Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 8, 2026

I run TechFuel HQ at techfuelhq.com from St. Louis County, Missouri. This policy explains how I handle visitor information. The publisher is Lowell K. Wood IV.

Information collected automatically

When your browser requests a page, the site’s hosting and delivery services receive technical request information, including your IP address, browser information and the requested URL. A shared calculator link can contain settings in its query string. Those settings reach the hosting infrastructure when someone opens the link, even though the calculation itself runs in the browser. Anyone holding the link can also read its settings.

Google Analytics 4 and Cloudflare Web Analytics separately measure site usage. Their browser measurement is described below. The hosted standalone self-hosting calculator uses Cloudflare Web Analytics without the shared Google Analytics tag.

Information you provide

If you contact us by email, we receive the information you choose to include — typically a name, email address, and message body. This information is used only to respond to your message.

Newsletter

The site offers an email newsletter. If you subscribe, your email address is collected and processed by Buttondown (Buttondown, LLC), the newsletter service this site uses, and is used solely to send you the newsletter. Your address is never sold, shared for advertising, or used for any other purpose. Every issue contains a one-click unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing removes your address from the active list; you can also request deletion of your address entirely by emailing the contact address below. Buttondown’s own handling of subscriber data is described in the Buttondown privacy policy. Your address is retained only while you remain subscribed.

Cookies and similar technologies

No advertising is served on this site and no advertising or audience-engagement scripts load on any page. Google Analytics 4 and Cloudflare Web Analytics are in use. The entries below retain the history of the removed advertising and audience-engagement scripts.

The site uses cookies and similar technologies for analytics. Specifically:

  • Google Analytics may set cookies to measure site usage in aggregate
  • Cloudflare Web Analytics measures visits and page performance through a browser beacon. This is separate from Cloudflare receiving requests as the site’s content delivery network.
  • Google AdSense — removed 2026-08-17 and no longer present on any page. It previously loaded a script that could serve personalized ads; it never served ads on this site. You can still review or opt out of personalized advertising across the web at Google’s Ads Settings.
  • Grow by Mediavine — removed 2026-08-17 and no longer present on any page. Its script (faves.grow.me) previously loaded on every page and could set cookies or browser storage to recognize returning visitors. It no longer loads and sets nothing.

You can control cookie behavior through your browser settings. Google Consent Mode v2 remains in place and defaults analytics, advertising and personalization storage to denied for visitors in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland. With no advertising scripts on the site, no personalized advertising is served to any region. If display advertising is ever introduced, a Google-certified consent management platform will be deployed to collect consent for those regions first.

Analytics and tool interactions

Google Analytics 4 measures site visits. Calculator settings, search queries and URL fragments are removed from the page URLs and referrers sent to Google Analytics, while standard campaign tags remain so I can identify the link that brought a visit from a community post or the newsletter. Your address bar and copied share link stay intact.

Tool-interaction events identify the tool and control used, including whether the interaction was a click or a change. They omit the control’s input value. Retailer-link measurement covers displayed components and clicks, recording the retailer and placement alongside product IDs, destination URLs and link text. A PC Builder retailer link can therefore identify a selected product. Opening it also sends the destination URL and affiliate attribution to the retailer or affiliate network.

Site search separately records the search term, result counts, searches with no results and selected result links. Removing a search query from analytics page URLs does not remove those intentional search-event fields.

Cloudflare Web Analytics measures visits and page performance. Cloudflare says this service does not log query strings. That statement concerns Web Analytics; the site’s CDN still receives the requested query string when serving a shared link.

Third-party services

The site is hosted on GitHub Pages (whose origin is served through the Fastly edge network) and delivered through the Cloudflare content delivery network (which proxies and caches the site at the edge). Email sent to this site’s contact address is routed by Cloudflare Email Routing to the site author’s inbox. These services may collect technical information as described in their respective privacy policies:

Children’s privacy

TechFuel HQ is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect information from children under 13.

Your rights

Depending on your jurisdiction (including the EU/UK under GDPR and California under CCPA), you may have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, request correction or deletion, restrict or object to certain processing, and opt out of personalized advertising. To exercise any of these rights, email contact@techfuelhq.com.

International transfers

If you visit from outside the United States, note that information collected through the site may be transferred to and processed in the United States.

Changes to this policy

This policy may be updated as the site evolves. The “Last updated” date at the top reflects the most recent revision. Continued use of the site after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

Contact

Privacy questions go to contact@techfuelhq.com.

Publisher: Lowell K. Wood IV Location: St. Louis County, Missouri, United States

Sources and corrections

Last updated
Methodology
See our methodology for research and review standards.
Update log
  • 2026-09-08 — The August 17 entry incorrectly described Google Analytics 4 as the only measurement script. Cloudflare Web Analytics also runs on the site. This policy now names that service, distinguishes hosting requests from browser analytics, and describes settings in shared links, retailer product fields and site-search terms. Google Analytics page URLs and referrers now exclude calculator parameters while retaining campaign tags.
  • 2026-08-14 — This policy did not disclose a tracker that was running on it. Grow by Mediavine (faves.grow.me/main.js) loads on every page of the site, including this one, and appeared in neither the cookie list nor the third-party services list. Both were corrected: Grow is now named in the cookies section as an audience-engagement layer that may set cookies or browser storage to recognize returning visitors across sessions, and the Mediavine Legal and Privacy Center is now linked under third-party services. The script is active regardless of whether display advertising is being served, so the omission understated what was collected.
  • 2026-08-17 — Two trackers named in this policy no longer run. Google AdSense and Grow by Mediavine both declined the site, so their page tags were removed from every page on 2026-08-17 and neither script loads any more. The cookie list and third-party services list have been corrected to say so rather than continuing to disclose collection that is not happening. Google Analytics 4 is unchanged and is now the only third-party measurement script on the site.
  • 2026-08-15 — Correction history is now shown on this page. The 2026-08-14 disclosure fix above had been made in the page text but was not visible as a change to anyone who had already read the policy, because this page’s layout rendered no update log.
Corrections
Spotted an error or a stale number? Email contact@techfuelhq.com. Confirmed corrections are added to the update log above.