The short version
Your answers stay in your browser until you delete them. They are not sent to our server. Share links carry your results inside the URL, so anyone with the link can read them. Analytics is cookieless and aggregate. No account, no sign-up. The only cookies that can appear come from Google ads, and only when ads are switched on.
Where your answers live
Every result you produce (height, reaction time, income and so on) is saved to localStorage in your browser, under the key curiosity-user-profile. It also holds your chosen country, gender and language. This is how the site remembers you between visits and builds your card without an account.
localStorage is not temporary. It survives closing the tab and restarting the browser. It stays until you delete it, clear your browser data, or use the button at the bottom of this page. Anyone else who uses the same browser profile on this device can see those results.
Two smaller items: howrare-premium in localStorage remembers whether the watermark-free card has been unlocked, and curiosity-geo-detected in sessionStorage stops the site from guessing your country more than once per tab. Neither contains your answers.
What reaches the server
Percentiles are calculated in JavaScript in your browser. The reference data (means, standard deviations, country tables) is shipped as static files. Your inputs are not posted anywhere. There are four exceptions, listed in full:
- Country guess. On first load the browser asks our server for a two-letter country code. On our host the code comes from a header the host attaches based on your IP address. The server returns the code and keeps nothing. If the header is missing it asks ip-api.com with no information about you attached. You can override the country at any time.
- Name lookup. The Name Popularity module sends the name you type and an optional birth year to our server to look them up in a static table. The server does not store them.
- Share images. When you share a card or a result, the image is rendered on the server from the values encoded in the link. Nothing is saved; the same link always re-renders the same image.
- Hosting logs. Like every web host, ours keeps standard request logs (IP address, URL, time) for a limited period for security and debugging. We do not join these to anything else.
The voice module records audio in the browser and analyses it there. Audio is never uploaded.
Share links
A share link (for a card, a single result, or a Versus comparison) encodes your percentiles as a short string in the URL itself. No database holds it. That means anyone who has the link can decode the values in it, including a messaging app that generates previews. Results from the more personal modules (BMI, income, penis size, political position) are left out of links unless you add them yourself. Only send a link you are comfortable with someone reading in full.
Cookies
The site itself sets no cookies. Not for analytics, not for sessions. The one exception is Google AdSense, when ads are switched on; see “Ads and affiliate links” below.
Analytics
We use Plausible Analytics. It uses no cookies, does not fingerprint your browser, and does not follow you to other sites. It counts page views, referrers and countries in aggregate. The script only loads on the production site. Plausible publishes its own data policy at plausible.io/data-policy.
Ads and affiliate links
When ads are switched on, the site shows a small number of units from Google AdSense, each marked “Advertisement”. Google may set cookies and use identifiers to pick and measure ads; how that works, and how to opt out, is described in Google’s advertising policy. When ads are off, no Google script loads and the cookie statement above holds in full. Some result pages also list a few pieces of gear under “Gear that fits this result”. Those are Amazon affiliate links: if you buy, the site earns a small commission at no extra cost to you. They are chosen by hand to match the result, not by what pays best.
Your rights (GDPR and similar)
We hold no personal data about you on our side, so there is nothing for us to look up, correct or export. Everything the site knows about you is in your own browser, and the button below removes it. If you think something here is wrong, write to hello@howrare.me.
Delete my data
This clears every result and setting the site has stored in this browser. It takes effect immediately and cannot be undone. Other devices and browsers are not affected, because nothing was synced between them in the first place.
Related
How the percentiles are computed and where the data comes from is on the methodology page. Who runs the site is on the about page.