Who we are
Coachers runs coachers.org, a site about learning Chinese through Taiwan stories, written for the parents of heritage and bilingual children. In this policy, “Coachers”, “we” and “us” mean the operator of coachers.org.
What we collect when you contact us
The contact form asks for your name, your email address and your message. It also offers optional questions: where you are, your child’s age, your child’s Chinese, the language you would like a reply in, and what you are asking about. You can leave all of those blank.
When you send the form, we also record the time and your browser’s user agent, a short line of text that names your browser and operating system. If you email us instead, we receive whatever your email contains.
What we collect when you browse
We use four analytics tools to learn which pages are read and how people find the site. None of them is used to show you advertising, and the site carries no advertising pixels.
- Our own page counter. It records the page you open, the page that linked you here, any campaign tags in the link (such as utm_source), your browser’s user agent, and a scrambled (hashed) form of your IP address rather than the address itself. It keeps a random visitor ID in your browser’s local storage (with the link’s campaign tags, if it had any), and a random session ID that is cleared when you close the tab, so that repeat visits can be counted.
- Google Analytics, provided by Google. It sets two cookies, _ga and _ga_Q57ZSS83RY, which recognise your browser when you come back and keep track of your current visit. They can last up to two years, though some browsers keep them for less. It collects details such as the pages you view, how you arrived, and your device, browser and approximate location. See how Google uses this information, or turn it off with Google’s opt-out browser add-on.
- Grain, a website analytics service. It records how far you scroll, where you click on a page (including the words on whatever you clicked), the page you arrived on, how you arrived, and your device type, browser and operating system. To draw heatmaps it also takes a snapshot of the page’s layout, with form fields and email addresses masked. It keeps random identifiers, how you first arrived and which pages it has recently captured in your browser’s local storage, and sets no cookies. See Grain’s privacy policy.
- Vercel Web Analytics, from our hosting provider. It counts page views, clicks on the site’s main buttons, and successful sends of the contact form (not what the form says). It sets no cookies. Instead, Vercel identifies a visit by a hash of the request and discards it after 24 hours. See Vercel’s note on analytics privacy.
Every page also makes requests that your browser sends by itself. The site’s fonts load from Google Fonts, so Google’s servers receive your IP address and browser details. And as with any website, the servers that deliver coachers.org receive the technical details each request carries, such as your IP address, your browser type and the page you asked for. Those servers are our host, Vercel, and a server we run ourselves for some images and our page counter.
Cookies and browser storage
The site’s own code sets no cookies. The only cookies are the two Google Analytics cookies named above; our page counter and Grain use your browser’s local and session storage instead. You can delete cookies and site data in your browser’s settings, or block these tools with a content blocker, and the site keeps working without them.
How we use it
- To read your message and answer it. We use your contact details for that conversation only.
- To understand which pages help parents, so we can improve the site.
- To keep the site and the form working and to stop abuse. For example, the form limits how many messages one connection can send in a short time.
Who else handles it
We do not sell or rent your personal information. We share it only with the services that run the site and our inbox for us:
- Vercel, which hosts the website;
- Google and Grain, for the analytics and fonts described above;
- an email delivery service and an email provider, which carry your message to our inbox and our reply back to you;
- AI tools that help us sort incoming messages and draft our replies;
- the notification services that alert our own devices when a message arrives.
Some of these services process information outside your country, including in the United States. We would also disclose information if the law required us to.
How long we keep it
We keep your enquiry so we can answer it and pick the conversation up again later, and we keep our page-counter records so we can compare how the site is used over time. Neither is deleted on a fixed schedule. If you would like your enquiry deleted, ask us and we will delete it. Google Analytics and Grain keep their data under their own settings and policies, and Vercel discards its visit hash after 24 hours.
Your choices and rights
- You can read the whole site without telling us who you are. The contact form is the only place we ask for personal details.
- You can ask us what we hold about you, and ask us to correct or delete it, by writing to support@coachers.org.
- You can clear or block cookies and site storage in your browser, use Google’s opt-out add-on, or use a content blocker.
- Depending on where you live, the law may give you further rights, such as the right to object to how we use your information or to complain to a data protection authority.
Children
Our programmes are for children aged 5–12, but this website is written for their parents and caregivers. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. The contact form is meant for a parent or caregiver: it can ask for a child’s age and level of Chinese, but it does not ask for a child’s name or contact details. If you think a child has sent us personal information, write to support@coachers.org and we will delete it.
Security
The site and its contact form use encrypted (HTTPS) connections. Enquiries are kept on a server we operate and in our support inbox, and only our team can read them. No way of sending or storing information is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable care to protect what you send us.
Changes to this policy
If we change how we handle information, we will update this page and the date at the top of it.
Contact
For questions or requests about your information, write to support@coachers.org or use the contact form.
Legal entity details are available on request via support@coachers.org.