Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 8, 2026

Who we are

Konsensus.net is run by Konsensus Network OÜ (registry code 14645829, VAT EE102492697), Sakala tn 7-2, 10141 Tallinn, Estonia, which is the controller of your data for everything you buy here — printed books, ebooks, bookmatic, and consultations. Contact: hello@konsensus.net.

No tracking, no cookie banner

We don't use tracking or advertising cookies, so there's no consent banner. Our visitor statistics are cookieless, aggregate (page views, rough location, device type), and don't identify you; they expire after about 90 days, the fixed three-month retention of the analytics store we use. The only cookies that can appear are strictly necessary security tokens set by our hosting provider to block bots and attacks — they hold no tracking data and expire 30 minutes after your last request. If you sign in to the partner dashboard, we also set a strictly-necessary session cookie, psid, to keep you logged in; it lasts 30 days. If you put a book in your basket, we set strictly-necessary cookies holding that basket — kn_basket and kn_basket_items — which is what lets the basket work without JavaScript and survive to checkout, and they last 30 days. At checkout, two more short-lived, strictly-necessary cookies carry you through the payment hand-off: kn_pay holds the link to your payment page and expires within 30 minutes, and kn_form holds the delivery details you just typed so a rejected checkout doesn't make you retype them, and expires within 15 minutes; neither is readable by any script and neither is used for tracking. Two preference cookies remember choices you make in the shop. kn_shipto holds your delivery country as a two-letter code, set from your approximate location or when you pick a country, so the shop shows the books we can send you. kn_lang holds the site language you picked. Each lasts one year and holds nothing else. kn_shelf holds the shop page you last browsed — its search, filters and sort — so the basket can take you back to it; it ends when you close your browser and holds nothing else. If you arrive through a partner's link, kn_ref holds that partner's code and the time you arrived, so the partner's discount applies and the partner is credited for your order; the shop keeps the same in your browser's own storage (partner_ref_v1). Both are first-party, last 30 days and hold nothing else. No tracking, no profiling.

Your basket, reading list, and preferences (currency, region, language, theme, and any address you enter) are stored in your own browser to keep the site working and stay on your device. Clear them at any time in your browser settings.

What we collect when you order

To fulfill an order, we collect your name and delivery address (for physical books) and, for receipts and tracking, your email. You may also give us a phone number; it's optional except for a France pickup-point order, and we use it only for delivery updates or, for a pickup point, to text you the collection code. For ebooks, an email is optional — without one, you simply get an on-page download link. We also keep the order details (items, amount, reference). Card payments are handled on our payment provider's secure page; we never see or store card numbers.

If you join the partner program

If you sign up as a partner, we process your email (to sign you in with a one-time code and to identify your account) and your commission records (orders placed with your code, what you've earned, and what we've paid). These are held in our partner ledger with the sensitive fields encrypted; the legal basis is our agreement with you (contract). Sign-in codes are short-lived. Payouts are made through our bitcoin payment provider — we don't ask for or store bank details. We keep partner records while your account is active and for as long as our tax and accounting duties require, then delete or anonymize them, and we never sell this data. The rights and contact details above apply equally here.

If you are one of our authors

If you have an author account, we process your email (to sign you in with a one-time code and identify your account), the bio and profile photo you choose to add to your public page (a photo is moderated before it appears), and your royalty records (sales attributed to your books, what you've earned, and what we've paid) — held in our royalty ledger with the sensitive fields encrypted; the legal basis is our agreement with you (contract). When you request a payout, you give us a bitcoin payout address; we don't ask for or store bank details. Signing in sets a strictly-necessary session cookie, asid, which lasts 30 days. We keep author records while your account is active and for as long as our tax and accounting duties require, then delete or anonymize them, and we never sell this data. The rights and contact details above apply equally here.

