Privacy, in plain words

Leaf Journal (leafjournal.app) is run from the Netherlands. For everything this policy covers, the person responsible (the “controller” in GDPR terms) is the operator of Leaf Journal, reachable at hello@leafjournal.app. A human — the plant killer himself — reads that inbox.

Your email address — when you request a cheatsheet, care card or guide (so we can deliver it: that's performance of what you asked for), when you sign up for the weekly entry (only with your explicit consent — see the next section), when you post a question, reply or memorial as a guest (so we can tell you when it's live and when someone replies), and when you create a member account (to run the account: sign-in, password resets).

What you post — questions, replies and memorials are meant to be public. Your email address is never shown publicly; the name/handle you choose is.

Visit statistics — our own counter is cookieless and anonymous: a daily-rotating hash means we couldn't follow you across days if we wanted to, and we don't want to. We record which pages are opened, roughly how long a page is read and how far it was scrolled, and — if you arrived from a campaign link — which campaign sent you. To tie the pages of one visit together we keep a random id in your browser's sessionStorage: it disappears when you close the tab, it is never shared, and it says nothing about who you are. No advertising trackers, no selling data, no creepy stuff. Prefer not to be counted at all? Visit this link and this browser is excluded.

Everywhere we ask for your email, joining the weekly entry is a separate, unticked choice. Tick it and we send you ONE mail with a confirm button (double opt-in); nothing else arrives until you click it. We record when and where you consented — that's our proof, and your protection.

Every weekly mail has a one-click unsubscribe link, plus the standard unsubscribe button your mail app shows. Unsubscribing works immediately, on the first click, with no “are you sure” theatre. We keep a minimal “don't mail this address” record so we never accidentally mail you again — that record is the unsubscribe working, not a mailing list.

Deliveries and account features run on performance of a contract (you asked, we deliver). The newsletter runs on consent (article 6(1)(a) — withdrawable anytime via the unsubscribe link). The anonymous statistics and human moderation of community posts run on our legitimate interest in keeping the site working, kind and spam-free. Crediting a partner for a sale they sent us runs on performance of our contract with that partner — the section below says exactly what that means for you.

If you apply to our partner program, we store your name, email, channel and — after approval — the details we need to pay you: account holder, IBAN, country, and a VAT number if you have one. The legal basis is performance of a contract: we need them to run the partnership and to transfer the money. Sales records contain payment references only, never the buyer's name or email — a partner sees that a sale happened, never who made it.

If you arrive through a partner's link (leafjournal.app/c/CODE), we store that partner's code in a first-party cookie called lj_via for 30 days. Its entire contents are a partner code — no identifier for you, no browsing history, nothing that leaves this site, and nothing an advertiser could use. It exists so that if you buy something, the right person gets credited.

We do not ask permission for it, and we would rather write down why than leave it in the small print. This cookie is not there to learn anything about you; it is there to carry out an agreement with someone else — our partner earned a commission and we have to be able to tell. It does not profile you, it is never shared, and it changes nothing about what you see on this site. We weighed the alternative — bringing back a consent banner for this one cookie — and decided against it on 14 August 2026, because a banner in front of every page is a bigger intrusion than a code that does nothing to you. If you disagree, deleting it costs you nothing at all: the only thing that changes is that a partner loses their credit.

Two other cookies exist and are genuinely necessary: the one that keeps you signed in, and the one that records that you asked not to be counted in our statistics.

We used to ask first-time visitors whether we could load Google Analytics. We removed it in August 2026, and the consent card with it: our own measurement is good enough, and it needs no cookies, so there is nothing left to ask you about. Nothing on this site sends your visit to Google, and no advertising or tracking cookie is set — the only cookies here are the three named above.

We don't sell or share your data for marketing. To run the site, these services process data on our behalf, under EU data-processing agreements: Supabase (database & accounts, EU region), Resend (sending the emails), Vercel (hosting) and Stripe (payments). Our visit statistics stay with us — they are not sent to any analytics company. TikTok only sees you if you tap through to TikTok itself.

Newsletter consent records: as long as you're subscribed, plus the minimal do-not-mail record after you leave. Delivery signups (cheatsheets/guides): until you ask us to remove them. Community posts: as long as they're part of the public conversation — deleting your member account de-identifies them (your email is wiped, the posts stay as anonymous contributions). Anonymous statistics: kept as counts only, never traceable to you. Partner payout details (account holder, IBAN, country, VAT number): only while the partnership runs and commissions are still owed — after that we wipe them from the partner record. The payments themselves remain in our bookkeeping, which Dutch tax law requires us to keep for seven years.

You can ask for access, correction, deletion, restriction, portability, and you can withdraw consent at any time (the unsubscribe link IS the withdrawal). Members can delete their own account on their page — that wipes the email from everything, immediately. For anything else, mail hello@leafjournal.app and a human will sort it out, usually within a few days. Not happy with how we handled it? You have the right to complain to the Dutch data protection authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl) or your local EU authority.

If we ever change what we collect or why, this page changes first and the “last updated” date moves. We won't quietly widen anything — that's a promise, and also the law.