Unless you somehow send me an email containing personal or sensitive information, I do NOT collect any personal or sensitive data from you. If you do, somehow, send me an email with some amount of personal data, it is usually because you are asking a question or wanting to let me know something is not right or you have something to add to what is already on a particular page or you are suggesting new pages. In all these cases, I usually read your email and take action, or not. But once that decision is made on my part, your email is erased from my systems. I will not forward, give, sell, or otherwise transfer any personal or sensitive data that comes into my possession to any third party without your prior consent. I don't like it when that happens to me and I won't do it to you.

This website is hosted on an Apache server. What that means is when your browser makes a request of my server, your browser "announces" itself by telling my server your IP address, your browser version, your operating system, what time of day it is, what your browser is "requesting," etc. My server collects that data in my "web logs" and then fulfills your browser's request. None of that information is usable by me to reverse the info stream and locate or learn anything about you. You, as an individual visitor to my site, are essentially anonymous. That raw information is usable by me to define raw statistics in terms of what on my site is actually viewed and how often. Your browser delivers this information automatically and my server collects it automatically. On neither side are we able to shut that off.

I do use Google Analytics to track visits and visitor trends through my site. That works via the Analytics code on each page placing and then tracking a unique, but not-personally-identifiable, cookie on your browser. I use the data returned to me through Google Analytics to improve the quality of my site and the information on it. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies, or to indicate when a cookie is being sent and then decide on an individual basis as to whether to accept the cookie or not. In no way is personal or sensitive information returned to either myself or Google Analytics. Everything native to this site will work perfectly well regardless of whether or not you accept any cookies.

I use a script from Quantcast.com for similar purposes as the Google Analytics, except the Quantcast results are available publicly for advertisers' use (it returns raw numbers in terms of traffic volumes, unique visitors, etc.) None of the data collected is in any way personally identifiable.

This site uses no pop-ups or pop-unders. Javascript is used on Sangres.com only in relation to "ad-serving" and for particular special effects. Disabling javascript in your browser will not affect your use of Sangres.com in any other way.

AddThis: I allow third-party companies, including AddThis, to collect certain anonymous information when you visit my website. These companies may use non-personally identifiable information during your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. These companies typically use a cookie or a third party web beacon to collect this information. To learn more about this behavioral advertising practice, you can visit www.networkadvertising.org.

The Google Ads: Viewing and/or clicking on some Google Ads may place and/or read cookies on your browser, or place a web beacon on your browser. This action is through third party advertisers completely independent of myself and Sangres.com. Google may present links in a format that enables them to keep track of whether these links have been followed. They use this information to improve the quality of their search technology, customized content and advertising. None of that data comes to or is shared with me. Google also uses the "DoubleClick DART" cookie. This is a cookie that can be dropped on your browser either from simply viewing an ad or by your having clicked on an ad. The data from these DART cookies is usable by Google and myself to better serve and manage ads on my site. I get no personally identifiable data from these cookies. However, while these cookies also give Google no personally identifiable data about you, it does allow them to track your visits to other websites and to advertiser websites so that they can deliver "interest-targeted ads" to you based on your browsing preferences and history. And again, most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent so that you can decide whether or not to accept any cookies on a case-by-case basis. However, some Google features and services may not function properly if your cookies are disabled. You may opt out of the use of the DART cookie (and most other Google cookies) by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

Ads of my own: These ads are from local advertisers that have paid me to advertise their products and/or services on Sangres.com. Clicking on any of these ads will carry you to that advertiser's website. Some of these advertisers may be using Google Analytics or some other similar third party cookie technology to track your journey through their website(s). Again, none of that data is returned to or shared with me.

Other Ads (Chitika, InfoLinks, ContextWeb in particular): Clicking on some of the other National Advertiser's ads on this site may place and/or read cookies on your browser, or place a web beacon on your browser. This action is through these National Advertisers and completely independent of myself and Sangres.com. These National Advertisers may present links in a format that enables them to keep track of whether these links have been followed. The "Terms of Service" of all of these National Advertisers state that no personally identifiable information is collected from you unless and until you initiate an action (click on a link) to do some form of business with them. None of the data they collect comes to or is shared with me. And again, most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent so that you can decide whether or not to accept any cookies on a case-by-case basis. However, some of these National Advertisers' features and services may not function properly if your cookies are disabled.

Update, 2012: Some of this is changing. Since Google began switching to "secure search," Chitika has taken a severe hit in their search-targeted ads... and I have always refused to accept their shotgunned ads. As I am rewriting the entire website to conform to html5 standards, I remove all the Chitika ads as I go. Infolinks is still doing well for me financially but some of my visitors aren't happy with their relatively unobtrusive mode of ad display. ContextWeb is an experiment and so far, isn't turning out well at all. When I sell my own ad space on any page, I remove all the other ad codes on that page. Google AdSense: the bottom seems to have fallen out of the "value" of AdSense. On many days, Infolinks is worth more to me but it is all trumped when I sell my own ad space. Because of changes in European Union law, I may yet be removing all the Google and Quantcast tracking codes from my pages and rely solely on the request records of my server (as those web logs only record requests directly of the server without invading anyone's privacy in any way). So much of this trouble is the result of so many national advertisers trying to shove ads (and their products) up everyone's wazoo...