Privacy
What FALK collects, why, how long it keeps it and how to get it removed. Last updated 4 November 2026.
The short version
You can read every record, source and download without an account and without giving us anything. FALK has no advertising, no analytics and no tracking cookies, and we never sell or share personal data for marketing.
Who is responsible
Falk Watches, LLC, a Virginia limited liability company and watch retailer, publishes FALK and is responsible for your personal data here (the "data controller"). Write to 3130 Fairview Park Dr Ste 210, Falls Church, VA 22042, or email support@falkindex.com.
Accounts
Accounts are optional and run on Clerk, which handles sign-in for us. If you create one, we keep your email address, your name and whether your email is verified, and anything you add to your profile: a username, display name, bio, qualifications, professional affiliations, website and picture.
Your email address and real name stay private. Your username and the profile details you fill in appear on your public profile page; your real name is shown there only if you choose to show it.
We use this to sign you in, to credit and review your contributions, and to contact you about them. The legal basis is our agreement with you to provide the account.
Corrections
The correction form asks for an optional name and email address. We keep them with the submission so an editor can reply or ask for more evidence. They are visible only to FALK editors and are never published. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in checking the evidence behind the records.
The submission itself (the record, the explanation and the evidence) is part of the editorial history and is kept. We will remove your name and email from it on request.
The forum
Anyone can read the forum, and search engines may index it. Posting needs an account with a verified email address and a username. Your threads and posts are public, with the time you posted them, your username and, if you added them, your display name and picture.
If you edit a post, we keep the earlier version privately. Moderators can hide posts and threads and record a reason; hidden material stays in our records. If you report a post, moderators see your username and your reason. When someone replies to your thread or comment, we create a notification that you see on the site. If you vote on a comment, other members see only its total, and we keep your vote with your account. The legal basis is our agreement with you to provide the forum, and our legitimate interest in moderating it.
If you attach an image to a post, we keep a new copy of it, made without its location and other embedded data, and we do not keep the file you uploaded. Attached images are public, like the post, and we store them with our hosting provider.
Posts and their images stay after you delete your account, credited to a deleted member, and your votes stay in comment totals. If a post or image contains your personal information, email support@falkindex.com and we will review it and hide it where appropriate.
IP addresses
To stop abuse, we count requests per visitor. For signed-out visitors we do not store the IP address itself, only a keyed one-way hash of it. These counts are deleted on a rolling basis once they are more than an hour old. Like any website, our hosting provider handles IP addresses in order to deliver pages.
Cookies and storage
If you sign in, Clerk sets the cookies needed to keep you signed in. If you pick a light or dark theme, your browser remembers it, and a small cookie shares that choice between falkindex.com and forum.falkindex.com for up to a year. It says only "light" or "dark" and identifies no one. Your browser sends it with each request to those sites, and we do not store it or use it for anything else. There are no other cookies.
Who handles your data
Clerk provides sign-in, and Replit hosts the site and its database. Both act on our instructions and may process data in the United States, under standard contractual safeguards for transfers from the EU and UK.
How long we keep it
Account data is kept until you delete your account, which you can do at any time from your account page. That erases your email address, names, profile, photo and disclosures, and the contact details on corrections sent from that email address. Your contributions stay in the editorial history, credited to a deleted member. Other correction contact details are kept with the submission until you ask us to remove them. Rate-limit counts are deleted after about an hour.
Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask to see the personal data we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it or to receive a copy. If you are in the EU or UK you can also object to how we use it and complain to your data protection authority. California residents have the same rights under the CCPA, and we do not sell or share personal information. Browsers' "Do Not Track" signals change nothing here, because there is no tracking to turn off.
To make a request, email support@falkindex.com. We reply within one month.
Children
FALK is not aimed at children. You must be at least 13 to create an account or send a contribution, or 16 in the European Union or the United Kingdom, as the terms of use say. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, email support@falkindex.com and we will delete it.
Changes
When this policy changes, we update the date at the top of this page. Significant changes will also be announced on the site.