About this Privacy Notice
I'm Jim McIntyre, webmaster for Tri-Cities WA Guide. This guide is my personal project (unpaid hobby) and is provided as a community benefit. It is not associated with any other business or organization. The majority of visitors to my website are from the Tri-Cities and Seattle regions.
I do not sell ads nor am I engaged in marketing. Any personally identifiable information (PII) that this website collects from or about you is not shared with third parties.
This website does use Google Analytics to see how visitors use my website and requires the use of two cookies. There are also two forms, Contact Webmaster and Search, that visitors can interact with. Visitor personally identifiable information (PII) is collected using the Contact Webmaster Form while no PII is collected with the use of the Search Form.
Google Analytics
My use of Google Analytics requires setting two cookies that are used to see how visitors use my website. These cookies cannot be used to directly identify any visitor to my website. They are considered "non-essential" in that they are not required to make my website function.
- _ga - this cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the analytics reports.
- _ga_GM5H6EM490 - this cookie is used by Google Analytics to persist session state.
To the best of my knowledge, I have Google Analytics configured to restrict Google's use of this information for Google's advertising features.
Contact Webmaster Form
The Contact Webmaster form does collect personally identifiable information (PII) that includes visitor name, email address and the message. The form sends me this information to my personal email address through the use of Web3Forms which is a Form endpoint server.
Web3Forms is privacy-focused and doesn't store user submissions to protect user privacy. The form information is not stored on my website. The information that I receive in my email is not shared with others unless the sender and I have an "agreement" on what and how that information is to be shared.
Search Form
A searchable index of the Tri-Cities WA Guide website has been created to help visitors find information that this guide may have. The Search Form allows a visitor to enter a search term or phrase.
A small database stores the search terms with date/timestamp submitted so I can run a simple report to see what my visitors are looking for. No personally identifiable information (PII) is collected and stored. The scripts used to provide this capabilty are hosted as part of my website.
Webserver Log Files
Log files are generated for each website hosted on a webserver. These files log visitors when they visit websites. All hosting companies do this and a part of hosting services' analytics. The information collected by log files include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date and time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks.
The data collected is not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. The primary purpose of the information is for administering the site. I rarely access the logs and only to track down server-related issues. Three months of logs are kept online - older logs are deleted.
About Cookies & User Privacy
Cookies are small data files that are placed on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. Cookies are widely used by website owners in order to make their websites work, or to work more efficiently, as well as to provide reporting information. The two cookies set by this website through the use of Google Analytics are called "first-party cookies" and these cookies cannot be used to directly identify a certain individual.
Cookies set by parties other than the website owner are called "third-party cookies." Third-party cookies are usually involved with advertising, for example. The parties that set these third-party cookies can recognize your computer both when it visits my website and also when it visits certain other websites. My website is not involved in initiating "third-party cookies."