Privacy

Most privacy policies open with what a site takes, so it is worth starting with what this one leaves alone. The Aesthetic Criterion runs no advertising trackers or session recording. Pinterest analytics remains off unless a reader explicitly allows it, and Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control keeps it off automatically. Scripts, fonts, and Taste Test studies are served by this website. Published article images may be delivered from the publication’s approved image storage, which receives the ordinary technical request needed to display them. Nothing here sets a cookie in order to follow you unless you make that Pinterest analytics choice. The publication does not sell personal information, does not share it with data brokers, and does not use anything it holds to target advertising.

Newsletter signup, correspondence, and the activity counts for articles and shopping guides work differently. Here is what each contains.

The publication collects your email address if you join the newsletter list, and the form asks for an address and a tick to confirm you want the newsletter. It is used to send the newsletter and for nothing else, and every message carries an unsubscribe link. Unsubscribing stops future newsletters; we may retain the unsubscribe status so that the choice is respected. The publication also passes on which page your address came from, so that it can tell a signup on the home page apart from one at the end of the Taste Test. A signup on an article or shopping guide may also carry a fixed guide and Pinterest Pin label, so the publication can understand which editorial campaign brought a signup. It does not send arbitrary URL parameters, browsing history or Taste Test answers.

The Taste Test records which study you chose in each pair inside your own browser, and those answers never leave the tab you took it in. Your individual answers and full reading are not sent to the publication or attached to your address. Closing the tab clears the local reading. To draw the optional share image, this site receives the one previewed preference and aggregate totals shown on that card. That request can appear in ordinary technical logs; it contains no email address. If you give an email address at the end, that address travels on its own with no trace of how you answered, which means the publication cannot see your reading and could not show it to you again if you asked.

Anything you write to the publication arrives in an ordinary mailbox, because hello@theaestheticcriterion.com is a real address read by a person. It is kept for as long as the correspondence is useful and then deleted.

Shopping-guide measurement uses daily counts. When enabled, the publication counts visible guide loads, retailer-link clicks, and the subscription status returned by its newsletter provider. The counter stores only the day, guide, fixed Pin label when present, product for an outbound click, event type and a count. It stores no email address, IP address, device or visitor identifier, and sets no measurement cookie. Repeat loads and clicks can count again; these figures are not unique readers or verified sales. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals disable these counters. A temporary in-memory limit for guide counting requests expires after sixty seconds.

Optional Pinterest analytics begins only after you choose “Allow Pinterest analytics.” If allowed, Pinterest receives the page visited, referring page, browser and device information, the network address needed to receive the request, and TAC’s page-view or commerce event. TAC does not include your newsletter email, Taste Test answers, or a TAC account identifier. Your choice is stored in this browser. Choosing “Essential only,” enabling Do Not Track, or enabling Global Privacy Control prevents the Pinterest Tag from loading. Pinterest handles data it receives under its own privacy policy.

Separately from all of that, the servers that deliver this site keep ordinary technical logs, which include the address a request came from, the page requested and the time. Every website keeps these. They are used to keep the site running and to investigate abuse, and they are not used to build a profile of you or joined to anything else described on this page. The subscribe form also holds the address a request came from in memory for sixty seconds, so that nobody can submit the form hundreds of times in a row, and that record is never written down and never passed on.

The publication is one person and a small amount of software, so a few services process data on its behalf, and each of them is bound by its own contract to use that data only to provide its service.

• Pinterest receives page and commerce-event information only when a reader has explicitly allowed Pinterest analytics. TAC also publishes Pins and reads aggregate performance for its own Pinterest account.
• Vercel serves this website and holds the technical logs described above.
• Beehiiv stores the newsletter list and sends the newsletter.
• Supabase stores the publication’s own editorial records, images and daily aggregate shopping-guide counters. When it serves an article image, it receives the ordinary technical request needed to deliver that image; Taste Test answers are never sent there.
• Google Cloud runs scheduled maintenance tasks and the publication’s protected feed and aggregate-count services, and holds credentials in encrypted storage.

The publication does not sell or share its newsletter list with advertisers, sponsors or partners. When you choose an external retailer or affiliate link, your browser visits that provider and its privacy policy applies. An Awin affiliate link may include a fixed guide or Pin reference for commission reporting, never your newsletter email or a TAC visitor identifier. Affiliate links are labelled where they appear.

