Privacy Policy

Polymaths (polymaths.platphormnews.com) is operated by Platphorm News Network. We are committed to protecting your privacy and being transparent about how we handle data. This policy applies to all visitors and users of this site.

This is a free, open educational resource. We do not sell your data. We do not build advertising profiles. We collect the minimum information necessary to operate the service.

We collect the following categories of information:

Automatically collected data: When you visit the site, our servers and analytics tools may collect your IP address (anonymised), browser type, referring URL, pages visited, and time spent. This data is used in aggregate to understand how the site is used and improve it.

AI Mentor conversations: When you use the AI Polymath Mentor, your conversation inputs are sent to the Vercel AI Gateway for processing. Conversations are not stored on our servers beyond the immediate session unless you explicitly save or share a conversation. Each session generates a unique cosmological identifier (ULID) and an anonymised client fingerprint used solely for session continuity — not for identity tracking.

Feedback and contact: If you submit feedback or contact us, we collect the information you voluntarily provide (email address, message content).

We use collected information to:

- Operate and improve the site and its educational content - Understand aggregate usage patterns to prioritise development - Respond to feedback and support requests - Publish anonymised, aggregated conversations to docs.platphormnews.com when users choose to share their AI Mentor conversations (see the Data Policy for full details on this feature) - Comply with legal obligations

We do not use your information for advertising, profiling, or sale to third parties.

We use the following third-party services that may process your data:

Vercel: Our hosting provider. Subject to Vercel's privacy policy. Vercel may collect request logs as part of its infrastructure operation.

Vercel AI Gateway: Processes AI Mentor conversation inputs. Requests are routed through Vercel's infrastructure to AI model providers. See Vercel's privacy policy for details.

Platphorm News Network: This site is part of the Platphorm News Network. Network-level analytics and shared infrastructure may process anonymised usage data.

We do not use Google Analytics, Meta Pixel, or any advertising network trackers.

We use only essential cookies:

Theme preference: A cookie stores your light/dark mode preference. This cookie contains no personal information and is not shared with third parties.

Session state: Temporary session cookies may be set for interactive features. These expire when you close your browser.

We do not use tracking cookies, advertising cookies, or third-party analytics cookies.

- Server logs: Retained for up to 30 days for security and debugging, then deleted. - Analytics data: Aggregated, anonymised analytics are retained indefinitely. - AI Mentor sessions: Not stored beyond the immediate browser session unless you explicitly choose to share them. - Published documents: Conversations shared to docs.platphormnews.com are retained until you request their deletion via our deletion API endpoint.

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have the right to:

- Access the personal data we hold about you - Request correction of inaccurate data - Request deletion of your data - Object to or restrict certain processing - Data portability

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@platphormnews.com. We will respond within 30 days.

The source code of this site is available as open source. You can inspect exactly how data is collected and processed. We believe code transparency is a form of privacy protection.

See the CONTRIBUTING.md and STANDARDS.md documents in our repository for full technical details on data handling.

We will update this policy when our practices change. Material changes will be announced via the site's RSS feed and on the changelog page. The version number and date at the top of this document will reflect the most recent update.

For privacy-related questions or requests: privacy@platphormnews.com

For general contact: hello@platphormnews.com

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