The newsletter
If you use a subscribe form, I collect the email address you type in. Nothing else is asked for. The address is sent to Resend, the email service that delivers Major Matters, and stored in my Resend audience with a note of which form it came from. Where a form sits on a page you reached from a link, the campaign tags in that link (the utm values) may be stored alongside the address so I can tell which channel brought readers.
New addresses get a confirmation email. The link in it carries a signed token so that only the person holding the inbox can confirm, and Google Analytics does not load on the confirmation page, so the token never reaches Google.
Each subscribe form contains a hidden field that people never see. If it is filled in, the submission is treated as automated and nothing is stored. No IP address is read or stored by the subscribe routes.
Resend records whether an email was opened and which links in it were clicked. I use those counts to tell which subscribers are reading, so that people who never open can be sent less. There are no other tracking pixels in the emails and no third-party advertising tags.
Analytics
I use Google Analytics(GA4) to see which pages get read. It runs in consent mode with analytics storage denied by default: no analytics cookie is set and your visit is not attributed to you unless you choose Accept on the banner. Advertising storage and ad personalization are always denied. Your choice is remembered in your browser's local storage under the key mm_consent. To change it, clear this site's data in your browser and the banner will ask again.
Separately, the site keeps its own count of real readers. A small script notes that a person is on a page and whether they reached the end of it. It sets no cookie, reads no IP address, and stores nothing that identifies you. It exists because bots inflate every other number.
Cookies
Some articles are free to read but ask you to subscribe first. When you do, the site sets one cookie, mm_sub, on this device for a year. It contains only the value 1 and unlocks every subscriber article here. The same cookie is set when you confirm your address by email. Google Analytics sets its own cookies only after you accept the banner, as described above. There are no other cookies.
Hosting logs
The site is hosted on Netlify. Like any web host, Netlify processes server logs that include IP addresses and the pages requested, in order to deliver and protect the site. Content is served from a Sanity content database; no reader data is stored there.
What I do not do
- No advertising, on the site or in the emails.
- No sale or rental of data.
- No sharing of the subscriber list with anyone, beyond the email service that sends the newsletter.
- No tracking across other sites.
Unsubscribe and deletion
Every email has a one-click unsubscribe link. To have your address deleted, or to ask what I hold about you, email hello@majormatters.co and I will remove it.
How I work editorially, including sources and corrections, is on the methodology page.
Charlie Major is a Product Development Manager at Mastercard. The views and opinions expressed in Major Matters are his own and do not represent those of Mastercard.