Guide updates and corrections

October 23, 2026

Corrected the Utah chat-disclosure explanation, replaced the Maine source link, and corrected the Squarespace settings path.

October 24, 2026

Clarified the California privacy and access notes, the government website deadlines, the notes on what AI companies and chat tools must do, and the Tennessee start date. Swapped some links to bill pages and news stories for links to the official law texts. Improved the drawings, type and printing, and how the covers look in older browsers; the guides then had 38 and 22 PDF pages.

October 28, 2026

Rewrote both guides in plain words, with a source line beside each law and news fact. The website guide now starts with a first sitting on your own home page and uses the names Chrome shows today. It shows how to add a Domain column to Chrome's list, so you can read where each row went. When one name matches many rows, you write each domain once, with one row's name, its status and the count Chrome shows. A short sweep lists other companies' domains and skips your own site and your site builder. It says what each status means, including redirects and errors, shows a way to see a visit or click report in Chrome's Payload tab, adds more tool names (including Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Reddit and Klaviyo), and corrects the steps for all ten kinds of site and for the Mac keyboard. It shows how to read a collect row's full address to tell a Google Analytics report from another tool's. It calls the demo files stand-ins, not copies. Its law notes now add the $5,000 tracking damages figure, the 2019 appeals ruling on Domino's website, the revenue line for California's main privacy law, the privacy-page rule for business websites that collect California customers' names or email addresses, and the Federal Trade Commission's 2025 order against an accessibility widget seller. They drop the notes on pending tracking cases, a privacy-covered business's extra duties in detail, federal email and privacy rules, building-access reporting duties and city rules. The AI guide adds a chapter on the AI features Meta can switch on in your ads, how to step through Meta's preview examples (Meta says they are examples, not every version it shows), and where Meta shows its AI info label, a check of AI replies in your messages, and the jail, fine and civil penalty for a missing AI ad notice in California. It shortens the notes on AI companies' duties and on companion chats, and drops the notes on the AI training-data law, the chat law for very large companies and Colorado's automated-decision law. The Hawaii note now gives the law's July 14, 2026 signing date. Both guides lost their chapter numbers and decorative drawings and print in larger type, with worksheet text at 10 points or more. Every write-on line on the worksheets now prints. They now have 41 and 21 PDF pages.

October 29, 2026

The website guide's first sitting is now one tracking check with two names, one keyboard check and one next step, written down before the full check in the seven-day plan. Each box on Worksheet B now takes "yes," "not observed" or "could not check," and a new page, Worksheet B, continued, has a line for each domain that matched and room for a long sweep. A filled-in example of both pages, from our demo bakery, comes before them. The note to your site maintainer now has the words for a page with no banner and for a banner with no Reject option. The Google collect check now asks you to copy only the start of each address, up to the "?", because the rest can hold codes that identify the visitor. The privacy-page check now says what to write when a site has no privacy page. Both guides now say the week ends with one change you can undo, or a specific request for help. They now have 45 and 21 PDF pages.

