Like many web sites, my personal site gathers information on its visitors. This page is intended to help explain what’s recorded when you’re here.
Your Name
If you comment, and leave your real name, then I and others who read your comment will know it.
Your Email Address
If you comment, and provide your real email address, then I will have a record of that. Your email is NOT shared by me with anyone else. I might use it if there’s some need to contact you in a follow-up on your comment. That’s it.
Your IP Address
Virtually all web sites record the IP address of people who visit. Potentially, this could allow you to be identified, particularly in cases where some companies or universities may link an IP address to someone’s real name. In most cases, this isn’t a worry. In addition, I rarely bother trying to use IP addresses to figure out what actual person may have come.
Other Personally Identifiable Information
Personal identifiable information is information that allows you to be identified as a particular person, such as your name, your address or phone number. As explained, I may know your name and email address if you provide this when commenting. That’s pretty much it. There’s nothing else I can think of being recorded unless you for some reason deliberately choose to provide it when sending a message to me using the site’s feedback form.
Cookies & Tracking Codes
Visits will cause a variety of cookies to be placed on your browser. This allows the site to know if you’ve come before. It also allows for advertising partners to target ads better to you. These don’t reveal who exactly you are. If you don’t like cookies, you can disable them when visiting the site. It works just fine without them.
The site also runs tracking code, including that from Google Analytics, that allows me to know what pages were viewed, how people found those pages and other related data. The tracking code doesn’t reveal who exactly you are. If you don’t like tracking codes, you can disable them by disabling JavaScript in your browser. The site should function fairly well without it.
Advertising & Behavioral Targeting
The site carries ads from Google AdSense and also occasionally has affiliate links, which are disclosed as explained more on my my disclosures & disclaimers page. Google AdSense may do “retargeting.” That means it may show you ads based on other sites you’ve visited, that it tracks across the web. That can sound kind of creepy. If you don’t like it, you can easily opt-out of behavioral targeting from Google and other companies using this form.