Who is EC!?
Explore Composites! (EC!) is a hobby project of Chris Rogers, a resident of the USA. I am the sole operator and editor though because it may not always be that way I am going to use “we” in much of this document to describe EC! as an entity. (There may or may not be a mouse in my pocket – that’s between us!) EC! is a resource made available for reference purposes only with the overall goal of furthering the availability of practical composites processing knowledge. The website address is: https://explorecomposites.com.
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 or submit them for inclusion, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. I will make all efforts to scrub this data from images that are part of EC! but make no promises. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website if this is not removed.
Contact forms
EC! uses contact forms for collecting newsletter subscription addresses, and resource submissions. E-mail address information is stored and only used for the purposes of delivering content (newsletter) to the subscriber. Forms are collected without logging IP addresses or storing cookies with the user’s browser.
Cookies
EC! is built on WordPress and WordPress plugins. The analytics is limited to a basic traffic counter with country of origin. This uses some basic cookie data but I am not sure how or what. This is beyond my skill level at this point but I am trying to figure it out. I can’t see who looked at what articles or content and I only know numbers of visitors by country. Google Analytics is not integrated into EC!. Google Search Console is used for monitoring search results, traffic trends and making sure the site is compliant with search best practices.
If you leave a comment on the 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.
WordPress logins to leave posts and comments are between you and WordPress! Check out their privacy and data policies.
If you edit or publish an article (which as of now you can’t do), 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.
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. The YouTube videos embedding in EC! come directly from YouTube. I don’t control what data they collect – that’s between you and Google. Google offers controls to limit the data that is collected.
Websites hosting embedded content may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Analytics
Analytics is limited to the built-in WordPress analytics features. I can’t disable this without losing all visibility on traffic – I’ve tried. This is the only part of the site that appears to use cookies routinely.
Who we share your data with…
Nobody uses your data except Explore Composites! The only exceptions are the necessary storage and collection service providers (WPForms, Google Sheets, etc.) through who’s services your data flows when it is collected. I don’t like it but I can’t do it any other way with my current skill level at internet stuff.
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 (if any), 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.
Subscription and resource submission data is kept until the user requests that it be removed.
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 (WPForms). Data is stored in a variety of database and spreadsheet formats for exclusive use by EC!
Additional information
This privacy form is an edited version of the standard one that comes installed with WordPress. I am doing the best I can with what I know. My goal is to comply with all the necessary rules in any of the jurisdictions from which EC! is accessed – but I am not sure how well I’m doing. Please feel free to reach out and request clarification or suggest improvements. Email: [email protected]