Privacy

Plainly, and without the usual fog: what this site keeps, what it does not, who else sees it, and how to get rid of all of it.

Who we are

Dear Alfred is run by William Street Designs LLC. Write to us at support@dearalfred.ink about anything on this page.

What we collect

What you give us. When Alfred writes you a page, three things go into your journal: what you told him at the start, which of his sayings you chose, and anything you write yourself afterward. If you buy something, you give us a delivery address and an email; if you write to us, we have whatever you wrote.

If you ask to be told when Alfred opens. We keep the email address you gave us, the day you gave it, and which link you arrived through. Nothing else. If you already have a journal in this browser, the address is noted against it, so that on the day the site opens that journal is already yours to claim.

What arrives on its own. Our servers keep ordinary request logs for a short period — the address your request came from, the page asked for, the time, and what your browser says it is. They are used to keep the site up and to find out what broke, and nothing else.

What we do not collect. No analytics, no advertising, no tracking pixels, no third-party scripts watching you. We do not buy information about you from anyone.

What we do not keep

The conversation itself. What you say to Alfred while he is deciding what to write lives in the server’s memory for half an hour and is then gone. It is not written to any database.

Why we keep what we keep

Your journal is kept so that it is there when you come back — that is the whole of the reason. Order details are kept because we have to print and mail it, and because tax rules require us to keep a record of a sale. Logs are kept to run the site safely.

An address on the list is kept so that we can write to you once, on the day the site opens, which is the only thing you asked for and the only thing we will do with it.

If you are in the UK or the EU: our lawful basis is your consent for the journal and for the list, performance of a contract for an order, and legitimate interests for keeping the site working and secure.

Who else sees it

We do not sell your information to anybody, ever, and we do not share it except with the companies that make the site work:

• Anthropic — Alfred is written using their Claude models, so what you tell him is sent to them in order for him to answer. They do not use it to train their models.
• Fly.io and Supabase — where the site runs and where your journal is stored.
• Stripe — if you buy something. They handle the payment; we never see your card number.
• Printify and its printers — your name and address, so an order can be made and posted.

We would also hand something over if the law actually required it, and we would tell you unless we were forbidden to. If the business is ever sold, whatever we hold would go with it, and this page would say so before it happened.

Cookies

Two, both ours, neither of them for tracking. One holds a long random number and is how the site knows which journal is yours; it lasts a year. The other is set for a day at the start of a conversation and exists only to find out whether your browser keeps cookies at all. There are no advertising or analytics cookies on this site.

While you are talking to Alfred, your browser also keeps the conversation in its own storage so that it survives you visiting another page. That never leaves your browser and goes when you close the tab.

This is how it works today, and it will change. A cookie is currently the only thing connecting you to your journal, because there are no accounts and no passwords yet. When registration arrives, your journal will belong to an account identified by your email address, and you will reach it from any browser by asking us for a sign-in link rather than by being on the machine you started it on. What we keep in it will be the same writing; where it is kept will be your account rather than whichever browser remembered you.

How long we keep it

Your journal is kept until you delete it, or until a year has passed with no visit, whichever comes first. Order records are kept for as long as tax and accounting rules require, which is usually seven years. Logs are kept for days, not months. An address on the list is kept until the day we write to you, or until you ask us to take it off, whichever comes first.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can see everything we hold for you: it is your journal, and you can delete all of it with the button at the foot of that page. It is a real delete and we keep no copy.

If you also asked to be told when Alfred opens, your email address is on that list as well, and the button on your journal page does not reach it. Write to us and we will take it off the same day. There is no unsubscribe link to press yet because nothing has been sent yet; the first email you get from us will carry one.

If you are in the UK or the EU, you also have the right to correct what we hold, to object to our processing it, to restrict it, to take a copy of it elsewhere, and to complain to your data protection authority. If you are in California, you have the right to know what we collect and why, to have it deleted, to correct it, and not to be treated differently for asking. We do not sell or share personal information as those words are defined in California law, so there is nothing for you to opt out of.

Write to support@dearalfred.ink and we will answer within thirty days.

Children

This site is not for children under 13, and we do not knowingly keep anything from one. If you believe a child has used it, write to us and we will delete what there is.

Where it is kept

Our servers and our database are in the United States. If you are writing from elsewhere, what you write is sent there.

Security

Everything travels over an encrypted connection. The cookie that identifies your journal is stored as a one-way hash, so a copy of our database is not a pile of working keys. No system is perfect, and we would tell you promptly if something went wrong.

Changes

If this page changes in a way that matters, the date below changes and we will say so on the site. Carrying on using it after that means you are content with the new version.

If you are in trouble

Alfred is not a therapist and this is not a service for a crisis. If you need immediate assistance in the United States, call 911 for all emergencies, or call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, at any hour. Outside the US, call your local emergency number. If you need help with a non-urgent medical, mental, or emotional problem, please speak with a licensed health care professional.

Last updated 5 October 2026.