The Offshore Voyaging Reference Site

Not So Boring Privacy Policy, Part 2—Information We Store About, and Emails We Send To, Members

In Part 1 I covered cookies and how we track readers, in aggregate but never personally, with them.

Now let’s look at what information we store about members, and what we do with that information.

What We Store

When you become a member we ask for and store the following information:

  • Name
  • Email address
  • Username and password
  • Your web site URL if you add that to a comment you make
  • The pages on this site only that you visited on the path to paying for membership
In addition, our credit card processing companies, Stripe and PayPal, store your credit card information, but the key point is that we at AAC can’t see that, other than the last 4 digits of your credit card number.

What We Do With Your Information

We use this information exclusively to make your membership work, as follows:

  • Send you seven emails over the several weeks after you join, explaining how to get the most out of membership.
  • Send you a monthly email digest of the content we have published in the last month.
  • Optionally, you can get an email every time we publish, but you need to specifically opt-in to get that.
  • Send you a notification just before an annual (automated) membership renews, and two further emails if that process fails, usually due to an expired credit card.
  • Send you a notification just before a non-automated membership expires.
  • If we were to bring out a new product that is linked and applicable to your membership, for example a downloadable eBook (no plans), we would send you an email about that.
  • We are required by the Canada Revenue Authority to collect your approximate location, but we only use that as part of our annual sales tax reporting.

What We Don’t Do With Your Information

  • We don’t share your information with anyone else.
  • We don’t, and won’t, hound you to buy stuff from us or anybody else.

Where We Store Your information:

  • On our web server.
  • At Mailchimp, our email provider. If you have no life you can read their privacy statement here.
  • As we said above, your credit card information is stored at Stripe and/or PayPal. Boring privacy statements here and here.
  • We store backups that contain some or all of your information at Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.
  • Some of your information is on our business computers and backups here at AAC World Headquarters…OK, our cabin in the woods.

Keeping Your Information Safe

You will note in the above that the places we store your information are best in class, and we use two factor authentication (2FA) to access those services—what a pain in the ass that is!

Your really sensitive information (credit card) is at Stripe and PayPal and, as far as I know (and we did some pretty deep Google searches), those companies have never suffered a system-wide data breach.

Realistically, the biggest risk to your information getting out (not financial) is probably some bad actor hacking into our site, since it’s the only place of storage that is directly internet facing.

However, we go to a lot of trouble to keep your information safe:

  • We have installed the paid version of WordFence, best in class security software, on all of our web sites. Not only does Wordfence harden our site against hackers, and add 2FA for all administrators (Phyllis and me only), it also scans our sites several times a day to look for any hacks.
  • We update our site as quickly as practical—gotta test this stuff first—to make sure we have all the latest security patches.

And we are careful with our own computers too:

  • Our desktop computers and backups are encrypted and strong password protected.
  • Our office may be a cabin in the woods, but it does have an externally monitored alarm system.
And further good news: The only information on our web site server or computers is your name, email, IP address, username and password, and the password is deeply encrypted so even we can’t read it. 

So, really, there’s nothing on our site, computers, or backups that’s probably not already out there in the wild, with the exception of the latter two. (If you think your email address is not already compromised, you are either the most security savvy user on the internet…or abusing some serious controlled substances.)

All that said, we strongly recommend that you don’t use a password or username for your AAC membership that you also use for something sensitive like accessing your bank.

Your Right To Correct Your Information

If you need to correct the information we store about you, you can do that HERE.

Your Right To Access Your Information Stored With Us

Hopefully, one day, all the software and services we use will automate these requests, but that day is not today. So email us with “request for my information” in the subject line, and Phyllis and I will manually pull it all together…while simultaneously sticking pins in a wax effigy…of some privacy commissioner, not of you, of course.

Just kidding, but you would make our lives a lot easier if you would tell us exactly what you want to know, rather than making us dig through everything.

And if you do this to us frequently, or just for the fun of it, we will charge you a reasonable fee, like about a bazillion dollars…seriously, US$50 seems reasonable for repeated requests.

Your Right to Be Forgotten

If you let your membership expire, we keep your information on file and send you the monthly digest of new content (unless you unsubscribe using the link at the bottom of all emails) in case you wish to re-join.

However, if you wish to have your information removed from our records, send us an email with “forget me” in the subject line. We will comply and then send you a final confirmation email. Click here to do that.

Note that some of your information may remain in our backups for up to five years until said backups are cycled out. And, no, we can’t individually remove you from said backups, simply not practical—we backup every day and retain monthly backups for three years.

