Last updated September 14, 2026
The short version: this website has no accounts, no advertising, and no analytics of its own. We don't set cookies and we don't build a profile of you. The contact form on this site is the one place you can send us information directly, and it goes through a third-party form service, not our own server. This page explains exactly who receives what.
We want to be specific rather than vague, because "we value your privacy" means nothing on its own. This website:
Like essentially every website, our server keeps standard access logs. When your browser requests a page, the server records your IP address, the page requested, the date and time, your browser's user-agent string, and the referring page if there was one.
These logs exist for security and troubleshooting — identifying attacks, diagnosing errors. We do not use them to track individuals or to build audience profiles, and we do not combine them with anything else. They are generated and retained by our hosting provider under their standard practices.
Three kinds of third-party content load on this site. Each one means a company other than us can see your IP address and browser information.
Every page loads typefaces from Google Fonts. To deliver them, Google receives your IP address and user-agent string. Google states that Google Fonts does not set cookies and does not use the data for advertising, but the request is made, and Google is a recipient of that data.
Our homepage embeds two players: one from Spotify and one from Apple Podcasts. These are iframes served by Spotify and Apple, and they load whether or not you press play. Both companies can set their own cookies, and if you are signed in to either service they may associate the visit with your account. Their handling of that data is governed by their own privacy policies, not ours.
This is the one most listeners don't know about, so we want it stated plainly. Our podcast is hosted by Megaphone, and the audio file for each episode is served through a chain of podcast measurement and attribution services. When you press play on an episode page — or in any podcast app — the request passes through:
Each of these receives your IP address and user-agent string, and uses them to produce download and listener statistics and, in the case of the advertising services, to measure ad performance. This happens for every listener of the show on every platform, not only on this website. It is standard for commercial podcasts, but standard is not the same as obvious, so we would rather tell you.
Megaphone inserts advertising into episodes. Advertisers may receive aggregate measurement about how their ads performed.
The form on our contact page is processed by Formspree, a third-party form service, rather than by our own server — this site doesn't run code that could store or process a submission itself. When you submit the form, Formspree receives whatever you enter (a reason for writing, your message, and a name and email only if you choose to give them), plus your IP address, and forwards it to us by email. Name and email are optional; we only use them to reply to you. Formspree's handling of that data is governed by their own privacy policy, not ours.
Our case wire page displays headlines from public U.S. Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission press feeds. Our server fetches those feeds on a schedule and stores them; your browser does not contact those agencies, and they receive nothing about you, unless you click through to read a release — at which point you are on a government website subject to its own policies.
We link to court records, agency releases, podcast platforms, and social media. Following a link takes you somewhere we don't control and where different rules apply. Merely displaying a link sends nothing about you to its destination.
Whether you use the contact form or email us directly, we receive whatever you choose to send — your message, and a name and email only if you provide them. Direct email sits in our email provider's system; form submissions pass through Formspree first, as described above.
We use what you send to reply to you and, where relevant, to correct the record. We don't add correspondents to any mailing list. Correction requests and anything touching a legal matter we keep as part of our editorial record. Case tips are treated the same way we treat any other lead — verified against primary documents before anything is used.
This version of the site has no newsletter signup. If we add one, this policy will be updated before it goes live to say who processes the list and what we do with it.
This show is made for adults and covers financial crime. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, write to us and we will delete it.
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or restrict the use of personal information about you, to object to certain processing, and to complain to a data protection authority. Residents of the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom have these rights under the GDPR and UK GDPR. Residents of California have rights under the CCPA and CPRA, including the right to know and the right to delete, and the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information — we do not sell or share personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of.
In practice, because we hold almost nothing, most requests will concern our server logs or an email you sent us. Write to neal [at] ponziplaybook [dot] com and we will respond.
For data held by the third parties above — Spotify, Apple, Google, Megaphone, and the measurement services — you will need to contact them directly, as we cannot access or delete their records. Browser settings and tracking-protection tools also let you block third-party embeds if you would rather they not load at all.
If we change how this site works — adding analytics or a newsletter, for instance — we will update this page and change the date at the top. Significant changes will be noted on the site.
Questions about this policy, or requests about your information: neal [at] ponziplaybook [dot] com
