The short version

IfIDontPay.com is a static research site. There are no accounts, no logins, no comment threads, no newsletter, no forms, and no advertising. The only tracking on this site is Google Analytics 4, which tells us which pages are read and roughly where readers are. We do not sell, rent, or share that data, and we have no affiliate or advertising relationship with any biller named on this site.

A change we have decided on but not yet made. Google Analytics sets cookies on your device before you have been asked. We intend to replace it with a cookieless analytics tool that sets nothing at all, which removes the issue rather than papering over it with a consent banner. Until that switch happens, the disclosure below describes what is actually running today.

What we collect

Google Analytics 4 (measurement ID G-D3S2L9WDTP) runs on every page. It sets first-party cookies in your browser (_ga and _ga_*) containing a randomly generated client identifier, and it reports to Google:

  • Which pages you viewed, in what order, and for how long
  • The page or search engine that referred you
  • Approximate location (country, region, and usually city), derived from your IP address
  • Device type, operating system, browser, screen size, and language
  • Whether you are a first-time or returning visitor, as judged by the cookie

Google states that it uses the IP address to derive that approximate location and does not log or store the IP address in Google Analytics 4. We never see your IP address in Analytics reports.

Hosting. The site is served by Cloudflare Pages. As with any web host, Cloudflare processes the technical details of the connection, including your IP address, user agent, and the file requested, to deliver the page and protect the site from abuse. That processing is Cloudflare's, under Cloudflare's own privacy terms, and it happens whether or not analytics runs. Cloudflare may set its own security cookie (__cf_bm) on some requests; that is a security measure, not analytics.

What we do not collect

  • No accounts. There is nothing to sign up for, so there is no name, email address, password, or profile.
  • No forms. No contact form, no search box that reports to us, no newsletter signup.
  • No advertising. No ad network, no ad cookies, no remarketing or audience lists. We have not enabled Google Analytics' advertising features or Google Signals.
  • No affiliate tracking. Outbound links to billers are plain links. They carry no referral code, no tracking parameter, and we earn nothing if you click one.
  • No cross-site tracking. Nothing on this site follows you to another site. We embed no social widgets, no third-party fonts, no chat widgets, and no pixels.
  • No sale or sharing of personal information. We do not sell it, we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we do not disclose it to anyone except Google in its role as our analytics processor.
  • No sensitive data. We do not ask for, and have no reason to hold, financial details, account numbers, or debt information. Please do not send them to us.

Why we collect it

We use analytics for one purpose: to see which pages people actually read, so we know which biller pages are worth re-verifying first and which are not earning their place. We do not use it to profile individual readers, and we have no way to do so.

The site is written for a US audience but is reachable worldwide. Where the GDPR or UK GDPR applies, our legal basis for analytics processing is legitimate interests under Article 6(1)(f). Our interest is in understanding aggregate use of a site we publish at our own expense. The impact on you is minimal: the data is aggregate, it is not combined with anything else, and it is never used to make a decision about you.

Where we fall short. Under the EU ePrivacy Directive and the UK PECR, storing analytics cookies on your device normally requires your consent first. This site does not currently display a cookie consent banner, so analytics cookies are set before you have been asked. We would rather say so than imply a compliance we have not built. We have decided to fix this by moving to a cookieless analytics tool, which removes the requirement entirely; until then, the opt-out routes below work immediately and without needing to contact us.

Retention

Google retains user- and event-level Analytics data for the retention period set on our property, and deletes it automatically afterward. Aggregate, non-identifying reports, such as pageview counts by URL and by month, may be kept indefinitely, because they contain nothing that identifies anyone. We keep no separate copy of visitor-level data, because we never receive one.

How to opt out

Any of these stops Analytics on this site, and none of them requires you to contact us:

  1. Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. Install it from tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. It blocks Analytics on every site, permanently, for that browser.
  2. Block or clear cookies for ifidontpay.com in your browser settings. Clearing the _ga cookies resets the identifier; blocking them prevents it being set.
  3. A content blocker or privacy-focused browser. Most block Google Analytics by default. The site is plain HTML and works fully with Analytics blocked. Nothing on it depends on the script.
  4. Global Privacy Control (GPC) and Do Not Track. If your browser sends a GPC or DNT signal, we treat it as an opt-out of sale or sharing. That is easy for us, because we do not sell or share personal information in the first place.

Your rights

If the GDPR or UK GDPR applies to you, you have the right to access your personal data, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to its processing, to data portability, and to lodge a complaint with your national supervisory authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office).

If the CCPA/CPRA applies to you, you have the right to know what categories of personal information are collected and for what purpose, to request deletion or correction, to opt out of sale or sharing, and not to be discriminated against for exercising those rights. The only category we handle is internet and network activity, as described above. We have not sold or shared personal information, and we do not knowingly process the data of anyone under 16.

A practical limit you should know about. We hold no identifier that links analytics data to you as a person. There is no account, no email address, and no IP address in our reports. That means that if you ask us to produce or delete "your" data, we will usually be unable to find it, because we cannot tell which pseudonymous records are yours. This is a consequence of collecting as little as we do, not an excuse. The effective routes are the opt-outs above and Google's own controls at myaccount.google.com/data-and-privacy. If you believe we hold something identifying about you, write to us and we will look.

International transfers

Google processes Analytics data in the United States and other countries. For transfers out of the EEA and UK, Google relies on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and on Standard Contractual Clauses. Cloudflare serves the site from whichever of its edge locations is nearest to you.

Children

This site is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13 (or under 16 where that is the applicable threshold).

Changes

We date-stamp this page like every other page on the site. For a material change, we will move the lastmod date at the top and describe the change here rather than make it quietly. When we complete the move to cookieless analytics described above, we will update this page to match on the same day.

Contact

Privacy questions, and requests under any of the rights above, go to [email protected]. For factual corrections to the research itself, see Contact and our Corrections Policy.

IfIDontPay.com is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any biller mentioned on this site. Nothing here is legal advice. See our Disclaimer.

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