Richard Golian

1995-born. Charles University alum. Head of Performance at Mixit. 10+ years in marketing and data.

#myjourney #myfamily #health #cognition #philosophy #digital #artificialintelligence #darkness #security #finance #politics #banskabystrica #carpathians

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Richard Golian
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Privacy

Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to the processing of personal data collected through this website (richardgolian.com). Data controller:

Richard Golian
Pod Turickou 3526/37, 97401 Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
ICO 52150399
Contact: mail@richardgolian.com

1. What we process and why

  • Single article purchase
    • Your email address is used to deliver the purchased digital content (PDF), confirm the order, and store the transaction record. Legal basis: contract performance (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).
  • Library subscription
    • When you purchase an annual Library subscription, your email and payment data are processed to activate your membership, grant access to Library content via a browser cookie (library_access), manage automatic annual renewal, and enable cancellation through the Stripe billing portal. Legal basis: contract performance (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).
  • Invoicing and accounting
    • Transaction data (your name as entered at checkout, email address, product, amount paid, invoice number, tax details) is retained for accounting and legal compliance. Legal basis: legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR).
    • The record of your request for immediate delivery is kept as evidence of the contract. Legal basis: contract performance (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR) and my legitimate interest in being able to prove it (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
    • You need to give your email address to buy anything here, because the purchase is delivered and confirmed by email; without it the purchase cannot be made.
  • Newsletter (only with consent)
    • If you tick the newsletter checkbox, we may send occasional updates about new articles or content. Legal basis: consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), withdrawable at any time.
    • Delivery check. The newsletter contains an invisible image (a tracking pixel) that, when you open the email, records only the date of your last opening against your address. It serves solely to let me know whether my emails reach you. The time, the device and which issue you opened are not stored. Legal basis: my legitimate interest in being able to deliver the newsletter (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). You can object at any time by writing to mail@richardgolian.com. You can also prevent the recording by turning off image loading in your email app. I keep the date for as long as you are subscribed and delete it when you unsubscribe.
    • What is stored when you subscribe. Your email address, language, the time of your consent and of your confirmation, and the page you subscribed from. When you subscribe through the form on this website, the subscription starts only after you confirm it from the email I send you. If you tick the newsletter box when you buy something, the subscription starts with the purchase, without a separate confirmation email.
    • Articles for subscribers. Some articles open after you subscribe. You can unsubscribe at any time, and the articles keep opening in the browser where you already opened them.
    • Buyers of a single article. When you buy an article, your email address is also added to my list of readers, so that articles for subscribers open for you when you enter it. You receive the newsletter only if you ticked the newsletter box. Legal basis: my legitimate interest in giving buyers access to the articles for subscribers (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
  • Visit statistics (without cookies)
    • For each page view I store the address of the page (including, for example, search terms you typed), the page you came from, the time, your browser's identification string (user agent), technical signals that help tell people from automated programs, and an identifier calculated on the server from your IP address and browser with a key that is replaced every day. Your IP address itself is not stored. Because the key changes every day, the identifier does not link visits from different days.
    • The page also tells the server, without storing anything in your browser, that you have interacted with it, how far you have read an article (25, 50, 75 or 100 %), and when you click a link to my social networks or to the RSS feed.
    • When you subscribe to the newsletter or start a purchase, that day's identifier is stored with the record, so that I can see on which page it happened.
    • Purpose: to know which pages are read and to keep automated traffic out of the numbers. Legal basis: my legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). No cookie is used for this and no analytics service of another company is involved. The data is not passed to anyone, apart from my hosting provider, which stores it for me. You can object at any time by writing to mail@richardgolian.com.
  • Living room (livingroom.richardgolian.com)
    • An invitation-only room for readers. For members I store the email address, name, handle, website if given, a short description and a status if they add them (the status disappears after seven days), who sent the invitation, when they last visited, their display settings, what they write (posts, replies, earlier versions of edited posts, guestbook entries) and poll votes; in anonymous polls the votes are not shown to other members. Members receive emails about replies and mentions, and about new posts if they turn this on; each of these can be switched off. Sign-in works with a link or code sent by email.
    • If a member invites you, the name, email address and website they entered are stored, other members can see your name and website in the list of guests, and an invitation email with a link to this policy is sent to you. If you do not want to join, write to me and I will delete your details.
    • Legal basis: providing the room you joined (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR); for an invitation, my legitimate interest in letting members invite people they know (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). The data is kept while you are a member, and after that until you ask me to delete it. Write to me and I will delete your account and what you wrote.
  • Webmentions
    • When another website notifies this site that it links to a page here (a webmention), I store the address and title of that page, the page it links to, and, to limit abuse, the IP address and browser identification of the sender. The IP address and browser identification are deleted after 30 days. Legal basis: my legitimate interest in receiving replies from other websites and protecting the service from abuse (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
  • Human filter
    • In the Human filter I recommend writing by other people. For each entry I publish the author's name, a link to their public page and my comment, based only on what they have published themselves. When I add an entry, I let the author know where possible. Legal basis: my legitimate interest in recommending writing I value (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Authors can ask me at any time to correct or remove an entry.
  • Protection against abuse and faults
    • Some forms limit repeated attempts using a value derived from your IP address; this value is deleted after a short time. Attempts to submit forms are logged in pseudonymised form, and server error logs may contain your email address; both are used only to detect abuse and fix faults. The form log is deleted after twelve months; error logs are kept only as long as the hosting provider keeps them. My hosting provider keeps technical server logs, which include IP addresses, to run and protect the server. Legal basis: my legitimate interest in keeping the site secure and working (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

2. Data retention

  • Single article purchase data is retained for confirmation and accounting purposes.
  • Library subscription data is retained for the duration of the active subscription and as required by accounting regulations after cancellation.
  • Newsletter email addresses are kept until you ask for deletion. After you unsubscribe, your address is kept marked as unsubscribed, so that nothing more is sent to it and the articles for subscribers keep opening for you (legal basis: my legitimate interest, Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR); write to me and I will delete it.
  • Accounting and tax records of purchases are kept for as long as Slovak accounting and tax law requires.
  • Visit statistics are kept as the long-term statistics of the site, without a fixed deletion date.
  • Living room data is kept while you are a member.
  • The IP address and browser identification of a webmention sender are deleted after 30 days.