Also, our credit card processing and mailing companies have not, at the time of writing, made clear how we can make sure their records are purged of your information. I’m fairly sure that will come soon. When it does, we will do that too.

All that said, Phyllis and I are human and therefore fallible. And given all the different places a snippet of your information could be hiding, I can’t totally guarantee that we will get everything deleted, but we will be diligent and make our best effort.

These last three points bring to the fore an important reality. Any company that guarantees, without any caveats, to totally and immediately forget your information, is almost certainly bullshitting you.

We Don’t Share

The good news is that we have never, in all our years of doing this, knowingly shared your information with any third party, unlike many web sites, mentioning no names…oh heck, that’s boring…yeah, I’m looking at you Zuck.

Your Agreement

Oh, yeah, one more thing:

When you become a member you are specifically agreeing to these terms.

And if you are wondering why we don’t have to get your express consent to send you emails, the reason is that all of them are to help you get the best from a product you bought (membership); therefore, adding another annoying check box is not required by the Canada Anti-Spam Act, which we have complied with ever since it became law.

That’s it. If you got this far, you deserve a large adult beverage of your choice. And just imagine what I deserve after writing this…sh…stuff.

16 Comments
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Ernest

“forget me” – and “click here” to do that?
Nope, never, glad to be here.
But you already knew that.

Gary

Wow! You have actually made reading a privacy statement, over morning coffee no less, fun.

And in plain english, as well. There are a lot of attorneys out there who have just got a lesson in plain english writing.

Keep up the good work. All of us out here admire your work, be it adventure sailing, web site hosting, and running a small on line business.

Charles Starke MD

Good article. Glad to be here and I recommend your site to all my sailing friends.
Best wishes,
Charles
Charles L Starke MD FACP
s/v Dawnpiper

Randy Cadenhead

Thanks for the entertaining, simple and remarkably clear series on your privacy policies. I spent 10 years doing this work for a major company and was never able to do the topic justice the way you have. Inspiring job!

Stein Varjord

I’m generally suspicious about how companies use my info. Especially what they can find from tracking my internet usage, reading my emails (yes, google, yahoo, and all others do that), my comments everywhere, and so on. Hard info like email address and passwords that I put out there myself might also be sensitive, but still mostly less intrusive (as long as we use healthy safety measures like 2 stage logins etc) than the actual spying that has become the standard.

I quite like the EU initiative with GDPR to give far stricter regulations on that spying and more control to users. It’s quite obvious that their target isn’t small web sites like AAC, but the giants who digest all data about us and sell it, this or that way, for big cash. Google, Facebook, etc. I’ve never thought that being present on AAC might present any type of risk to privacy or safety. Still, it’s nice to read your articles showing that you have the good attitudes I assumed and that you have more safety in place than I thought. Cool.

Conclusion: I’ll keep telling people that if they are considering some type of long distance sailing, they need to have access to the knowledge at AAC. Not having it is flat out stupid and potentially dangerous. A mandatory AAC membership makes more sense than a mandatory life vest! 🙂

Stedem Wood

Your policy is as much a statement of your and Phyllis’s character and integrity as a set of terms of use. Nicely done!

Same for your disclosures about sponsors or products provided for testing or personal use.

No one who has spent any time on your site could have a legitimate second thought about your intentions. —or, I’d bet, found anything with as much helpful stuff and asked so little in return.

As to that other guy whom you mention so blithely….I’ve always thought his site was a bad bargain. Lately, I’m convinced that it is evil.

No comparison, of course; I just can’t help poking my finger in that guy’s eye when on this topic.

Stedem Wood
M/V Atlantis

Ian Tyler

Thank you so much for an entertaining privacy statement – in fact, 2 of them. Well done! As you are no doubt aware here in Europe we have been targets for the blizzard from hell, to mix my metaphors, due to GDPR. Every company and website that you have never heard of, and one or two you have, has felt it necessary to send letters and email telling us absolutely nothing of any conceivable interest. Again, well done for making the completely uninteresting, interesting and finally, congratulations on your epic security measures. If only tiny, shoestring businesses like Yahoo and AOL, to name but two, cared so much about their subscribers’ information!

John S

Thank you. Your use of understandable language and the humor makes this read worth the membership.
Your sharing of sailing experiences puts it over the top. I joined after I read a free article about how to buy a boat. It helped. I had to have more.
Thank you and Phyllis for all you share to make my sailing experiences better.