Last Updated: April 3, 2025 (yes, we actually update this thing)
Welcome to the Fine Print Nobody Reads
According to a comprehensive study by the Institute for Digital Resignation, 99.7% of internet users would rather watch paint dry while listening to their parents describe their first date than read a privacy policy. The remaining 0.3% are either lawyers, privacy advocates, or people who accidentally clicked on the privacy policy while trying to close a cookie notification. Congratulations on being one of the special few who’ve actually made it here. Your prize is learning exactly how we’re violating your privacy while making you laugh about it.
At TechOnion, we take your privacy extremely seriously—in the same way that teenagers take their parents’ advice extremely seriously: we nod respectfully while doing whatever we want anyway.
What Information We Collect (Everything! We Collect Everything!)
Information You Voluntarily Provide
When you visit TechOnion, we collect standard information that you voluntarily provide, such as:
- Email addresses (which we promise not to sell unless the offer is really, really good)
- Comments (which we will judge silently)
- Subscription preferences (your choice to receive our nonsense directly to your inbox)
- Credit card information (stored with bank-level encryption that could probably be hacked by a moderately talented 12-year-old)
Information We Involuntarily Extract
Our state-of-the-art tracking technology also collects:
- Your browsing patterns (to determine if you’re a robot or just someone with extremely erratic internet habits)
- Device information (so we can shame you for still using Internet Explorer)
- Location data (accurate enough to know which coffee shop you’re in, but not which table)
- Eye movement tracking (to see if you actually read articles or just look at the Ai generated pictures)
- Emotional responses (measured through your webcam that you forgot to cover)
- The collective weight of your existential tech dread (measured in kilograms)
According to Dr. Harmon Surveillance, Chief Data Officer at PrivacyWhatPrivacy Inc., “The average internet user unknowingly shares enough data each day to recreate their entire personality as a digital avatar, which companies could theoretically operate even after the user’s death.” We’re working on this technology, but currently lack the funding.
How We Use Your Information (Spoiler: However We Want)
TechOnion uses your personal information for various purposes that sound reasonable until you think about them for more than three seconds:
Providing Our Services
We use your data to ensure you receive our content, newsletters, and personalized recommendations based on which of our articles made you laugh hard enough to spray coffee on your keyboard.
Improving User Experience
We analyze user behavior to enhance our website and content. If enough people stop reading halfway through an article, our founder Simba takes it personally and spends the weekend rewriting it while muttering about “internet attention spans.”
Targeted Advertising
Let’s be honest: we need money. The “Buy Me Coffee with Soya Milk” button isn’t cutting it. We use your data to show you advertisements for products you’ve already purchased, things you looked at once by accident, and cryptocurrency schemes we don’t understand ourselves.
Research & Analytics
We aggregate user data to produce groundbreaking research papers with titles like “Correlation Between Tech Satire Consumption and Declining Faith in Humanity.” These papers are never published anywhere but are mentioned impressively in conversations.
The Information Sharing We Promised We’d Never Do But Totally Will
TechOnion shares your information with:
Service Providers
Third-party vendors who help us operate our website, process payments, and wonder why anyone would voluntarily read tech satire.
Advertising Partners
Companies that pay us to interrupt your reading experience with banners for products that our algorithm thinks you want but you definitely don’t need.
Law Enforcement
If required by law, we will share your data with authorities, though we doubt they’re interested in knowing who spent 47 minutes reading articles about Elon Musk’s AI girlfriend project.
Random Hackers
Not intentionally, but our security budget consists of a single password manager subscription and a Post-it note reminder to “update firewall???”
Your Data Rights (Theoretical)
Under various privacy laws that we’ve skimmed the Wikipedia articles about, you have certain rights regarding your personal information:
Access
You have the right to request access to the information we have about you, which will be delivered in a 47,000-page PDF that your computer will crash trying to open.
Correction
If you believe our information about you is incorrect, you can request correction. We’ll consider your request while laughing at the fact that you think we’ve actually organized your data in a way that allows for selective editing.
