Who we are
A blogger named Jeremy McKemy who is located in the United State of America. My website address is: https://www.orthodoxroad.com and I use the popular WordPress format to blog. With that said, nearly everything is automated through WordPress and a handful of plugins. I do very little to tweak settings.
I’m big on privacy, so I’ve kept my website as bare-bones as is practical. What that means is there aren’t little social media buttons or popular plugins like Google Analytics and Jetpack. I want to make sure that your use of my website remains as private as possible. To keep things even more private on your end, consider using a browser like Brave or Firefox and doing away with browsers like Chrome and Edge.
I don’t personally make any efforts to collect or keep data on users of my website. Even most email notifications that I receive of new comments are deleted by me when I have a chance to either post or reply to the comment. However, as most people know, nothing on the web is truly private. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP), your operating system, plugins on your computer/device are all tracking you. On my end, my webhost and various website plugins all record website traffic, including visitor’s IP addresses. That’s the consequence of using the internet.
I don’t review individual interactions with my website except when there’s a security alert, cyber attack, or hacking attempt. I do, however, sometimes review the source of traffic on my site to get an idea of who visits my site. Here’s an example of what that means: If you’re in Mobile, Alabama, United States, my reports will show me a visitor from the “USA”.
I try to keep my plugins updated and utilize creative passwords to protect my website from being hacked, though no website is guaranteed 100% hack-proof.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site, WordPress automatically records the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment. (This statement was provided by WordPress).
Contact forms and emails
I have a plugin that allows people to subscribe to new blog posts on my website. Those who provide their name and email address will receive periodic emails when I post new material. Due to the infrequency of my posting, it is the best way to keep up with new material on my blog. Your name and email address will not be given away or sold to anyone. I don’t like my email address being sold, and I know nobody else does either.
Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. WordPress does this for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year — or until you clear your browser’s cookies and cache (which I recommend doing frequently for privacy purposes).
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
For OrthodoxRoad, there are some items that I know are embedded: some blogs have YouTube videos embedded in them. Anything embedded allows the respective companies to track the time, date, and IP address of visitors to my site. I’ve removed the social media buttons to drastically cut down on third party tracking. I also removed the JetPack plugin due to privacy concerns.
Analytics
I don’t have Google Analytics installed on my website. My webhost’s site has Awstats and Webalyzer, which I believe come with nearly every website. These tools provide monthly summaries which show me what blogs are being clicked on, the sources of traffic, the outgoing clicks, and a summary of what countries people are visiting from. I don’t see individual IP addresses, though my security plugin monitors IP addresses to alert me of suspicious activity.
Who we share your data with
Nobody.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely through WordPress. The website administrator can see and edit comments and can access commentor’s IP address and email provided. None of that information is shared but it helps me to monitor use, abuse, and spam.
What rights you have over your data
If you have left comments on this site, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes. Any requests should include your IP address for verification.
Additionally, the data is not erased from the plugins that I use or embedded objects. So, while I can scrub information about your comments from my site, I cannot control logs that other companies keep.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments are checked through an automated spam detection service.
My contact information
You can contact me at fr.jeremy and then @orthodoxroad.com I apologize I have to split up the email like that; I get spammed otherwise. You can also leave a comment below asking me to email you.
Additional information
Even though I don’t make any efforts to view or share individual user’s data and interactions with my website, I wanted to post a privacy policy here since this website is frequently accessed in European countries that have enforced good consumer privacy protection laws. I hope this has been helpful. Let me know if there are any ways that I can improve it.
In Christ,
Fr. Jeremy