Facebook and the controversy over their past dissemination of user data has been on the news a lot lately. Lots of people deleting their profiles or at least thinking about it. There's another story that will hopefully blow up--a much bigger story, in my opinion: the data that Google and other ad networks are collecting on you. This data isn't just coming from your searches and emails, it's coming from your offline purchases around town, the GPS on your phone, the random web surfing you do, and so many more places. The data is being cross-referenced and used to build a profile of you, which is then sold to others with virtually no regulation.
I just want to take a moment to tell you about your privacy when you use this site because it's something that sets us apart from the other LR forum and, really, almost every website out there. These hold true for both this site and for DiscoWeb, if you're a user over there:
- We don't run any ads on this site. Therefore, your activity on this site is not being captured by an ad network for profiling purposes.. However, it may be possible for others to track you when someone includes a third-party image in a post here. I'm working on a solution to stop this. In the meantime, we suggest running an ad blocker. It's also possible that your posts could be correlated to you if you post under your real name. If you're concerned by that, feel free to post under an alias. We can change your username if you ask us.
- We don't have any tracking cookies here, beyond the vBulletin cookies that allow you to stay logged in. We have no third-party cookies whatsoever. Compare this to other LR sites that load your browser up with dozens of trackers every time you visit.
- We don't sell your personal information or usage logs to anyone. Period. Server access logs are maintained for a few months for systems security purposes and then deleted. I'm not going to give anyone access to them without a warrant.
- This place will always be free and non-commercial. This board is supported out of Dave's and my pockets. We spend about $1500 a year between us to keep this thing alive. We do this in the spirit of the early internet--back in the day, people used to build cool shit and give it away for free just for the fun of it and the goodwill that it spread.
- We use TLS 1.2 for encryption and authentication to protect you from man-in-the-middle snooping. There are still things that your employer or ISP or DNS provider (looking at you, Google DNS) can do to sniff some of your traffic. I'm happy to give you ways to protect yourself in this department but it will be long and technical.
If you have any questions about the site and your data here, we are here to answer as best we can.
I just want to take a moment to tell you about your privacy when you use this site because it's something that sets us apart from the other LR forum and, really, almost every website out there. These hold true for both this site and for DiscoWeb, if you're a user over there:
- We don't run any ads on this site. Therefore, your activity on this site is not being captured by an ad network for profiling purposes.. However, it may be possible for others to track you when someone includes a third-party image in a post here. I'm working on a solution to stop this. In the meantime, we suggest running an ad blocker. It's also possible that your posts could be correlated to you if you post under your real name. If you're concerned by that, feel free to post under an alias. We can change your username if you ask us.
- We don't have any tracking cookies here, beyond the vBulletin cookies that allow you to stay logged in. We have no third-party cookies whatsoever. Compare this to other LR sites that load your browser up with dozens of trackers every time you visit.
- We don't sell your personal information or usage logs to anyone. Period. Server access logs are maintained for a few months for systems security purposes and then deleted. I'm not going to give anyone access to them without a warrant.
- This place will always be free and non-commercial. This board is supported out of Dave's and my pockets. We spend about $1500 a year between us to keep this thing alive. We do this in the spirit of the early internet--back in the day, people used to build cool shit and give it away for free just for the fun of it and the goodwill that it spread.
- We use TLS 1.2 for encryption and authentication to protect you from man-in-the-middle snooping. There are still things that your employer or ISP or DNS provider (looking at you, Google DNS) can do to sniff some of your traffic. I'm happy to give you ways to protect yourself in this department but it will be long and technical.
If you have any questions about the site and your data here, we are here to answer as best we can.