Privacy & Cookies

Future History is free to read, with no account and no paywall. We try to collect as little about you as possible, and to be plain about the rest. This notice explains what we collect, why, and the control you have.

Who runs this site

Future History is an independent project that publishes a free, citation-backed record of how work changes over time. It is the data controller for the information described here. To reach us about anything on this page, including a request about your data, use the contact form.

Analytics, and your choice

We use two privacy-minded analytics tools, Google Analytics and PostHog, to see which professions people explore and where pages can be clearer. They record things like pages viewed, rough location and device type derived from your IP address, and basic interactions. They set cookies and similar identifiers in your browser.

We only load these tools if you accept them. On your first visit you are asked to Accept or Decline, and declining is a real no: neither tool loads, and no analytics cookies are set. (Our host's cookie-free visit counter, described below, is separate and stores nothing on your device.) You can change your mind at any time with Cookie settings in the footer; withdrawing switches both tools off straight away and deletes their cookies from your browser. If you are in the UK, EU, or another region that requires it, your consent is the legal basis for this analytics. Contact and feedback submissions are handled separately and are never sent to Google Analytics or PostHog, whether you accept, decline, or have not yet made an analytics choice.

When you contact us

If you submit the contact or feedback form, we store what you send in Cloudflare D1. This may include your name, email address, organisation, and message, so we can read it and reply. An optional Cloudflare email notification may forward the same submission to the site operator. For business enquiries this is handled on the basis of taking steps at your request and our legitimate interest in responding; for general feedback, on the basis of our legitimate interest in improving the site. We delete submissions no later than 12 months after the last action, unless an ongoing request or legal obligation requires longer retention. You can ask us to delete yours at any time.

Security and hosting

The site is hosted on Cloudflare, which processes basic technical information such as your IP address to serve pages and protect the site. Our forms use Cloudflare Turnstile to block automated abuse. These are strictly necessary to run the site securely and do not require consent. Your IP address is sent to Turnstile for verification and used briefly for rate limiting. It is not stored with your submission. The rate limiter stores only a secret-keyed, date-scoped value that cannot be linked back to the lead record and is deleted after no more than 48 hours.

Cookie-free visit counting

We also use Cloudflare Web Analytics, a cookie-free visit counter. Cloudflare adds a small script to our pages (static.cloudflareinsights.com/beacon.min.js) that loads without asking for consent, because it sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device. Cloudflare says it does not use cookies, local storage or fingerprinting for these analytics, and does not track individual visitors.

When a page loads, the script reports to Cloudflare, at this site's own /cdn-cgi/rum address, that the page was viewed, along with how long it took to load. Cloudflare turns these reports into totals we can see: page views and visits, page load times, the referring site, and the browser, device type, operating system and country of visitors in aggregate. We use it only to count visits and to spot slow pages.

Cloudflare also sends two reliability headers with each page, Network Error Logging (NEL) and Report-To. They let your browser tell Cloudflare when a connection to this site fails, so outages can be found and fixed. Successful visits are not reported this way.

We are removing the counter from embedded widgets (the /embed/... pages that other sites show in a frame) and keeping it off classroom pages.

Cookies and similar technologies

A cookie is a small file a site stores in your browser. We keep these to a minimum and split them into two groups.

Cloudflare Web Analytics, the cookie-free visit counter above, is not in this table because it sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser.

Who we share data with

We do not sell your data and we do not run advertising. The only third parties that process data on our behalf are the providers above: Google (Analytics), PostHog, and Cloudflare (hosting, bot protection, the cookie-free Web Analytics visit counter and network error reports). Because Google and PostHog operate in the United States, accepting analytics may involve transferring some data there under those providers' own safeguards. Cloudflare, also a United States company, serves the site from a global network and processes visit counts and error reports under its own safeguards.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access the data we hold about you, correct it, delete it, object to or restrict its use, and withdraw consent at any time. You can withdraw analytics consent yourself with Cookie settings. For anything else, contact us through the contact form and we will respond. If you are in the UK or EU and are unhappy with our response, you may also complain to your local data protection authority.

Children

Future History is a general-audience reference site and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect data from children.

Changes to this notice

If we change what we collect or the tools we use, we will update this page and the date above, and ask for your consent again where the law requires it.