Green Shoe Garage
Last updated: May 13, 2026

SUMMARY

Green Shoe Garage is the studio name under which Michael B. Parks
publishes work as a designer, fabricator, engineer, and educator. This
policy explains how the studio handles information across everything it
does: the website at greenshoegarage.com, the software it publishes
(browser extensions, open-source code, command-line tools), the writing
and visual work it produces, and the professional services it offers to
clients and students.

The studio tries to collect as little information as possible, store
nothing it does not need, and share nothing with anyone unless the
person who provided the information asked the studio to share it. Where
third-party services are unavoidable (a web host that records access
logs, a payment processor that handles billing), the studio uses
well-established providers and limits what is shared to what those
services genuinely need to function.

If that summary is enough for you, you can stop reading. The sections
below describe specific situations in more detail.

WHAT THIS POLICY COVERS

This document covers information that Green Shoe Garage handles
directly. That includes:

Activity on the website at greenshoegarage.com.

Use of software the studio publishes (browser extensions,
command-line tools, libraries, scripts).

Correspondence sent to the studio (email, contact-form submissions,
public messages on platforms where the studio has accounts).

Information received in the course of professional services (client
work, commissions, career coaching), to the extent that information
is not governed by a separate contract with the client or student.

It does not cover platforms operated by other parties, such as GitHub,
the Chrome Web Store, social media services, payment processors, or
service providers used by the studio. Each of those has its own privacy
policy, and your use of those platforms is governed by their terms, not
by this document.

For specific professional engagements, the contract or letter of
engagement between the studio and the client (or student) takes
precedence over this policy where the two overlap.

THE WEBSITE (greenshoegarage.com)

The website is hosted on a standard commercial web hosting service.
When you visit a page, the host records the request in a server log
(the URL you requested, the time, your IP address, and your browser’s
user-agent string). These logs exist for the same reasons all web
servers keep them: to diagnose problems, to detect abuse, and to inform
decisions about what content people are reading. Logs are retained for
a limited period (typically 30 to 90 days, depending on the hosting
provider’s configuration) and are not used for advertising, sold to
anyone, or shared with anyone outside the studio.

The website does not use cookies for tracking. It does not run any
third-party analytics service (no Google Analytics, no Plausible, no
Fathom, nothing else). It does not contain advertising or affiliate
tracking. It does not retarget you, fingerprint your browser, or pass
identifiers to data brokers.

If the website embeds external resources (an image hosted elsewhere, a
script from a content-delivery network, an embedded video, an embedded
social-media post), those embeds may cause your browser to communicate
with the third party that hosts the resource. The studio tries to keep
these embeds to a minimum and to prefer locally-hosted resources where
reasonable.

CONTACT FORM AND EMAIL

If you send a message through the website’s contact form, or directly
to an email address listed on the site, the studio receives the
contents of your message and any contact information you chose to
include (typically your name and email address).

That information is used only to reply to your message and, if it leads
to a working relationship, to continue that conversation. It is stored
in the studio’s email account at a standard email provider, and remains
there as long as the conversation is relevant. The studio does not add
contact-form submissions to any mailing list, does not share email
addresses with anyone, and does not use them for any purpose other than
the conversation you initiated.

There is no mailing list, newsletter, or marketing-email program at
Green Shoe Garage. If that changes in the future, anyone who opts in
will be informed about exactly what they are opting into.

SOFTWARE THE STUDIO PUBLISHES

Green Shoe Garage publishes software, primarily on GitHub and the
Chrome Web Store. Each piece of software has its own behavior. As a
general rule:

The software does not contain analytics, telemetry, crash reporting,
or tracking of any kind.

The software does not transmit information from your machine to the
studio. The studio operates no servers that receive data from users
of its software.

The software does not contain advertising.

The software does not execute remote code; all code is bundled into
the published package and reviewable by anyone who downloads or
inspects it.

When a specific piece of software has its own privacy policy (typically
for software distributed through stores that require one, such as the
Chrome Web Store), the project-specific policy takes precedence for
that product. Where no project-specific policy exists, this umbrella
policy applies.

If you encounter a piece of studio-published software that appears to
violate any of the above, please report it through the project’s issue
tracker on GitHub. The studio considers any departure from these
defaults to be a bug.

OPEN-SOURCE CONTRIBUTIONS, PUBLIC POSTS, AND COMMENTS

If you file an issue, open a pull request, or leave a comment on a
public platform where the studio has a presence (typically GitHub, but
also potentially Mastodon, blog comment threads, or similar), the
information you choose to make public on those platforms is, by
definition, public. The platform operator (GitHub, etc.) handles that
data according to its own policies. The studio reads, responds to, and
may quote or reference your public contributions in the context of the
project.

