So, on to the fun part!
Websites these days are obliged to have a privacy policy, for example because of the EU’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). And so it’s up to me to craft something that can pass as one.
In short, we do use cookies. Those can be affiliate cookies, or tracking cookies. I use Google Analytics which helps me see where my traffic comes from and from which pages people tend to leave. Those can be an indicator to me that I need to improve the content on that page, so yeah – these cookies do help make this a better site!
If you don’t want any cookies to be placed on your website, you’re always free to leave. Or to uninstall your web browser completely, as websites without cookies are hard to come by these days… Anyway, I digress. Here’s my privacy policy:
Who we are
Our website address is: https://climbingblogger.com.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Contact forms
Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving 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.
If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Analytics
Who we share your data with
This website makes use of various third party plugins and tracking cookies. These include but are not necessarily limited to: Google Analytics, Google Adsense, Yoast SEO Plugin and the Amazon Affiliate program.
I’ve also started using the Hotjar Plugin. This is a powerful tool that can give me a heatmap of where users click on my website. I actually installed it for a different purpose though: I thought it could be fun to start a survey on my website about various climbing related topics. If a lot of people participate, we could get some cool insights into the climbing community. That could be something I’d then share on my blog with you guys. Of course, that would be anonymised.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or 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 us. 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.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. Also, the generic user data is sent to Google for analytical purposes. In Google Analytics, i can see stuff like how many people visit my website, whehich country they came from, and how they navigate from page to page. Additionally, when you click on an adversisement or when you use one of our affiliate links, a tracking cookie is placed on your computer which will help that party identify you as being reffered through our website.