Privacy Policy

Who we are

This site, thorntonortega.com, is run by Thornton & Ortega Publishing (“we”, “us”). For any question about your personal data, write to [email protected].

What we collect, and why

When you buy an ebook

You pay on a secure page run by Stripe, our payment processor, or with PayPal through it. Stripe collects your card or PayPal details and the billing details it asks for. Your card number never reaches our servers, and we never see or store it.

With each order, we keep:

your email address, the order number, the date, and the amount and currency you paid;
the books in the order, and for each one the collection it came in, or its price and promotion if you bought it on its own;
the discount code you used, if any, and how much it took off your order;
your agreement to immediate delivery, ticked in the cart before checkout: when you gave it and which wording you agreed to;
how many times each book was downloaded while you were signed in to your account, and when it was first downloaded. Downloads from the links in your order email are not counted unless you are signed in;
the reference of each personalized copy you download, bonus book included: every EPUB and PDF we deliver carries a random reference, never your name or email address, so that a copy shared without permission can be traced back to its order, and we keep the copy itself so that later downloads get the same file;
whether the order, or a book in it, was refunded, and whether a dispute about the payment was opened with your bank, with its outcome.

We use this to deliver your ebook by email and in My account, to provide your invoice, to handle refunds and questions about your order, and to keep our sales records.

Checkout reminders

If you check out from the cart, or with Buy now while signed in to your account, and don't complete your purchase, we send you reminders by default: to the email address you entered in the cart, or to your account's address for Buy now. We send one an hour later and another one a day later, never more than twice, and at most one series of reminders every 7 days. With each of these checkouts, we record what you were buying. The reminders stop as soon as you buy the books, and are never sent if you already own a book you were buying. Their button brings it back on our site for 7 days.

To send them, we keep your email address with that checkout, and Resend holds the two reminders until they are sent. We erase your address from that record 60 days after the checkout; whether the cart was bought later, and after which reminder, is kept without it. Every reminder has a one-click unsubscribe link: after it, we keep your address on a list of addresses that never get reminders or review requests.

Your account

Accounts have no password. When you ask to sign in, we email a link to the address you enter. We keep a scrambled (hashed) copy of each link, which expires after 15 minutes, and a record of the request for an hour, to limit sign-in requests. When you sign in, a cookie keeps that browser signed in for 30 days, unless you sign out.

If we suspend an account under our Terms, we record that it is suspended and when, with a short internal note, and keep a log of each suspension and of its end.

Reviews and the bonus book

A review is linked to the order and the book it is about, so only buyers can post one. We publish the rating, the text and the name you choose (or “Verified reader”), with the date. Your email address is never published. If your review earns the free bonus book, we record that your account has it, and how many times it was downloaded.

Review requests

7 days after your order, we email you to ask for a review of its books, and remind you once, 4 days later, if you haven't written one: never more than two emails per order, and at most one series every 14 days. They stop as soon as you review a book of the order, and aren't sent about a book you already reviewed, or if the order is refunded or disputed. To send them, we keep your email address with that order, and Resend holds the emails until they are sent. We erase your address from that record 60 days after the order; whether you reviewed it after an email is kept without it. Every review request has a one-click unsubscribe link: after it, we keep your address on the same list as for checkout reminders, and it gets neither.

Blog comments and likes

You sign in to comment on a blog post or like it. With each comment, we keep your account's email address, the name you choose (or “Verified reader”), your text, the post it is on and the date. With each like, we keep your account's email address, the post and the date. We keep your address so that a like counts once per account, so that we can limit spam and repeated comments, and so that we can find and remove what you wrote if you ask us to.

We publish the name, the text and the date of each comment, and the number of likes each post has. Your email address is never published, and we don't show who liked a post. We email new comments to ourselves through Resend, with their text and name, so we can read them and reply.

When you sign up, we email you a confirmation link. Your address joins the list only if you click it, within 48 hours; until then it waits in our database, and is deleted when the link expires. Every newsletter has an unsubscribe link. Once you unsubscribe, your address stays on the list marked as unsubscribed, so you get no more newsletters.

Release alerts

On the page of a book that isn't on sale yet, you can leave your email address to hear when it comes out. We keep your address with the book you asked about, and email you a confirmation link. Only if you click it, within 48 hours, do we send you one email the day the book goes on sale here; until then your address waits in our database, and is deleted when the link expires. This doesn't sign you up for the newsletter. We erase your address 30 days after that email; that it was sent is kept without it. Both emails have a link that cancels all your release alerts still waiting.

Contact form

The contact form sends us your name, email address, topic and message by email, so we can reply. Messages are not stored on this site.

