Privacy Policy Update

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Red5

Red5

Webmaster, UsingEnglish.com
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Nov 13, 2002
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Interested in Language
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British English
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England
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England
[h=2]Privacy Policy Update[/h]

In order to comply with a new European law relating to the use of personal information, we have updated our privacy policy. This now includes a thorough analysis of our use of your personal information and our use of tracking technologies like cookies. Don't Panic! We don't do anything nasty with your information, and this new version of our policy should help you see that nothing bad is happening to your data when you use our site.

You can see the current privacy policy, effective from 26th May 2012, at https://www.usingenglish.com/about/privacy/



Click here to read the whole article
 
I am really sorry for being so ignorant but the persistent privacy-settings box at the bottom of the screen urges me to think about how actually private my settings are. I have to admit I know very little about cookies in general, apart from the fact that those are not biscuits. Before that law I shared the common knowledge that those are harmless something a decent site needs for proper work, something that can be easily removed or ignored depending on the personal preferences. What has changed now? And, more importantly, what should I do or be alert to?

Sadly, the articles I came across on the Net didn't make things clearer. What could be the reason for informing me about how you are going to operate the site? Why should I share the responsibility for the way you are going to store/analyse my personal data? There might have been certain reading comprehension issues as I honestly failed to get the whole idea. I'd truly appreciate a link, a hint or whatever in simple layman's terms to make it sure that you, as well as others following the same Law, are not going to trace back my family history, hack into my bank accounts or blackmail me by threatening to publish my love letters - I cannot come up with something more ridiculous at the moment but it's clearly a matter of time.

Alternatively, if there is nothing to worry about, is there any chance to take away this intrusive reminder of how little control we have over our lives? Or, probably, it has the expiry date and will soon disappear...

ps. Thanks for the eyes-friendly colour of that pop-window or whachamacallit - others use fiery red, which is both striking and painful.
 
A new law has come into effect in the EU about cookies, data, etc. There are concerns that some sites are using tracking cookies to follow people around the internet. Most cookies are harmless, but some can be an invasion of privacy, and the EU laws take the question of privacy very seriously. We use cookies- a cookie is used, for example, by the forum to say that you're logged in so you don't have to log in repeatedly. Cookies can speed things up and help the running of the forum and parts of the site that require logging in.

We don't track where you go when you leave the site and we don't share your personal data with anyone. We may use aggregated data to see how many people come to our site from a particular country, but your details, email, etc, are private and not shared with anyone. The only time we would share that data would be if the police came with a search warrant, but in just over ten years of the site, we haven't had a single enquiry from them, and are unlikely to given the nature of the site.

The law is designed to give people the choice of how the use the web. You can set your browser to block cookies, but you will not be able to access all areas of the site, including the forum. The law aims to allow you to make that decision- we're just complying with a law that affects all sites hosted in the EU. It's designed to give you more control and privacy.

I am not sure how long the button will be there. I hope we'll be able to get a I-have-seen-it option to get rid of it, but for the moment it'll stay there I'm afraid.
 
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