The short version
- We only collect what you choose to send us: through the contact form, the questions box and the GRN guide.
- We count visits with the site’s own simple counter, without cookies and without any outside service. We keep only daily totals, never who you are.
- We do not use advertising or tracking cookies.
- We never sell your information or share it for marketing.
- Your listening and reading position stays in your own browser.
- You can ask us at any time to see, correct or delete what we hold about you.
Who we are
grn.site is the official website of The Global Rail Network, a book by Kianosh Rahmani, originator of the GRN idea. The website is run by the GRN team, which is responsible for the information described here.
You can reach us through the contact page or by email at info@grn.site.
What we collect
When you write to us
The contact form asks for your name, your email address and your message, and lets you tell us who you are and what you are writing about. We use this only to read your message, answer you and keep a record of the conversation. It is stored in the website’s database and arrives in our email inbox. The legal basis is your consent, which you give with the checkbox on the form, and our legitimate interest in replying to you.
When you ask a question
On the Questions page and in the GRN guide (the chat button at the bottom of each page) you can ask about the book and this website. To find and write an answer from the book, the text of your question is processed by an outside language-processing service that works on our behalf and may not use it for anything else; it does not receive your name or email address. Conversations with the guide are kept for 30 days so we can improve the answers, then deleted automatically. If you send your question to the GRN team, we keep your question, your email address and, if you give it, your name, so we can reply; our reply may be translated into your language by the same kind of service. The legal basis is your consent, which you give with the checkbox on the form.
When you visit
Like every website, our hosting provider’s servers automatically record basic technical details when a page is requested: your IP address, browser type, the page asked for and the time. These logs are used only to keep the site running and secure, and are deleted by the host on a regular schedule.
Counting visits
To learn which pages and chapters are read, the site counts visits itself, on our own server, without cookies and without any outside service. When a page opens, your browser sends us the page address, the name of the site that sent you (for example a search engine, never the full link), the kind of device (phone, tablet or computer), the language your browser asks for, and how far you read or listened in a chapter. To count each person only once a day, the server turns your IP address and browser type into a one-way code with a key that changes every day; the code and the key are deleted at the end of the day, so nobody can be recognised from one day to the next and we cannot find out who you are. We keep only daily totals. If your browser sends a “Do Not Track” or “Global Privacy Control” signal, only the page view is counted. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in improving the site and the book.
What we do not collect
There are no user accounts for visitors yet, no payments, no advertising tools and no outside analytics services on this site.
Cookies and browser storage
We do not set advertising or analytics cookies; the visit counter described above uses none. A few small items may be saved in your browser so the site works as you expect:
| Item | Purpose | Kept |
|---|---|---|
| Language preference | Remembers the language you chose for the site. | Up to one day |
grn-listen, grn-speed, grn-auto, grn-ab-prog | Remember where you stopped listening, your playback speed and your progress in the audiobook. Saved only in your browser’s local storage and never sent to us. | Until you clear it |
| grn-v-pos, grn-v-recent, grn-v-later, grn-v-speed, grn-v-vol, grn-v-cc, grn-v-auto, grn-v-theater | Remember where you stopped in each video, the videos you saved for later, and your player settings (speed, volume, captions, autoplay, wide view). Saved only in your browser’s local storage and never sent to us. | Until you clear it |
| Login cookies | Used only by the people who edit the website. | The session |
You can delete all of these at any time from your browser settings.
Outside services
- Hosting. The website and its files, including the audiobook, are hosted by Hostinger, which processes data on our behalf.
- Fonts. Some typefaces are loaded from Google Fonts. To deliver them, Google receives your IP address. See Google’s privacy policy.
- Videos. Some videos are hosted on YouTube. Our player loads them from YouTube (youtube.com) only after you press play. From then on Google receives your IP address and may store items in your browser for that video; if you are signed in to YouTube in this browser, YouTube can recognise your account. Videos hosted on grn.site play from our own server. See Google’s privacy policy.
- Email delivery. Messages from the contact form are delivered to our inbox through our email service provider.
- Language processing. Questions asked on the Questions page or in the GRN guide, and the team’s replies, are processed by outside language-processing services working on our behalf, to find answers in the book and to translate between languages. They receive only the text of the question or reply.
- Spam protection. The contact form, the comment forms and the guide’s support form use Cloudflare Turnstile to check that a person is sending them. For this check Cloudflare receives technical details about your browser and your IP address. See Cloudflare’s privacy policy.
- Links. Links to other websites are provided for convenience. Their own privacy policies apply once you leave grn.site.
How long we keep it
We keep contact messages for as long as we need them to answer you and follow up, and for no longer than two years after our last exchange, unless you ask us to delete them sooner.
Conversations with the GRN guide are deleted after 30 days. Questions sent to the GRN team are kept like contact messages: for no longer than two years after our last exchange, unless you ask us to delete them sooner.
Daily visit totals are kept for as long as the site exists, so that years can be compared. They contain no personal information. The one-way codes used to count each visitor once a day are deleted at the end of each day.
Sharing
Comments. When you comment on a page, we keep your name, your email address and your comment. Your name and comment are shown publicly once the GRN team has reviewed them; your email is never shown. If you choose, your browser remembers your name and email for next time. To protect the site from automated spam, comment forms use Cloudflare Turnstile. You can ask us to remove a comment at any time at info@grn.site.
We do not sell, rent or trade your information. Messages may be passed to Kianosh Rahmani, originator of the GRN idea, when they are meant for him. Apart from the services named above, we share information only if the law requires it.
Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us to:
- tell you what information we hold about you and give you a copy;
- correct anything that is wrong;
- delete your information;
- stop using it, or withdraw the consent you gave.
We will reply within one month. If you are not satisfied, you may also complain to the data protection authority in your country.
Children
This website is meant for a general audience. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 16. If you believe a child has sent us their details, please let us know and we will delete them.
Security
The site uses an encrypted connection (HTTPS), and only a small number of GRN team members can read contact messages. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable care to protect what you send us.
Changes to this policy
If we add new features, such as reader accounts or a newsletter, we will update this page first and change the date at the top.