Privacy policy

Introduction

This site, stardevs.gg, is published by StarDevs, Inc (“StarDevs”, “we”). We are the controller of the personal information described on this page. We have kept this policy short because the site does very little with your information. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics in your browser and loads nothing from third parties. What it does do is set out below, in the order you would want to ask about it.

Questions about anything here go to hello@stardevs.gg or (424) 265-7884.

Information StarDevs collects

We want you to understand the types of information we collect as you use this site. There are two kinds: things you give us, and things recorded as you use the site.

Things you create or provide to us

• When you write to us. The contact forms on the About and Services pages open your own email program with your message in it. Nothing reaches us until you send that email. When you do, we receive your email address and what you wrote.
• When you apply for a role. There is no application form; an application is an email you send us, with whatever you choose to attach.
• When you email or call us directly. We receive whatever you choose to send or say, and the address or number you sent it from.

You never have to give us anything: every page and every article download works without it. We only need your email address to answer you.

Information we collect as you use the site

• Server logs. The site is static files served by Cloudflare. Like every web server, its network records the IP address, the page or file requested, the time and the browser type of each request, and uses them to deliver the site and protect it from abuse. Article downloads (the PDF and Markdown files) are ordinary files on the same network and are logged the same way and no other way. Cloudflare keeps these records under its own policy, and its dashboard shows us reports drawn from them, such as requests by country, page and browser. We use those reports to keep the site available and secure and to see, in totals, how much it is visited, and we keep no copy. They need nothing on your device: no script and no cookie.
• Nothing else. The site sets no cookies, stores nothing in your browser, carries no analytics script, tag manager or tracking pixel, and loads every script, stylesheet, font and image from this site rather than from a third party. Articles link to other sites; they do not embed players, widgets or social buttons that would call those sites when the page loads. Your location is not collected beyond what an IP address in a server log implies.

Why StarDevs collects data

We use the information for four purposes, and for nothing else.

• To provide what you asked for. To reply to a message, to follow the conversation you started, and to assess an application and tell you the outcome.
• To communicate with you. About the project, question or role you wrote to us about. We do not send newsletters or marketing email, and there is nothing to subscribe to.
• To protect StarDevs, our visitors and the public. Server logs let our hosting providers, and where necessary us, detect abuse, investigate a security problem and keep the site available.
• To know how much the site is used. Cloudflare’s reports, drawn from its server logs, tell us in totals how many requests and visitors the site has and where they come from. Nothing is added to the page or to your browser for this.

Our legal basis for the first two is the step you took — replying to a message you sent, or considering an application you made — and, where a conversation becomes a contract, the contract from then on. For server logs and the reports drawn from them it is our legitimate interest in running a secure site and knowing how much it is used. We do not build profiles or personalise content, and we look only at totals. No decision about you is made by automated means.

Cookies and similar technologies

This site sets no cookies, keeps nothing in your browser’s local storage, and reads nothing from your device.

One exception belongs to the site’s host, not the site. If Cloudflare ever judges traffic to be an attack and asks your browser to show that it is not an automated program, passing that check stores a cookie, cf_clearance, so that you are not asked again for 30 minutes. It is Cloudflare’s, it is strictly necessary to keep the site available, and we never read it. In ordinary use there is no such check and no cookie.

Your privacy controls

You have choices about the information we hold and how it is used. There is no account to manage, and the site keeps nothing about you between visits, so your controls are simple.

• Choose what you send. Nothing leaves your device unless you send an email or submit an application. You can read every page and download every article without giving us anything.
• Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control. There is nothing for either signal to switch off: the site already treats every visitor the way they ask, and no other company collects information about your activity on this site, or across other sites, through it.
• Review, update or correct it. Email us and we will tell you what we hold about you and correct anything that is wrong.
• Object, restrict or withdraw. You can ask us to stop using your information, or to keep it but stop using it while a question about it is settled, at any time, or ask us to delete an application before a role is decided.

Sharing your information

When you share your information

The links to LinkedIn and X in the footer, and the share links on articles, take you to those sites. What happens there is governed by their policies, not this one, and nothing is sent to them until you follow the link.

When StarDevs shares your information

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with anyone for their own marketing. We share it only in these cases.