The studio does not retain a separate database of who has contributed
to which project beyond what those platforms themselves record.
Attribution for contributions follows the conventions of the platform
(a Git commit author line, a GitHub issue thread, etc.).

CLIENT WORK, COMMISSIONS, AND COACHING

Professional engagements (custom design and fabrication, prototyping,
commissioned art and writing, career coaching, technical leadership
consulting) involve direct relationships between the studio and a
client or student. Those relationships are governed by a contract or
letter of engagement specific to the project. That contract takes
precedence over this policy for matters it addresses.

In general, the studio treats information shared in the course of a
professional engagement (technical specifications, design files,
business context, personal background relevant to coaching) as
confidential to the engagement. It is used only to perform the work
that was contracted, is not shared with any third party without
permission, and is retained only as long as is reasonable for the
engagement and any follow-on work the client may request.

If your engagement with the studio involves information that has
formal confidentiality requirements (regulated information, trade
secrets, attorney-client privileged material, ITAR-controlled technical
data, anything similar), make those requirements explicit in your
contract with the studio and the studio will accommodate them.

THIRD-PARTY SERVICES THE STUDIO USES

The studio uses a small number of standard third-party services to
operate. These include, but are not limited to:

A web hosting provider for the studio website.

An email provider for studio correspondence.

GitHub for source code hosting and public-facing project management.

Payment processors (typically a major bank or established processor
such as Stripe or Square) when invoicing clients.

Cloud storage and collaboration tools (such as encrypted file
sharing) when working with clients who need them.

Each of these services has its own privacy policy. When the studio
shares information with one of them, it shares only what that service
genuinely needs to function (your billing details with a payment
processor, for example, not with the web host).

The studio does not knowingly use third-party services that engage in
adversarial data practices, sell user data to brokers, or train AI
models on private user content without consent.

WHAT THE STUDIO DOES NOT DO

For clarity, Green Shoe Garage does not:

Sell, rent, or trade your personal information to anyone, ever.

Use your information for advertising, retargeting, profiling, or
behavioral analysis.

Operate a tracking pixel, beacon, or fingerprinting system.

Maintain a customer mailing list for unsolicited marketing.

Share confidential client work or coaching conversations with anyone
outside the engagement.

Use information from one client relationship to inform or solicit
another.

YOUR RIGHTS

You have the following rights with respect to information the studio
holds about you:

Access. You can ask the studio what information it has that pertains
to you. The studio will respond with what it has and where it is
kept.

Correction. If anything the studio holds about you is wrong, you can
ask for it to be corrected.

Deletion. You can ask the studio to delete information it holds
about you. The studio will comply unless retention is required by
law, by an active contract, or by a legitimate business need (such
as ongoing legal disputes). The studio will explain any exceptions
in plain language.

Portability. Where applicable, you can ask for a copy of the
information the studio holds about you, in a format you can take
elsewhere.

Opt out. Since the studio does not maintain a marketing list and
does not engage in tracking, there is nothing to opt out of by
default. If that ever changes, anyone affected will be informed and
given a meaningful way to opt out.

If you are in a jurisdiction with applicable privacy laws (such as the
GDPR in the European Union, the UK GDPR, or the CCPA and CPRA in
California), the rights those laws grant you are honored by the studio.
To exercise any of them, write to the contact address below.

CHILDREN

The studio’s website, software, and services are not directed at
children, and the studio does not knowingly collect information from
children under 13 (or under 16, in jurisdictions that set the threshold
there). If you believe a child has provided information to the studio,
contact the studio at the address below and the studio will delete the
information.

SECURITY

The studio takes reasonable measures to protect information in its
custody. This includes using strong authentication on accounts that
hold studio email and files, using encryption for transmitted data
where the underlying service supports it (HTTPS for web traffic, TLS
for email transmission), and limiting access to client materials to
the people working on the engagement.

The studio cannot guarantee that any system is impenetrable. If a
security incident affects information you provided, the studio will
inform you within a reasonable time and explain what happened, what
was affected, and what (if anything) you should do.

CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

If the studio’s data practices change, this policy will be updated at
the same URL where you are reading it now, and the “Last updated” date
at the top will reflect the change. Material changes will also be
mentioned in studio blog posts and (where appropriate) communicated
directly to clients with active engagements.

Past versions of this policy are retained and can be requested at the
contact address below.

CONTACT

For privacy questions, requests, or concerns:

Email: [email protected]

GitHub issues: for software-specific concerns, the relevant
project’s issue tracker is usually the fastest path.