Last updated September 17, 2026
What’s in the Book? (whatsinthebook.app) is operated by Rebecca Bradshaw Palmer as a sole proprietorship. This page explains what the site collects, why, who it goes to, and what you can ask us to do with it. “We” and “us” below mean that sole proprietorship.
The short version: we don’t require an account to use the site, we don’t use advertising or cross-site tracking, and we don’t sell your information to anyone.
A device identifier. The first time you use the site, your browser generates a random identifier and stores it locally. It isn’t derived from anything about you and isn’t linked to your name or email unless you give us one. It lets the site remember the books you’ve checked, your place in any free usage allowance, and which prompts you’ve already dismissed. Clearing your browser’s site data erases it, and the site will treat you as brand new.
What you do on the site. We record things like: a search you ran and how many results it returned, whether you opened the barcode scanner and whether the scan succeeded, which book you selected and how you found it, whether the result came from our existing library or needed a fresh analysis, how long that took, and any errors. These records carry the device identifier above so we can tell one visit from another, and so the site can count usage against a free allowance.
Books you check. The titles and authors you look up are stored against your device identifier so the site can show you your own history.
Your email address — only if you choose to give it. The site asks for an email in one place: to unlock the full list of “Coming next” book recommendations. That’s optional, and everything else on the site works without it.
Anything you type into feedback. If you use the feedback form, or report that a book’s content labels look wrong, we store what you wrote along with the book it was about and your device identifier.
Payment information, if you become a member. Subscriptions are handled entirely by Stripe. Stripe collects and stores your card details; we never see or store a card number. We keep a record that your account is a paying member, which plan, and when it renews.
Basic technical information. Like any website, our hosting provider processes the IP address your request comes from in order to deliver the page and to protect against abuse.
The site doesn’t use advertising cookies, and it doesn’t track you across other websites. The device identifier described above is kept in your browser’s local storage rather than in a tracking cookie. We use Vercel Web Analytics for aggregate traffic counts, which is designed not to use cookies or to build profiles of individual visitors.
Because we don’t track you across sites, there is nothing for a browser “Do Not Track” signal to switch off, and we do not respond to those signals differently.
We use a small number of service providers to run the site. They only process data on our behalf, for the purposes above:
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We may disclose information if we’re legally required to, or to protect the site and the people using it.
Usage records and book history are kept while they’re useful for running and improving the site. Email addresses are kept until you ask us to remove yours. Feedback is kept indefinitely, because it’s what tells us what to build and fix. The library of book analyses itself is kept permanently and isn’t personal information — it’s about books, not about you, and it’s shared across everyone who uses the site.
If you live in California, you have the rights above under state law, including the right to know what’s collected and why, to have it deleted or corrected, and not to be treated differently for exercising those rights. We won’t charge you more or give you a worse experience for asking. Since we don’t sell or share personal information for advertising, there is nothing to opt out of on that front.
This site is built for parents, teachers and librarians. It isn’t directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal information, email us and we’ll delete it.
Readers aged 13 to 17 are welcome to use the site, and we’d encourage doing so with a parent’s knowledge. Memberships can only be purchased by someone 18 or older.
We take reasonable steps to protect what we store, and card details never touch our systems. No website can promise perfect security, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise. Please don’t send us sensitive personal information through the feedback form.
If this policy changes in a way that matters, we’ll update the date at the top of this page, and for significant changes we’ll say so in the app. Continuing to use the site after a change means the updated policy applies.
Questions, or a request about your data: rebecca@whatsinthebook.app