Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

ColdWallets.ca ("we", "us", "our") is a Canadian publication operated by Dan Carlson. For any privacy-related enquiry, contact privacy@coldwallets.ca.

2. Information we collect

a. Automatically collected

• Analytics data via Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Vercel Analytics: page views, referrer, approximate location (city-level), device type, browser, session duration.
• Server logs: IP address, request time, HTTP status, and user agent. Kept for a maximum of 30 days for security and abuse-prevention purposes.
• Cookies: strictly necessary session cookies (e.g. authentication via Clerk if you sign in) and analytics cookies (GA4).

b. Information you provide

• Your email address if you subscribe to our newsletter or download our PDF guides.
• Your name and email if you contact us via the contact form.
• Account information (name, email) if you create an account through Clerk to access premium content.

3. Why we collect it (legal bases)

Under PIPEDA and GDPR, we rely on the following bases:

• Consent — for newsletter subscription, PDF downloads, and non-essential cookies. You can withdraw at any time.
• Legitimate interest — for basic analytics (understanding which content is useful) and security logging. This is balanced against your privacy interests.
• Contract — where you sign up for a paid or account-gated service, we process what is necessary to provide it.

4. Affiliate links, cookies, and tracking

Many outbound links on the Site are affiliate links (see our Affiliate Disclosure). When you click one, the destination merchant may place a tracking cookie on your device to attribute a purchase back to us. That tracking is governed by the merchant's own privacy policy, not ours.

We do not receive any personal information about you from these merchants — only aggregate commission payouts.

5. Third-party service providers

We share limited data with the following processors, each bound by their own privacy commitments:

• Vercel — hosting and CDN. Processes server logs.
• Google Analytics 4 — analytics. IP addresses are anonymized before storage.
• Clerk — authentication, if you create an account.
• Newsletter provider (Beehiiv / ConvertKit / equivalent) — email delivery. Your subscription is confirmed via double opt-in per CASL.

6. Your rights

Depending on your jurisdiction, you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you.
• Correct inaccurate personal information.
• Request deletion ("right to be forgotten" under GDPR; equivalent right to withdrawal of consent under PIPEDA).
• Object to processing based on legitimate interest.
• Data portability — receive your data in a machine-readable format.
• Withdraw consent for any consent-based processing at any time.
• Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority — the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (Canadians), your national DPA (EU), or the California Attorney General (California residents).

Send any request to privacy@coldwallets.ca. We respond within 30 days.

7. Cookies and how to control them

You can block or delete cookies at any time via your browser settings. Blocking strictly necessary cookies may break sign-in and certain interactive features. Blocking analytics cookies removes our ability to measure content performance but does not affect your ability to read the Site.

8. Children

This Site is not intended for anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has submitted information, contact us and we will delete it.

9. Data retention

• Newsletter subscribers: retained until you unsubscribe, then archived for one year for compliance.
• Contact form submissions: retained for 24 months.
• Server logs: 30 days.
• Google Analytics data: 14 months.

10. International data transfers

Some of our processors (Google, Vercel) are located in the United States. Where we transfer personal data of EU residents to the U.S., we rely on the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses.

11. Security

We implement reasonable technical and organizational safeguards including TLS everywhere, encrypted database connections, and least-privilege access controls. No security is perfect — if we become aware of a breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you and the appropriate regulator without undue delay.

12. Changes to this policy

Material changes will be announced with a banner on the Site for at least 14 days and a new effective date. Continued use after the new effective date constitutes acceptance.

13. Contact

Privacy contact: privacy@coldwallets.ca. General contact: hello@coldwallets.ca.