This page explains optional usage analytics on matthewfeil.com. Your choice never affects access to the site’s public tools.

Your choice

Google Analytics loads only after you select Yes in the analytics notice. Selecting No, or leaving the notice unanswered, keeps it off. Your choice is saved in your browser for 180 days, after which the site asks again. If browser storage is unavailable, your choice lasts only for the current page.

Use Analytics preferences in the footer to change your choice. In Transcribe, the control is in the shortcuts sidebar; in Chicago ‘L’ Live Art, it is at the bottom of the screen. Withdrawal stops further collection and deletes this site’s accessible Google Analytics cookies. It does not delete information already collected by Google.

The site also honors browser Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals by keeping analytics off.

Analytics preferences remain available on pages that do not collect analytics and in local development previews. Changing your choice there applies to public pages where analytics is enabled; it does not enable collection on excluded pages or in development previews.

What analytics collects

With your permission, Google Analytics 4 measures page visits, basic engagement, deep scrolling, and clicks on external links. Information may include the page path, referring page, external link URL, browser and device details, approximate location, and timestamps. Page and referrer URLs sent by the site’s initial configuration omit query strings and fragments.

Analytics also records clicks on shared navigation, homepage project and post links, and My Work cards, along with use of the navigation menu and changes to theme and keyboard navigation. These events use fixed destination names and settings, without sending link text, query strings, or fragments.

Analytics also records fixed tool names and feature actions, successful calculations and processing, config exports, and general error categories on public tool pages. Feature use is counted once per feature per page visit; completed operations can be counted more than once. Actions before consent are not saved for later collection.

For Transcribe, this includes repeated playback, seeking, looping and passage selection; committed sound, detection, and EQ edits; marker actions and undo/redo; controls and shortcuts opened or closed; audio and config loads; config exports; and stem requests, cancellation, and mix toggles. These events use fixed action labels and do not include audio, filenames, marker positions or labels, detected notes or chords, or numeric settings. Automatic playback changes and session restoration do not count as detailed user interactions.

For the finals grade calculator, this includes settings opened, dismissed, saved, or reset; rounding enabled or disabled; completed calculations and final-score previews; cleared inputs; and fixed validation-error categories. These events do not include entered grades, final scores, grade-scale cutoffs, rounding amounts, final weights, or calculated results.

For the investment calculator, this includes switches between stock and interest views, committed field edits or clears, growth-type choices, calculation requests and completions, opening or closing details, and fixed validation or data-error categories. Interest completions distinguish simple or compound growth and historical calculations or future projections. These events do not include tickers, amounts, dates, interest rates, or calculated values.

Reports help me understand which pages people use and where the site could improve. I do not send your name, email address, local audio, uploaded filenames, calculator inputs, or private tracker contents to analytics. The Personal Space dashboard, portfolio and lifting trackers, Birds page, and this privacy page do not load the Google Analytics tag, even if you have accepted analytics elsewhere.

The data is not fully anonymous. Google Analytics uses cookies with pseudonymous identifiers to distinguish browsers and sessions. Reports commonly show grouped statistics, but the underlying identifiers can link visits from the same browser. This site does not use advertising personalization or Google Signals in its analytics tag.

Cookies and retention

After acceptance, Google Analytics can set first-party cookies such as _ga and _ga_DSJ82YWBSZ. The site’s tag limits their lifetime to 180 days without automatically extending it on each visit. The consent preference itself is stored locally in your browser.

Google processes the analytics data. User-level and event-level retention is controlled by the GA4 property’s settings; standard GA4 supports two or fourteen months. Aggregated standard reports can remain available longer. See Google’s retention explanation.

For more information, see how Google uses information from sites that use its services, Google’s Privacy Policy, and Google Analytics cookie information. Google and its service providers may process information internationally.

Other site services

This analytics choice controls Google Analytics. It does not disable the site’s necessary hosting, saved display preferences, or services you choose to use. Transcribe processes audio locally in your browser. Signing in to Personal Space uses authentication and the backend services needed for its dashboard and trackers. External links and embedded services have their own privacy practices.