What the site records and what it does not ask for.

Scope

This notice applies to pages served from skinrake.com and messages sent to the editorial address listed on this site. It does not govern gambling operators, affiliate networks, social platforms, email providers, hosting companies or other external services, which apply their own policies.

First-party traffic measurement

Pages that load SkinRake's traffic beacon send a small first-party event to /api/pulse. The current endpoint records:

• the page path and, for legacy review routes, a shortened site parameter;
• the referring website's hostname when the referrer is external;
• a two-letter country code supplied by the hosting edge, or ZZ when unavailable;
• the UTC calendar date and event timestamp;
• whether the visit appears to be the first page in the current tab session, the first visit that day and the first visit seen in that browser; and
• the destination hostname when an external link is clicked.

The endpoint reads the requesting IP address only for a short-lived in-memory rate limit; the event object written to storage does not include that IP address. The browser script does not create an advertising identifier or set cookies. It stores short first-party flags in browser local or session storage: srPulse, srPulseD and srPulseSeen. These represent a session flag, a date and a seen flag, not a random user ID. An owner opt-out flag may also exist in the site owner's browser.

Aggregation and retention

Loose traffic events are periodically folded into aggregate totals for visits, clicks, dates, countries, paths, referrers and destination sites. The scheduled compaction currently runs daily and can also run when the event queue reaches its threshold. Compaction removes the loose events it processes, but the aggregate counts continue to retain those breakdowns.

SkinRake has not yet published a fixed deletion period for aggregate traffic data. Until one is adopted, those aggregate counts may remain in first-party storage unless they are manually deleted or the storage system is replaced. This is a current-system description, not a promise that infrastructure logs follow the same schedule.

Hosting and technical records

The hosting and delivery infrastructure may process information needed to serve and secure requests, such as IP address, request time, browser or device details, requested URL, response status and network/security signals. SkinRake does not claim that these infrastructure records are anonymous. Retention and processing can also depend on the current hosting provider's systems.

Information you send by email

If you contact SkinRake, the message may include your email address, name, affiliation and any information or attachments you choose to provide. SkinRake uses it to review the request, verify evidence, maintain an editorial record and respond where appropriate. Do not submit unnecessary sensitive information.

SkinRake does not guarantee a response time. Messages may be retained where reasonably needed for editorial accountability, dispute context, security or legal obligations.

Affiliate and external links

Some outbound links include referral parameters. When you click one, the destination and its providers may process the referral identifier, your device or network information and later account activity under their own privacy rules. SkinRake may receive aggregate or attributed commercial reporting from an affiliate arrangement. Review the destination's privacy and cookie notices before creating an account.

Your choices and questions

• You can clear or block site storage through your browser settings. Blocking storage does not by itself stop the first-party beacon, but it prevents the browser flags from working as designed.
• You can use browser or network controls to block pulse.js and requests to /api/pulse.
• You can navigate directly to a destination instead of using an affiliate link.
• You can avoid including personal information when reporting a public-source correction.
• You can ask a privacy question through editorial@skinrake.com, the publication's editorial and corrections channel.

This is an operational privacy notice, not a representation that SkinRake has a complete statutory privacy-request system. The site does not currently publish an operating legal entity or postal address. This notice should be updated if the site's data practices or public contact structure materially changes.