What this site keeps, and why

Your note. The words you write and the age group you choose. No name, no account, nothing that identifies you is asked for or shown with it.

Your email address. It is required, and it is never shown with your note or to anyone who reads it. It is stored with the date you gave it and whether you are still subscribed. Karsten uses it for the delivery email described below and may occasionally write to you himself about the book and related projects.

A scrambled network address. To slow down spam, your network (IP) address is turned into a one-way code that cannot be turned back into the address. That code is deleted from the spam-protection records after 2 days and from your note after 30 days.

On your own device. Your browser remembers that you have written a note and which note you received, so you see it again if you come back. That stays on your device; clearing your browser data removes it. This site has no accounts, no advertising, and no tracking cookies.

The hosting company keeps ordinary server logs, as all web hosts do.

Your note is passed privately to one other person first. You will always be told that, and no name goes with it. After that person has read it, it may also appear on the site’s public map and reading view, shown only with an age range and roughly when it was written. Karsten can unpublish any note, and will if you ask.

Every note is checked by an AI tool before it is passed on, to catch personal details, abuse, spam, and signs that the writer may be at risk. The same tool sorts notes into themes and writes the short summaries you see on the map; those are always labeled as AI-written summaries. The AI never writes advice and presents it as if a person wrote it. Only the text of your note is sent to the AI service (Anthropic’s Claude), never your email address.

If a note suggests the writer may be in crisis, it is not passed on, and the writer is shown the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988 in the US).

When your note reaches someone, you get one short email. It repeats your own note and says nothing about the person who read it.

Karsten may also reach out occasionally about the book and related projects. Every email has a link to stop them. If you stop, your address is kept on file marked as not subscribed, so you are not emailed again by mistake. Ask, and it will be deleted entirely.

If you did not leave a note and an email reached you, someone typed your address by mistake. The link in that email stops all further emails.

This experience is for people 18 and older, and you are asked to confirm that before you can leave a note.

• Hostingerhosts the website, the database, and the mailbox that sends emails. Occasional messages about the book may go out through Hostinger’s email marketing tool.
• Anthropic processes the text of notes for the checks and sorting described above.
• Stripe handles payment if you buy the book. That is separate from the note experience, and no payment details ever pass through this site.

Notes are kept until you ask for yours to be removed. To remove a note or an email address, write to karsten02@icloud.com with the wording of your note or the address you used. Database backups are kept for 14 days and then replaced, so a removed item disappears from them within about two weeks.