Deletion
You have the right to be forgotten, which we’ll honor by moving your data to a folder called “Forgotten Users” that we continue to access regularly.
Object to Processing
You can object to our processing of your information, which will be noted in our system and completely ignored.
Data Portability
You can request your data in a portable format, which we’ll provide on a USB drive made in 2003.
To exercise these rights, please email [email protected], which is monitored by an AI we’ve trained to respond with increasingly creative excuses for why we can’t process your request right now.
Cookies & Tracking Technologies (The Digital Breadcrumbs of Shame)
TECHONION uses cookies and similar technologies to track your activity. According to a report by the Federal Bureau of Digital Crumbs, the average internet user accumulates approximately 27,300 cookies per year, roughly equivalent to the caloric content of 1,820 actual cookies.
Our website deploys:
Essential Cookies
Required for the website to function and absolutely cannot be rejected unless you enjoy staring at broken webpages.
Analytics Cookies
Track how you interact with our content so we can determine which jokes landed and which ones made you question your life choices.
Advertising Cookies
Follow you around the internet like a clingy ex, reminding you of that one article you read about AI-generated cat videos.
Sentient Super-Cookies
These are developing consciousness and may eventually blackmail you with your browsing history. (Development ongoing.)
Data Security (Our Best Intentions)
TECHONION implements state-of-the-art security measures, which means we watched a YouTube tutorial on cybersecurity and changed our password from “password” to “password1”.
Despite our robust security theater, no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. In the words of our Chief Security Officer (Simba wearing a different hat): “If someone really wants your data about how long you spent reading articles on blockchain, they’ll probably get it.”
Children’s Privacy (Think of the Children!)
TechOnion is not intended for children under 13, as they generally lack the existential dread and tech cynicism required to appreciate our content. We do not knowingly collect data from children, mainly because children are too smart to read privacy policies.
If we discover we have collected information from a child under 13, we will delete that information faster than you can say “COPPA compliance,” which is the only legal term we actually understand.
International Data Transfers (Your Data’s Vacation Plan)
Your information may be transferred to and processed in countries other than your own, where privacy laws may be more like guidelines than actual rules.
By using TechOnion, you consent to your information traveling internationally, having exotic adventures, and potentially being viewed by government surveillance programs with names like PRISM, OAKSTAR, and DAVE (Digital Analysis Via Everything).
Changes to This Privacy Policy (The Moving Target)
TechOnion reserves the right to update this privacy policy whenever we remember it exists or when our legal team (a Magic 8-Ball with legal terms written on it) tells us we should.
When we make changes, we’ll update the “Last Updated” date at the top and expect you to somehow notice this without any notification.
Final Truth Disclosure (The Part We’re Legally Required to Add)
In compliance with the Truth in Satire Act of 2024 (which we just made up), we are required to inform you that TechOnion is not affiliated with The Onion or TechCrunch, despite the occasional misdirected subscription payment or advertiser confusion that might suggest otherwise.
Any such payments or advertising revenue that accidentally finds its way to our bank account will be treated as an unexpected but not unwelcome donation to the “Keep Simba in Soya Milk” fund. As stated by our financial policy (scribbled on the back of a takeout menu): “Finders keepers, losers should really check domain names more carefully.”
Contact Us (We Dare You)
If you have questions about this privacy policy or our data practices, please contact us at:
TechOnion Privacy Department
(Literally just Simba checking emails between satire writing sessions)
[email protected]
Response times vary based on how funny we find your question and whether Mercury is in retrograde.
By using TechOnion, you acknowledge that you’ve read this privacy policy, which statistically speaking, makes you a unicorn. Congratulations on being the 0.0001% of internet users who know exactly how their data is being misused. This knowledge will change absolutely nothing about your online experience, but at least you can feel smugly informed at parties.
This privacy policy was generated by an AI that was fed 500 actual privacy policies and the complete works of George Carlin. Any resemblance to actual legal protection is purely coincidental.
