Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy! I’ve been advised that every website must have, by law, a privacy policy. When I read the words “privacy policy,” it makes me suspicious. In most cases it’s about how the company issuing the policy is going to use and abuse one’s personal, and not so personal, information. It has little to do with protecting anyone’s privacy. And they do it with a Cheshire grin on their faces. For instance—

  • “Your privacy is very important to us. At XYZ Corp we have a few fundamental principles that we follow: and blah, blah, blah. . . blah-blah.”

Yeah, right. We, that is I, at [art]by[odo] (and Parallel Audio), couldn’t give a shit about your privacy. It’s no business of mine, that’s why I don’t care. I don’t collect anything about you in the first place. The website hosting service I use keeps records of IP addresses that visit, and other basic statistical information about visits to the sites, such as, time & date, hits & pages, if the visitor comes via a link from another site, or search engine, or a bookmark. There is no personal information collected, and I make no use of the information recorded.

  • “We don’t ask you for personal information unless we truly need it.”

Define “truly need it.”

  • “We don’t share your personal information with anyone except to comply with the law, develop our products, or protect our rights.”

If I had any of your personal information I wouldn’t share it with anyone, not even law enforcement. Obviously from the quoted statement, “our rights” are protected, not yours.

  • “A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. XYZ Corp uses cookies to help identify and track visitors, their usage of the website, and their website access preferences. Visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies. No cookies setting has the drawback that certain features of the website may not function properly without the aid of cookies.“

My hosting service sets a cookie for statistical purposes as stated above. It has no effect on the use or function of my sites, and there are no drawbacks if you set your browser to “no cookies.” There is only one exception to this. If you are a registered user, login requires setting a cookie.

  • “Ads appearing on this site may be delivered to users by advertising partners, who may also set cookies. These cookies allow the ad server to recognize your computer each time they send you an online advertisement to compile information about you or others who use your computer. This information allows ad networks to, among other things, deliver targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you. This Privacy Policy covers the use of cookies by XYZ Corp and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.”

There are no ads on my sites and never will be. You may also note there are no trackers on my sites. I highly recommend the use of a tracker blocker. Most sites have several trackers, sometimes dozens, per page.

I have one apology to make. Should you want to leave a comment it is necessary to register. This policy was not something I wanted to establish. Signup and sign-in registration is used by most sites primarily for tracking purposes. However, the only reason I require it is to prevent bots and unscrupulous spammers from posting fake comments and spamvertizing. Without this policy I would have to constantly filter hundreds of stupid comments containing links to sites selling counterfeit products, or worse, malware sites. The easiest way to prevent this crap is to require registration, a step that verifies you as a real person who has something intelligent to contribute. Sorry for the inconvenience.

So much for the privacy policy.