What we collect

If you just read the site

Nothing identifies you. No cookie is set, no account is needed, and nothing you do is tied to a name. We count page views through Cloudflare Web Analytics, which sets no cookie and stores no identifier — it tells us that a page was viewed, not who viewed it. We chose it over the usual alternatives for exactly that reason.

If you sign in

Two cookies exist and both are strictly necessary — they keep you signed in and nothing else. mwt_client for a member account, mwt_admin for staff. Neither follows you anywhere. Signing out revokes them rather than merely forgetting them.

A member account stores the username you chose, a password (as a PBKDF2-SHA256 hash — never the password itself), and an email address only if you gave one. Anything you post on the forum is public, because it is a forum.

If you send us something

An application, a partner or media enquiry, or a commission request is stored with what you typed into it, plus a partial record of your IP address — for IPv6 only the first four groups, which is a neighbourhood rather than a door number. It is there to make spam attributable and for nothing else. We also count submissions per address for an hour to stop flooding; that count expires by itself.

Advertising

Ads are currently switched off, and while they are off nothing at all is requested from any ad network. This section describes what would change if they were switched on.

Ads would come from Google. In the UK, the EEA and Switzerland Google’s own consent message asks you before any personalised advertising is shown, and you can refuse. Being straight about the mechanics: that message is delivered by Google’s ad script, so the script itself loads in order to ask you. It withholds advertising cookies until you have answered. Refusing costs you nothing but the advert — the page is identical without it.

Google can see your IP address and, once you agree, set cookies in your browser. What they do with that is governed by their own privacy policy rather than this one, which is the honest limit of what we can tell you.

Some links to hosting providers are paid links, labelled as such wherever they appear. If you follow one, that company sets its own cookie so it knows the visit came from here. We are not told who you are, and it does not change what we recommend.

Who else can see any of it

Cloudflare, because they serve and store the site. Nobody else. We do not sell anything about you, we do not run an email list you did not ask for, and we do not share member or applicant records with anyone.

Getting it removed

Email support@mwtstudios.net and ask. You can delete a member account yourself from your account page. If you are in the UK or the EEA you have the usual rights to see, correct and erase what we hold — ask and we will do it, rather than making you cite a regulation at us.