Privacy policy

This policy describes the site published by Stewart Ferris and operated as The Dialogue Lab. Questions: [email protected]. It is written for readers in the UK, the EEA, and California as well as elsewhere. It is not legal advice to you about your own book.

What you paste into the tools

The punctuation checker, screenplay converter, ratio analyser, tag auditor, subtext generator, and speaking-time calculator run in your browser. Text you paste is processed locally. It is not transmitted to our server, not stored by us, and not included in share links. Share links may contain counts, a seed number, or a duration. They must not contain your scene, and the buttons are built so they don’t. Local notes — clinic receipts, library queue titles, comments, streaks, newsletter addresses saved as a convenience — live in your browser’s storage until you clear it. We do not receive them.

What we do collect

The visit counter in the footer stores a single shared number: how many times the site has been opened in a new browser session. It does not store a name, an account, or which page you were reading. Everyone sees the same total.

If you email [email protected], we receive whatever you put in that email, and we use it to reply. If you accept cookies, advertising and optional measurement may set cookies as described below. Server logs on the host that delivers the site may include IP address, user agent, and the page requested, for security and operations. We don’t use those logs to build a writing profile.

Cookies and advertising

A consent cookie (stored locally as your accept or reject choice) remembers whether you allowed advertising. Until you accept, we do not load Google AdSense. If you accept, pages may request ads from Google. Google and its partners, including the DoubleClick cookie, may use cookies to serve and measure ads, including personalised ads if your Google settings allow them. You can reject non-essential cookies on the banner, change the choice at “Cookie settings” in the footer, and control Google’s personalisation at adssettings.google.com. Industry opt-out pages include optout.aboutads.info and youronlinechoices.com.

Our ads.txt file names the AdSense publisher account google.com, pub-4446639715209525, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0. Ads are not placed on the privacy policy, the terms, the disclaimer, or the editorial policy.

Analytics

If a Google Analytics 4 tag is enabled on a future configuration of this site, it will load only after you accept cookies, and it will be configured with IP anonymisation where the tag supports it. You can install Google’s opt-out add-on from tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. Rejecting cookies means that tag is not injected by our banner logic.

Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or export personal data we actually hold, and to object to or restrict certain processing. Because tool text never reaches us, we cannot access or delete a scene that stayed on your device — you do that by closing the tab or clearing site data. For email correspondence, write to [email protected]. You may lodge a complaint with the ICO in the UK or with your local authority. California residents may request disclosure or deletion of personal information a business holds; again, pasted manuscript text is not among it.

Children

The Lab is written for adults learning a craft. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data.

Updated 21 October 2026. See also the terms and the disclaimer.