Who we share it with

We pass your data only to the providers that help us run the shop, and only as far as each needs to do its job:

• Cloudflare hosts the site, stores orders, applications and files, and blocks bots.
• Stripe takes card payments. Bitcoin payments run on our own BTCPay Server.
• Zaprite carries the payment links for orders we arrange with you directly.
• Resend delivers our order and account emails.
• Google (Gmail and Drive) holds our shop mailbox and the copies of application files described in Applications and submissions.
• Anthropic runs the AI reading described in What an AI model reads.
• Our warehouses receive your name, address, phone number (if you gave one) and order to post your books: Copiaro (Germany), La Ruche Logistique (France), Madeira Bookshop (Portugal), and our dispatch partners in Finland and the United States.

Some of them are outside the EU (e.g., the USA), where we rely on the safeguards EU law requires (such as Standard Contractual Clauses). We never sell or rent your data, and we don't profile you or make automated decisions about you. Our newsletter runs on Substack, which stores the email address you sign up with as our processor and handles the unsubscribe link in every issue.

What an AI model reads

We use Anthropic's Claude models, through Anthropic's API, for three jobs. When you email our shop inbox, a model reads the sender, the subject and the first part of your message to sort it: a warehouse's shipping notice, a customer question, a newsletter reply or something else. A person answers every customer email. When a warehouse tells us your parcel has left, a model reads that notice, which carries your email address and tracking number, to match it to your order and send you the tracking link. When you apply to publish with us, a model reads your pitch and up to about 24,000 characters of the manuscript you upload, never your name or email, and writes reading notes on the work for our editors. A person makes every decision. We keep your application and its files for 365 days after we decide, and the reading notes for 180 days. Anthropic deletes API inputs and outputs within 30 days by default and does not train its models on them. We rely on our legitimate interest in answering mail and, for an application, on the steps you asked us to take.

Applications and submissions

When you apply to publish with us, we keep your name and email, your answers about the book (title, genre, manuscript status, audience, goals, comparable titles and the services you want) and up to five files. A blog submission holds your name, an optional email, a note, and a link or the text you send. We use them to read your work and answer you, as the steps you asked us to take. Once you pass our bot check, a copy of any files you attach is placed in our private Google Drive workspace, and our team is emailed your answers and file names. We keep an application and its files for 365 days after we decide (or after it arrives, if we never decide); then the files, the Drive copy included, are deleted and your name and contact details are overwritten. Drive copies made before we began recording each copy against its application are deleted by hand. Reading notes on a publishing application are kept for 180 days. Write to hello@konsensus.net at any time and we remove everything sooner.

Why we're allowed to

We process your data to fulfill your order (contract), to meet our tax and accounting duties (legal obligation), to keep the site running and secure (legitimate interest), and — for the newsletter only — with your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.

How long do we keep it

We keep your full order and shipping/contact details only as long as needed for fulfilment and support, then delete or anonymise them within 30 days of shipment or settlement. We retain minimal tax and accounting records (order reference, date, amount, VAT, country — not your shipping address or phone) for seven years from the end of the financial year in which the sale was booked, as the Estonian Accounting Act requires. Our payment, shipping, and email providers keep their own records under their own legal obligations. Our encrypted database backups are kept for 30 days and then overwritten, so a record you ask us to erase can survive in a backup for up to 30 days before it is gone for good. Download links expire after 7 days. Newsletter sign-ups are kept until you unsubscribe.

Your rights

You can ask us to access, correct, delete, restrict, port, or stop processing your data, and withdraw newsletter consent, by emailing hello@konsensus.net. If you think we have got something wrong, you can also complain to a data-protection supervisory authority — for us that is the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon) — or to the authority in the EU country where you live.

Changes

We'll post any updates here with a new date.

If you work in publishing and we approach you

We keep a business-contact list of publishing professionals — authors, editors, translators, agents and publishers — whom we may approach about working together. The entries come from public professional profiles and from referrals, and hold work contact details and notes about published work, nothing private. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in reaching the people whose work our business is built on. We keep an entry for 24 months after our last contact with you, and then remove from it every detail that identifies you. Write to hello@konsensus.net to object, and we will remove you from the list and not add you again.