Effective Date: 21-Oct-2026

This Privacy Policy explains how CloudTales (“we”, “us”, “our”), the website at https://cloudtales.gr operated by Vassilis Dionisopoulos, collects, uses and discloses information when you use it (the “Service”). By using the Service you agree to the practices described here. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

1. Contact Information

For any inquiry, request about your data rights, or general correspondence, contact us at:

Messages sent through the contact form are delivered to our mailbox by email and kept only to reply to you.

2. Information We Collect

Data TypeSource / Method of CollectionPrimary Purpose
Voluntary DataProvided by you: the contact form (name, email address, message), a comment through GitHub, or the newsletter sign-up (email address).To answer your message, to show your comment, and to email you new articles.
Technical DataCollected automatically through server logs at Microsoft Azure and through Google Analytics: IP address, browser type, device information and the pages you visit.To operate and protect the site, and to understand which articles are useful.
Advertising DataCollected through cookies and similar technologies from Google AdSense, with your consent where the law requires it.To show ads, including personalized ads when you allow them, and to measure their performance.

The site has no user accounts, sets no cookies of its own, and does not sell personal data.

3. How We Use Your Information

  • To run, secure and improve the site, and to prevent abuse such as contact-form spam.
  • To answer the messages you send us.
  • To email new articles to newsletter subscribers who confirmed their subscription.
  • To understand which content readers find useful (Google Analytics).
  • To show advertising through Google AdSense, which pays for running the site.

We do not use your information for any other purpose without asking for your consent first.

Consent Management (Google CMP): We use Google’s consent management platform, certified under the IAB Transparency & Consent Framework. Visitors from the EEA, the UK and Switzerland are asked for consent before advertising and analytics cookies are used; until then, Google Analytics and Google AdSense run in a restricted mode without those cookies (Google Consent Mode). You can change or withdraw your consent at any time with the Cookie settings link at the bottom of every page.

Google AdSense: Google and its partners use cookies to serve ads based on your visits to this and other websites. You can learn how Google uses information from sites that use its services and manage personalized advertising in Google’s ad settings.

Google Analytics: We use Google Analytics to measure visits and to understand how readers use the site. With your consent it uses cookies; without it, it sends only limited, cookieless measurements.

5. Comments

Articles have a comment section provided by giscus, which stores comments in GitHub Discussions in our public repository cloudtales-gr/cloudtales-comments. It loads only when you scroll near it. To comment or react you sign in with your GitHub account: your comment, GitHub username and avatar become public on GitHub and on the article, and GitHub processes them under the GitHub Privacy Statement. We never see your GitHub password or email address. You can edit or delete your comments on GitHub at any time, or ask us to remove them.

6. Newsletter

If you subscribe to the newsletter, we store your email address, its status (waiting for confirmation or subscribed), a random token for the links in the emails, and the dates you subscribed and confirmed. Nothing else: no name, no profile. The data is kept in our own Microsoft Azure storage in the EU (Sweden); we do not use a third-party newsletter service.

  • Legal basis: your consent, given with double opt-in: nothing is sent until you click the link in the confirmation email.
  • What you receive: one email per new article, sent from contact@cloudtales.gr through Microsoft 365.
  • No tracking pixels: the emails do not report whether you open them. Their links carry utm_source=newsletter, so Google Analytics can count visits that come from the newsletter, under the consent rules in section 4.
  • Unsubscribe: every email has a one-click unsubscribe link, which deletes your address immediately. Sign-ups that are never confirmed are deleted after 7 days.

7. Hosting, Audio and Podcast

The website is hosted on Microsoft Azure. Microsoft processes technical data such as IP addresses in server logs to deliver and protect the site. The “Listen to this article” audio and the CloudTales Audio podcast are served from Microsoft Azure; these requests are logged for a limited period for operation and security, and are not used to identify you. The podcast is also listed on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, which apply their own privacy policies when you listen there.

8. Information Stored in Your Browser

The site keeps a few preferences in your browser’s local storage: light or dark theme, accessibility settings, which articles you have started or finished and where you stopped, and the playback position of the audio. This information never leaves your device and is not sent to us or anyone else. You can remove it at any time by clearing this site’s data in your browser.

Site search runs entirely in your browser. What you type is not sent to us or to any third party.

The site relies on these providers, each acting under its own privacy policy:

  • Microsoft (Azure and Microsoft 365): hosting, audio narration, the newsletter, and delivery of contact-form messages.
  • Google: Analytics, AdSense and the consent message.
  • GitHub: comments.
  • Spotify and Apple Podcasts: podcast listings.

Articles also link to other websites. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of those sites.

11. Your Data Rights (GDPR)

You have the right to:

  • Access the personal data we hold about you.
  • Rectify inaccurate or incomplete data.
  • Erase your data (“right to be forgotten”).
  • Restrict or object to its processing.
  • Data portability: receive your data in a structured, commonly used format.
  • Withdraw consent at any time, with the Cookie settings link at the bottom of every page. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that happened before.

To exercise these rights, email cloudtales@gmail.com. We answer within one month. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Hellenic Data Protection Authority.

12. Data Retention

  • Contact messages: kept in our mailbox for as long as needed to handle your request.
  • Comments: stay on GitHub until you or we delete them.
  • Newsletter: your address is kept while you are subscribed and deleted when you unsubscribe; unconfirmed sign-ups are deleted after 7 days.
  • Server and diagnostic logs: kept for a limited period for operation and security.
  • Analytics data: kept according to our Google Analytics data retention settings.
  • Browser storage: stays on your device until you clear it.

13. Security

We take reasonable measures to protect the site and your data: HTTPS on every page, strict security headers, and a cloud setup in which services authenticate with Microsoft Entra ID instead of passwords or keys. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy when the site or the law changes. Changes take effect when they are published on this page, and the Effective Date at the top shows the latest version.

15. Grievance Contact

If you have a concern about how your data is handled, contact cloudtales-video@gmail.com.