In an increasingly technological world, we want to be clear about what privacy you can expect while using the facilities at WordOwl.
Privacy is important. Without getting into the argument of whether you do actually have anything to hide or not, we believe that what you do is up to you.
That's why we wanted to confirm exactly what's going on with WordOwl.
- There are two kinds of logs kept. The first is the standard one kept by webservers. This details the IP or internet protocol address of the computer that made the request. For example:
69.56.73.191 - 12/Aug/2008 19:55:03 - http://www.wordowl.com/dosearch.php?searchtext=privacy&x=30&y=23
Firefox 3.0.1; Windows NT 5.1 -
What this is saying is that a request came in:
- from a computer at internet address 69.56.73.191 (which is where WordOwl.com lives, I've just used it as an example).
- the time and date the request was made.
- the page requested. In this case it was from the front page, searching for "privacy" and also includes the positions on where the button was clicked as it is a picture
- the browser being used. It surprises many people just how much information the browser admits; mine is stating that I'm using Firefox 3.0.1 on Windows XP. Some browser configurations provide more details than this.
The above log, which shows all requests made to the site, is mostly used for maintenance and checking everything is OK. The second log, however, is more specific and shouldn't contain any personal data; it is the log maintained by the Sphinx system which powers WordOwl.
This second log, features simply the search queries made to WordOwl. The search entry for the above listed search (where I used 'privacy' as the search term) resulted in:
[Tue Aug 12 19:55:47.281 2008] 0.026 sec [ext2/1/rel 1 (0,20) @cid] [wordowl] @text "privacy"/1
It simply shows me when the query was made, the parameters applied to the search and how the search was sent to the server. No personal data is attributed there.
- Anything sent to us via email will be kept. It will not be reposted without your consent (we would contact you again via email to confirm)
- Any comments made in the blog will be made public unless either containing profanity or other unreasonable material, or by request not to. We will follow up by email where appropriate in these cases.
- The comic transcriptions are made by us (that is Pete Spicer and possibly other representatives), but can be subject to requests from the comic authors to change things, not include pages or add in or remove details that may not otherwise be available. In all cases we will seek to clarify with the copyright holders about their use. In all other respects, comic transcriptions are part of the site and thus monitored as discussed above.
- Decisions regarding individual comic strips being 'not safe for work' does not imply that they either will, or will not, offend. Discrimination is not implied, however a reasonable judgement is made by the transcriber as to whether it could be construed as offensive (and thus 'not safe for work') for the 'moral majority', not any specific group of society, whether that be based on gender, religion, racial or ethnic origin, political viewpoint, or sexuality. If you disagree with the marking of a given strip, please contact us to discuss it.
- Cookies are only in use in the Blog section, regarding your login details should you register, in order to make a comment. Cookies are not in use elsewhere in the site, so no personal information is either sent or received.
- No data is collected regarding users and the 'Random strip' facility; thus it could deliver you to an inappropriate comic strip as no record is made of whether you are able/willing to find such strips.
