The Mac Observer, Inc. has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for our website.
Who we are
Our website address is: https://www.macobserver.com owned and operated by The Mac Observer, Inc.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
We use Google Analytics to analyze the use of our website. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website. Google’s privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website, we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Registration Information
Our site’s registration forms may require users to give us contact information (like their name and email address). The customer’s contact information is used solely by The Mac Observer, Inc. to contact the visitor when necessary. For example, we direct e-mail to visitors who provide us with their e-mail addresses for specifically requested purposes such as receiving our e-mail newsletters or being notified if they have won one of our contests. Each e-mail newsletter always contains instructions on how to unsubscribe from the newsletter. We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer outside the company personally identifiable information that visitors voluntarily provide in any registration or contest submission unless specifically noted during the submission process. This information is used to better understand visitors’ use of our sites and to support related transactions made on the site.
Third party links
In an attempt to provide increased value to our visitors, our sites provide links to various third party web sites from our own site. However, even if the third party is affiliated with The Mac Observer, Inc., The Mac Observer, Inc. has no control over these linked sites who each have separate privacy and data collection practices, independent of The Mac Observer, Inc.. The Mac Observer, Inc. has no responsibility or liability for these independent policies or actions and is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such web sites. These linked sites are only for your convenience and you therefore access them at your own risk. Nonetheless, The Mac Observer, Inc. seeks to protect the integrity of its web site and the links placed upon it and therefore requests any feedback on not only its own site, but for sites it links to as well (including if a specific link does not work).
Online Surveys
Our online surveys ask visitors for contact information (including, but not limited to, their email address) and demographic information (including, but not limited to, their zip code, age, or income level). The user’s contact information is used to contact the visitor when necessary. Users may cancel future mailings; see the choice/opt-out section below. Demographic and profile data is also collected at our site. We use this data to tailor our visitor’s experience at our site, showing them content that we think they might be interested in, and displaying the content according to their preferences.
Site Advertisers
We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our Web site. These companies may use aggregated information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you.
Additionally, these ads may contain cookies. While we use cookies in other parts of our Web site, cookies received from banner ads are collected by our ad partner companies, and we do not necessarily have access to this information.
Mediavine Programmatic Advertising (Ver 1.1)
The Website works with Mediavine to manage third-party interest-based advertising appearing on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website.
First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The “help” feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at All About Cookies.
Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site. In the event you opt-out, you will still see non-personalized advertisements on the Website.
The Website collects the following data using a cookie when serving personalized ads:
- IP Address
- Operating System type
- Operating System version
- Device Type
- Language of the website
- Web browser type
- Email (in hashed form)
Mediavine Partners (companies listed below with whom Mediavine shares data) may also use this data to link to other end user information the partner has independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements. Mediavine Partners may also separately collect data about end users from other sources, such as advertising IDs or pixels, and link that data to data collected from Mediavine publishers in order to provide interest-based advertising across your online experience, including devices, browsers and apps. This data includes usage data, cookie information, device information, information about interactions between users and advertisements and websites, geolocation data, traffic data, and information about a visitor’s referral source to a particular website. Mediavine Partners may also create unique IDs to create audience segments, which are used to provide targeted advertising.
If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit National Advertising Initiative opt out page. You may also visit Digital Advertising Alliance website and Network Advertising Initiative website to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at Digital Advertising Alliance’s AppChoices app to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.
For specific information about Mediavine Partners, the data each collects and their data collection and privacy policies, please visit Mediavine Partners.
Public Forums
This site makes chat rooms, forums, message boards, and/or news groups available to its users. Please remember that any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information.
Security
This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control.
Contacting The Mac Observer
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the practices of this site, please contact us at privacy at macobserver dot com