Privacy Policy
Welcome to the privacy policy page for donfarland.com. I will do my best to answer any questions and explain how your data is used, stored, and shared.
Who am I?
My name is Donald Farland and I am the owner and operator of https://donfarland.com.
What data is collected & why?
As little as humanly possible. I have made a concerted effort to collect as little information about you as I possibly can. First and foremost, I value my privacy and yours. Secondly, collecting, storing, and securing your private data is a lot of work. The less data I collect about my readers, the less I have to worry about. The following is a complete summary of all data that is collected and why.
Cookies
Cookies are bits of data that are sent to and from your browser to identify you. When you open a website, your browser sends a piece of data to the web server hosting that website. This data usually appears as strings of numbers and letters in a text file. Every time you access a new website, a cookie is created and placed in a temporary folder on your device. They may be used to remember your preferences, keep you logged in, or as is more often the case track everywhere you go online and sell that information to the highest bidder.
Authentication & Personalization
This website uses cookies to support user authentication. Things like remembering your preferences and login status but you don’t have to worry about that because this site has only 1 user, me. At no time do I collect information about you to support authentication or personalization.
Analytics
One of the most popular uses of cookies is to track user activity. How many visitors, what they look at, and what pages they tend to gravitate towards. This is very valuable information for website owners and content creators, and I’m no different. Where I am different is in how I do this. While most sites use services like Google Analytics, I do not. I prefer Independent Analytics and this plugin does not use cookies.
Advertising
This website is 100% ad-free. Occasionally, I may post sponsored graphics or links for services I use and recommend, but it is rare. If I do, I will clearly indicate the link or graphic is sponsored and disclose what if anything may be collected as part of that promotion.
I tried ads when I first started out and hated every minute they were active. The ads were ugly, annoying, and typically for scams or questionable products or services. As if that wasn’t enough, they barely made any money.
So now, I rely entirely on donations through Ko-fi to recover my costs and help fuel this hobby.
Embedded Content
Occasionally, I will embed content from other sites, most commonly YouTube. Whenever I embed external content the cookies used by the source website come with it. I have no control over these cookies but I’m also not storing them. To learn more about these cookies you will have to refer to the external site’s privacy policy.
Privacy Compliance
Ironically, nearly 100% of the cookies I use are to record, manage, and report on my compliance with the EU’s GDPR and California’s CCPA privacy regulations. It’s funny and a bit of a headache but given the state of the modern Internet, a necessary evil.
Mailing List (MailChimp)
This website uses MailChimp to manage e-mail subscriptions to this web site. These emails contain content from the website and may occasionally include content not available online. Mailing list subscribers must opt-in and may unsubscribe at any time. Potential subscribers must complete the online subscription form and confirm that subscription in an automated email that they will receive shortly after they subscribe.
Subscribers may unsubscribe from a mailing list at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the email.
You can find MailChimp’s privacy policy here.
Who has access to browsing data?
Nobody, not even me. I collect nothing of value from cookies and have no intention of changing that.
How long is data retained?
Cookies are automatically discarded after 1-year. You will
Questions?
Privacy is important. I only collect data important to the operation of this website. If you have any questions about this policy, contact me using the social links in the site header.
