Privacy Policy
Effective date: October 20, 2026. Last updated: October 20, 2026.
The short version
- You can read everything on Founded & Forward without giving us any personal information.
- We have no ads, no advertising trackers, and no accounts or log-ins, and we don't use tracking cookies.
- We don't sell or rent personal information, and we don't share it for advertising.
- The only personal information we ask for is through our Ask a Question form. Your name and email address are optional there.
Who we are
Founded & Forward (foundedandforward.com) is an independent educational website about America's founding. It is intended for teens and adults and is not directed to children under 13. To contact us about privacy, email [email protected].
What we collect, and why
When you read the site. Our pages are hosted by Cloudflare. Like any web host, Cloudflare's systems receive standard technical information when your browser loads a page. This includes your IP address, browser type and the page you asked for. Cloudflare uses it to deliver the site and protect it from attacks. We don't use this information to identify you, and we don't run analytics on our site right now. If we add analytics later, we'll update this page first.
When you send a question. The form asks for: - Your question (required) - The type of message, such as "Question for an article" or "Privacy request" (required) - Your birth month and year (required). We use it only to check eligibility at the moment you send the form. We don't store it. We keep only a yes/no note that the check passed. - A first name or nickname (optional) - An email address (optional, and only if you'd like a reply)
We also record the date and time you sent it. Our own database does not store your IP address. Please don't put personal details like your full name, address, school or phone number in your question.
We use what you send only to: - read and sort the questions - decide which ones to answer - reply to you if you gave an email address - handle privacy and correction requests
Spam protection (Cloudflare Turnstile). The form uses Cloudflare Turnstile to check that a real person is sending it. To do that, Turnstile processes technical signals from your browser, such as your IP address, a TLS fingerprint, your browser's "user agent" and which website you're on. Cloudflare says it uses these signals to tell people from bots, not to identify, profile or target individuals. It processes them on our behalf to protect our form. Cloudflare also says it uses the same signals for its own purpose of improving Turnstile's bot detection. For that use, Cloudflare's own Turnstile Privacy Addendum and privacy policy apply.
How questions are answered in public
We answer some questions in articles on this site. When we do, we publish the question without your name, nickname or email address. We may also trim or reword it so it can't identify you. A software assistant helps us sort incoming questions and suggest which ones to answer. A person reviews and approves every question before anything is published or sent. Software is never the final decision-maker.
Who we share it with
We don't sell personal information. We don't share it for advertising.
Cloudflare hosts the site, stores the form submissions, and runs the spam check. Cloudflare handles that data to provide those services for us under its Data Processing Addendum, which is part of our service agreement with Cloudflare. The exception is the Turnstile improvement use described above, where Cloudflare acts on its own behalf.
We'll share information only if the law requires it, such as a valid court order. We'll also share it if it's needed to protect someone's safety or to protect the site from abuse.
How long we keep it
- Questions we don't choose to answer: deleted 6 months after we receive them.
- Email addresses: deleted within 30 days after we reply. If we decide not to reply, we delete it when we delete the question.
- Questions we answer in an article: we keep the question text, without your name or email, for as long as the article is published.
- Privacy and correction requests: kept for up to 12 months so we can show we handled them, then deleted.
These deletions run automatically once a day.
Children under 13
Founded & Forward is intended for teens and adults. It is not directed to children under 13, and our question form is not meant for them. If the birth date entered shows someone is under 13, the form won't accept the message, and we store nothing from it. We set a temporary cookie in that browser for one day so the answer can't simply be changed. The cookie holds no personal information. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that a child under 13 sent us personal information, we'll delete it promptly. We won't use it for anything else. If you're a parent or guardian and think your child sent us something, email us at the address above. Tell us roughly when it was sent and what it said, and we'll delete it.
Your choices and rights
No matter where you live, you can ask us to: - see what we have from you - correct it - delete it, including a question you sent
To ask, email us at the address above or use the form and choose "Privacy request." We may ask for a detail from your message so we can find it and make sure it's yours. We'll respond within 30 days, and we don't charge for this.
If you're in the European Union or United Kingdom: we rely on your consent to handle what you send through the form, and on our legitimate interest in keeping the site secure. You can withdraw consent at any time by asking us to delete your submission. You also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.
Security
- The site is served only over encrypted connections (HTTPS).
- Only the site owner can get into the question database.
- The spam-check secret key is stored encrypted, not in our code.
- We collect as little as we can, and we delete it on the schedule above.
No system is perfectly secure, so we can't promise that information will never be accessed without permission. We do work to protect it.
If something goes wrong
If we learn that someone got into personal information we hold without permission, we'll investigate right away and fix the problem. We'll tell affected people by email (when we have an address) and post a notice on this site as quickly as we reasonably can. We'll also notify anyone the law requires us to.
"Do Not Track" and other sites
Browsers can send a "Do Not Track" signal. We don't track visitors over time or across other websites, so we treat every visitor the same way whether or not that signal is on. We don't let advertisers or other companies collect information about your activity across websites through our site. Cloudflare's processing, described above, is the only third-party processing on our site.
Emails from us
If you give us your email address, we'll use it only to answer your question. We won't add you to a mailing list or send you marketing.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we'll post the new version here and update the "Last updated" date. If a change would affect information you already sent us, we'll post a clear notice on the site before the change takes effect. We won't use what you sent in a new way without asking you first.
Contact
Email: [email protected]. You can also use the Ask a Question form and choose "Privacy request."
This policy explains how this site handles information. It isn't legal advice.