Privacy and copyright
Privacy and copyright.
What happens to your data when you read Bellwether, and who owns what you find here.
In short
Bellwether asks you for nothing and stores nothing about you. There are no forms to fill in, no registration, no cookies. No advertising, no ad profile, no sharing of data with third parties for commercial purposes.
The only thing we measure is how many people read, in aggregate and anonymously, to understand which articles land.
If you are short of time, you have already read the part that matters. The details are below.
Who processes the data
The data controller is Vittorio Maria Ferretti, author and publisher of Bellwether.
For any question: hello@bellwetherdesk.com
What data we collect
No personal data collected directly. There are no contact forms, no newsletter, no member area. We do not ask for your email, your name or anything else.
If you write to us by email, we will process your address and the content of your message for the sole purpose of replying.
Readership statistics
We use Vercel Web Analytics to count visits. It works differently from the more common analytics tools:
- it sets no cookies on your device
- it creates no identifier that follows you between sites or between visits
- it collects only aggregate data: page visited, general traffic source, device type, country
- it does not allow any individual to be identified
That is why this site has no cookie banner: there is no need for one, because there are no cookies to consent to.
The service is provided by Vercel Inc., acting as data processor.
Technical logs and hosting
The site is hosted by Vercel Inc., based in the United States. Like any web server, its systems automatically record technical connection data — IP address, browser type, date and time of the request — needed to run the site and protect it from abuse. These logs are kept for a limited period and are not used to profile visitors.
The transfer of this technical data to the United States takes place under the safeguards provided by European law.
No external resources
Bellwether's pages load nothing from third-party servers. The typefaces are hosted directly on this domain and are not requested from Google: when you open a page, your browser contacts no service outside this site's own infrastructure.
Your rights
The European General Data Protection Regulation gives you the right to access your data, correct it, request its deletion, restrict its processing, object, and lodge a complaint with your national supervisory authority.
Since we collect no data that identifies you, in practice there is almost nothing to exercise them on — but if you have a doubt, write to us and we will answer.
If advertising arrives one day
We are considering introducing advertising on the site. If and when that happens, this page will be rewritten first, and a cookie consent banner will appear: advertising networks use profiling cookies, which require your prior consent. Until you read that change here, what is written above is what actually happens.
Copyright
The text of Bellwether is the original work of Vittorio Maria Ferretti and is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Articles, analyses, headlines, standfirsts and translations may not be copied, republished, redistributed or reproduced — in whole or in part, on websites, blogs, social networks, newsletters, print publications or any other medium — without written permission.
This applies to automated reproduction too: copying an article and republishing it elsewhere is an infringement, even if the source is credited, even if the text is partly rewritten or translated into another language.
What is permitted, without asking: quoting a short extract in order to comment on it or criticise it, clearly naming the author and including a working link to the original page. That is the ordinary right of quotation, and it is exactly how we like to be read and picked up.
Photographs are a separate matter. They do not belong to Bellwether: they are the work of their respective authors and each is published under its own licence, stated at the foot of every article in the "Image credits" section. Some are public domain, others are distributed under Creative Commons licences that allow reuse on certain conditions. Anyone wishing to reuse them must comply with that individual image's licence, not ask us.
If you find Bellwether content republished without permission, tell us: hello@bellwetherdesk.com
Changes
This page may be updated. The version you are reading is the one in force.
Last updated: 14 September 2026.