Cookies & Privacy
Analytics cookies
This site uses analytics cookies, set by Google's free Google Analytics service, which uses cookies to collect info on visitor usage of this site.Cookies are small chunks of info saved on your computer or other device via your browser. Most websites use them.
Analytics cookies and other web metrics tools, by automatically collecting standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns, help site owners to improve their sites and improve user experience through analysing how visitors are using their site, eg how many people visited a particular webpage. The information collected doesn't in itself identify anyone: it includes IP addresses, but not names or email addresses. I won't try to find out who visits this site, and I won't associate any data gathered from this site with any personally identifying information from any source. If I do want to collect personally identifiable information through this site, I'll make that clear and explain what I intend to do with it.
Google Analytics uses the info collected to provide this site with reports, visualisations etc regarding visitors' usage of this site. Google also uses the info for its own purposes to provide website and internet usage-related services, but site owners have some control over what they shrae with Google (there's an explanation of sharing Analytics data with Google). This site has chosen to not share its Analytics data with Google, to the greatest extent allowed by Google's settings, and hopefully Google will honour that setting, even though it's not entirely clear whether Google is legally-obliged to do so (see my discussion about sharing Google Analytics in practice, compared with Google's contract terms).
You can stop Google Analytics from collecting information from your browser, on any site (not just this one), by opting out of Google Analytics. This needs to be repeated in every browser you use, eg Firefox or Internet Explorer.
To stop information collection through your browser via cookies more generally, please follow the instructions here or here to disable cookies. Many cookies are set by scripts, so you can selectively block scripts just from Google Analytics (or other sites of your choice), without blocking other sites' scripts, if you use the Firefox browser with the NoScript add-on (both free).
Below is Google's explanation of their analytics cookies, which they want EU sites using Google Analytics to set out for visitors:
This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States . Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.
Blogger cookies
Some of the sidebars on this site display excerpts from my blog, which I hope will be of interest to visitors. The blog is hosted on Google's Blogger.com and so, through the sidebar display, other analytics cookies and temporary session cookies might sometimes (though not always) be automatically set and managed by Blogger, which is a blogging platform owned by Google.Again, you can prevent use of these cookies by disabling cookies in your browser, or opting out of Google Analytics, etc as above.
