Website Privacy

(What follows is very badly outdated.  Nonetheless...) Understanding the privacy concerns surrounding web browsing is important.  If any of what follows is surprising to you, I urge you to learn more about common practices on the web (start with the final link on this page).  I put this information here in the interests of transparency.  


This site (like many) tracks hits using StatCounter.  (Other sites use other services, such as Google Analytics.)  I use this service because I am interested in learning the hit-count for my pages.  However, StatCounter (like other such services) tracks other information as well.  For example, it tells me your IP address, its location, your browser and OS, your screen size and resolution, the length of your visit on each page, and how you found my page (what search terms you used).  You should expect this information to be logged anytime you visit any webpage.  You can see all the information tracked for this site by clicking here.  You can see the information currently being provided to websites by your web browser by clicking here.


Furthermore, when you visit my site, StatCounter places a “cookie” on your computer (unless you have blocked cookies through the preferences settings in your browser).  It does so to keep track of returning visits.  This is the only purpose of this cookie.  StatCounter’s privacy policy is here.


I encourage you to pay close attention to the cookies on your computer (especially the newer, long-term cookies stored with Flash Player and Silverlight).  Most browsers let you choose whether to block cookies and how often to delete them.  (Only some browsers will delete the long-term cookies.)  You can also easily install extensions for your web browser that will let you block and manage cookies more selectively.   For more information, start here.