Recent visitors to our site may have noticed a new pop-up window asking you to manage consent for cookies and information we store on the site.
Clicking the link at the bottom of that window for “opt-out preferences” brings you to a page which lists the cookies our website sets and a form that allows you the following choices:
- Global opt-out from selling and sharing personal information and limiting the use or disclosure of sensitive personal information.
- Do not sell my personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.
- Limit the use of my sensitive personal information.
- Request for access.
- Right to be Forgotten.
- Right to Data Portability.
This is a requirement of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which gives consumers control over information businesses collect about them. It’s like legislation enacted in the European Union, known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Already we have received and honored many requests to opt-out, access users’ personal info, and enforce the right to be forgotten.
Since I am probably the most frequent user of our website, I was curious to see what kind of personally identifiable data our website collected about me, so I ran the report to see what it said about me and my email address, [email protected]. Here’s what I got:
The reason why there is nothing listed is that we don’t collect any personally identifiable information. The only exception that would occur is if you fill out the contact form. Our contact form collects your name, email, and IP address so we can respond and, when needed, combat spammers. The Alameda Post doesn’t collect any other identifiable data about you when you visit the site, because we don’t need it to bring you the news.
Our website collects analytics that are not connected to your name or email address, and we have no way of connecting it to you. This data we collect includes the device, operating system, web browser, originating source, and IP address you use to access the site. This data is anonymized and aggregated so we can tell how many people visit the site, and what types of users we get.
The cookies we set, except for those who are actively administering the website, are for our partners and the technologies we use within the site, and the management of that data is the responsibility of those organizations. It is also their responsibility to respond to your requests about how your data is used, which we communicate to them.
All modern web browsers now have a “do not track” setting, which our website honors, and is the same as requesting the global opt-out option on our site. If you have that set or request a global opt-out, you will find that some of our site’s functionality provided by our partners, such as embedded videos and maps, will not display content unless you opt-in to accepting those cookies.
One specific area many are concerned about is ad tracking. All the advertising on our website is hosted and managed by the Alameda Post. We serve our banner ads directly from our website, not through Google, Doubleclick, or any other ad platform. We do not collect any personal information about who views the ads, just a count of the number of times the ad has been displayed, which means we do not have any advertising data to sell. We share the aggregate impressions and clicks with our advertisers, but those do not contain personal information.
Another area that might cause concern is our partnership with Mailchimp to deliver our weekly news digests. They have a page explaining their policies on their website. By nature of being an email delivery service, they require access to your email address, and you also provide your name when signing up. Section 4.2 on that page linked above ensures confidentiality, and your right to request audits and security reports from them is detailed in Section 5. They also offer more information about regulating their data processing on this page.
Finally, the most important area of data we do not collect, share, or sell, is financial information. We do not, under any circumstances, accept, store, transmit, or have any ability to view financial information, including credit card data. We use payment processors to handle all of our financial transactions, including donations, ticket sales, and invoice payments. All of those transactions are transmitted and processed on the servers and systems operated by payment processors Omella, Square, and Quickbooks.
We will continue to accept your requests made on our opt-out preferences page, but I want to reassure you that making such a request is almost entirely unnecessary. If you already have the “do not track” setting enabled in your browser, we honor it without you having to select the global opt-out option and share that choice with our partners who have access to our site data. For even more detailed information about the information we collect and how we use it, please review our privacy statement.
I can personally assure you that we do not share your personal information, nor will we sell it, and that is a policy that will never change.
Adam Gillitt is the Publisher of the Alameda Post. Reach him at [email protected]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Adam-Gillitt.
Editorials and Letters to the Editor
All opinions expressed on this page are the author's alone and do not reflect those of the Alameda Post, nor does our organization endorse any views the author may present. Our objective as an independent news source is to fully reflect our community's varied opinions without giving preference to a particular viewpoint.
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