What this site measures
Google Analytics 4 runs on https://hardikshah.cloud and nowhere else. Local development and Netlify preview builds skip it, because the analytics module only initialises when the site URL matches the production domain.
GA4 records page views and a few interaction events: outbound link clicks, button clicks, scroll depth, and contact-form submissions. Google receives your IP address to resolve an approximate location, then discards it. There are no accounts on this site, so nothing is tied to a name unless you type one into the contact form yourself.
Blocking the GA script with an ad blocker, a privacy browser, or Google's own opt-out add-on costs you nothing. Every page still works.
The contact form
The form takes a name, an email address, a subject, and a message. A Netlify function relays it over SMTP to my inbox and sends you an acknowledgement at the address you gave. There is no database and no CRM behind it, so the only copy that exists is the email.
I use that address to reply to you. I do not add it to a mailing list and I do not pass it to anyone else.
The newsletter
Subscribing sends me your email address and sends you a confirmation. Same pipeline as the contact form: a Netlify function, SMTP, and my inbox. No third-party list provider holds the address.
Reply to any message and ask to be removed, and you are removed.
What your browser stores
One item: your light or dark theme choice, kept in localStorage under the key `portfolio-theme` so the site does not flash the wrong theme on your next visit. It stays on your device and is never sent anywhere. Clearing site data removes it.
The site sets no cookies of its own. Google Analytics sets its own cookies when it is not blocked.
Third-party content
The About page embeds a LinkedIn profile badge, which loads a script from LinkedIn. LinkedIn sees that request and applies its own privacy policy to it. That badge is the only third-party embed on the site, and it is not loaded on any other page.
Certification badges on the Certifications page are images served from this domain; only the verification links point to Credly. Fonts are bundled at build time and served from this domain, so no font request reaches Google.
Netlify hosts the site and keeps standard web-server logs of requests, including IP addresses, under its own retention policy.
What does not happen here
No advertising, no ad networks, no retargeting pixels, no fingerprinting scripts, no session recording, no heatmaps. Nothing collected here is sold, rented, or shared for marketing. There is no cookie wall, because there is nothing behind one.
One page carries an affiliate link, and it is disclosed in the body of that post. Clicking it hands you off to the vendor, who then applies their own tracking and their own policy.
How long anything is kept
Google Analytics holds event data for its 14-month retention window and then deletes it. Contact and newsletter emails sit in my inbox until I clear them out, which for anything older than two years happens during periodic cleanups.
There is no other store. The site is a static export with no server-side database.
Asking for your data back or gone
Email mailtohardiks@gmail.com and say what you want: a copy of what I hold, a correction, or deletion. Expect a reply within a week and the action done within 30 days.
Analytics data cannot be traced back to you individually, so there is nothing personal to extract from it. What I can delete is any email correspondence and your newsletter address.
Changes to this page
Last updated 9 September 2026. If the site starts using a tool that collects something new, this page changes in the same commit, and the date above moves.
Last updated · 9 September 2026 · Questions to mailtohardiks@gmail.com