October 29, 2026

The website guide now opens with a short first part, "What these letters are," in short, plain sentences, with key words explained where they first appear: a short version; whether these letters are real, with calm facts first and then sourced numbers; the two things they point at, each with a simple drawing; plain answers about ads you ran (with where to see an old ad tag's activity in your own Meta and Google accounts) and other things that can load other companies' files; and what a letter asks for. The laws' per-violation amounts are now in "The laws named in these letters," at the back. "If you need a lawyer" moved to the front, in larger type: talk to a lawyer before you reply, pay, or change your site; the State Bar's referral line (tap to call in the web version) and directory; letters and court papers; what to write down and keep; and how to check that a sender is a licensed California lawyer; and a step to ask your insurance agent whether your business insurance covers claims like this. A new Worksheet D puts it on one printable page. The first sitting is now the chapter "Your first look at your site": steps for your phone tonight (with an optional banner check in a private tab, and what to do if you built the site yourself), a "Who manages your website?" block (with Square Online and WordPress, and a row for when the person who built your site is gone), then the banner and keyboard checks at a computer (with Chrome or Safari private browsing on a phone), an optional tracking check, a list of what to do with each result, a short message for ordering and booking companies, and a note for your web person that now also asks about tags from past ads. In print, each chapter now starts on a new page. Both guides have new typographic covers, and their sources fold away in the web version. Several chapters have plainer names: "Check your cookie banner," "See what loads before a visitor chooses," "Pick the pages a customer uses," "Check your privacy page" and "Don't pay for an "ADA compliant" badge." A name that doesn't match is now written "not found," and the website guide says "web person" where it said "site maintainer." The AI guide's first check is now called "Three questions." Two new chapters take an owner from a finding to a change: "Make tracking wait for a choice," with the builder's own steps for Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, WordPress and Square Online, each ending with a check again and the undo; and "If you have no web person," with who to ask, a ready message for builder support, a login of the helper's own, and what to do when an old freelancer controls the web address or hosting. Every walkthrough starts by writing down each setting it will touch, and every undo puts back what was written down; Worksheet E has room for it, and the check again now tests Accept as well as Reject. The seven-day plan opens with a Basic track, whose tracking check is one page of five names, and a Deeper track; the most technical steps are marked "For your helper, or if you want to go deeper." The privacy-page chapter now says what each builder offers when there is no privacy page, and the guide ends with "Where you stand after seven days." A one-page table, "Your builder at a glance," gives each builder's page numbers for its settings, its walkthrough, support, a helper's login and the privacy page. It sits on a page called "Find your situation," whose one-page table sends nine common situations, from a site you built yourself to an old ad you stopped, to the pages to check first and the likely change or request for help. Browser settings, such as the zoom level and the Mac Tab setting, and a privacy policy change are now written down first and put back afterwards too. Seven pictures of builder screens, from Shopify's developer docs, the Wix Help Center and WordPress.org, now sit beside the steps they show, each credited and linked in its caption. They now have 70 and 21 PDF pages.

November 4, 2026

The demo bakery the website guide's worked examples practice on moved to demo.knowthesite.com. Its screenshots and Network rows were taken again there on November 4, 2026, with the same files, statuses and counts. The guides have 70 and 21 PDF pages.

November 4, 2026

Both guides' Android steps for a private tab now say to tap More, then "Open in a new Incognito window," the words in Google's Chrome Help, and add that some phones say "New Incognito tab" instead. The website guide's page 2 now holds one task to do on a phone: the two things these letters point at, the short note to the web person (with Copy and Open buttons in the web version), and, for a site the owner built, a look at the banner's buttons instead. The stop box now sits just before it. A one-page "Basic check" sheet joins the worksheets, linked from "Your first look at your site" and from the basic check: the five basic names before any choice and after Reject, the page address and date, the first keyboard barrier and the next step. Worksheet B stays the deeper record. The guides have 72 and 21 PDF pages.

November 4, 2026

The website guide's cover now says "Start here" at the task on page 2, "Do this now, on your phone," and links to it. The task holds its limit and its two branches: a note for whoever built the site, or a look at the banner for an owner who built it. Page 3's "Three steps to start" are now one line: when the phone task is done, read "What these letters are." The step to find your row in "Find your situation" moved to "At a computer" in "Your first look at your site." The stop box stays on page 2, word for word. In both guides, "About this edition" now links to our page Corrections and updates, at knowthesite.com/updates: a working link in the PDF and in the web version. The website guide now says to read it on a phone as the PDF, which opens on any phone, and that the file ending in .html, with its Copy buttons, is for a computer. The phone task says how to copy the note from the PDF: press and hold its first word, drag to its last word, and tap Copy. The guides have 72 and 21 PDF pages.

New designs

These dates changed how the guides look, not what they say. They are not corrections.