What we collect, in plain language.

When you open the site, your browser generates a random ID and keeps it in session storage for that tab only. It is not a cookie, it is not tied to you, and it disappears when you close the tab. Against that ID we record:

• which page you opened, and the site you arrived from
• whether you spun or zoomed the globe
• which guest nodes you opened
• when you click through to watch an episode on Instagram or LinkedIn
• whether you submitted the referral form
• your country, and whether you are on mobile or desktop

That is the whole list. We use it to understand which stories land and whether people actually play with the map.

We do not store your IP address. We do not build a device fingerprint. We do not track you across other websites, and we have no way to identify you personally from anything above. Your country is read at our edge and recorded as a country code only — the address it came from is never written down.

If your browser sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal, we record nothing at all. No ID is generated and no event is stored — the measurement is switched off for you entirely, on both the browser side and our server side.

Episodes play inside the real Instagram and LinkedIn post embeds. Those load from Meta and LinkedIn only when you open a guest's story, and once they load, those companies may set their own cookies and receive your IP address under their own policies, not ours. If you would rather avoid that, do not open a guest story — the map itself loads nothing from them. See the Instagram privacy policy and the LinkedIn privacy policy.

The referral form asks for a name, what they do, an optional link, and why the world should meet them. We store exactly what you type and use it only to consider future guests. If you refer another person, please only share what they would be comfortable having passed along.

Everything is stored in our own Supabase database, hosted in Canada, and served through Vercel. Measurement records are kept for twelve months and then deleted automatically on a schedule. Referrals are kept until we have acted on them.

Email hello@worldbuilding.ca. Because we never record who you are, we usually cannot find “your” data on request — but tell us what you would like removed and we will do our best.