Privacy policy

The short version

Audiowords (www.audiowords.net) has no accounts, sign-ups or newsletters, and doesn’t sell personal data. Like most sites, it uses analytics to see which pages are read and shows ads and affiliate links to pay for itself. Those services, run by Google, Microsoft, Vercel and Amazon, may set cookies and collect technical data such as your IP address, browser and pages visited. The details, and how to opt out, are below.

Analytics

• Google Analytics records pages viewed, how you arrived, approximate location, device and browser, using cookies. See how Google uses data from sites that use its services, or opt out with the Google Analytics opt-out add-on.
• Microsoft Clarity records how pages are used (clicks, scrolling and mouse movement, as heatmaps and session replays) to find what’s confusing or broken. It uses cookies and masks text you type. See the Microsoft privacy statement.
• Vercel Web Analytics and Speed Insights count page views and measure page speed without cookies, in aggregate. See Vercel’s analytics privacy policy.

Advertising

The site may show ads served by Google AdSense. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your previous visits to this and other websites. Google’s advertising cookies let it and its partners serve ads to you based on those visits.

You can turn off personalised ads in Google’s My Ad Center, and opt out of other vendors’ personalised ads at aboutads.info (or youronlinechoices.eu in Europe). Visitors in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland are asked for consent before personalised ads are shown. See how Google uses cookies in advertising.

Affiliate links

Audiowords is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, Audiowords earns from qualifying purchases. When you follow an Amazon link, Amazon may set cookies to credit the referral; its privacy notice applies on its site.

Ask Audiowords

If you use Ask, your question and the page you’re on are sent to the site’s server, which finds relevant passages and sends them with your question to an AI model, through Vercel’s AI Gateway, to write the answer. A shortened copy of each question is recorded as an analytics event so the site can see what readers want answered. Your IP address is held briefly in memory to limit how many questions can be sent per minute. Please don’t include personal information in questions.

Music previews and outside links

Track previews in the listening guides play directly from Apple’s servers, which receive your IP address and browser details when a preview plays. Links to Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, Deezer, manufacturers and reviewers lead to sites with their own privacy policies.

Stored in your browser

A few preferences are kept in your browser’s local storage and never sent to Audiowords: your light or dark theme, your Ask conversation (so it survives a reload) and the products in your compare tray. Clearing site data removes them.

Hosting

The site is hosted by Vercel, whose servers keep standard request logs (IP address, browser, page requested and time) for security and to keep the site running. Emails you send to hello@audiowords.net are used only to reply.

Your choices

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, use the opt-outs above, or browse with a content blocker; the site still works without cookies. Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct or delete data about you. Most of it is held by the services above, but write to hello@audiowords.net and it will be handled.

Audiowords isn’t directed at children under 13 and doesn’t knowingly collect their data.

Changes and contact

If the services the site uses change, this page changes with them and the date at the top is updated. Questions: hello@audiowords.net.