Privacy Policy

1. Who is responsible for your data

The controller of the personal data collected through this website is Dimitrios Tsakmakis, the author, based in Athens, Greece.

Contact for anything about privacy, including the rights described below: dtsakmakis@gmail.com.

The site is a personal author website. It does not sell anything itself: every “Buy” button takes you to Lulu or to an ebook store.

2. Overview: what is collected and why

We do not use your data for automated decision-making or profiling that has legal or similarly significant effects on you, and we never sell it.

3. Visiting the site (hosting)

The site is hosted by Papaki, a Greek web-hosting company, on a server in the European Union. Like every web server, it receives your IP address and the details of each request (date and time, the page or file requested, the referring page and your browser’s user-agent) and writes them to standard server logs. They are used only to deliver the site, keep it secure and fix problems, and are not used to identify or profile visitors. Papaki processes this data on our behalf; see the Papaki privacy notice.

The pages use no external fonts, no embedded videos and no social-media widgets. All book covers and images are served from this site, so nothing is requested from third parties until you accept cookies, join the newsletter or follow a link.

4. Cookies, analytics and ad pixels

The site itself sets no cookies before you choose. On your first visit a banner asks whether you accept analytics and advertising measurement. “Accept” and “Reject” are equal choices, and the site works the same either way.

Before you choose, and if you reject

• Google Analytics, the Meta Pixel and the TikTok Pixel are not loaded at all: their scripts are not in the page and are only added after you press “Accept”.
• Google Consent Mode v2 is set to denied for ad_storage, ad_user_data, ad_personalization and analytics_storage as a further safeguard. (functionality_storage and security_storage are “granted”; no cookies are set for them on this site.)
• Your choice is saved in your browser’s local storage under the name atk_consent_v1 (the word “granted” or “denied” plus the date). It never leaves your device. After 180 days the banner asks you again.

If you press “Accept”

Consent Mode is updated to granted for the four settings above and these three tools are loaded on every page of this site:

The site’s own code does not send your name or email address to Google, Meta or TikTok; the events above carry only the event name and which book or link was clicked.

For the Meta Pixel, we and Meta Platforms Ireland are joint controllers for collecting the data on this site and passing it to Meta; Meta is solely responsible for what it does with it afterwards. Google, Meta and TikTok process the data under their own policies: Google, Meta, TikTok.

5. Changing or withdrawing your choice

You can change your mind at any time, as easily as you gave consent: click “Cookie settings” at the bottom of any page (or the button below) and choose again.

Open cookie settings

If you switch from “Accept” to “Reject”, the site sets Consent Mode back to denied, deletes the Google, Meta and TikTok cookies listed above from this domain and reloads the page so that none of the three tools runs any more. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of what happened before. Data that was already sent to Google, Meta or TikTok is kept under their retention rules; you can ask us or them to delete it (see your rights). You can also delete everything by clearing this site’s cookies and site data in your browser.

6. The newsletter (Formspree)

If you enter your email and press “Join the List”, the address is sent, together with a label of the page you signed up on (for example “books-landing”), to Formspree (Formspree, Inc., USA), the form service that receives the sign-ups for us. Formspree also processes technical data such as your IP address to deliver the form and filter spam. Nothing is sent unless you press the button, and the email is not stored in your browser.

We use the address only to tell you when Volume III: The World is released. The legal basis is your consent; you can withdraw it at any time by replying “unsubscribe” to any newsletter email or by writing to dtsakmakis@gmail.com. Your address is then deleted from the list.

Formspree acts as our processor and relies on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses for the transfer to the USA. See the Formspree privacy policy.

7. Buying the books

The books are not sold on this site. The paperback and ebook buttons take you to Lulu (lulu.com), and the Greek poetry ebook buttons go to Apple Books and to Books2Read, which lists the other ebook stores that sell it (Kobo and others, distributed by Draft2Digital). Your order, payment, delivery address and any account you create are handled entirely by Lulu or by the store you choose. They act as independent controllers under their own privacy policies, for example Lulu, Apple and Books2Read. We never see your payment details.

8. Emailing us

If you write to us, we receive your email address, your name if you give it and your message. We use them only to answer you. Our mailbox is provided by Google (Gmail).

9. Transfers outside the European Union

Papaki hosts the site in the EU. Formspree, Google, Meta and TikTok may process data in the USA or other countries outside the European Economic Area. Where they do, they rely on the safeguards of the GDPR: the EU–US Data Privacy Framework for certified US companies, and/or the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses. Details are in each provider’s policy linked above.

10. How long data is kept

• Server logs (Papaki): for a limited period under the host’s log rotation, then deleted automatically.
• Your cookie choice: in your browser; the banner asks again after 180 days. You can delete it at any time by clearing the site data.
• Analytics and ad cookies: only if you accepted, for the lifetimes in the table in section 4, or until you withdraw consent or clear your cookies.
• Google Analytics data: event-level data is kept for no more than 14 months, then only in aggregated reports.
• Meta and TikTok: under their own retention policies, linked in section 4.
• Newsletter email: until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete it; it is then removed from Formspree and from our mailbox.
• Emails you send us: as long as needed to deal with your message, and no longer than necessary after that.

11. Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

• access the personal data we hold about you and get a copy (Art. 15);
• have inaccurate data corrected (Art. 16);
• have your data erased (Art. 17);
• restrict how it is used (Art. 18);
• receive the data you gave us in a portable format (portability, Art. 20);
• object to processing based on our legitimate interests (Art. 21);
• withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting earlier processing (Art. 7(3)): for cookies via “Cookie settings”, for the newsletter by unsubscribing.

To use any of these rights, email dtsakmakis@gmail.com. We answer within one month (Art. 12(3)); we may ask for information to confirm it is you. Using your rights is free of charge. For data held by Google, Meta, TikTok, Lulu or a store, you can also contact them directly.

12. Right to complain

If you think your data has been handled unlawfully, you can complain to the Greek supervisory authority, the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (Αρχή Προστασίας Δεδομένων Προσωπικού Χαρακτήρα), at www.dpa.gr, or to the authority in the EU country where you live or work. We would appreciate the chance to sort it out with you first, but you do not have to contact us before complaining.

13. Young readers

The books are written for readers aged 12 and up, but the newsletter and cookie choices are meant for adults. In Greece, a child must be at least 15 to consent alone to online services (Art. 21 of Law 4624/2019). If you are younger than 15, please ask a parent or guardian before you join the newsletter or accept cookies. If we learn that we hold the email of a child under 15 without a parent’s consent, we delete it.

14. Changes to this policy

If the site starts using a new service or uses data in a new way, this page will be updated first and the “Last updated” date above will change. If the change needs your consent, the cookie banner will ask you again.