Privacy policy

Without an account

You can read every text, use the pañcāṅga and read the jyotiṣa primer without an account. Our server then keeps nothing about you beyond the request logs described under Technical data. Your choices, such as the script you read in or the place for the pañcāṅga, stay in cookies and storage in your own browser.

What we keep and why

Your account

Your email address, your name and a hash of your password. We never keep the password itself. If you sign in with Google or GitHub, we keep the name, email address and picture address the provider sends, and your account number there. We use these to sign you in and to write to you about your account. We also record when you were last active.

Charts and family

For each chart you save, we keep its name and the date, time and place of birth with coordinates and time zone. We also keep anything else you add, such as sex, how exact the time is, a place of residence and notes. For each family member you add, we keep the name and relation. We also keep whatever you give of gothra, pravara, veda, śākhā, sūtra, nakṣatra, rāśi, sex and date of passing. The site uses these to cast charts, to fill in a rite’s saṅkalpa and to work out observance dates for you.

Some of these details, such as a gothra or the rites you follow, can reveal religious belief or community. We keep them only because you entered them. Only you can see them, and we never share them or use them for anything else. Add a family member’s details only when they are happy for you to keep them here.

Notes and reading

Your bookmarks, collections, highlights and notes. The section where you stopped in each text, for Continue reading. Your Look up history on the horoscope pages. Your preferences. Your reminder settings, with the place we work them out for and the private address of your calendar feed.

Payments

Stripe or Razorpay takes the payment when you subscribe to VR+ or give a gift. We never see or keep your card or bank details. For each subscription or gift we keep the provider’s reference numbers, the plan, its status, the amount and currency and the dates. For a subscription we also keep the email address you made it with.

Technical data

Our server logs record requests and errors, including your network address, the page requested and the time. Search terms and Ask questions can appear in them. We use the logs to keep the site working and to stop abuse, such as too many requests from one address. They are kept for up to 90 days and then deleted.

What we do not do

We do not sell or rent your data. The site shows no advertising and uses no advertising trackers, and we do not build profiles of readers.

To count visits, the live site uses Umami Cloud, which sets no cookies. Its script sends Umami the page address, the page you came from, your browser and device type, and the country your network address points to.

How Ask handles your question

The model behind Ask, Google’s Gemma, runs inside your browser. The model files download once from Hugging Face and the program that runs them from jsDelivr. Both stay in your browser’s storage until you clear it.

To answer, your browser sends your question to our server, which returns the passages the answer may draw on. Your browser then sends back the model’s sentences, and the server checks each one against those passages. Our server does not run the model. It keeps your question only in its logs, except on the horoscope pages, where a question and its answer join your Look up history. You can clear that history.

Your location

The pañcāṅga needs a place to work out sunrise and the times of the day. If you allow it, your browser shares its position. The page then sends the coordinates to bigdatacloud.net, which returns the name of the nearest city. If you refuse, or the browser cannot tell, the page guesses. It asks bigdatacloud.net for the city your network address points to, or else takes the city of your device’s time zone from Open-Meteo’s place search. When you search for a city, the name you type goes to Open-Meteo.

Your browser keeps the place you end up with in a cookie. If you turn on reminders, we also save it with your reminder settings. A rite’s page may ask for your position to tell the time of day, and that stays in your browser.

Cookies and browser storage

session_ keeps you signed in. It is signed so it cannot be altered, and it lasts up to a year or until you sign out.
Cookies starting with vr_ hold your preferences when you are not signed in, such as the scripts you read in. They last a year.
mh_place holds the place for the pañcāṅga. It lasts a year.

Your browser also keeps these in its own storage:

theme, text size and light or dark mode
whether the page may ask for your position
your Look up history while signed out
the support banner’s count of pages read
highlight colours and panel widths
your place in a story
the Ask model files

None of this reaches us except as this page describes.

Cloudflare may set its own cookies to protect the site from attacks. The site sets no advertising or tracking cookies and shows no cookie banner.

Who else handles data

Each of these companies handles data under its own privacy policy.

Hetzner Online hosts our server and its databases in the European Union.
Cloudflare carries all traffic to the site, keeps copies of public pages, protects the site from attacks, stores our backups (Cloudflare R2) and forwards email sent to [email protected]. Your browser fetches the recitations from media.vedicreader.com, our Cloudflare R2 storage.
archive.org serves a recording only when our copy cannot load. Your browser then fetches it from archive.org, which sees your network address and browser details.
Resend sends account emails and reminders. It receives your email address and the message.
Google and GitHub take part only if you sign in with them. They tell us who you are and know that you used their sign-in.
Stripe and Razorpay take payments and keep the payment records the law requires of them. They receive your payment details, email address and the amount.
Umami Cloud counts visits on the live site.
Hugging Face and jsDelivr serve the Ask model and its program to your browser, only after you choose to download it.
Every other script and font the pages use is served from this site.
bigdatacloud.net and Open-Meteo name places for the pañcāṅga, as set out above.

Many recordings were first published on archive.org. We keep unchanged copies on our own storage (Cloudflare R2, served from media.vedicreader.com) only because archive.org is often offline. Each recording keeps its credit and a link to its source.

Some of these companies work outside Australia, in the United States, the European Union and India, and handle data there.

Where data is kept and for how long

The databases are on our server in the European Union, with backups in Cloudflare R2. We keep your account and everything in it until you delete it. Deleting removes it from the live databases at once. Copies stay in our backups for up to about 60 days, until newer backups replace them.

Stripe and Razorpay keep payment records for as long as the law requires. We keep our own record of a payment for our accounts, without its link to you.

Your choices and rights

Download: You & family has Download my data, a file of everything your account holds.
Correct: you can edit your charts, family members, notes and preferences yourself. To change your email address, write to us.
Delete: You & family has Delete my account, which removes the account and everything in it. If you have VR+, cancel it first on the plans page, or the provider keeps charging.
Email: we send account emails only when you ask for them, such as a verification link or a password reset. Reminder emails stop when you turn reminders off, and each one links to that setting.
Google or GitHub: you can remove our access in your Google or GitHub account settings. Your account here stays until you delete it.
Location: you can refuse or withdraw your browser’s permission at any time and choose a city by hand.
Cookies: you can clear them. That signs you out and resets your choices.

You can also ask us for a copy of your data, a correction or deletion by writing to [email protected]. We answer within 30 days.

For readers in the European Union and the United Kingdom, these are our legal grounds. We keep account data to provide the service you signed up for. We keep logs and backups because we have a legitimate interest in a secure, working site. We use your device’s position only with your consent, which you can withdraw.

If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, write to us first. You can then complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au) or, in the European Union or the United Kingdom, to your local data protection authority.

Children

We do not direct the site at children under 16, and they should not create an account. If you believe a child has made one, write to us and we will delete it. A family member’s details, including a child’s, belong to the account of the adult who added them, and we keep them only there.

Changes

When this policy changes, the date at the top changes too. If a change affects data you have already given us, we tell account holders by email before it takes effect.

Contact

Rajgopal & Co Pty Ltd (ABN 34 695 070 298), Victoria, Australia. Email [email protected]. See also the Contact page.