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Privacy Policy

Effective date: July 19, 2026 · Updated October 30, 2026 (advertising measurement)

The short version: we collect only what you type into our forms, plus the basic technical data every website receives. We never sell what you give us. We run ads on Facebook and Instagram and use the Meta Pixel to measure them, and you can turn that off (see "Advertising measurement" below).

What we collect

Santa Cruz Scene (santacruzscene.com) collects personal information only when you choose to give it to us:

  • Newsletter signup: your email address, and which page you signed up from.
  • Contact form: your name, email address, and message.
  • Event submissions: the event details you provide, plus your name and email address so we can follow up. A phone number is optional, and we only ask for it with a separate consent checkbox for calls or texts about your submission. Your contact details are never published with the event. Only event information appears on the site. If you upload a photo, we resize it, strip its location data, and delete it the day after the event ends.

Like every website, our server also receives basic technical data with each visit: your IP address, browser type, and the pages you request. We use IP addresses only for security, to rate-limit abusive traffic and to verify form submissions are human. We do not use them to identify or profile you.

What we do not do

  • We do not sell, rent, or trade the information you give us: your email address, your messages, or your event submissions. Ever.
  • We do not build profiles of individual visitors ourselves.
  • We do not show ads on this site.

Analytics

We use Plausible Analytics, a privacy-focused service, to count page views in aggregate: which pages are popular and roughly where visitors come from. Plausible does not use cookies and does not track individual people across sites. We see totals, not you.

Advertising measurement (Meta Pixel)

We advertise Santa Cruz Scene on Facebook and Instagram. To see whether those ads work, the site uses the Meta Pixel, a small piece of code from Meta Platforms. When it loads, your browser tells Meta which page of our site you visited, the page you came from, your IP address and browser details, and whether you signed up for the newsletter or submitted an event. Meta may set a cookie to recognize your browser, and may connect this to a Facebook or Instagram account you have, under Meta's privacy policy.

We set it up to send as little as it can: it does not read the text of our pages, and it never runs on our own admin pages. It does not run at all on pages about health, recovery, support groups and similar events, and those pages do not pass their address on to the next page you open. Elsewhere it does receive the address of each page you visit, and some addresses include an event's name (a recurring event's page, for example). Under California law, this can count as "sharing" personal information for advertising.

You can turn it off:

  • Global Privacy Control: if your browser sends this signal (Brave, DuckDuckGo, and others with it switched on), the Meta Pixel never loads. No need to ask.
  • On this browser: use the button below. Your choice is saved in this browser only.
  • With Meta: your Facebook ad preferences control how Meta uses this data for the ads you see.

Ad measurement is on for this browser.

Service providers

A small number of services help us run the site. They process data on our behalf and under their own privacy policies:

  • Render hosts the site and its database (servers in the United States).
  • Resend delivers our email, including the newsletter and replies to your messages.
  • Plausible provides the aggregate analytics described above.
  • Meta (Facebook and Instagram) receives the advertising measurement data described above, under its own privacy policy, unless you have turned it off.
  • Cloudflare may verify that form submissions come from a human when our bot check is active.
  • Some page assets load from a content delivery network, which receives the standard technical data of any web request.

How we use your information

  • To send the newsletter you signed up for.
  • To reply to your messages and questions.
  • To review and publish events you submit, and to reach you if we have a question about your submission.
  • To keep the site secure and working.
  • To measure whether our ads on Facebook and Instagram bring people to the site (see "Advertising measurement").

How long we keep it

We keep newsletter addresses until you unsubscribe. Contact messages and event submissions are kept as part of our records of the site's operation. You can ask us to delete any of it at any time (see below).

Your choices and rights

  • Unsubscribe: every newsletter includes an unsubscribe link. One click and you are out.
  • Access, correction, deletion: email us at [email protected] and we will tell you what we have about you, fix it, or delete it. We aim to respond within 30 days.
  • California residents: you may request the categories of personal information we have collected, ask for its deletion, and opt out of the sharing described in "Advertising measurement" (Global Privacy Control or the button there does it). You will never be discriminated against for exercising these rights.

Do Not Track

Some browsers send an older "Do Not Track" signal, which never gained an agreed meaning, so the site does not act on it. We honor Global Privacy Control instead, which turns off the Meta Pixel (see "Advertising measurement").

Children

Santa Cruz Scene is a general-audience events calendar. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has submitted information to us, contact us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

If our practices change, we will update this page and the effective date at the top. Meaningful changes will also be mentioned in the newsletter.

Contact us

Questions about this policy or your data: [email protected]

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