Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

BlinkThorLabs is run by BlinkThor Team, Saigon Hi-Tech Park Area, Tang Nhon Phu Ward, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We are responsible for the personal data described here. For anything about your data, write to contact@blinkthor.com.

The site exists to share engineering knowledge. It does not sell anything, carries no advertising and does not trade or sell personal data.

2. What we collect, and why

You can read every public article without giving us anything. We only receive personal data when you choose to send it:

• Reader account — your email address and a password, which is stored only as a secure hash. Used to sign you in and to give you access to member material and the site assistant.
• Contact form — your name, email, optional company, the area and way of working you pick, and your message. Used only to reply to you and to discuss the work you asked about.
• Newsletter — your email address and the date you subscribed. Used only to tell you about new technical notes.
• Product access — when you open a product dossier with an access code or request access through our team's authenticator: the name you enter, which products you asked for, the times of your viewing session, a one-way hash of your IP address (not the address itself) and your browser's user-agent. Used to grant and end access, to prevent misuse and to keep a security record. While you view a dossier, the name on the access (yours, or the label we gave your code), the code's last characters and the time are shown as a watermark on the screen, so a leaked recording can be traced.
• Site assistant — the questions you type. See The site assistant below.

Our web server, like every web server, briefly records technical request data (such as IP address, time and page requested) to deliver pages, stop abuse and fix faults. We do not use it to profile anyone.

We do not collect sensitive personal data, and the site is not meant for children. We do not make automated decisions about you or build profiles.

3. Your choice and our reasons

Each form tells you what it is for, and sending it is your choice. We process the data because you asked us to (to create your account, answer your message, send the newsletter or open a product dossier), because we need it to keep the site and the restricted material secure, or because the law requires it. We never use your data for a purpose you were not told about.

You can withdraw at any time — unsubscribe, ask us to delete your account or your message — by writing to contact@blinkthor.com. Withdrawing does not affect what was done before.

4. Cookies and browser storage

We use no advertising, analytics or tracking cookies. The only cookies are the ones that make a feature you use work:

• reader_token — keeps you signed in to your reader account (up to 30 days, or until you sign out).
• product_access — keeps an unlocked product dossier open for the viewing time the code allows, then expires.
• payload-token — only for our own team when signed in to the content admin.

We also keep a few small settings in your own browser (local and session storage). They never leave your device: your light or dark theme choice, whether you have already seen or closed the contact pop-up and the opening intro, and your recent conversation with the site assistant so it survives a page change. Clearing your browser data removes them.

If an article embeds a video from YouTube, Vimeo or Google Drive, that player is provided by the video service and follows its own privacy policy. YouTube videos are embedded in its privacy-enhanced mode.

5. The site assistant

The assistant is available to signed-in readers. In its quick mode it answers from the site's own content and nothing leaves our server. When AI answers are switched on, your question and the short conversation so far are sent to the AI provider we use to generate the reply. We do not send your email or account details with it.

Please do not type personal or confidential information into the assistant. Our server does not store the conversation; your browser keeps it until you start a new chat or clear it. AI answers can be wrong — check anything important.

6. Who can see your data

Only our team, and only as needed for the purpose above. We do not sell, rent or trade personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers.

We rely on a small number of service providers to run the site: the hosting provider that runs our server and stores the database, and — only when you use AI answers — the AI provider. They process data on our behalf. Some of them may process data outside Vietnam; where that happens we use them only for the purpose described here. We may disclose data if the law requires it.

7. How long we keep it

• Reader account: until you ask us to delete it.
• Contact messages: as long as needed to deal with your request, or until you ask us to delete them.
• Newsletter: until you unsubscribe.
• Product access records: as long as needed to manage access and keep a security record for the dossiers.
• Browser settings: on your device, until you clear them.

8. How we protect it

The site is served only over HTTPS. Passwords are stored as hashes, access codes and IP addresses as one-way hashes, and cookies are signed and limited to this site. Access to the admin is limited to our team. No system is perfectly secure, but if we ever learn of a breach that affects your data, we will act on it and tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

9. Your rights

You can ask us to tell you what data we hold about you, give you a copy, correct it, delete it, stop or limit using it, or withdraw a consent you gave. You can also object or make a complaint, including to the data protection authority in your country.

Write to contact@blinkthor.com from the email address concerned (so we can confirm it is you). We will answer without undue delay and within the time the law allows.

10. Changes

If what we collect changes, we update this page and the date at the top. See our Terms of Use for the rules of using the site.