Privacy policy

This policy explains how AcneRid (“AcneRid”, “we”, “us”) handles information when you use acnerid.com (the “site”). For questions and requests, see how to reach us below.

Information we don’t collect

You can read everything on AcneRid and use all of our tools without giving us any personal information. We don’t have user accounts. We don’t collect your answers to the treatment quiz, the products or ingredients you enter into our checkers, or any other health information through our tools, and we don’t use advertising pixels (such as those from Meta, Google Ads or TikTok) or cross-site tracking cookies.

How our tools handle what you enter

Our tools are written in JavaScript that runs on your own device. When you answer a question or paste an ingredient list, the processing happens in your browser; the information is not transmitted to AcneRid or anyone else. When you close or reload the page, it is gone. If a tool ever offers to remember something on your device (for example, to save your place), it will say so clearly on the page and let you clear it — and that information still stays on your device.

Analytics

We count visits with Umami, an open-source analytics tool that we run ourselves, on our own server. No analytics company receives your visit, and the data is not shared with or sold to anyone. Umami does not use cookies or store anything on your device, and it does not track you across other websites.

For each page view, it records:

the page address, without anything after a “?” or “#” (so, for example, a lot number you type into the recall lookup is never recorded). The one exception is on our guides, pairing guides, topic hubs and home page: if the link you arrived through carries the standard campaign tags that we add to links we share, those tags (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_content, utm_term, for example “newsletter” or “reddit”) are kept, cut to 60 characters and reduced to lowercase letters, numbers, dashes, dots and underscores. Nothing else in the address is kept, and on tool pages not even those tags;
the page title and the website that referred you, if any (again without “?” or “#” parts);
your browser, operating system, device type, screen size and language;
an approximate location (country, region and city) looked up from your IP address.

Your IP address is used when the page view arrives, to look up that approximate location and to group page views from the same visit. The IP address itself is not stored. Instead, Umami stores a one-way hashed identifier made from the IP address, your browser’s user-agent string, the current month and a secret key kept on our server. The identifier changes every month, so it can’t be used to follow you from one month to the next, and it lets us count visits without keeping the address itself. Our web server’s own access logs are separate; see “Hosting and security” below.

We also count a few actions, in aggregate. Each one is recorded like a page view (the page address as above), plus at most a couple of labels that come from a fixed list we wrote or from the address of one of our own pages — never anything you type, and never your email address:

Reading, on our guides, ingredient-pairing guides, topic hubs and home page only: when you have scrolled a quarter, half, three-quarters and all of the main content, and when the page has been on your screen for 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute and 3 minutes (time in a background tab doesn’t count), each at most once per page view, with the kind of page (“article”, “pair”, “hub” or “home”); and whether the short answer at the top of a guide (“Quick answer”) or pairing guide was on screen for a couple of seconds.
Getting around our site: when you follow a link to another of our pages, which page it goes to (its address without “?” or “#” parts) and roughly where the link sat (for example “table of contents”, “related guides”, “footer”); which tile you picked in the “What are you dealing with?” picker; which heading you jumped to from a table of contents; and which question number you opened in a FAQ.
Sources we cite: when you follow a link to another website, only that website’s address (for example “dailymed.nlm.nih.gov”), not the page on it.
Clicks on affiliate links in our guides, recorded with the program name (for example, the retailer) and whether the link was in a single guide or on a hub page.
The newsletter sign-up: when a sign-up form comes into view, when the “Subscribe” button is clicked, and whether the sign-up worked or failed (with a general reason: “too many tries”, “invalid” or “server problem”), each with a general placement such as “footer” or “article-inline”; and whether the small sign-up box that slides in was shown, opened or closed. Your email address is never sent to analytics.
Whether the site works well: how quickly the page loaded, how stable it was and how quickly it responded, as a rating only (“good”, “needs improvement” or “poor”), and, at most once per page view, that a script on the page failed, with the name of our script file but not the error message.

On our tool pages (the treatment quiz, ingredient checker and benzene tracker) we count only four things, each at most once per page view and with no details at all: that someone started the quiz, finished the quiz, ran the ingredient checker or searched the recall lookup. We count how many people start and finish the quiz, never what they answer or what it suggests; we never record which ingredients you checked, what you searched for or whether it matched a recall. No clicks, reading or scrolling are recorded on those pages, because a click from a quiz result could reveal your result, and the script that measures reading and clicks isn’t loaded there at all. If your browser sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal, nothing is recorded at all.

Our sign-up forms add you to the AcneRid email list. We haven’t started sending emails yet: we’ll email you when our free 8-week acne routine course launches, and with a short note if a common acne product is recalled.

