New Privacy Policy

I created a new privacy policy page for the Communtiy Color sites.

The privacy policy tells the world that [gasp] I track activity on the site.

I track the activity to see what parts of the site people visit. I use this data to figure out how to expand the site. If people are interested in sports, I add more info about sports. If they are interested in history, I add more pages about history.

Our leaders and media vilify small sites for using cookies and tracking activity. The EU requires that web sites apologize if they use cookies.

A cookie is simply a device that allows web sites to carry information between pages. I do not use cookies for casual visitors to the site. However, I do drop a session cookie when a user logs in to the site. I need the cookie so that they can modify the information on their account.


Now, I find the idea that every site provides a privacy policy to be absurd. The only privacy risk of small sites is that they might send spam if they require a user's email address. This risk is adverted by being careful in giving out one's email address. Personally, I use multiple emails addresses and never give up my most private addresses.



As for this new policy:

I've been hoping to replace my large national advertisers with small local advertisers; So, I am using the privacy policy to sell my new local advertising product.

My advertising product seeks to replace advertisements from large national advertisers that track user activity with small local advertisers that do not.

So, while I think the demand that every site includes a privacy statement to be foolish, I am not adverse to using the page to sell a product. If advertisers bought their ads directly from sites, it would help replace ads from big advertisers that create user profiles with small sites that do not.