Last updated: 22 August 2026

At Tales From Time, accessible from https://talesfromtime.com, the privacy of our visitors is a priority. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have. By using our website, you consent to this policy. This policy applies only to information collected through this website, not to information collected offline or through other channels.

Information We Collect

  • Contact forms: if you contact us, we collect the name, email address, and message you provide, used solely to respond to your inquiry.
  • Comments: if you leave a comment, we collect the data shown in the comment form plus your IP address and browser user agent string to help with spam detection.
  • Log files and analytics: like most websites, we use log files and Google Analytics. These record IP addresses, browser type, ISP, date/time stamps, referring and exit pages, and click data. This information is used to analyze trends and administer the site and is not linked to personally identifiable information.

Cookies and Web Beacons

Tales From Time uses cookies to store information about visitor preferences and the pages visited, which helps us optimize your experience. You can disable cookies through your browser settings; doing so may affect some site functionality.

Google AdSense and the DoubleClick Cookie

We use Google AdSense to display advertisements on Tales From Time. Google, as a third-party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on this site. Google’s use of the DoubleClick cookie, its advertising cookie, enables Google and its partners to serve ads to you based on your prior visits to this site and to other sites on the internet. Other third-party vendors and ad networks may also use cookies, JavaScript or web beacons in the advertisements they serve, in order to measure how well an ad performs and to personalise what you are shown. Tales From Time has no access to, and no control over, cookies set by third-party advertisers. You may opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google’s ad settings at https://www.google.com/settings/ads, and you may opt out of the cookies used by many third-party vendors at https://www.aboutads.info/choices/. You can read how Google uses data from the sites and apps that use its services at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings, though some parts of the site may then work less well.

Data Retention and Security

We keep personal data only for as long as there is a reason to keep it. Tales From Time is a one-person publication, so the periods below are ones we can actually check and honour, not aspirations.

  • Contact form messages. The name, email address and message you send us are kept for 24 months from the date of our last reply, and are then deleted from the inbox and from the form entries stored in the site database.
  • Comments. A published comment, along with the name, email address, IP address and browser user agent recorded with it, stays in the site database for as long as the article it belongs to is published. Comments caught as spam are deleted automatically after 30 days. You can ask us to remove your comment at any time.
  • Server logs. Access and error logs on the hosting server hold IP addresses and request details for 30 days on a rolling basis, and are then overwritten. We use them to diagnose faults and to spot abuse, nothing else.
  • Analytics. Where Google Analytics is enabled on the site, event-level data is retained for 14 months, which is the retention period we use. After that Google deletes the event-level data. The reports we look at are aggregate and do not identify individual readers.

On security: the whole site is served over HTTPS, so what you send us is encrypted in transit. Administrative access to WordPress and to the hosting account is limited to Saurav Sinha alone, protected by a unique password, and the software and plugins are kept updated. Comment spam is filtered before it reaches the site. We do not sell, rent or trade personal data, and we do not pass it to anyone other than the service providers named in this policy, who process it on our behalf. No website can promise perfect security, and we will not pretend otherwise, but we hold as little data as we can and we delete it on the schedule above.

Children’s Privacy

Tales From Time writes about history and mythology for a general adult readership. The site is not directed at children, it has no features made for children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of 13, which is the age threshold set by the United States Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, known as COPPA.

India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 sets a higher bar. It treats anyone under the age of 18 as a child and requires verifiable parental consent before a child’s personal data may be processed. We do not knowingly process the personal data of anyone under 18, we do not carry out tracking or behavioural monitoring directed at children, and we do not target advertising at children. We ask that readers under 18 do not leave comments or send contact form messages.

If you are a parent or guardian and you believe your child has given us personal information, write to sauravsinha@talesfromtime.com with enough detail for us to find it, such as the name used or the article the comment was left on. We will delete it and confirm to you that it is gone, normally within a few days and in any case within 30 days.

Your Rights Under India’s DPDP Act 2023

Tales From Time is published from India, so India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 applies to the personal data we handle. Under that Act we are the data fiduciary for this site and you, the reader, are a data principal. These are your rights.

