Legal, Privacy & Cookies
This page applies to the Mettle & Ground website, email list, downloadable resources, articles, videos, and related digital material.
Mettle & Ground publishes material for informational, educational, editorial, and entertainment purposes. Nothing published by Mettle & Ground is legal, financial, medical, psychological, tax, fitness, nutritional, or other regulated professional advice.
Privacy
Mettle & Ground collects limited information to operate the site, deliver emails and downloadable resources, protect the site from abuse, and understand which pages or links lead to subscription requests.
Mettle & Ground collects information you provide directly, such as your email address when you request The Field Manual or subscribe to email updates. Subscription forms may also include source information, such as the page where the request was made and campaign parameters contained in the URL.
Technical information may be processed automatically by the website and its service providers. This can include IP address, browser and device information, request headers, timestamps, pages requested, error logs, abuse-prevention data, and similar information needed to host, secure, and maintain the site.
If you subscribe to the email list, the email service provider may process email delivery and engagement information, such as delivery, opens, clicks, unsubscribes, spam reports, and links accessed from an email.
Mettle & Ground uses first-party measurement to understand visits, sessions, link referrals, page activity, and confirmed signup sources. This measurement remains active whether or not you allow Google Analytics. It uses pseudonymous identifiers and campaign information; it is not used for advertising, retargeting, or cross-site profiling.
First-party request processing may include the referring page, browser and device information, and a one-way hash derived from the requesting IP address. Mettle & Ground does not store the raw IP address as part of this measurement record. Probable bots, uptime checks, and internal verification traffic are excluded from business measurement where they can be identified.
If you allow Google Analytics, Google may additionally process page visits, session and device information, signup-source events, and campaign source information. Email addresses and form contents are not intentionally sent to Google Analytics. Leaving the choice unset or continuing without Google Analytics keeps Google Analytics unloaded.
Mettle & Ground may share information with service providers that help operate the website, deliver email, prevent abuse, maintain security, provide first-party measurement, and provide optional Google Analytics. These providers process information only as needed to provide their services.
Where applicable data protection law requires a legal basis, Mettle & Ground relies on consent for email subscriptions and Google Analytics, legitimate interests for operating, securing, and measuring its own website and communications, and contractual necessity where processing is needed to deliver a requested resource or service.
Email Communications
If you subscribe to the email list, download a resource, or otherwise submit your email address, Mettle & Ground may use that email address to send editorial emails, notes, updates, video links, product announcements, commercial offers, service updates, or related communications.
You may unsubscribe from marketing or newsletter emails at any time by using the unsubscribe link included in Mettle & Ground emails or by contacting Mettle & Ground directly.
YouTube API Services
Mettle & Ground uses YouTube API Services, subject to the YouTube Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy.
We use them only for our own channels: to publish our videos, read our own channel statistics, show our latest videos on this site, and read the public comments on our videos to understand what our audience is interested in. Our internal tool is used only by Mettle & Ground and has no other users. Using it means agreeing to the YouTube Terms of Service. We may also read publicly available information about other YouTube channels, such as public video titles and view counts.
This data is not sold, shared or used for advertising, and is stored only as long as YouTube's policies allow. If you have connected a Google account to one of our tools, you can revoke access at any time on the Google security settings page. Questions: admin@mettleandground.com.
Retention
Mettle & Ground retains personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described on this page. Email subscription information is generally retained until you unsubscribe or request deletion, subject to any security, transactional, suppression-list, or operational need to retain limited records.
Technical logs and rate-limit records are retained for shorter operational periods where feasible. Pseudonymous first-party click and session evidence and confirmed subscription attribution are retained without a fixed time limit. You can ask us to delete them, together with your other personal information, at any time by emailing admin@mettleandground.com.
Your Rights
Where applicable law provides these rights, you may request access, correction, deletion, restriction, objection, or portability of your personal information. Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw consent at any time without affecting processing that occurred before withdrawal.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a competent data protection authority.
Security
Mettle & Ground uses reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect personal information. No method of transmission or electronic storage is completely secure, and absolute security cannot be guaranteed.
Changes
Mettle & Ground may update this page from time to time. Changes are effective when posted on this page, unless another effective date is stated.
Contact
Mettle & Ground