The Aesthetic Criterion publishes essays on Substack and visual work on Instagram and Pinterest under the handle theaestheticcriterion. Those services have their own privacy policies. Information you provide there, such as a newsletter subscription or a message to the publication, is handled through that service and the access it gives the publication. TAC also reads summaries of its own account performance. This website can load the Pinterest Tag after a reader explicitly allows it; it does not load an Instagram tracking pixel.

TAC has a local Pinterest API demonstration for its own theaestheticcriterion account. It is not a public account-connection feature on this website. After the owner authorizes a connection through Pinterest, the demonstration can read the owner’s account identity, owned boards and Pin records, and aggregate performance for a selected Pin already published by that account. These summaries include impressions, saves, Pin clicks and outbound clicks. It does not collect audience profiles or competitor data.

A separately authorized Sandbox connection can create a creator-only test board and an original test Pin after the owner chooses the board and confirms the exact image, copy and destination. Public API posting and automatic scheduling are disabled in this demonstration. Pinterest receives the selected content needed for the test. TAC’s public website does not collect a Pinterest password or offer this connection to its readers.

The demonstration’s access and refresh tokens stay only in the local server process’s memory. They are discarded when the owner disconnects the local sessions or stops that server. Disconnecting locally does not revoke Pinterest’s authorization; the owner can revoke that grant in Pinterest account settings. A local session cookie protects the demonstration’s forms and is not used to track website readers. The production website’s separate service credentials use the protected hosting and credential storage described above.

Local verification records retain operation times, the owner’s account name and granted permissions, board and Pin identifiers, selected asset identifiers and image digests. They contain no access or refresh tokens, authorization codes, passwords or returned performance metrics. These records remain after a local disconnect. Write to hello@theaestheticcriterion.com to ask about, correct or request removal of a record held by TAC. Changes to Pinterest’s own records or account permissions are handled through Pinterest.

Where the law asks for a legal basis for holding information, two of them apply to what is described above. Your email address is held with your consent, which you gave by entering it and ticking the box beside it, and which you can withdraw by unsubscribing. Technical logs and correspondence are held on the basis of legitimate interests, meaning keeping the site available and secure and being able to answer the people who write in. Your Taste Test answers need no legal basis at all, because the publication never receives them.

An active newsletter address is kept in Beehiiv while you are subscribed. Unsubscribing stops future newsletters; the address and its inactive or unsubscribed status may remain so that your choice is respected. The website does not automatically reactivate an existing unsubscribed address. You can separately ask for deletion using the contact details below. Your Taste Test answers stay in your browser until you close the tab. Technical-log retention follows the hosting services’ configured settings. Correspondence is kept for as long as it is useful and then deleted. Local Pinterest demonstration records are described separately above.

You can ask the publication for a copy of what it holds about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for it to be deleted, and you do not need to give a reason. You can withdraw consent at any time, which for the newsletter is the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every message. Write to hello@theaestheticcriterion.com and you will have an answer within thirty days.

Depending on where you live you may have additional rights under the UK or EU General Data Protection Regulation, under the California Consumer Privacy Act, or under a comparable law where you are. The publication honours those requests wherever they come from rather than checking your address first, because the list is small and there is no good reason to make anyone prove they deserve an answer. If you are in the United Kingdom or the European Union and you are not satisfied with how a request was handled, you may complain to your national data protection authority.

The Aesthetic Criterion is written for adults, and the publication does not knowingly collect information from anyone under the age of 16. If you believe a child has given information to this site, write to hello@theaestheticcriterion.com and it will be deleted.

The services listed above operate in the United States and in other countries, so information collected through this site may be processed outside the country you live in. Where that transfer is regulated, it takes place under the standard contractual protections those services provide.

This page will change when what the publication does changes, and the date at the top will change with it. Where a change materially affects how reader information is used, subscribers will be told in the newsletter rather than left to notice a new date at the top of a page they had no reason to revisit.

The Aesthetic Criterion has no postal address to give, because it is one person and an inbox rather than an office. Write to hello@theaestheticcriterion.com about anything on this page, including a request to see, correct or delete what the publication holds about you.