Security and abuse prevention

To limit how often the contact form, the newsletter and release alert forms, reviews, comments and likes can be used, and how many discount codes that aren't valid can be tried, we record a scrambled (hashed) form of your IP address with the time, never the address itself. For comments and likes, we also record a scrambled form of your email address in the same way. These records are deleted after an hour for the contact, newsletter and release alert forms, and after 24 hours for reviews, comments, likes and discount codes.

The contact, newsletter and release alert forms also use Cloudflare Turnstile to keep out spam: when you send one, it checks that a person, not a bot, is sending it.

Who processes your data

We use these services to run the site. They process your data for us, to provide their service:

Stripe: payments, invoices and refunds. PayPal, when you choose to pay with PayPal.
Resend: sending our emails (order emails, sign-in links, checkout reminders, review requests, newsletter confirmations and newsletters, release alerts, contact messages and new blog comments to our inbox), and keeping the newsletter list.
Cloudflare: hosting the site, its database and the book files, the Turnstile check on our forms, and Web Analytics. Like any web host, Cloudflare handles technical data such as IP addresses to deliver and protect the site.
Google: Google Analytics, to measure how the site is used (see Cookies and analytics below).

Stripe and PayPal also use your payment data under their own privacy policies, for example to prevent fraud. These services may process data in the United States and other countries.

We don't sell or rent your personal data, and we don't share it with advertisers.

Cookies and analytics

We set one cookie of our own, and only when you sign in: it keeps you signed in (see Your account above). It is needed for My account to work. Your browser also remembers, on your device, your cart, a discount code you applied or followed a link with, your choice of light or dark theme, and your cookie choice. The discount code is sent to us to check it, and with your order. The cart is sent to us only when you check out, with the email address you enter for the order.

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4, a Google service, to learn how many people visit, which pages and books they look at, what they search for on the site, and how many visits end in a purchase. It shows us what works on the site and what doesn't, so we can improve it.

When analytics cookies are on, Google Analytics sets two cookies on this site: _ga, a random number that tells your browser's visits apart from other people's, and _ga_ followed by our site's code, which keeps track of the current visit. Both expire after 13 months. Google keeps the analytics data for 14 months, then deletes it.

Google receives the pages you view (without the codes some addresses carry, such as an order or a link from an email), the site that sent you, your browser and type of device, your approximate location (country and city, worked out from your IP address, which Google Analytics doesn't store), and what you do in the shop: the books you look at, add to your cart and check out, and your purchases with their books and amount. It also learns that you joined the newsletter or posted a review, never your address or what you wrote. We never send your name, email address, account or order number. Google signals and ad personalization are turned off: this data isn't used for advertising, and isn't linked to your Google account.

In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, analytics cookies stay off until you accept them: a banner asks on your first visit. Until you choose, Google Analytics may receive this information without cookies or any identifier, so it can't link the pages you view to each other or to you. Everywhere else, analytics cookies are on unless you turn them off.

To opt out, open Cookie settings, at the bottom of every page, and choose Decline: from then on, your browser sends nothing to Google Analytics, and its cookies are deleted. You can change your mind there at any time. Your choice is saved in that browser only. You can also block cookies in your browser's settings, or install Google's opt-out browser add-on.

Cloudflare Web Analytics

We also use Cloudflare Web Analytics to count visits and see which pages are read. It doesn't use cookies, and it doesn't track you across sites.

We don't use advertising cookies. Our fonts are served from this site. Stripe's and PayPal's payment pages use their own cookies, under their own policies.

How long we keep it

Orders: kept so you can download your books again from My account, and for our sales records.
Sign-in links: they expire after 15 minutes, and are then deleted. Sign-in sessions: 30 days, or until you sign out.
Rate-limit records: one hour, or 24 hours for reviews, comments, likes and discount codes.
Newsletter: unconfirmed sign-ups, 48 hours; the list, until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete your address.
Release alerts: unconfirmed, 48 hours; confirmed, until the book's release email is sent or you cancel them; your address, 30 days after that email.
Checkout reminders: your address with the cart, 60 days after the checkout; an address that unsubscribed, on our list of addresses that get no reminders or review requests.
Review requests: your address with the order, 60 days after the order; an address that unsubscribed, on that same list.
Reviews: until you ask us to remove them, or we remove them under our Terms.
Blog comments and likes: until you ask us to remove them, until we remove a comment, or until we delete the post.
Account suspensions: the record of each suspension and of its end is kept with the account's orders.
Google Analytics: its cookies expire after 13 months; Google keeps the analytics data for 14 months.

Your choices and rights

You can ask us for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it. Write to [email protected] from the email address concerned, so we know the request is yours. If we delete your orders, you can no longer download those books from My account. We may keep the records the law requires us to keep, such as sales records.

You can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time with the link in every newsletter, from checkout reminders and review requests with the link in each of them, and from release alerts with the link in their emails. Depending on where you live, you may have other rights under data protection law, including the right to complain to your data protection authority.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we update this page and the date at the top.