Privacy policy

At KnowledgeSnacks, we believe that people should be able to surf the internet in privacy and anonymity. We do our best to maintain your anonymity. Here is what data we collect and how we use it.

Cookies

We use cookies on our site.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small files that are stored on your device when you visit a website. There are “first-party cookies” used by the website to work properly and to load pages faster. And there are “third-party cookies,” which may be set by third parties that provide a service to the website you are visiting. They may be from an analytics or advertising service, for example.

Here you can find an easy-to-understand explanation about cookies: https://cookies.insites.com/about-cookies/

How do I get rid of cookies?

1. Disable cookies. One simple option is to disable cookies in your browser. Sites, though, may not work properly if you block “first-party cookies.” If you block ‘third-party cookies,” on the other hand, things usually work well.

2. Configure browser. The second solution is to configure your browser to delete all cookies when you close the browser. That way, while you are perusing a site, it will work properly. And once you close your browser, all cookies will be deleted. Since you no longer need them, that is fine. The only drawback of deletion may be an impact on loading times.

When you visit a site for the very first time, it can take a little while to load fully. But then, the site installs cookies on your computer, so the next time you visit it, it loads faster.

If you delete the cookies, it will always be like you are visiting the site for the first time. But the difference in loading times will not be dramatic in most cases.

3. Clear history. Another way of deleting cookies is by doing it manually, without closing your browser. You just go to “history” in your browser and delete it.

4. Use a program or app. A final and thorough alternative that we like to use is CCleaner. Once a day, or after you have visited many sites, you may want to run the cleaner. It gets rid of any persistent or tracking cookies that browser deletion may have missed.

What type of cookies does Knowledge Snack use?

We use necessary cookies to run the site. Ironically, those include the third-party cookies that allow us to comply with the “cookies laws.” Those third-party cookies allow you to opt-in or out of having cookies set by our site (!).

We also use third-party cookies for analytics -as explained below.

None of these cookies collect your personal data or your IP address.

Lastly, we also use cookies set by our advertisers, as explained below.

Opt out of cookies on KnowledgeSnacks

Here, at KnowledgeSnacks, we give you the option to opt out of all non-necessary cookies.

The first time you visit our site, the cookie banner will pop up. There, you can choose to accept all cookies or you can go to ‘Cookie settings’ and choose which cookies you accept.

If you already chose ‘Accept all cookies,’ and now regret your choice, do not fret. Manually delete your browser’s cookies -as explained above. Then, revisit our website. The pop-up will appear again, and you will be able to make a brand new cookie choice.

Necessary cookies cannot be opted out of because the site or the consent cookie banner would not work properly without them. Again, those cookies do not collect any personal data.

Embedded content

Usually, when a site (like us) uses embedded content from other websites (e.g. YouTube videos), the website (e.g. YouTube) that provides the content sets a cookie. That way, the visitor can interact with their content as soon as they land on the borrowing site’s page (like in one of our pages).

But do not fear. Although we love YouTube, and we use it in some of our pages, we have wrapped it. That means it does not set a cookie when you visit our site. Only if you choose to play the video, will YouTube set the cookie on your computer so you can watch their video. If you don’t hit that yummy play button, YouTube will not be able to see you.

Social Media Buttons

Social media buttons are those clickable buttons that show the icons of Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, to name a few social networks. They allow visitors to share an article or quote on their favorite social media with just one click.

Much like embedded content, when a website has a social button displayed on its pages, the buttons may set a cookie on the visitor’s computer. If the Facebook button is on a page, then Facebook can track visitors to that page.

We have wrapped our beloved social buttons here at KnowledgeSnacks. That means social networks can not track you through the buttons when you visit our site. Only if and when you choose to click a share button will you connect to the social network of your choice. Then, it will open on a new page without setting cookies through this website.

Third-party cookies

How do I disable third-party cookies?

Most sites should work well with third-party cookies disabled. Do bear in mind, though, that in a few instances, some functions (provided by third parties) may not work properly in some sites.

An example is the ‘recaptchas’ from Google. With disabled third-parties cookies, recaptchas do not work -they do not remember your choices, so they keep asking you to solve one captcha after another.

This site has easy-to-follow instructions on how to disable third-party cookies in each browser.

Statistics

Websites use statistics to know how they are performing. They may want to know how many visitors they have each day or which of their pages are most popular.

We use statistics. The data we collect is instantly anonymized. That means we do not know who visited our site, only that someone, who lives in x country, did.

None of this information can be used to identify you.

We use the services of Google Analytics, which sets cookies on the visitor’s browser.

The IP address of our visitors is anonymized before it reaches their servers.

Google Analytics offers many options when it comes to configuring one’s account with them. We have configured ours so that even the anonymized data of our visitors is not used by Google for their products and services.

Still, you can opt out of our statistics cookies through our cookie consent banner.

Advertising

This website shows advertisements courtesy of Google AdSense.

Google AdSense is an advertising company run by Google. AdSense picks the ads shown on our pages, and they set the respective advertising cookies to show those ads.

Google AdSense has its own privacy policy. They may collect information like which device the visitor is using -a tablet or phone, an android or iPhone-, the browser they are using, the location of the visitor, and other data.

If you want to know what information Google AdSense collects and how it uses it, you can go here.

You can change which information Google collects from you here. And since we are talking about ads, here you can choose if Google can show you personalized ads or not.

You can opt-out of advertising cookies on our site through our cookie consent banner.

To protect your privacy online, you can also use a VPN.

Your personal Information

We, KnowledgeSnacks, only store your personal information (name you provided, email address you provided, IP address) when you actively share them with us by filling a form.

Comment section

You can post comments on our site without submitting personal information. Only a name is required to leave a comment. We encourage you to enter a username instead of your real name. We ask for your location (city, country) to enliven the exchange of ideas and the multicultural aspect of this website. But neither field is required.

When you submit a comment, your IP address is registered in our database. It is kept for two days in storage so we can deal with spam. Spam is those comments you may have seen in the comment sections all over the web promoting medicines or porn; they usually include a link. To keep our comment section clean, GP-13, and friendly, we ban spam. Meanwhile, all legitimate comments are welcome.

IP addresses of commenters are automatically anonymized after two days.

If you have chosen to follow a user or thread in a comment section

The process is automatized.

When, in the comment section, you choose to follow a user, a comment, or a discussion, the name and email you provide are stored in our system. The system will send automatic emails to you whenever a new comment is posted in the section of your interest. When you do not want to follow that section anymore, all you have to do is unsubscribe. There is an unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email the system sends you.

We will not use your information for any other purposes. We will not send you any marketing emails. We will not share or sell your information. You can unsubscribe whenever you choose.

Contact form

You may also choose to share your personal information (name, email, and IP address) with us, KnowledgeSnacks, when you fill a contact form. When you submit the form, an automated email is sent to you to confirm that the system has received the submission.

When you fill a form, you have two options: to choose to be contacted or just to leave a comment and choose not to be contacted via email. If you choose not to be contacted, your personal data (name, email, and IP address) will be deleted once someone at our site reads your feedback. As long as it is not spam, of course. If you choose to be contacted, your personal data will be stored while we are in contact with you. Then, it will be deleted.

If, at any time, you wish to have your data deleted before that, you can contact us and let us know. We will oblige happily. It is your data.

The personal information you submit in the contact form will only be used to respond to your inquiry. We will not use it for marketing, nor will we send you any other unrelated emails. We do not harvest data, nor do we share or sell the information you submit with third parties.

2019-06-14