What we store

Your email address. It’s the only thing our forms ask for.
A general sign-up source, such as “footer”, “article-inline”, “quiz” or “recalls”, and the matching kind of page (for example “guide” or “tool”), so we can tell which sign-up forms are useful. It never includes which article you were reading, which products or lot numbers you searched for, or anything about your quiz answers or result.
When you signed up, and when you last submitted the form.
Which version of our sign-up wording you saw (a short code such as “v1-2026-09-23”), as a record of what you agreed to.

We don’t store your IP address, your browser details or anything else about your visit with your email address. Our sign-up service uses your IP address only briefly, in memory, to stop one connection from sending many sign-ups, and it never writes your email address to its logs. The form also contains an empty “leave this blank” field and a timer that help us ignore automated sign-ups; neither contains any information about you.

Where it’s kept, and who sees it

The list is stored in a database on the server we rent and run ourselves (the same one that serves this site), readable only by the account that runs AcneRid, and in daily backups on that server that we keep for 30 days. No email company or other third party receives it, and we never sell it or share it.

To actually send emails, we will later move the list to an email service provider. Before any email is sent, we will name that provider here and describe what it records (for example, many providers record whether emails are opened and which links are clicked).

How we use it

Only to send the AcneRid emails described above: the course launch and the course itself, recall heads-ups, and occasional updates about AcneRid. Not for advertising, and never uploaded to social networks or ad platforms. Our forms don’t ask about your skin, acne or health. If we ever want to personalize emails using health-related information, we will ask for your separate, explicit consent first and explain exactly what we would collect.

Unsubscribing, deletion and retention

We keep your details until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them. Every email we send will have an unsubscribe link. Deleting you removes your row from the database completely; copies in our rolling backups are overwritten within 30 days.

To be honest about a current limit: we don’t have a contact inbox yet, and we haven’t sent any emails you could reply to, so there is no easy way to ask us to delete your address right now. We’re setting up an inbox and will list it here as soon as it works. The first email we send will include an unsubscribe link, and you’ll be able to reply to it to ask for your data or its deletion.

Hosting and security

Our site is served from a server that we rent and run ourselves. Like any web server, it processes technical information such as your IP address and the pages you request in order to deliver the site, and it keeps short-lived access logs (IP address, time, page requested and response status, without anything after a “?”) for security and troubleshooting. We don’t use these logs to identify or profile visitors, and they are deleted automatically after about two weeks.

Links to retailers and other services

Some links take you to retailers or online health services, and some are affiliate links. When you follow them, the other site (and, for affiliate links, the affiliate network) may set its own cookies or collect information under its own privacy policy. We don’t send them anything you entered on AcneRid. Please review their privacy policies before sharing health information with them — especially online prescribing services.

Consumer health data

Some US state laws, such as Washington’s My Health My Data Act, give special protection to “consumer health data.” We designed AcneRid so that we don’t collect health information through our tools at all. The only personal information we hold is the email address of newsletter subscribers. We don’t sell personal information, and we don’t share it for targeted advertising. If you believe we hold health data about you, contact us and we will help you access or delete it.

Your choices and rights

Unsubscribe from emails at any time using the link at the bottom of every email.
Access, correct or delete your email address and any related data by replying to any of our emails once we start sending them (until our contact inbox exists, that is the only channel; see Email list). Depending on where you live (for example the EU or UK, California, Colorado, Virginia or Washington), you may have additional rights; we honor these requests for everyone.
Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track: we don’t sell or share personal information or use cross-site tracking, so there is nothing to opt out of — but we respect these signals: if your browser sends either one, our analytics records nothing.

Children

AcneRid is written for a general audience, including teenagers looking for reliable information, but it is not directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has subscribed to our newsletter, contact us and we will delete their information.

Data retention and security

We keep email-list addresses while you are subscribed, as described under Email list, and delete them completely when you ask. We limit access to the people who need it to run the newsletter and use reputable service providers, but no online service can guarantee perfect security.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle information, we will update this page and the “last updated” date above. If we make a material change — for example, adding a new kind of analytics or advertising — we will update this policy before the change takes effect.

Contact

We don’t have a privacy inbox yet; we’re setting one up and will list it here as soon as it works. Until then the only channel is replying to one of our emails, and we haven’t sent any yet; we know that’s a gap and are fixing it. If you aren’t on our email list, the only information we hold about your visit is the short-lived server logs described above, which are deleted automatically, and anonymous analytics counts that are not tied to you.