Privacy Policy

Last updated: January 16, 2017

What follows is our privacy policy. For ease of use, we have separated each section by topic.

General

This blog does not share your personal information with third parties nor do we use information collected from your browser and visits other than for the purpose of analyzing website traffic.

We have partnered with several third parties to earn income to pay for the operating costs of Getting Things Tech. We have included privacy information about these parties on this page and you can learn more about those third party partners on a separate page.

We are not responsible for republished content from this blog on other blogs or websites without our permission. Further, we are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of websites linked to from Getting Things Tech. While we are mindful of your privacy in everything we do, we cannot possibly vet the rest of the Internet or keep up with changes made to other websites’ privacy policies.

This privacy policy is subject to change without notice and was last updated on July 17, 2014. If you have any questions please read through the rest of this policy and send any remaining questions or concerns to us at admin@gettingthingstech.com.

Analytics and Tracking

Like nearly all places on the web, Getting Things Tech uses analytics software to keep track of the number of visitors to the site, where they visit, and other information that helps development of site content and features. However, we are proud to say that we have taken as many measures as possible to provide for the most user privacy in doing so.

User tracking is done via Piwik, which is free and open source web analytics software. We have chosen this as an alternative to Google Analytics and other commercial entities that offer these services to webmasters while potentially compromising the privacy of visitors. Piwik has no such aspirations as a project and the entire platform is hosted on GettingThingsTech.com; in other words, the limited information we have about you does not leave our servers.

Additional measures we have taken include anonymizing the latter two “bits” of your IP address via Piwik. This means if your IP address is 127.0.0.0, Getting Things Tech only sees 127.0.x.x, making it far less likely that you could be identified as a visitor here. Even if we were hacked, it would be next to impossible for the hacker to know detailed information about visitors. Likewise, we have opted not to use first-party tracking cookies, even though Piwik only uses them to track your movements around the site. We know that it isn’t easy to trust someone to only track you some of the time, so we are utilizing more basic methods to understand what visitors do on the site. There are only cookies to establish the fact that you are a single visitor, so as to prevent scams (my advertising partners could otherwise flood the site with pageviews).

If you have the “Do Not Track” flag enabled in your browser, Piwik will not do any type of tracking whatsoever.

If you would like to opt out of even these cookies, you can do that below. The box below will also indicate if you have already opted out.

Cookies

As described in the analytics and tracking section, Getting Things Tech does not utilize first or third-party cookies for the purpose of collecting of personal information about you. You should expect only one type of first-party cookie from us: that is a cookie that prevents the newsletter subscription pop-over from coming up after your first visit. This cookie is only designed to keep you from being annoyed by our pop-over on repeat visits. Likewise, you may receive cookies to identify whether the page ought to be cached or not by our caching engine.

We have taken measures to prevent other types of cookies from being sent to you while using our site, such as by using a privacy-oriented ad service. While we make efforts to associate with reputable third parties, we cannot account for what happens when you leave Getting Things Tech, whether through links or otherwise. Please see the sections on analytics and third-party ads for more details.

Third-Party Advertising and Services

To aid in your privacy on the web, Getting Things Tech has been selective in partnering with third parties for revenue generation. The following are third parties which we utilize to manage the costs of the website along with brief summaries of their implications for your privacy and links to their own privacy policies.

Google AdSense: First and foremost, no visitor who has Do Not Track enabled will have Google ads served to them. Regardless of DNT status, no user has Google Analytics served. Those who do not have DNT enabled will see ads provided by Google AdSense and its partners.

Google AdSense and its partners use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this site as well as other sites. You can opt out of this tracking through Google by clicking here. For more information on how Google uses your data, check out this privacy document. For more information and help with other third parties who may serve ads through Google’s AdSense service, visit the Digital Advertising Alliance’s consumer choice page.

Anonymous Ads: This is a start-up that is a privacy-oriented ad-serving firm. Among its stated goals are not spying on users and not using things like browser history and tracking to target ads. Instead, banner ads are bought on a site-wide basis rather than based on individual users. A-Ads should know nothing about website visitors. Clicking on an ad may lead to a tracking cookie being used by the ad purchaser to see how you interact with their website. We cannot account for how those third parties manage user data. Read the A-Ads privacy policy here.

Skimlinks: Skimlinks is a service that makes links to third-party retailers have affiliate codes that pay Getting Things Tech a commission if you purchase something on that third-party site (like Amazon, for example). Skimlinks may utilize cookies to detect whether your activity merits the payment of commission to Getting Things Tech. You may be assigned a unique identifier, which is not created to uncover your personal identity, to be able to associate your qualifying transactions with a Skimlinks-created hyperlink. You may download an opt-out cookie here.

Since Skimlinks uses Javascript, you may be able to more permanently opt out by disabling Javascript in your browser. Also, privacy browser extensions like the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Privacy Badger can be effective safeguards against this sort of user tracking if you are concerned. For more information about how Skimlinks handles your data, you can view their privacy policy in full and read more about all cookies used by Skimlinks.

As an additional safeguard for your privacy, Getting Things Tech only uses Skimlinks code on pages which we deem it directly applicable. In other words, it is predominantly used on posts in the Buying Guides and Deals categories. We did not see value in including Skimlinks code on pages which would not earn us revenue by doing so.

Private Internet Access: We have chosen to endorse Private Internet Access as the best choice of virtual private network (VPN). When you visit Private Internet Access from an affiliate link on Getting Things Tech, Private Internet Access may use a cookie or other methods to connect your service subscription purchase to the fact that you were referred to them by Getting Things Tech. In that case, Getting Things Tech receives a commission. Read Private Internet Access’s privacy policy here.

DigitalOcean: In a manner similar Private Internet Access, we endorse and recommend our own web host, DigitalOcean. Links to their website from GTT are proprietary links that signal to DigitalOcean that GTT is the referrer, allowing us to earn credit for those who sign up for web hosting after following our links.

Disqus: Comments on GTT are hosted on Disqus, a service used around the web for this purpose. Disqus offers several methods of authentication, which include major social networks like Twitter. GTT has specifically opted out of a user-tracking “service” that Disqus enables by default, but the company will at minimum use browser cookies to keep you signed in around the web. Disqus is only loaded on post pages and only if you click the button to show the comments; this is done to avoid unnecessarily exposing users to this third-party content. View Disqus’s privacy policy here.