Privacy policy

In short

WoW Forever Data has no accounts, sign-ups or forms, and never asks for your name or email address. The census data it publishes is counts of game characters; it names no players. The site is run by Taylor Coteus, who answers privacy questions at t.coteus@gmail.com.

Analytics

The site uses Google Analytics 4 to count page views and measure how fast pages load for real visitors. Google sets its own cookies (named _ga and _ga_ followed by an id, kept for up to two years) and processes the data under its own policy; see how Google uses information from sites that use its services. You can opt out with Google's opt-out browser add-on or by blocking cookies for this site.

Cookies and browser storage

• sidebar_state, a cookie the sidebar writes when you open or close it, holding only whether it is open. Kept for 7 days.
• The census assistant's conversation, in your browser's session storage, so a reload keeps it. Cleared when you close the tab.
• Your Anthropic API key, in your browser's local storage, only if you connect one to the assistant. Cleared when you disconnect it there or clear this site's data.
• The owner's access key, in local storage, only in a browser where it was entered on the assistant's or the admin page's settings.

Your filter choices (faction, realm) live in the page address, not in storage.

The census assistant

The assistant answers questions about the data with Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. What you type goes from your browser to this site's server and on to Anthropic to produce the answer; Anthropic handles it under its privacy policy. Don't type anything personal into it.

To use it, you connect your own Anthropic API key. The key stays in your browser and is sent with each question you ask; the server passes it to Anthropic for that question only and never saves or logs it. Questions asked on your key are billed to your Anthropic account.

For each question the server records a usage line (the time, the page, the model, the question's length in characters and the cost), not the question itself. The conversation is kept on the server so follow-up questions work, in a folder named by a one-way fingerprint of your key (not the key), so only a browser with the same key can continue it. Both are deleted whenever the site is redeployed. To limit abuse, the server also counts questions per IP address, in memory, for up to an hour.

Hosting

The site is hosted by Railway, and its domain is registered with Vercel. Like any web host, Railway records standard request logs (such as IP address, the page requested, the browser and the time) to run and protect the service. This site does not use them to identify visitors.

Your choices

Clearing this site's data in your browser removes everything listed above that it stores. For anything else, including a question about your data or a request to delete it, email t.coteus@gmail.com. The site is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect their information.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, the date at the top of the page changes with it.