Samplesizezero.com Privacy Statement
With all of the privacy concerns regarding content and identity on the Internet, I started to think about whether I should create one for my blog. Samplesizezero.com is a tiny site that gets very little legit traffic, so it might not be necessary, but here we go:
1) Samplesizezero.com is owned and managed by me (Mark), not a company, not a partnership, not any kind of organization. It’s a blog about my adventures and experiences with mental illness. Despite the mounds of spam I get asking me if I’d like “super gret[sic] content for yuor[sic] BLOG SIGHTE[sic]”, I employ no other people or work with contractors.
2) I do not make money on this website. Any products or services or anything else I mention is not an endorsement and I do not get any kind of kickbacks from saying that I liked a particular board game or movie, although if I did start getting kickbacks that’d be awesome – and I’d mention who and what and when right here.
3) I am using a free WordPress theme, which unfortunately brings along with it a couple of cookie trackers. Please, by all means, until I scrape up some cash to buy a similar theme to what I’m using (I like the format), use all the adblockers on my site you want. Myself, I use AdBlock Plus, Ghostery, and the DuckDuckGo add-on for Firefox (even when visiting my own page). SERIOUSLY – BLOCK THE CRAP OUT OF ALL THE COOKIES/TRACKERS/WHATEVER YOU WANT.
4) Any of the content you provide to this site (whether it ends up being approved and posted or not) is yours and yours alone (unless you stole it from someone else, in which case it’s theirs and theirs alone, or it’s threatening/abhorrent/illegal, in which case it’s the police’s then, too). If I am cross-posting an article from another site or get a post from a guest writer, it will be clearly indicated as such.
5) You may copy-and-paste your posted comments and save them at your leisure; note that comments by other posters is their content and you may not scrape their work.
6) You have the right to leave samplesizezero.com at any time; there are no penalties and there’s no user account to shut down. Best of luck in your adventures!
7) Aside from administrative and post creation accounts (both used by me), there are no accounts on samplesizezero.com; all comments are done individually without logging in. If I don’t like your comments, I will moderate them into the sun. If you are spamming or scraping my site, I may block your IP address or a block of addresses yours resides within. Once you’re blocked, that’s it – I don’t keep track of who I block when, so it’s just easier to leave the blocks in place.
8) Samplesizezero.com (aka me) will happily work with private or government agencies who wish to use mental health information from this site or provide mental health information to this site. Any other requests will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis; any requests for information by the police will be handed over after they provide the appropriate paperwork.
9) Samplesizezero.com is a blog about my own experiences, with the occasional guest post or cross-post. It is NOT a medical, psychological, psychiatric, or other professional source of information. I am not trained in any medical or psych areas; any of the exercises or techniques I mention are things that work for me but may not work for you. It is up to you to decide which techniques you wish to try (if any).
10) Samplesizezero.com is a small blog based almost entirely on my experiences, feelings, and encounters. Nobody is going to buy it. If I decide to shut it down, I will shut down and delete all of the content/email/posts on the systems I control. I can’t (and won’t, because it’s a Sisyphean task) do anything about the various sites out there that are archiving or plagiarizing the content on this site.
11) As far as your private data, all I keep is the comments you post and the emails that tell me that you’ve posted a comment, and the Contact Form emails I get when you fill out a Contact Form. I don’t do statistics on it, I don’t care if you live in Rotterdam, Phuket, Detroit, Brisbane, or next door, and I certainly don’t care where you shop for pork chops or where you buy transmission fluid from. They’re there because I’m too lazy to delete it (and getting emails that aren’t spam makes me feel good). As with (10) above, if I decide to shut this site down, I will delete all of the data on the systems I control, but not on those I don’t.
12) This site is hosted in Canada. Email services that are used by the commenting and contact forms on this site are located around the world.
13) I don’t expect the terms of this site to change often, if at all. Should there be a need to change, it will be communicated as a normal post (like this one was) and can be found under the Privacy link.
If you are feeling lost, scared, don’t think you can do this anymore, or are considering hurting yourself, please call 911 or go to your nearest Emergency Room or Crisis Centre, or contact a friend or family member who can get to you quickly. There are websites and phone numbers on the Resources page that may be helpful, too. THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT YOU AND WHO WANT YOU TO FEEL BETTER. IT TAKES COURAGE TO ADMIT YOU NEED HELP, BUT YOU CAN DO IT!
**UPDATE 2019-09-01. Now version 2.**
-Changed item 8 from “…will happily work with government agencies who wish to use information from this site or provide information to this site.” to “will happily work with private or government agencies who wish to use mental health information from this site or provide mental health information to this site.”
-Changed item 10 from “…If I decide to shut it down, it will disappear forever. Nobody else will get the data (of which almost all of it is a bunch of my journal entries, anyway).” to “…If I decide to shut it down, I will shut down and delete all of the content/email/posts on the systems I control. I can’t (and won’t, because it’s a Sisyphean task) do anything about the various sites out there that are archiving or plagiarizing the content on this site.”
-Changed item 11 from “As with (10) above, if I decide to shut this site down, all of those posts and emails will be deleted.” to “As with (10) above, if I decide to shut this site down, I will delete all of the data on the systems I control, but not on those I don’t.”
-Item 12 is now item 13.
-Content of item 12 now states “12) This site is hosted in Canada. Email services that are used by the commenting and contact forms on this site are located around the world.”
**END UPDATE 2019-09-01**
Version 1 originally posted on 2019-08-30.
Here ends the samplesizezero.com privacy statement.
Stay safe.