Privacy Policy

Last updated: 10 April 2026

Short version: this is a hobby blog. It collects the bare minimum of technical data needed to run the site, plus anonymous analytics if you opt in via the cookie banner. No third-party ad networks, no social media trackers, no data sold or shared.

Who's behind this

Zerg's Tech Hatchery is run by Sven (Zerg) as a personal blog. Under the GDPR, I'm the data controller for anything this site collects. You can reach me at contact@zergstechhatchery.com for any privacy-related questions or requests.

What gets collected and why

Always (necessary for the site to work)

Web server logs. Like any website, the server records the pages you request, your IP address, your browser's user-agent, and the time of the request. This is standard HTTP infrastructure and is used to serve pages, detect abuse, and diagnose errors.
Server-side diagnostics. The site uses Microsoft Azure Application Insights to capture errors and performance data on the server. This helps me keep the site stable. IP addresses may be used for rough geolocation, then discarded.
Anti-forgery cookie. The Blazor Server framework sets a short-lived anti-forgery cookie to protect form submissions from cross-site request forgery. It can't be used to identify you across sessions.
Visitor ID (in your browser only). When you react to an article, a random UUID is generated client-side and stored in your browser's localStorage as hatchery-visitor-id. This is how the site remembers that this browser has already reacted with “Love” so you can toggle it off. It never leaves your browser unless you react to an article, and even then it's not linked to your name, email, or anything identifying.
Consent choice (in your browser only). Your accept/decline decision for analytics is stored in your browser's localStorage as analytics-consent so the banner doesn't pester you on every page.

Only if you click “Accept” on the cookie banner

Anonymous analytics. If (and only if) you accept, the site loads Microsoft's Application Insights JavaScript SDK from Azure's CDN. It sets two cookies (ai_user, roughly one year; ai_session, about thirty minutes) and reports page views, scroll depth, how long you engaged with an article, and anonymous interactions (reacting to an article, copying a code block, opening an image lightbox, toggling a LISA comment, sharing an article).
None of this is tied to your name or email. It tells me things like “an article got 1,200 views, most people scrolled 75% of the way through, 40 people copied a code snippet.” It's how I know what's worth writing more of.
You can change your mind at any time. Clicking “Decline” (or clearing your browser's storage for this site) stops analytics collection from your browser going forward.

Only if you subscribe to the newsletter

The newsletter is strictly opt-in and uses double opt-in confirmation — nobody gets added without clicking a link in a confirmation email first. If you subscribe:

Your email address. Stored so I can actually send you articles. This is the whole point of subscribing, so it's a legitimate processing purpose under the GDPR (you gave explicit consent by submitting the form).
Timestamps. When you subscribed, when you confirmed, and (if applicable) when you unsubscribed. Helps me comply with data requests and clean up stale pending sign-ups.
Your IP address at the moment of signup. Stored alongside your subscription as proof of consent. If you (or I) ever need to show that a subscription was genuine and not added by someone else, this is the record. It's not used for anything else and never linked to analytics data.
Internal tokens. Two random identifiers: one for confirming the subscription (single-use, embedded in your confirmation email), one for unsubscribing (embedded in every newsletter email so you can opt out in a single click). These don't identify you to anyone but the site itself.

Your email is never shared with anyone, never sold, never used for anything except sending you Hatchery newsletters. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link in the footer of any newsletter email, or by emailing contact@zergstechhatchery.com. When you unsubscribe, your row is marked as unsubscribed (so the same email doesn't get re-added accidentally) but no further emails are sent.

What does not happen here

No advertising networks. No Google AdSense. No retargeting pixels.
No social media trackers. No Facebook pixel, no LinkedIn Insight Tag.
No Google Analytics. No third-party analytics beyond Microsoft's own App Insights.
No data sold to anyone. No data shared with anyone beyond Microsoft as the hosting, telemetry, and email processor.
No newsletter emails sent to anyone who hasn't explicitly confirmed their subscription by clicking a link in a confirmation email.
No account system, so no passwords, profiles, or stored personal info.

Who processes your data

The only third-party processor is Microsoft, through:

Azure App Service — hosts the site. EU region (West Europe).
Application Insights — collects diagnostics and opt-in analytics. EU region (West Europe).
Azure Communication Services (Email) — relays newsletter emails from a verified domain (mail.zergstechhatchery.com) if you subscribe. EU region (West Europe). Your email address is transmitted to Microsoft for the purpose of delivering newsletters you've explicitly opted in to.

Microsoft's own privacy practices are described in the Microsoft Privacy Statement.

How long data is kept

Application Insights: default retention period (typically around 90 days), after which telemetry is automatically deleted by Microsoft.
Web server logs: limited to what the hosting platform retains automatically.
Your localStorage entries (hatchery-visitor-id, analytics-consent): kept until you clear your browser's site data.
Newsletter subscription records: kept for as long as you're subscribed, and marked as unsubscribed (but not deleted) if you opt out. The marker stays so that re-subscribes use a fresh confirmation flow and so I have a clear audit trail. If you'd like your row fully deleted rather than marked unsubscribed, email contact@zergstechhatchery.com and I'll remove it.

Your rights under the GDPR

Because this site doesn't have accounts, most of the “personal” data it sees is hard to tie back to a specific person. That said, the GDPR gives you the following rights, and I'll honor them to the extent technically possible:

Right of access — ask what data I hold about you.
Right to erasure — ask me to delete analytics data relating to your visits. (For the localStorage stuff, you can do this yourself in one click via your browser's site data settings.)
Right to object — the cookie banner is how you object to analytics. Click Decline.
Right to rectification — mostly not applicable, since no personal account data is stored.
Right to data portability — mostly not applicable for the same reason.
Right to lodge a complaint — if you're unhappy with how I'm handling your data, you can file a complaint with the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens).

To exercise any of these, email contact@zergstechhatchery.com with enough context for me to find the relevant data (rough date range, what you were doing).

Changes to this policy

If the site starts doing anything new that affects your privacy — switching analytics provider, adding new processors, anything material — I'll update this page and bump the “last updated” date above. There's no account to push a notification to, so if you care, check back occasionally or follow the RSS feed.