Deep Astronomy Privacy Policy

Deep Astronomy is run by me, Tony Darnell. I consider myself an easy-going person, except when it comes to internet privacy and spam. While one of the objectives of this site is to make money, rest assured that this will never be achieved by misusing any user data and information that we collect.

Privacy Guarantee

  • No legal jargon
    Information about how we use your data will always be provided without the use of legal jargon or legalese.
  • No sharing data
    Data and information collected from users, will never be sold, exchanged or given away.
  • No spam
    You will always have the ability to opt-out of receiving email communications from us, other than any important communications about the security of your account, if you register for one.
  • Always secure
    Every single page on our site is delivered using HTTPS. This means that all traffic and data between yourself and our site, is heavily encrypted using SSL.

Questions & feedback

If you have any questions about the information on this page, or if you would like to provide feedback or concerns about our privacy policy, you can email us directly using [email protected].

Alternatively, you can use the form below.

1. What information is collected?

1a. Anonymous data

As with the vast majority of websites, the following information is automatically collected by Google Analytics whenever our site is visited;

  • Your IP address
  • Which pages were visited, and when
  • The website you were on before you came to Deep Astronomy
  • Your web browser type and version
  • Your operating system type and version

This information is anonymous, is held by Google and is not linked to you as an individual.

1b. Newsletter data

If you register to receive our newsletter, your email address is added to a subscription list in our MailChimp account. The following information is collected and stored by MailChimp;

  • Your email address
  • How you interact with our newsletters
  • If and when you unsubscribed

1c. Contact form data

If you use any contact forms on our website, the data and information you provide is emailed to us directly from the website. A copy of this email is stored in our website database. This data is only used to allow communications with you directly.

1d. Personal data

If you register for an account on the website, the following information is collected;

  • Your first and last name
  • Your email address
  • Your chosen password (encrypted with a hash algorithm; we cannot see what it is)
  • Your chosen username
  • Your addresses, if you choose to provide them (for billing and deliveries)

This information is stored in our website database which is protected by high levels of security, hosted within the industry-leading AWS infrastructure.

2. Payments and donations

2a. External donations

If you choose to donate via a third party, such as Patreon or PayPal, we do not store any information that you provide. This is all handled by the third party and you should check their privacy policies for information on how they use the data and information that you provide.

2b. Payment data

If you register for an account on the website, you have the option to provide debit or credit card information which can be saved for future donations and purchases on our website.

This card data is NOT stored by us.

Any card details you provide are stored with Stripe , our secure payment provider. If you choose to do this, Stripe provide us with a customer ID, which we do store along with your other personal information.

This customer ID is how we are able to link your payment information to your account and take payments if/when you make a purchase or donation, without storing any of it or being able to access it.

3. How do we use the information that we collect?

Anonymous data
Used to understand how our site is being used, how people find us, who our audience is and how we can make the site better.

Newsletter data
Used to ensure that we can keep fans up-to-date with things that are likely to be of interest, such as breaking astronomy news or changes to our content, website and the community as a whole.

Contact form data
Used to ensure that we can communicate with those of you that want to converse with us!

Personal data
Used so that we can identify who you are, which allows us to personalise your experience on our site.

4. Controlling your personal data

Once you have registered for an account, you will be able to delete your account and all associated personal data that we hold for you. This excludes any comments or articles that you have created, which will remain on the site but will no longer be linked to you.

If for any reason you cannot access your account to trigger this deletion, please contact us. We can help you regain access to your account so that you can proceed to delete it.

4a. Data we will anonymise

If you choose to delete your account, the following data will be anonymised. This means that we will retain the data but it will not be linked to you.

  • Articles; will remain on site but with no author information
  • Comments; will remain on site but the name 'anonymous' will be shown
  • Donations; records will remain in our database but never displayed on the site

4b. Data we will delete

If you choose to delete your account, the following data will be permanently and irreversibly deleted.

  • Records of any content you have liked
  • Records of any pages you visited while logged in
  • Any addresses you provided for billing/delivery purposes
  • Your notification preferences
  • Your entire user record and all associated personal data
  • Your default payment method (held by Stripe), if you provided one

4a. Data we can not delete

If you choose to delete your account, the following data will not be deleted.

  • Any financial data and records held by Stripe, relating to purchases or donations you may have made.
  • Any subscription and behavioural data held by MailChimp, relating to your engagement with our newsletters.