Unless you’re a registered user, elliptical sets no cookies on your machine. Registered users’ machines receive a small number of cookies for user-state management (to keep you logged in and such). No personally identifiable data in contained in these cookies, and any all of them expire at the end of your session or after 24 hours.

Bottom line: no personally-identifiable information is collected by elliptical via cookies.

Readers of elliptical can register as a user. Logged in and registered users will be recognized by elliptical when commenting. There may be other benefits, but I can’t think of any right now.

In order to register, a login name and valid email address (to which your password will be mailed) must be provided. Registered users will receive some user-state cookies representing logged-in status. Registered users may also provide information such as IM aliases, website addresses, and profile information, but none of this data is required.

Bottom line: elliptical will collect at least the email address of registered users, along with any optional data you provide.

Commenters (who are not registered users) must provide a name and email, but neither are verified. All initial comments will be moderated, but readers already having an approved comment will be able to comment without moderation.

When commenting, elliptical records the information detailed above and additionally records your IP address when posting your comment.

Bottom line: eliptical collects a name and email as provided by each commenter, and records your IP address when you arrived at the page.

My hosting provider, 1&1 Internet, collects the information provided by the Apache webserver logs using the combined log format. This includes your IP address, date and time of your visit, request string from your browser (what page you asked for), referring page, and user agent (browser). More information on the contents of the log file may be obtained at the Log Files page for the Apache HTTP Server.

Bottom line: elliptical collects the same minimum information here that pretty much every website does. The only potentionally personally-identifiable information is your IP address.

Added 2006-01-19

I am using Google Analytics to collect some metrics about visitors to the pages here. GA collects the information similar to that provided by the Apache webserver combined log format and a fair amount more. This includes your IP address, date and time of your visit, request string from your browser (what page you asked for), referring page, and user agent (browser). More information may be obtained at the Google Analytics Terms of Service page. I don’t have a lot of other data about what Google collects yet, and haven’t done a comprehensive review of the cookies Google sets with this tool set.

Bottom line: This is undoubtedly the greatest risk of privacy problems at elliptical. As such I may stop using it, but need to do some research first.

Some other pages on the site might collect other required or optional information. For example, for Rojolicious, I need the user’s del.icio.us user name to pre-configure the script, so I collect that information. I also collect optional emails for readers who may want to receive notification of updates.

As much as possible, those pages will detail the information collected and why where it differs from this information.

Bottom line: see individual pages for departures from the standards presented here.

I fully believe in and support your rights to own your data, and will support your control of that data to whatever extent I can.

If you request it, and I am able to verify your identity to my satisfaction, I will remove your comments from elliptical’s pages. I only ask that you consider whatever context will be lost by such removal before requesting. I will likewise remove your email address at your request, either from my commenter records or from any mailing lists you may have joined.

I will not remove records of your visits to elliptical from my server logs - that would be just silly.

I will not sell or give whatever personal data you have provided here to any other party. I may occasionally quote a commenter from elliptical’s pages, but if you’ve given me a way to contact you, I will try to get in touch with you before doing so.

Bottom line: you own your data, and as long as you can prove who you are to my satisfaction, at your request I’ll remove whatever data I have stored about you.