Privacy Policy

Who this policy covers

This policy applies to howsthebite.com, operated by Honeygoat GmbH, Kägenstrasse 21, 4153 Reinach, Switzerland. Contact: info@howsthebite.com. Details on the operating entity are on the legal notice page.

What we collect today

Analytics. We use a self-hosted, cookie-free analytics tool (Umami, run at analytics.balmac.ch) to see how many people visit and which pages get read. It records aggregate, anonymized information — page views, referring site, browser type, approximate country derived from IP address — and does not set tracking cookies, does not build a profile of you across visits, and does not share data with ad networks. Your IP address is not stored in identifiable form.

Theme preference. If you switch between light and dark mode, that choice is saved in your browser's local storage, not a cookie. It never leaves your device and we never see it.

Server logs. Our hosting provider keeps standard web-server access logs (IP address, requested page, timestamp, user agent) for security and abuse prevention, for a limited retention period, as is standard for any web host. We don't otherwise access or analyze these logs.

What we don't have: no account system, no login, no comment forms, no newsletter signup, no contact form that stores submissions in a database. If you email us, that email lives in our inbox like any other email and is used only to answer you or fix what you wrote in about.

Advertising and affiliate links

Some pages carry affiliate links (clearly marked "Ad" or similar where they appear) to partners such as Amazon Associates or fishing-trip booking services. Clicking one takes you to that partner's site, which has its own privacy policy and may set its own cookies once you're there — we don't control that and this policy doesn't cover it. We do not pass your personal information to these partners; they only see that a click came from our site, the same as any referral link.

We do not currently run cookie-based display advertising (e.g. Google AdSense). If and when we do, this policy will be updated first, and a cookie consent mechanism will be added for visitors in jurisdictions that require one, before any ad-tracking cookie is set. Full detail on how this site is funded is on the advertising disclosure page.

Your rights

California residents (CCPA/CPRA). We do not sell or share your personal information, and given what little we collect (see above), there is very little to request access to or deletion of. If you'd still like to ask what we hold about you or have it deleted, email us and we'll respond.

Do Not Track. We don't run cross-site tracking, so a browser's Do Not Track signal doesn't change anything on our end — there's nothing to turn off.

Visitors outside the US (including the EU/UK). This site is built for US anglers and US state fishing regulations, but anyone can read it. If you're in a jurisdiction with its own data-protection law, the same principle applies: we collect the minimum described above, don't sell it, and will act on a request to know or delete what little exists.

Children's privacy

howsthebite is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has provided us information, email us and we'll remove it.

Security

We take reasonable measures to protect the site and the little data described above, but no method of transmission or storage over the internet is completely secure, and we can't guarantee absolute security.

Changes to this policy

If what we collect changes — most likely when advertising goes live — we'll update this page and move the date below. Significant changes will be noted here, not buried in a diff.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or a request about your data: info@howsthebite.com.