privacy
Version of 3 October 2026. This is a translation of the Italian notice: if the two differ, the Italian text prevails.
who processes the data
Data controller: Gianclaudio Spena, sole proprietorship (ditta individuale), via Mariano Stabile 43, 90139 Palermo, Italy, VAT number IT02936750849. For any request about your data: info@albera-books.com; certified email (PEC) gianclaudio.spena@pec.it.
what data, and why
| data | what it's for | legal basis | how long |
|---|---|---|---|
| email and name | your account: signing in, password recovery, invitations, notices about the service | contract | as long as you have the account |
| password | signing in. It isn't stored: only a fingerprint remains (salted scrypt), from which it can't be recovered | contract | as long as you have the account |
| Google sign-in | only if you use “Continue with Google”: an identifier of your Google account, to recognise you next time. Google sends us only your name, (verified) email and that identifier; if the email already belongs to an Albera account, automatic linking is available only for Gmail or Google Workspace. For other existing addresses, use email and password | contract | as long as you have the account |
| session | staying signed in. A technical cookie, albera_sessione; only its fingerprint is kept on the server | contract | 30 days, or until you sign out |
| forest, collections, books, library, labels, notes | what you choose to keep in Albera | contract | as long as you keep them or have the account |
| messages from «write to us» | reading and answering suggestions and reports: the text, the type and, only if you attach it, where you were (open tree, view, language, browser). They reach info@albera-books.com by email, with your email so we can reply | contract | as long as you have the account |
| searches, usage, enrichments, returns | the limits of your plan: how many new searches you've made this month, with which engine, how many credits | contract | as long as you have the account |
| subscription | knowing which plan you're on: Stripe's customer and subscription codes, plan, status, renewal date. Never your card details | contract | as long as you have the account |
| votes for the humus | only if you turn the humus on in your profile: your votes go, without your name, into the calibration of the filters | consent, which you can withdraw at once | as long as it stays on |
| links by email | confirming your email, choosing a password, accepting an invitation | contract | 30 minutes (invitations: 7 days), single use |
| IP address | limits on attempts (wrong sign-ins, new names, gifts). Kept only in the server's memory, never written to disk | legitimate interest: protecting the service | a few hours at most |
| visit and sign-up statistics | only if you accept them in the banner: how many people visit the pages, how they get there, and how many complete sign-up (Google Analytics, without sending email addresses or names) | consent | 14 months |
| visit to the introduction page and completed sign-up | only if you accept the “Advertisement” category in the banner: measuring visits and completed sign-ups with Meta Pixel and the effectiveness of Facebook and Instagram ads. Meta receives the page URL and technical browser data, not email addresses or names | consent | according to Meta's privacy policy |
«Contract» means that without that data we can't give you the service you ask for by signing up (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). We do not sell your data. Meta Pixel is active only with consent to the “Advertisement” category.
what belongs to everyone
The trees that grow in Albera are shared among its users: if an author has already been looked up, reopening them costs nobody anything. A tree contains the author's name and public resources found on the web, not who looked them up. The «great forest» page shows statistics about everyone, never who. What you do with a tree (planting it, your books, your labels, your notes) stays yours. A tree you share or give away carries only the tree with it.
Your collections stay yours too: nobody sees them and they are never suggested to others. Suggested collections may appear under your trees: they are the ones Albera's editors choose to offer to everyone, with their name and the authors they contain. To propose them Albera may ask TypeSafe whether an author belongs there, sending only the author's name, their Wikipedia entry, their roots and that collection; accepting one creates a collection of your own.
with whom
To grow a tree Albera sends the author's name and the pages it finds, never your data, to:
- Wikipedia and Wikidata (Wikimedia Foundation, United States), to work out who is meant and their languages;
- the search engines of your plan: Exa, Perplexity, xAI (Grok), Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (ChatGPT), all in the United States;
- TypeSafe, which judges the resources and proposes the suggested collections;
- Open Library (Internet Archive, United States) and Google Books, for the bibliography;
- Google Cloud Translation, to translate into the language of the page the sentences written by the search engines (the links of the roots and the summaries of the sources); your notes are never translated or sent.
These, on the other hand, process your data, each for its own part:
- OVHcloud (France): the server, in Milan, and the service emails (
info@albera-books.com). Data processor. - Stripe and Link (Stripe Payments Europe, Ireland): if you buy a plan, Link is the seller and processes your email, name, billing address and payment details as an independent controller, under its own privacy policy. Albera receives from Stripe only the status of the subscription.
- CookieYes (CookieYes Limited, United Kingdom): shows the banner and records your choice about cookies.
- Google (Google Ireland): Tag Manager loads the banner and, only with your consent, Google Analytics. Your IP address is shortened by Google and the data isn't shared for advertising. If you choose “Continue with Google”, Google recognises you and sends us your name, email and an account identifier, nothing else.
- Meta (Meta Platforms Ireland): if you accept advertising cookies, Meta Pixel measures visits to the introduction page and the effectiveness of Facebook and Instagram ads, under Meta's privacy policy.
Outside the European Union, your data only goes as follows:
- OVHcloud: no transfer, the server and emails stay in the European Union.
- Stripe: Stripe Payments Europe may transfer data to Stripe, LLC in the United States, which takes part in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework recognised by the European Commission.
- CookieYes: based in the United Kingdom, covered by an adequacy decision of the Commission valid until 27 December 2031; consent records are kept in data centres in the European Union.
- Google: Google Ireland may transfer data to Google LLC in the United States, which takes part in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
- Meta: for any international transfers and the safeguards applied, see Meta's privacy policy.
The services used for searching and for the bibliography, including those outside the European Union, receive only authors' names and public pages, never your data.
cookies and browser storage
| cookie | whose | what it's for | duration |
|---|---|---|---|
albera_sessione | Albera, technical | staying signed in | 30 days |
albera_google | Albera, technical | only while signing in with Google: checking that the return from Google is yours | 10 minutes |
cookieyes-consent | CookieYes, technical | remembering your choice about cookies | 1 year |
_ga, _ga_* | Google Analytics, statistics | telling visits apart; only if you accept | up to 2 years |
_fbp, _fbc (if present) | Meta, advertising | measuring visits to the introduction page and ads; only if you accept | up to 90 days |
Technical cookies don't need consent. Statistics cookies start only if you accept “Analytics”; Meta Pixel only if you accept “Advertisement”. You can change your mind whenever you like from the banner icon at the bottom. Your preferences (theme, engine, language, order, view) stay in your browser's storage and don't reach the server.
your rights
From your profile you can, on your own and straight away:
- download your data as a JSON file (access and portability, Arts. 15 and 20);
- correct your name and change your password (rectification, Art. 16);
- turn the humus off (withdrawal of consent, Art. 7);
- delete your account and everything that is yours, gifts included: the subscription is closed first (erasure, Art. 17).
For everything else (restriction, objection, questions) write to info@albera-books.com: we reply within a month. You can also lodge a complaint with the Italian data protection authority, the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali.
Albera is for people aged 18 and over. The rules of use are in the terms.
changes
If this page changes in a way that affects you, we'll tell you by email before it takes effect.