Privacy Policy

Who we are

Our website address is: https://chris.neal.media.

Summary

Our website runs on the WordPress content management system, which is maintained and operated by Automattic. While our website is self-hosted (meaning it is not hosted on Automattic operated servers), we do utilize the Jetpack and Akismet services, which are operated by Automattic. Refer to Automattic’s privacy notice for further information.

Additionally, we utilize both Google Analytics and Mamato analytics services. Please note that it is possible to opt-out of both the Google Analytics service, and our self-hosted instance of the Mamato service (see Analytics > Mamato on this page).

Regarding subscriptions to our site (to notify you of new posts), we utilize the Mailchimp delivery service. See Mailchimp’s Legal page for more information.

Also, we may occasionally embed media on our site from external services, namely YouTube. Refer to YouTube’s Privacy controls page for additional information.

Lastly, we have not, and will never, sell any user data collected by our self-hosted services. Your data is strictly used to facilitate core functions on our site (such as comment submissions). Regardless, you can always request deletion of your data by contacting us.

List of services used on our website:

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.

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 visit our login page, 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

Google Analytics

We utilize Google Analytics provided by Google LLC (“Google”) on our website.

Google Analytics is a web analysis service provided by Google. Google utilizes the Data collected to track and examine the use of this Website, to prepare reports on its activities and share them with other Google services. Google Analytics places a cookie in your browser when you visit our site, thereby providing insights such as how many users we have, where they are from, and which pages they click on.

Google may use the Data collected to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network.

Your data is processed in the United States. For more information, refer to Google’s Privacy Policy. You may also Opt Out of Google Analytics tracking.

Mamato

In addition to Google Analytics, we use Mamato, a self-hosted analytics service. Usage data collected using Mamato is stored only on our servers, and will never be shared with a third party.

For more information, refer to the Mamato Privacy Policy. Alternatively, you can opt-out of Mamato analytics below:

You may choose to prevent this website from aggregating and analyzing the actions you take here. Doing so will protect your privacy, but will also prevent the owner from learning from your actions and creating a better experience for you and other users.

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 are checked through an automated spam detection service, Akismet.

When you submit a comment, only the personal data needed to carry out Akismet’s core function of protecting our site against comment spam is collected from you on our site. Akismet does not sell your data sent to the Akismet service, and is stored only for short periods of time; Akismet has short retention periods of between two weeks and ninety days for the vast majority of spam-related data, at which point it is automatically deleted from Akismet’s databases.

Anyone can opt-out of all long-term tracking for the very small subset of data Akismet retains for longer by using their contact form.

Refer to Akismet’s Privacy Policy for more information.

Your contact information

For more information, or to request deletion of your data, please contact us.