Just like advertising, I take privacy serious

The web is a wild west of data harvesters. From grandma cat blogs to Nigerian princes. Both intentional and unintentional data flows everywhere. This isn’t always a bad thing. We humans have an amazing sense of curiosity that data can safely fulfil. Private data like phone numbers let us connect with loved ones across the globe. Public data like web cat videos make the internet a fun place to be. Content creators like myself also benefit from data. In order to improve my content, I need to make informed choices. Instead of leaving these important desitions to blind guesses, I use data. It can empower creators to see what works and what doesn’t.

This site is built with common tools that even governments use. Such things as WordPress (a blog engine that handles site databases) and google analytics for site performance measurement (like YouTube’s creator studio but for websites) to minimise concerns, data or otherwise, on my end. This site should function the same even without javascript support.

What data is collected and why:

Comments

When visitors choose to leave comments the site collects the data shown in the comments form and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) is checked against the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you can opt to save your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

An anonymous randomly generated ID is stored in a performance measuring tool cookie. Specifically, a bare-bones setup of Google analytics as explained more below.

Embedded content from other websites

Some pages on this site include embedded content (e.g. videos, certain images, etc.). Such content isn’t hosted on this site which is why they behave as if the visitor has visited the other website. As such we have little to no control over the use of data, cookies, monitoring, etc. of embeds. By sticking to popular Google tools (Mostly YouTube as my content is video based) I hope to avoid these privacy issues. Their popularity means more people holding them accountable, more public knowledge of the tools and they give users a lot of data control like this.

Analytics

In order to know what works and what doesn’t, I measure the performance of this site. The tool I use is Google analytics. My setup is close to it’s out of the box functionality. The main changes I make are to follow Google’s “Best practices to avoid sending Personally Identifiable Information (PII)”. Their opt out help page is here.

Who I share/send/sell/rent data with

First thing every site should make clear is: I do not and will not sell or rent your data! I find such actions to be scummy business practice. I won’t willingly share it for free either. By using a third-party performance measurement tool, that data is processed on Google’s end on a secure account. Google states that they do not use or share such data.

Unless a request for data comes from a legitimate legal basis or from the user who generated the data, I don’t consider it a valid request.

How long data is retained

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. The data of a comment is required in order for it to be displayed.

The anonymous site performance measurements are a case by case basis. When data is assessed to no longer be usefull, it is erased. For example, a site design change can affect how people judge the site. This will call into question the effectiveness of using old performance data as a measurement of the new design.

What rights you have over your data

If you have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to the site. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

How data is protected

All performance data is sent with SSL encryption by default, goes to a secure account and is not shared. Comment data is not affected by any third party plugins reducing the possible points of failure. I am constly learning more about data protection and am open to user issue reports.

For inquiries, email [email protected]

I hope I’ve explained this in plain English as opposed to speaking like a lawyer. I understand how needlessly complex these sort of pages have gotten. As a reward for getting this far, enjoy a video: (I have no connection with Barclays but their site has some good first steps for protecting yourself)