Information Clear Ink Gathers and Tracks

Clear Ink gathers two types of information about users:

  • Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions.

  • Information Clear Ink gathers through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites. This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers' needs. Under no circumstances does Clear Ink divulge any information about an individual user to a third party.

Clear Ink gathers user information in the following processes:

Optional Voluntary Information

1. Email to Clear Ink

Our site contains links to send email to various people at Clear Ink. Using this link to send email to Clear Ink will result in sending your configured email address and any content entered or attached with your email to the selected recipient at Clear Ink.

2. Email from Clear Ink

Our site and email communications contain links to subscribe, or opt in, and receive special information and publications. For example, we sponsor an email newsletter, and you may subscribe to this email and other communications from Clear Ink voluntarily. Any communication we send will contain an option to opt out of future communications.

3. Surveys

Clear Ink may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target our content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated demographic information in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers, and partners. We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.

Usage Tracking

Clear Ink tracks user traffic patterns throughout our sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. Clear Ink does break down overall usage statistics according to a user's domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user's browser).

Clear Ink sometimes tracks and catalogs the search terms that users enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.

Cookies

We may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain personal information, although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. The only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can't read data from your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. Clear Ink may use cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above).

You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you've set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in message boards, forums, polls, and surveys.

Children

Consistent with the Federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), we will never knowingly request personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 without requesting parental consent.

The information we collect is not sold, lent, rented, or otherwise shared with other organizations for any purpose.

Please Contact Us

If you wish to correct any inaccuracies in our record of your contact information, or if you do not want to receive email from us in the future, please let us know by using the "unsubscribe" option on our communications to send us an email. Or, if you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, please contact us.

Privacy Policy

Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel you should fully understand the terms and conditions surrounding the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses what information we gather and how we use it.