  • Notice. You are entitled to know what we collect and why before you give it. This policy is that notice, and we will update it whenever what we do changes.
  • Consent. We take personal data only where you choose to give it, by leaving a comment or sending a contact message. You may withdraw your consent at any time, and it should be as easy to withdraw as it was to give. When you withdraw it, we stop the processing that depended on it.
  • Access. You may ask for a summary of the personal data we hold about you, and of what we are doing with it and who we have shared it with.
  • Correction. You may ask us to correct anything inaccurate, complete anything missing and update anything out of date.
  • Erasure. You may ask us to delete your personal data. We will do so unless the law requires us to keep it, and we will tell you if that is the case.
  • Nomination. You may nominate another person to exercise these rights on your behalf if you die or become unable to act for yourself.
  • Grievance redressal. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data or your request, you can raise it with us directly and we will work to put it right.

Tales From Time is run by one person. Saurav Sinha, based in New Delhi, India, is the person responsible for personal data on this site and the point of contact for any request or grievance under the DPDP Act. Write to sauravsinha@talesfromtime.com and we will reply within 30 days. Because this is a single-author site, there is no separate data protection officer and we are not registered as a consent manager. If our answer does not satisfy you, you may take the matter to the Data Protection Board of India.

Your Rights Under the GDPR and UK GDPR

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, the EU GDPR and the UK GDPR apply to your personal data. Our lawful basis is your consent where you leave a comment or send us a message. We do not currently operate a cookie consent banner, so readers in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom should treat the advertising and analytics cookies described above as active from first page load, and use the browser controls and the Google opt-out links given in this policy. Where we use server logs to keep the site running and secure, our basis is our legitimate interest in a working, unabused website.

  • Access to the personal data we hold about you, and a copy of it.
  • Rectification of anything inaccurate or incomplete.
  • Erasure of your data where there is no good reason for us to keep it.
  • Restriction of processing while a dispute about accuracy or grounds is sorted out.
  • Objection to processing based on legitimate interests, and to processing for direct marketing or personalised advertising.
  • Portability, meaning a copy of the data you gave us in a commonly used machine-readable format.
  • Withdrawal of consent at any time, without affecting anything done before you withdrew it.
  • Freedom from decisions made solely by automated means that have a legal or similarly significant effect on you. We do not make any such decisions.
  • A complaint to your supervisory authority. In the United Kingdom that is the Information Commissioner’s Office; in the EEA it is the data protection authority for your country.

To exercise any of these rights, write to sauravsinha@talesfromtime.com. We will respond within 30 days and there is no charge. We may ask you for enough information to be sure the request is genuinely yours before we act on it.

On international transfers: the site is run from New Delhi, India, and uses international service providers, so your data may be processed outside the EEA and the United Kingdom. Google’s data processing terms for Analytics and AdSense include the standard contractual clauses approved for such transfers. Data we hold ourselves, such as contact form messages and comments, is handled in India under the DPDP Act 2023.

Your Rights Under CCPA/CPRA

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act, gives you the following rights over your personal information.

  • To know what personal information we collect, where it comes from, why we collect it and who we disclose it to.
  • To access a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
  • To have inaccurate personal information corrected.
  • To have your personal information deleted, subject to the exceptions the law allows.
  • To opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising.
  • To limit the use of sensitive personal information. We do not collect sensitive personal information as the CPRA defines it.
  • Not to be treated differently for exercising any of these rights. We do not withhold content, change quality or otherwise penalise readers who ask.

We do not sell personal information and we receive no payment for disclosing it. Advertising cookies set by Google on this site may count as sharing for cross-context behavioural advertising under the CPRA, so you can switch off personalised advertising in Google’s ad settings at https://www.google.com/settings/ads and opt out of third-party vendor cookies at https://www.aboutads.info/choices/. For anything else, including a request made through an authorised agent, write to sauravsinha@talesfromtime.com. We will respond within 45 days, which is the period the law allows, and will tell you if we need more time.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated revision date. If you have questions, contact us at sauravsinha@talesfromtime.com.