newsletter and the contact form (you give it by subscribing or writing, and may withdraw it at any time); the performance of a contract for an account you open; our legitimate interest in running, securing and measuring the site for the server logs, the visit counts and the Meta pixel, which serves only the advertising of our own books. Where your law requires consent for the pixel, blocking it as described in section 04 is honoured without any loss of service.

Who processes the data

The site relies on these services, each under its own privacy policy:

• Vercel (United States): hosting, server logs, Web Analytics. Policy.
• Supabase (EU, Frankfurt): the catalogue, the newsletter list, contact messages, accounts. Policy.
• Meta Platforms (Ireland for EU residents, United States otherwise): the pixel. Policy.
• Lulu Press (United States): orders, payment, printing and delivery of the books. Policy.
• Cloudflare (United States): the Turnstile check on the contact form, when shown. Policy.
• YouTube / Google: video players on Index pages, active only when you press play. Policy.
• Amazon and other shops: outbound affiliate links.

How long we keep it

• Newsletter address: until you unsubscribe.
• Contact messages: one year after the last reply, then deleted.
• Account: until you close it; write to us and it is deleted within a month.
• Server logs: kept by Vercel, typically 30 days.
• Visit counts: aggregate figures only, kept indefinitely; they identify no one.
• Meta cookies: set by Meta, up to 90 days, under Meta’s policy.

Transfers outside the EU

Vercel, Meta, Lulu and Cloudflare are American companies, and the books are printed and sold from the United States. Where data about an EU resident leaves the European Economic Area, these companies rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, as stated in their policies linked above.

Your rights

Whatever your country, you may ask at any time to see the data the site holds about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to receive a copy of it, to restrict or object to its use, or to withdraw a consent you gave. Write to vhlread@icloud.com; you will have an answer within a month. EU residents may also complain to their national data protection authority, in France the CNIL; California residents have the rights the CCPA gives them, which this page already honours, and the site sells no personal information.

Children

The site is not directed at children under 16, and the newsletter, the contact form and accounts are not meant for them. If you believe a child’s address has been submitted, write to us and it will be removed.

Changes to this page

This page is updated when the site changes: a new service, a new way of selling, a new tool. The date at the top is the date of the last revision; the October 2026 revision added the Meta pixel, the visit counts, the contact form, accounts and the sale of books through Lulu. Material changes are announced in the Sunday letter.