Sorry about this off topic post folks…but it’s the fault of the government of the European Union (EU).

I realize that privacy is important…but the EU has determined that the privacy rights of their citizenry overrides the rights of the citizenry of every other country in the world.

Specifically…the EU has implemented a series of regulations called the General Data Protection Data Regulations (GPDR) which provides citizens of the EU certain rights over the collection of, usage, and/or deletion/retention of said personal data by any entity (including digital) that collects this data. What this means is that if you collect, use, or retain any potentially personal data on a citizen of the EU the website has to specifically state what data is collected and how it’s used. These rights as provided to EU citizens apply worldwide so if an EU citizen visits a website located completely in a foreign country like the USA the EU demands that the non-EU website comply with the EU GDPR rules…and websites are specifically prohibited from banning EU citizens from visiting. To me…it seems like if an EU citizen visits my website said EU citizen has agreed to provide his/her personal data like IP addresses and email address if he/she subscribes to the site…but that’s just me.

Now it’s not clear to me as a citizen of the USA with a website hosted in the USA that the EU may enforce it’s will on the owners of this site…especially as the income provided by this site to the owners is zero…but as the financial penalties for misusing personal data of an EU citizen may be considerable it’s just easier to put up a boiler plate privacy policy and move on.

This blog is owned and operated by the site owners but is hosted by and on servers owned and operated by http:wordpress.com. WordPress.com has their own privacy policy and since they handle all of the subscribe/unsubscribe/commenting/advertising all of that is handled by the privacy policy promulgated by WordPress.com.

So…there are two changes you will see to the site as of today.

First…there is a posted privacy policy page linked in the menu above. That link will take you to a page that details our privacy policy, what data is collected, and what it’s used for. You can read it at your leisure but here’s a quick summary.

• If you visit the page…your IP address and browser of choice are logged. Duh…this is how the internet works.
• If you subscribe to either comments or posts…you will have to provide your email address and click on the subscribe button. If you do that…you’ll get an email saying that somebody tried to subscribe you to the blog and you’ll have to reply to actually be subscribed. Duh…again, this is how the internet works and that series of emails will contain…you guessed it…your email address and the various mail servers and providers it passed through as it went from your device to our web server. If you’re subscribed to either comments or the posts…each email you receive provides a link for unsubscribing. Whether or not your email address is still available to the blog owners directly or not is questionable…I did not research the details of the subscribe/unsubscribe process…but all of that is handled by WordPress.com.

Second…and you should only see this once…you will see a pop up notice asking you to accept cookie usage. A cookie is a small file to allow better interaction with a site. For instance…if you log in with either a WordPress.com login, or credentials from some other service like Google or Facebook then a cookie will be placed on your computer so that the next time you visit the site it will recognize you as a user. Again…this is how the internet works. All websites…well the vast majority of them anyway…use cookies and have always used cookies. Advertisers use cookies to follow you around the Internet as your browse. If you don’t like cookies then use your browser preferences, cookie managers, or private browsing sessions to help eliminate them.

If you have any questions…please either comment on this post and I will answer them or use the privacy policy page to contact the site owners.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Fun Stuff© posts.