The short version: I collect very little, store it carefully, and never sell it. The long version follows.
Last updated: March 4, 2026
This is a personal portfolio and blog at anishshobithps.com. There's no newsletter. The site has a guestbook that requires signing in via Clerk (GitHub, Google, or email) to leave a message or like an entry. Everything else — blog posts, projects, resume — is fully public and requires no account.
When you visit a blog post, a hashed version of your IP address is stored alongside the post slug to count unique reads. The hash is one-way (SHA-256 with a server-side salt) — your actual IP is never stored and cannot be reverse-engineered from it.
If you click one of the reaction buttons on a blog post, your choice (one of: Not for me, Meh, Liked it, Loved it) is stored with the same hashed IP + post slug pair. Reactions are fully voluntary — if you don't click anything, nothing is stored.
If you sign in and leave a guestbook message, the following is stored in our database: your Clerk user ID, your message text, and a timestamp. If you like an entry, your Clerk user ID and the entry ID are stored. Your name, username, and profile picture are fetched live from Clerk when rendering the guestbook — they are not stored in our database. Both actions are fully voluntary — if you don't sign in, nothing is stored.
No browser fingerprinting. No tracking pixels. No third-party ad networks. No email addresses or passwords are stored in this site's own database — authentication is fully delegated to Clerk (see Third-party services below). If you never sign in to the guestbook, no personally identifiable information about you is stored anywhere by this site.
Read counts and reactions are stored in a PostgreSQL database hosted on Neon. These records contain no personal information — only post slugs, IP hashes, moods, and timestamps.
Guestbook entries and likes are stored in the same Neon PostgreSQL database. These records contain your Clerk user ID, message text, and timestamps. Your Clerk user ID is an opaque identifier assigned by Clerk — it is not your email, name, or any human-readable detail. Your profile information (name, username, avatar) is stored and managed by Clerk, not in our database.
This site uses Umami Analytics — a privacy-focused, open-source analytics tool hosted on Umami Cloud. Umami does not use cookies, does not collect personal data, and complies with GDPR, CCPA, and PECR. Only anonymized, aggregated page view data is recorded — no IP addresses, no fingerprinting, no cross-site tracking.
The footer displays what I'm currently listening to (or last listened to) via the Spotify Web API. This is a read-only, server-side call using my own account credentials — no data about you is sent to Spotify. The currently playing track is cached for 60 seconds on the server; no Spotify data is stored in the database.
Sign-in for the guestbook is handled by Clerk. When you sign in, Clerk collects and stores your name, email address, username, and profile picture depending on the OAuth provider you use (GitHub, Google, etc.). This data is stored on Clerk's infrastructure and is subject to Clerk's Privacy Policy. This site only stores the opaque Clerk user ID in its own database. Clerk uses session cookies to maintain your signed-in state — these are set only when you sign in to the guestbook.
This site uses Google Fonts (loaded via CSS, subject to Google's Privacy Policy). The resume is fetched from a GitHub Releases URL. Neither integration passes any data about you back to this site.
If you have never signed in to the guestbook, the only data stored is an irreversible IP hash — there is no practical way to identify or retrieve those records.
If you have signed in and left a guestbook message or liked an entry, you can request deletion of your guestbook data by emailing anish.shobith19@gmail.com. To delete your Clerk account and the profile data Clerk holds (name, email, avatar), you can do so directly through the guestbook sign-in page or by contacting me at the email above. Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have rights to access, correct, or erase your personal data under laws such as GDPR (EU) or CCPA (California).
If anything meaningful changes (like adding analytics), this page will be updated and the “Last updated” date will reflect it. No surprise privacy pivots here.
listening to Without You (feat. Sandro Cavazza)