Legal
Privacy Policy
We are a research nonprofit. We publish ideas, not data about the people who read them. This page explains, in plain language, what happens to your information when you use thebreakthrough.org.
- Effective
- September 10, 2026
- Applies to
- thebreakthrough.org
The short version
- You can read everything we publish without telling us who you are.
- We count visits and see which research gets read. We do not build profiles of individual readers.
- If you give us your email, we send you our newsletter until you unsubscribe. One click, any time.
- Donations and event registrations are handled by Qgiv (part of Bloomerang), our fundraising platform. We never see or store your full card number.
- We do not sell, rent, or trade your information. Not to anyone, not ever.
What we collect
Automatically, when you visit
Like nearly every website, our servers and analytics tools record your IP address, browser and device type, the pages you open, how long you stay, the site you arrived from, and anything you type into our search box. We use this to understand which research is landing and to keep the site working.
Only when you hand it to us
- Newsletter: your email address.
- Donations: your name, contact details, and payment information, collected on our behalf by Qgiv (part of Bloomerang).
- Events: your name, email, and any affiliation or dietary details you add when you register.
What we do not collect
There are no reader accounts or logins on this site, so there is no profile to build. We do not ask for your date of birth, your politics, your health, or any other sensitive category, and we would rather you did not send them to us.
Your choices
- Stop the emails.
- Every newsletter has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. It works immediately.
- See what we hold.
- Email us and we will tell you what is in our records.
- Correct or delete it.
- Ask, and we will fix it or remove it, unless we are required to keep a donation record for tax and audit purposes.
- Turn off tracking.
- Use your browser’s privacy settings or the opt-out linked above.
If you live in California, these are your rights under state law rather than a courtesy we extend. We honor the same requests from everyone who asks, wherever you are.
Privacy requests go to info@thebreakthrough.org, and a person reads them.
What we never do
- We never sell, rent, or trade your personal information.
- We never exchange or share our donor list with other organizations.
- We never use your reading history to target advertising at you.
- We never try to identify individual readers from our analytics.
Security and how long we keep things
The site runs over an encrypted connection, and our newsletter and donation records live with established vendors who carry their own security obligations. No system is perfect and we will not pretend otherwise, but we hold as little as we can, for as long as we need it.
Newsletter subscribers stay on the list until they unsubscribe. Donation records are kept as long as tax and audit rules require. Analytics data expires on the schedule set in each tool.
Where this policy applies
The Breakthrough Institute is a US nonprofit based in California, and this site is directed at readers in the United States. We do not market or offer goods and services in the European Union or the United Kingdom, and we do not monitor the behavior of people located there. We therefore do not operate this site under the GDPR or the UK GDPR, and you will not be asked to accept cookies before reading.
Our research travels well past the US border and you are welcome to read from anywhere. If you are outside the country and want to know what we hold on you, or want it deleted, write to us. We will handle it the same way we would for anyone else.
Contact us
Questions about this policy, or about anything we hold on you.
The Breakthrough Institute 2054 University Avenue Berkeley, CA 94704 info@thebreakthrough.org