Privacy Policy

This web site is maintained by The Sprocket Society, Seattle, WA. Our contact information is here.

We value the privacy of our visitors, subscribers, and friends as much as we value out own. This page details our privacy policies, as well as terms of use for this web site.

Non-Disclosure of Personal Information

All personal information submitted to this web site is kept in the strictest confidence, and we will not disclose it except as required by law. In some contexts, such as comments submitted to the blog, some personal information may appear publicly. The Sprocket Society does not sell, rent, lend, or otherwise distribute our email lists, user profiles, or any other private data to any third party.

Our online data security is contingent on the policies and actions of these third-party vendors: Dreamhost (our hosting provider) and Google (our primary email and analytics provider). Because of this, no guarantee is made towards the security of personal information stored on these systems, and we cannot be held responsible for loss of data or privacy due to means outside our control.

Unsolicited Email (Spam)

Spam is vile. It is the policy of The Sprocket Society not to send, aid, or abet spam.

You may receive email from us for any of the following legitimate reasons:

  • You have subscribed to an email list we maintain. You can un-subscribe at any time — just reply and ask. (Your message will not be sent to the entire list, only the administrator.)
  • Normal automated email communication as a registered user of our blog.
  • In reply to a message sent to us using the web site’s Contact form.
  • Other everyday, person-to-person direct email communication.

If you feel you have received spam from us or from this web site, or someone has subscribed you without your permission, please use our Contact page to explain the details and we will be happy to assist you in any way we can.

Email Lists

All email lists of the Sprocket Society are subject to our base non-disclosure policy.

Subscribers to our announcement email list receive periodic announcements. It is low-traffic and subscriber addresses are not exposed in messages sent to the list.

To unsubscribe from our email list at any time, either:

  • Simply reply to any message and ask to be removed. Your email will not go to the entire list, and will only be seen by the list administrator.
  • Or, use our contact form to send a message asking to be removed.

We do not maintain any discussion lists at this time. If you receive an unsolicited message from any other list subscriber unknown to you, please contact us immediately with the details.

Web Site Terms of Use

Accessing and/or archiving this Web site or any portion or fragment of it by any means whatsoever constitutes acceptance of these terms of use and privacy policies.

All original content — in any format presented, or linked to, or archived here on this Web site — is copyright © 2005-2009 by the author(s) and The Sprocket Society unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Such content may be revised at any time, and all versions and iterations are copyright as above. All comments and posts submitted to this site become the sole property of The Sprocket Society.

Blog Comments

The views and opinions expressed in blog comments are obviously those of that author alone, and do not necessarily represent those of anyone else anywhere in the whole wide world. All comments submitted to this site become the sole property of The Sprocket Society, with full rights assigned to us by the author.

All commenters must provide a name (which will be publicly displayed) and a valid email address (which is not publicly displayed, but is used for administrative purposes). We reserve the right to delete or modify any comments or accounts attributed to an invalid email address.

While robust discussion and debate is encouraged, all commenters, forum users, and other contributors shall observe basic decorum. Personal attacks or otherwise unacceptable behavior will not be tolerated, and are subject to immediate deletion at the sole discretion of the web site administrators. Repeat or otherwise egregious offenders are subject to permanent ban.

Comment spam is forbidden; please report comment spam. No commenter or any other site contributor may post any link, URL or other reference to any web site, program, script, or anything else which in any way: endangers or compromises user privacy; propagates or enables computer viruses, worms, trojans, or malware of any kind; is spam or is spam-related (except for legitimate anti-spam efforts); aids or abets any violation of law; or is deemed objectionable. Such content is subject to immediate deletion.

Cookies

This web site uses cookies for two purposes:

  1. To manage Subscriber/User login status. Cookies are required to login as a registered user (if offered).
  2. To collect anonymized data about site usage using Google Analytics.

Visitors who disable cookies are always welcome, although not all site features may be available to them. Cookies are not required to post a Comment on the site’s blog.

Web Site Statistics and Usage Data

Statistics about site usage are used to get a sense of the overall number of visitors, which portions of the site are popular or neglected, and for identifying technical problems that need to be addressed. This data is used internally only, and is never disseminated outside of The Sprocket Society except as required by law (including the USA Patriot Act).

This web site gathers usage statistic by two means:

  1. Standard Apache web server stats collection. This is enabled by default by our Hosting Service Provider.
  2. Third-party web-based stats collection using Google Analytics.

All site statistics are anonymized, but closer monitoring may occur in the event of security or other technical concerns.

Fair Use

On occasion this Web site quotes from other sources. This done on a non-commercial basis for educational and academic purposes, and it is believed this constitutes a “fair use” under Title 17 USC section 107 of the US Copyright Law. No claim of copyright is intended or implied for any such material quoted or linked to, and our policy is to appropriately cite all sources. If you feel this Web site has violated your copyright, or is erroneously citing a source, please contact us and explain your position; we will gladly respond appropriately via private communication.

Third-Party Content

Ultimately, this Web site and those own or maintain it are not responsible in any way for anything that may be linked to elsewhere on the Internet, and we think it is absurd we have to say something as obvious as that to indemnify ourselves.