Privacy & Cookies Policy
This website is an archive. There are no accounts, no sign-up, no newsletter and no private messaging; the forum is read-only. No page asks you for your name, your email address or anything else.
Only two things process data about you:
- advertising and traffic measurement, both handled by Google, which happen only if you agree to them;
- protection against automated copying, which counts requests per IP address. That one runs without your consent — the site cannot do without it.
This page describes what the site actually does, and nothing else. The names and durations given here are the ones the program writes.
Who processes your data
This website is managed by David Houstin, Granby, QC, Canada. "Website" means this website, available at https://chine.in.
For any question about this policy, or to exercise your rights: david.houstin@gmail.com.
Who hosts the website
The Website is hosted by Oyenga Media Inc, 75 Henderson Street, Miramichi, NB E1N 2R6, Canada — BN 775436975, GST/HST registration number 775436975RT0001 — marc@oyengamedia.com.
What is stored on your device
What the site stores itself
None of this tracks you, none of it is shared with anyone, and none of it is stored before you need it.
| Name | Kind | Lifetime | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
ci_consentement | Cookie | 182 days | Your answer to the banner |
chinein.dico.ecriturechinein.dico.nocolorchinein.dico.phonetique | Local storage | Until you clear it | Dictionary display options |
chinein.methode.pinyin | Local storage | Until you clear it | Pinyin hidden in the lessons |
chinein.carte.fleuves | Local storage | Until you clear it | Rivers drawn on the map |
dictee.points | Session storage | Until the tab closes | Pinyin dictation score |
PHPSESSID | Cookie | Until the browser closes | Administrator's session |
The consent cookie holds three things: your answer, the date you gave it and the version of the purposes it relates to. It is also the record of your choice — with no accounts left, nothing else can hold it. Its value is readable in plain text in your browser.
PHPSESSID exists only in the site's administration area: no public page sets it.
Local storage is not a cookie. It stays inside your browser and is never sent to the server: the site reads it on your device alone, to find a box you had ticked. You can erase it by clearing this site's data in your browser settings.
These items are necessary for the service you asked for — keeping your answer, remembering an option you chose. They do not require your consent and cannot be refused separately, other than by not using the site.
Traffic measurement — Google Analytics 4
It counts visits and pages viewed. It loads only after you agree, and your IP address is truncated before being recorded (anonymize_ip).
| Name | Lifetime | Role |
|---|---|---|
_ga | About 13 months (400 days) | Tells one browser from another |
_ga_ followed by the measurement ID | About 13 months (400 days) | Holds the current session's state |
_gid | 1 day | Tells visitors apart within one day |
Advertising — Google AdSense
Advertising pays for the site. It loads only after you agree. Google picks the adverts and their placement itself; the site does not choose them and receives no data about you from Google.
| Name | Lifetime | Role |
|---|---|---|
__gads, __gpi | About 13 months | Adverts seen, frequency capping, click fraud |
__eoi | About 6 months | Advert personalisation |
Personalised adverts go well beyond those three cookies. When you accept them, Google's script puts your browser in touch with its advertising partners, which then set their own cookies on their own domains — doubleclick.net, adnxs.com, criteo.com, adsrvr.org and many more — for periods ranging from a few days to thirteen months. Those companies are chosen by Google, not by this site, which has no way of listing them: the list is published by Google, with a description of each use, at policies.google.com.
If you refuse, none of this happens.
How your consent is asked for
A banner appears on your first visit. Until you answer, no Google script is downloaded and nothing is stored on your device. Refusing takes exactly one click, just like accepting: both buttons are identical and refusal comes first.
Your answer is kept for 182 days, after which the banner returns. It is also asked again if the purposes described here change: consent only covers what was disclosed at the time it was given.
The banner adapts to the country you visit from, because the law differs from one place to another. In practice, no geolocation source is connected today: every visitor, wherever they are, gets the most protective regime — that of the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, where nothing loads before explicit consent. Your browser's time zone is read along the way, but it can only tighten that regime, never relax it, and it is not recorded anywhere.