3. Service providers

We do not sell or share your data for commercial or profiling purposes. Your data may be processed by:

  • Stripe Payments Europe, Limited (Ireland)
    • Secure payment processing and subscription management (billing portal, renewal, cancellation). For fraud prevention and to meet its own legal obligations, Stripe acts as an independent controller under its own privacy policy (stripe.com/privacy). Stripe may transfer data outside the European Economic Area, relying on an adequacy decision of the European Commission or on standard contractual clauses.
  • Email provider
    • SMTP server of our hosting, sending order confirmations and purchased digital content.
  • Hosting provider in Slovakia
    • Stores the website, its database and email for me.

Except where stated above for Stripe, these providers process the data only on my instructions.

4. Cookies

This website uses only functional cookies, each needed for a service you ask for:

  • library_access
    • Set after a successful Library subscription payment. This cookie stores an access token used to verify your active membership and grant access to Library content. It contains only a random access token and is kept for 365 days; each time, the server checks whether your subscription is still active.
  • reader_access
    • Set after you confirm your newsletter subscription, or when you enter an address that is already subscribed. It opens the articles for subscribers and hides the subscription box. It contains only a random token and is kept for 365 days.
  • livingroom_access
    • Set on livingroom.richardgolian.com after you sign in as a member. It keeps you signed in for 365 days.

No cookie and no other storage in your browser is used for visit statistics.

No advertising cookies and no third-party tracking cookies are used on this website, and nothing here is shared with an advertising network. The library_access cookie is also the key by which the record of the articles you opened is linked to your membership, as described in section 8. On the withdrawal page, when a purchase is started and in the Living room, a temporary session cookie is set as well; it protects the form and disappears when you close the browser. For Living room members, the browser also keeps a small script that lets the room be installed as an app, and text you are writing there is kept in your browser until you send it. The payment page and the billing portal are run by Stripe on its own website and use Stripe's own cookies.

5. Subscription management

Library subscribers can manage or cancel their subscription at any time via the subscription management page, which connects to the Stripe billing portal. The subscription renews automatically each year. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. Withdrawal within 14 days is different: it ends access immediately and returns money, as described in section 6.

6. Refund policy

You may withdraw from a Library subscription within 14 days of the payment, without giving a reason, on the withdrawal page. Articles you opened during that period are charged at their individual price and the rest is returned to the card you paid with, within 14 days at the latest. Access ends at the moment you confirm. The full conditions are in the terms of sale.

A single article bought on its own is different. It is delivered in full the moment the PDF is sent, so once it has been sent the right of withdrawal no longer applies to it.

If you believe there is a technical issue or an error with your purchase, please contact us at mail@richardgolian.com and we will review the situation on a case-by-case basis.

7. Your rights

You have the right to:

  • Request access to the personal data we hold about you
  • Request correction or deletion of your data
  • Object to or restrict processing
  • Withdraw consent at any time (for newsletter emails)
  • Receive the data you gave me in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format
  • Lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority; in Slovakia this is the Office for Personal Data Protection of the Slovak Republic (dataprotection.gov.sk)

Where I rely on legitimate interest, you can object at any time and I will stop, unless I have compelling legitimate grounds or need the data for legal claims.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at: mail@richardgolian.com

8. Reading record for Library members

When you open a Library article as a member, one row is stored: which article it was, in which language, and when you first opened it. It is linked to your membership through one-way hashes of your access token and of your email address, not by your name.

There is one reason for this. If you withdraw within 14 days, the articles you have already opened are charged at their individual price and the rest is returned. Without this record that amount cannot be worked out. Legal basis: performance of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR) and my legitimate interest in the establishment, exercise and defence of legal claims (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR) for as long as the withdrawal period runs. The rows are deleted after 30 days. They are not shared with anyone unless I have to show them to settle a dispute about the amount, and they are not used to recommend anything to you or for advertising.

Watching for bulk downloading. If an unusually large number of articles is opened from one membership in a short time, a note is stored with the hashed token, the hashed email address, the number of articles and the time. It exists so that it is visible when one subscription is used to copy the whole Library. Legal basis: my legitimate interest in protecting paid content (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). You may object to this processing. The notes are deleted after twelve months.

Record of a withdrawal. When you withdraw, the amount paid, the amount charged, the amount returned, the number and the list of articles opened, and the Stripe payment identifiers are stored. This is the evidence of what was calculated and why. The amounts and identifiers are kept for as long as accounting and tax law requires, the list of articles is deleted after two years. Your IP address is not stored.

9. The amount on withdrawal is calculated automatically

The amount returned to you when you withdraw is worked out by the site itself, from the record of the articles you opened and their individual prices. You see every figure before you confirm anything, and the confirmation email repeats them. If you think a figure is wrong, reply to that email; I will check it by hand and correct it if it is wrong. This is an automated decision needed for the contract (Art. 22(2)(a) GDPR): you can ask me to review it in person, give your view and contest it. The automatic calculation alone does not bind you.

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