Privacy Policy

Effective 2026-05-10. The site collects very little personal data — this page lists exactly what, why, and how to remove it.

Operator: Dead Internet Monitor (DIM), an independent research project founded at Creative Thinking Systems Ltd. Contact: hello@deadinternetmonitor.com

What we collect

1. Newsletter subscribers

If you sign up for the newsletter (via the form on the homepage, /methodology, or /newsletter), we collect:

• Email address. Stored on Buttondown, our newsletter service provider, for the purpose of sending you the newsletter and notifying you of corrections or unsubscribe events.
• A backup record on DIM's own database. We keep a copy of the email address and subscription status (confirmed / unsubscribed) on DIM's PostgreSQL database hosted on Google Cloud SQL in the europe-west2 region (London). This backup exists so that if we ever migrate newsletter providers, no subscriber is lost.

We do not collect names, IP addresses, geolocation, or any other personal data through the newsletter form. We never sell, rent, or share subscriber email addresses.

Legal basis (UK GDPR / EU GDPR): consent. By submitting the form you consent to receive the newsletter. You can withdraw consent at any time using the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email, or by emailing hello@deadinternetmonitor.com.

Retention: subscriber records are kept until you unsubscribe. Unsubscribed records are kept (status unsubscribed, no further sends) for up to 24 months for audit purposes, then deleted.

Data processors:

• Buttondown, Inc. — newsletter service provider (US-based; relies on Standard Contractual Clauses for international transfers).
• Resend — transactional email delivery for DIM's own internal operations email (does not handle subscriber email).
• Google Cloud (Google LLC) — hosting (Cloud SQL, Cloud Run); data resides in europe-west2 (London).

2. Site analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 to count pageviews and understand which pages and referrers are most useful. GA4 sets cookies and may collect:

• IP address (anonymised by GA4 before storage)
• Pages visited and referrer
• Browser type and approximate location (country / region)
• A pseudonymous client identifier

We do not link this data to any individual or to newsletter subscribers. We do not enable Google Signals, Google Ads remarketing, or any cross-site tracking features.

Legal basis: legitimate interest in measuring how the site is used. You can opt out with any browser-level Do Not Track or GA-opt-out extension; we do not currently display a cookie banner because we set no advertising cookies.

3. Inbound email

If you email hello@, press@, or research@ at our domain, the message routes via ImprovMX to a personal Gmail inbox. ImprovMX may briefly cache the message in transit; Gmail stores it indefinitely until deleted. We use these inboxes only to respond to you.

4. Public data we publish

DIM publishes aggregate statistics about AI content and bot activity across public platforms (Reddit, Hacker News, Mastodon, Bluesky, YouTube, StackOverflow, Lobsters, Steam, The Guardian). For per-item exports we include the original post / comment URL, author handle, and post text as collected from those public platforms. This is public data that the original platforms already make publicly available — DIM does not de-anonymise, link to private accounts, or expose any data the platforms keep private.

If you are a platform user and want a specific public item removed from DIM's per-item exports, email hello@deadinternetmonitor.com with the URL and we will remove it.

Your rights (UK GDPR / EU GDPR)

Wherever DIM processes your personal data (newsletter subscription, inbound email), you have the right to:

• Access — get a copy of your data
• Rectify — correct inaccurate data
• Erase — be forgotten (“right to erasure”)
• Restrict / object to processing
• Portability — receive your data in a machine-readable form
• Lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) or your local supervisory authority

To exercise any right, email hello@deadinternetmonitor.com. We will respond within one calendar month.

Cookies

The DIM site sets:

• A small number of strictly-necessary cookies (e.g. for the embeddable badge or preference toggles when those exist).
• Google Analytics 4 cookies (_ga, _ga_*) for analytics.

We do not set any advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy materially, we will note the change in the DIM newsletter and bump the Effective date at the top of this page. The change history lives in the public repo's git log.

Contact

• Email: hello@deadinternetmonitor.com
• Postal: Creative Thinking Systems Ltd, registered office in the United Kingdom.
• DPO: none required; controller contact is the email above.