The "internet" is built on "web technologies", all of which are created by ghouls and gremlins. WordPress is no exception, and the fact I am running it locally is by no means a complete mitigation of their "tech enthusiasm". Therefore, while I will put in a vague effort not to expedite your personal information's journey into the hands of advertisers, I make no guarantees and therefore do not — can not — “take your privacy very seriously” (which is a phrase invented by lawyers to excuse the inexcusable under the shield of false consent and “industry best-practices”).
Remember: a privacy policy does not give you rights; it only indemnifies the person who wrote it (i.e. it stops you from suing them over whatever disturbing shit they're doing).
Until or unless I can find a usable blogging software that respects visitors' privacy, I would simply recommend installing some protective software such as uBlock Origin and/or Privacy Badger (neither sponsored; both good software) to help keep the digital smog from metastasizing in your digital lungs into cyber-cancer as rapidly as it would like to until I can get my emissions profile down.
Potentially privacy-compromising Web Technologies and Services used
The following list of potentially privacy-compromising demons powering this web site is maintained on a best-effort basis, and links wherever possible to the creators' privacy policy pages. If you find any data leaks on this website not listed below, or can think of mitigations for any of them that I'm not applying (other than "just own your own AS lol" (which I'm not saying isn't on the horizon somewhere)), please let me know; I'd love to have a coffee with you.
- Hosting operated by Namecheap: https://www.namecheap.com/legal/hosting/privacy-policy/
- cPanel/WHM: https://cpanel.net/privacy-policy/
- WordPress software: https://wordpress.org/about/privacy/
- Gravatar: https://automattic.com/privacy/
(Note: I have tried to intercept these remote calls by installing the open-source plug-ins Simple-User-Avatar and gravatar-proxy, but IT'S NOT WORKING and I apologize for the 3rd-party calls. Again, please contact me if you know a simple way to fix this or have any fully offline CMS recommendations that are feature-equivalent to WordPress.) - Akismet Anti-Spam: https://automattic.com/privacy-notice/
(Commenters' IP addresses are sent to them. They are bullshitting when they say that the information they collect “depends on how the [site owner] sets up Akismet…but typically includes the commenter’s IP address”. I checked all over: they do not provide any way for me to configure this. At this time, Automattic, Inc. will get commenters' IP addresses, which they may share (along with your comment, name, and e-mail) with any random subsidiaries, employees, independent contractors, and third-party vendors they do business with (of course, only after making them agree to a "privacy policy" at least as stringent as theirs), as well as to law enforcement (no warrant required—they try to obfuscate that, too, by saying “subpoena, court order, or other governmental request”), or “when [they] believe in good faith” that they will suffer a PR incident for not doing so; the cherry on top of all this is they appear to out-right sell everything but your IP address to so-called "firehose" subscribers who get to do everything they want except get caught hurting their business model by “re-publish[ing] it publicly”.)- I am on the hunt, obviously, for alternatives, but for now there's such a torrent of god-awful requests streaming in off compromised machines and foreign networks that I'd be cooked without protection.
- I recommend using an anonymous proxy (or, as people who see too many advertisements call it, a "vee pee enn") when commenting for now if this is a concern.
- Gravatar: https://automattic.com/privacy/