• With your consent. For example, if you ask us to pass an application to a client, or to introduce you to someone.
• For external processing. These companies handle information for us, on our instructions, under their own published privacy terms and appropriate confidentiality and security measures: Cloudflare, Inc., which serves the site from its network and keeps its server logs; Google LLC (Google Workspace), which carries and stores our email.
• For legal reasons. If we are required to by law, a court order or a lawful request from a public authority, or to protect the rights, property or safety of StarDevs, our visitors or the public.

Keeping your information secure

The site is served over HTTPS only. It is a set of static files with no database, no login and no server-side code, so there is no store of visitor data on the site itself for anyone to reach. What you send us lives in our email system, which is protected by strong authentication and is read only by the people who need to act on your message or your application.

Exporting & deleting your information

You can ask for a copy of the information we hold about you, in a common format a computer can read, or ask us to delete it, at any time. Write to hello@stardevs.gg. We will answer within thirty days, and we may ask you to confirm that the request comes from the address we hold, so that we do not give your information to someone else. When we delete, we delete the message or the application and any copy we made of it, except where the law requires us to keep a record.

Retaining your information

We retain information for different periods depending on what it is and what it is for.

• Messages and email conversations: for as long as the conversation is live, and for up to two years after the last message, so that we can pick it up again if you come back.
• Applications: for up to twelve months after the role is filled or closed, in case a similar role opens. If you would rather we delete it as soon as the role is decided, say so in your email or write to us afterwards.
• Contracts and invoices: for as long as the law requires us to keep business records.
• Server logs: held by Cloudflare for its own security and operations and deleted on its schedule; we do not keep a separate copy.

Compliance & cooperation with regulators

We review this policy when the site changes and make sure we handle information in the way it describes. When we receive a formal written complaint, we respond to the person who made it, and we work with the relevant regulator to resolve any complaint we cannot resolve directly.

The European Union and the United Kingdom

StarDevs is a United States company and the information you send us is processed in the United States. Cloudflare serves the site from data centres around the world, usually the one nearest you. Cloudflare and Google receive personal information under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, its UK Extension or the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses, and we will send you a copy of the safeguards that apply if you ask. If you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, you have the rights in this policy — access, correction, deletion, restriction, objection, a portable copy, and withdrawing consent — and you may complain to your local data protection authority, or in the United Kingdom to the Information Commissioner’s Office, if you are not satisfied with our answer.

California and other U.S. states

Some U.S. state laws, including California’s, give residents the right to know what personal information a business collects, to have it deleted, to correct it, and not to be discriminated against for exercising those rights. We honour these rights for everyone who asks, wherever they live.

• What we collected in the last 12 months. Identifiers (your name, email address and phone number when you contact us, and IP addresses in server logs); internet activity (server logs); and professional or employment information (what you send with an application). It came from you and from your browser, and we used it for the purposes above.
• No sale, no sharing. We disclose personal information only to the service providers named above, under contracts that limit what they may do with it. We have not sold it or shared it for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we do not use sensitive personal information for anything that would give you a right to limit it. There is nothing to opt out of, and a Global Privacy Control signal is honoured as described above.
• How to ask. Email hello@stardevs.gg or call (424) 265-7884. Someone you authorise can ask for you with your signed permission. We verify a request by matching it to the contact details we hold, and we will not treat you differently for making one.

About this policy

When this policy applies

This policy applies to this site, the article files it offers for download, and the messages and applications you send us through it or to the email address and phone number it publishes. It does not apply to the sites we link to, or to work we do for clients under a contract, which is governed by that contract.

Changes to this policy

When the site changes in a way that affects this page, we change this page and move the effective date at the top. We will not reduce your rights under this policy without telling you on this page. The version you can read here is the one in force; earlier versions are available on request.

Key terms

• Personal information is information that identifies you or could reasonably be linked to you: your name, your email address, your CV, your phone number, or an IP address in a server log.
• Controller is the organisation that decides why and how personal information is used. For this site that is StarDevs, Inc.
• Processor is an organisation that handles personal information on the controller’s instructions, such as the companies named under “For external processing”.
• IP address is the number your internet connection is assigned, which every web server sees on every request and which can approximate your location to a city or region.
• Server log is the record a web server keeps of each request it serves: the IP address, the file requested, the time and the browser type.
• Cookie is a small file a site can store in your browser to recognise you later. This site does not use them; the one its host may set is described under Cookies and similar technologies.
• Local storage is a place in your browser where a site can keep a small value between visits. This site keeps nothing there.