What is recorded, what is not, and why. Written to be read rather than to satisfy a lawyer.
Last changed 29 August 2026
The short version
No cookie is set. No identifier is stored in anybody's browser. No profile is built. Nothing follows a reader from one site to another.
We record which advertisement appeared on which site, in which slot, on what subject, whether it was actually scrolled into view, and whether it was clicked. That is the whole of it.
Advertisers are shown where their advertisement ran and how often. They are never shown anything about a person, because nothing about a person exists to show them.
Readers
| Recorded | Why |
|---|---|
| the site's domain | so the publisher is paid for it |
| which advertisement | so the advertiser is billed for it |
| which slot, and the page's subject | to know which placements work |
| whether it was scrolled into view | an advertisement nobody saw is not billed |
| whether it was clicked | so the advertiser is told the truth about it |
Any request to any server on the internet carries the address it came from and the browser making it. Ours receives those, as every server does. They are not written to any record and are not kept.
Advertisers cannot buy any of the above from us, because none of it exists.
A video advertisement is a still picture and a play button until you press it. Nothing ever plays on its own and nothing makes a sound until pressed. Forty-five seconds at most.
Almost all of them are held by us and served from adhotbox.com. No third party is involved at any point, before or after you press play — no cookie is set, nothing is reported anywhere, and there are no suggested videos at the end.
A small number of advertisers send a YouTube link instead. Those still load nothing until you press, and the player is YouTube's no-cookie one — but from the moment you press, you are watching a YouTube video with everything that ordinarily means. That is your choice, made by pressing.
Every image in an advertisement is uploaded to us and served from adhotbox.com. Advertisers are not permitted to host their own. An image loaded from an advertiser's server would hand them your address and the page you were on — a tracking pixel, whether or not anybody intended one. That is why the option does not exist here.
Publishers
We hold what you gave us: your name, your email, your telephone if you supplied one, your site's address, its subject, where its readers are, and your own estimate of how many there are.
We hold the record of what ran on your site and what it earned, so you can be paid and so the figures can be checked.
The WordPress plugin stores your publisher key in your own site's database and sends nothing from your server. Everything else happens in a reader's browser, as described above.
Ask and we will tell you everything we hold about you. Ask and we will delete it, other than what an accountant requires us to keep.
Advertisers
We hold your business name, contact name, email, telephone, website, and what you told us you sell and where.
Your report shows which sites carried the advertisement, how many times it was seen and how many people clicked. It will never show you who they were, and we cannot provide that at any price.
The rest
On Cloudflare's network. Records are kept while a placement runs and for a reasonable period afterwards so that accounts can be settled and disputed.
Nobody. There are no analytics companies, no data brokers, no advertising exchanges and no third-party networks anywhere in this. That is not a promise about intentions — it is a description of how the thing is built, and it is why there is no third-party script on any page.
This is a service for businesses. It is not directed at children and collects nothing from anyone knowingly.
The date at the top changes with it, and what changed is written here rather than quietly replaced.
Write to [ email ] or AdHotBox, [ address ]. A person answers.