Privacy policy

GekkoRidge · last updated 26 October 2026

GekkoRidge is a personal, non-commercial blog run by Francois van Heyningen in Cape Town (“I”, “me”). This policy explains what personal information the site holds about its readers, why, and what you can ask me to do with it. I handle personal information in line with South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA); I am the responsible party and the information officer for this site.

What the site collects

• Reading the blog — ordinary server logs (pages requested, time, internet address and browser) so the site can be kept running and secure, and counted. Reading needs no account and sets no sign-in cookie.
• No public accounts or comments — the blog has no reader accounts, no comment form and no mailing list.
• Signing in — the household’s own pages are behind a sign-in. When a household member signs in, a session cookie keeps them signed in.
• Display choices — the light or dark theme and the language you pick are kept in your own browser, not sent to me.
• Google Analytics — when site statistics are switched on, the site uses Google Analytics, which sets cookies, to count visits and see which posts are read. Google processes this under its own privacy policy (policies.google.com/privacy). You can block it with your browser’s cookie settings or Google’s opt-out add-on.
• Messages you send me — if you write to me, your name, address and message, to answer you.

Advertising

There is no advertising on this site today. This section applies once advertising is switched on: the site would then show Google AdSense adverts, and Google and its partners would use cookies to show ads based on your visits to this and other websites (see how Google uses information from sites that use its services). Personalised adverts would run only with your consent, and you could opt out at adssettings.google.com. This page will be updated before the first advert appears.

Third-party content

Wine posts may show my ratings from Vivino, and game posts details from BoardGameGeek. Vivino’s own profile widget loads a script from vivino.com, so it is shown only after you agree to it; until then you see a plain link. Ratings and game details I copy into a post are stored here and load nothing from those sites. The GekkoRidge Facebook Page is a link only: no Facebook script runs on this site. Each of those sites handles your visit under its own privacy policy.

Who sees it

Only me, and the hosting and e-mail services that run the site for me, only to provide that service. I do not sell personal information, and I do not use it for advertising.

How long I keep it

Server logs for as long as they are useful to keep the site running; messages until they are dealt with.

Your rights

You may ask to see the personal information I hold about you, to have it corrected, or to have it deleted, and you may object to how I use it. See how to have your data deleted. If you are not happy with how I handled your information, you may complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa (inforegulator.org.za).