If you browse without JavaScript, no banner appears — and no Google script loads either: that is the most protective state possible.
United States residents
The banner offers you a link reading "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information". Using it stops your data being shared for advertising purposes and stops advert personalisation, while leaving traffic measurement running, which California law does not cover.
Changing your mind
A "Cookies" button sits in the footer of every page of this site. It reopens the banner as it was, whatever you chose before. There is nothing to hunt for in your browser settings, and withdrawing consent takes the same effort as giving it. The same button is here:
Withdrawing consent stops any further storage. Cookies already set by Google can be erased from your browser settings, or from your Google account settings if you have one.
What the server records
Web server logs
Like any server, this one records every request: your IP address, the date and time, the page requested, the response code, the number of bytes sent, the page you came from and your browser's identification. These logs keep the site running, help diagnose faults and make abuse visible. They rest on the publisher's legitimate interest in operating a working and secure service.
Their retention period is the one set by the hosting provider.
Protection against automated copying
The dictionary and the names database have been copied by automated tools in the past. The site therefore counts, for each IP address, how many requests it receives over three rolling windows, together with the volume of data served. Past a threshold it slows its replies down, then temporarily declines to serve, stating how long to wait.
- Only your IP address is used, and nothing else: no cookie, no browser fingerprint, no JavaScript. Under IPv6 it is reduced to its network prefix, which identifies a subscription rather than a machine.
- The counters are destroyed automatically after 10 seconds, one minute or one hour, depending on the window. Nothing is left afterwards.
- Checks on the identity of search engines — Google, Bing — are remembered for 24 hours, under the engine's name and the network prefix, so they need not be repeated on every page.
- No profile is built, none of this is combined with anything else, and none of it is passed on to anyone.
This processing rests on the publisher's legitimate interest in protecting databases it has built and in keeping the site available.
The refusal log
When a request is slowed down or declined, the site keeps an application record of it. That record holds the reason, the address requested and the browser's identification — not the IP address.
The forum and its former members' profiles
The forum is kept as an archive and accepts no new posts. Discussions remain readable under the pseudonym each author chose. Profiles still on display show a pseudonym, a town, a picture, a signature, a personal website and a joining date — that is, what their author had chosen to make public.
Profiles their owners had hidden stay hidden.
Nothing else was carried over. Real names, postal addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, IP addresses and password hashes from the old accounts were not imported into this site.
Keeping this archive rests on the legitimate interest in preserving public access to a body of discussion its own participants created. If a message or a profile concerns you and you want it removed, write to david.houstin@gmail.com with the link to the page. It will be removed without your having to explain why.
Who your data goes to
- Google — for advertising and traffic measurement, and only if you accepted them. Google and its partners use that data on their own account, under their privacy policy; the site neither controls it nor holds a copy.
- The hosting provider, which operates the server and its logs.
The site sells no data and passes it to no one else.
Your data may be processed outside the European Union, in particular in the United States for Google's services, on the basis of the safeguards Google declares — standard contractual clauses and the EU–US Data Privacy Framework.
Your rights
The General Data Protection Regulation gives you the right:
- to access the data concerning you, and to a copy of it;
- to have it corrected if it is wrong;
- to have it erased;
- to have its use restricted;
- to object to its processing, including to an archived message concerning you being kept;
- to receive a portable copy in a machine-readable format;
- to withdraw your consent at any time, which the footer "Cookies" button does.
Write to david.houstin@gmail.com to exercise them. You will get an answer within one month.
One caveat, for honesty's sake: apart from the forum, this site keeps no data that can identify you. An access request therefore usually has nothing to return — and a request about the forum needs you to give the pseudonym or the link concerned, since there is no other way to make the connection.
Complaints
If you believe your rights are not being respected, you can complain to the data protection authority of your country. In the United Kingdom that is the Information Commissioner's Office; in France, the CNIL.
Updates to this policy
This policy may change as the site changes. Any change to the purposes described above brings the consent banner back: your earlier answer did not cover them.
The Legal Notice completes this document.