Privacy Policy

Litheca is built to need as little of your data as possible. This page describes, plainly, what we store and what we don't.

What we don't do

• We set no advertising cookies and run no ad pixels or ad networks.
• We do not sell, rent, or share your personal data with advertisers.
• We never post anything on your behalf.

Cookies and analytics

On your first visit we ask, with a banner, how you want cookies handled. There are two kinds:

• Strictly necessary: the browser storage that makes the site work: your theme, reading list, a rate-limiting identifier, and your sign-in session. These are always on and need no consent, because the site cannot function without them.
• Analytics: one Google Analytics cookie that counts visits so we can see which pages are useful and improve them. This is off unless you choose “Accept all”. Choose “Necessary only” and Google Analytics is never loaded: no analytics request is made and no analytics cookie is set. We never send it your email, name, or account identity, and never use it for advertising.

You can change or withdraw your choice any time with the “Cookie preferences” link in the footer, which reopens the banner. Your choice is remembered for 12 months, after which we ask again.

What we store, and where

• On your device (localStorage): your reading list, theme, audio preferences, and an anonymous identifier used for rate-limiting. This stays in your browser; clearing site data removes it.
• If you create an account: your email address, display name, and optional profile photo are stored with Google Firebase (our authentication and database provider). Your synced library, ratings, comments, and recommendations are stored in Firebase Firestore under your account.
• Search and summary requests: book titles you search for are processed by our server to generate results, and popular results are cached (without any link to you) so pages load faster for everyone.

Public content

Comments, reviews, ratings, and book recommendations you post are public once approved, shown with your display name. Comments and reviews are pre-moderated by the site owner before they appear.

Third-party services

• Google Firebase: accounts and community data (Firebase privacy).
• Google Analytics: visit counts, only with your consent (Google privacy).
• Google Gemini API: generates summaries from book metadata; your account identity is never sent to it.
• Google Books / Open Library / Wikiquote / Project Gutenberg: book data, covers, quotes, and public-domain texts.
• Amazon Associates: "Buy on Amazon" links are affiliate links; Amazon's own policies apply on their site.
• Cloudflare Turnstile: runs invisibly when you finish a daily game, so the "how many people solved this" counts come from people rather than scripts. It sets no cookie for advertising and does not track you across sites. Referencing this is a condition of using Turnstile in invisible mode — see Cloudflare's Turnstile Privacy Addendum.

The daily games also store a random string in your browser so the same browser cannot be counted twice in one day. It is not an account, it is never linked to one, and clearing your site data discards it.

Your choices

• Everything except posting comments and syncing works without an account.
• You can delete your own comments and recommendations at any time.
• To delete your account and its data entirely, contact us — we'll remove it promptly.

Children

Litheca is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data.

Changes

If this policy changes materially, we'll update the date above. Questions? Get in touch.