Privacy
Your privacy
The short version: no adverts, no trackers, no accounts. We keep as little as we can, for as short a time as we can, and you can ask us to forget you whenever you like.
Last updated
- Nothing to sign up for. No accounts, no adverts, no analytics and no tracking cookies.
- Only if you vote. Your browser keeps a random ID (no name, no email) so we can count one vote per song per week.
- Short-lived. We never store your IP address. The scrambled codes we use against ballot-stuffing are deleted 8 days after they were last used, and never go into our backups.
- Yours to undo. Forget me deletes every vote still linked to you, and your browser’s ID.
On your device
We don’t use cookies. Like most modern sites, we use your browser’s own storage for a few small things, and nearly all of it never leaves your device.
- Your settings
- Night or Day theme, volume and mute, stream quality, the sleep timer, track announcements, keyboard shortcuts on or off, and a few page preferences such as the Saint Lucia time switch on the Playlist page. They stay until you change them or clear this site’s data in your browser.
- A voting ID only if you vote
- A random code (
rj.vid), created the first time you press ♥ or vote in a poll. It has no name or email in it. Your browser sends it with your votes, so we can count one vote per song per week and let you change your mind. - Your votes only if you vote
- A note of what you’ve voted on this week and last week (
rj.votes), so your hearts stay lit. Older weeks are tidied away automatically. - Housekeeping
- Tiny notes such as “we’ve already said thank you for your first love” or “this browser can’t draw the visualiser”, so we don’t repeat ourselves.
- Offline copies
- Your browser may keep copies of pages and files you’ve visited, so the site opens quickly and still says hello when you’re offline. They contain nothing about you.
On our server
If you never vote, we store nothing about you at all. When you press ♥ (or “Not for me”, or vote in the Song of the Week), we record:
- The vote itself: which song, which chart week, love or not, and when.
- A scrambled version of your voting ID. It’s a one-way code: we can match your next vote to it, but we can’t turn it back into the ID.
- A scrambled version of your IP address, to stop ballot-stuffing. It’s made with a secret key that is destroyed and replaced every day, so after midnight (UTC) even we can’t link it to an address, and the scrambled value itself is deleted 8 days after it was last used. Your actual IP address is never saved.
To slow down scripts, we also keep short-lived counters against those scrambled codes. They’re deleted after 2 days.
Early on Monday (Saint Lucia time), when the week’s chart is frozen, the scrambled voting ID is removed from that week’s votes, and they become fully anonymous. A poll vote goes the same way when the poll closes. Whatever happens, no vote keeps its scrambled voting ID or scrambled IP address for more than 8 days: older ones are cleared automatically. Anonymous votes are kept so the charts and the Hall of Fame keep their history.
We also keep a log of every track we play and how many people were listening. It contains no personal data. A nightly backup of the database is kept for about five weeks. The scrambled voting IDs, scrambled IP addresses and rate counters are taken out of each copy as it’s made, so nothing in a backup links a vote to you or your browser. That goes for any copy we download for safekeeping, too.
How long we keep things
| What | Where | Why | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voting ID | Your browser | One vote per song per week | Until you press Forget me or clear this site’s data |
| Your votes (the note) | Your browser | Keeping your hearts lit | This week and last week |
| Scrambled voting ID | Our database | One vote per song, and changing your mind | Removed when the week’s chart is frozen (early Monday, Saint Lucia time) or the poll closes; never kept more than 8 days. Not in backups. |
| Scrambled IP address | Our database | Fair-voting limits and abuse checks | Key replaced daily; value deleted 8 days after it was last used. Not in backups. |
| Rate-limit counters | Our database | Slowing down scripts | 2 days. Not in backups. |
| Your IP address | Never stored by us | Not applicable | See server logs |
| Anonymous votes | Our database | The charts | Kept |
| Playlist log and listener counts | Our database | The playlist, artists and charts | Kept (no personal data) |
| Backups | Our server | Getting back on air after a disaster | 7 daily and 4 weekly copies (about 5 weeks), with no voting IDs, scrambled IP addresses or rate counters in them |
Server logs
Like every website, our web host’s servers keep standard access logs: your IP address, the page or file you asked for, your browser type and the time. They’re kept under the host’s own policy for security and troubleshooting. We don’t use them to follow anyone around.
The music streams from our Shoutcast server through a secure HTTPS relay. While you listen, they see your IP address (that’s how the music reaches you), and the server counts how many people are tuned in. That count is the “listening right now” number you see on the site.
No trackers
No analytics, no advertising or social media trackers, no fingerprinting and no CAPTCHAs. That’s why there’s no cookie banner: there’s nothing to ask your permission for. Even our fonts come from our own server rather than Google’s.
If that ever changes, this page will say so first.
Artwork and other sites
Album covers and artist pictures come straight from Apple. They’re loaded from Apple’s image servers (mzstatic.com), so your browser asks Apple for each picture, and Apple sees your IP address and which image it was, as with any website. Apple’s privacy policy (opens in new tab) covers those requests.
We look the artwork up ourselves. Our server asks Apple’s iTunes search which cover belongs to which song, and remembers the answer. Your browser never sends Apple any searches; it only fetches the finished pictures.
News headlines show no pictures unless the publisher has agreed to it; pictures are switched off for every source until then. If a headline does show one, your browser loads it from the publisher’s site or its image host (such as WordPress.com or Wix), which then sees your IP address in the same way.
Links to other sites (Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, TuneIn and so on) open in a new tab. Once you’re there, their privacy policies apply.
Forget me
Forget me deletes every vote still linked to this browser’s voting ID (this chart week’s, and any earlier week that hasn’t been made anonymous yet) and your vote in any poll that’s still open. Then it removes the voting ID and your vote notes from this browser. You’ll be asked to confirm first.
- Older votes are already anonymous: nothing links them to you any more. No vote stays linked to you for more than 8 days.
- Our backups never contain voting IDs, so there’s nothing of yours to forget there.
- It only affects this browser. If you’ve voted on another phone or computer, press it there too.
- Your settings (theme, volume and so on) stay put. To clear those too, delete this site’s data in your browser’s settings.
Checking this browser…
Forget me needs JavaScript, because your voting ID lives in your browser. Without JavaScript the site can’t create one, so there’s nothing to forget. If you’ve voted before, turn JavaScript back on and press the button here.
Questions and your rights
RelaxingJazz.com is run by one person in Saint Lucia, who is responsible for this data. We use it on the basis of legitimate interests: running a fair listener vote and keeping it free of ballot-stuffing, with as little data as possible.
You have rights under data protection law (including the UK and EU GDPR) to ask what we hold about you, to have it deleted, and to object to how we use it. Because we never know who you are, the only thing that links your votes to you is the voting ID in your browser, which is why Forget me works from here rather than by email.
For anything else, write to relaxingjazz@pm.me. If you’re unhappy with our answer, you can complain to your local data protection authority.
Last updated