Privacy Policy

Your privacy is critically important to me. At sfdevops.net, I have a few fundamental principles by which I stand:

  • I am thoughtful about the personal information I ask you to provide and the personal information that I collect about you through the operation of my blog.
  • I store personal information for only as long as I have a reason to keep it.
  • I aim to make it as simple as possible for you to control what information on this website is shared publicly (or kept private), indexed by search engines, and permanently deleted.
  • I help protect you from overreaching government demands for your personal information.
  • I aim for full transparency on how I gather, use, and share your personal information.

Who I Am

Howdy! I am a DevOps engineer based in San Francisco, California, United States. I started this blog as a way to help keep track of notes, information and articles I’ve reviewed in the course of my work and personal tech life and to make sense of the maelstrom of information that is constantly in a state of flux as new demands are placed on DevOps engineers and new software technologies developed, released and placed into use.

My website address is: https://www.sfdevops.net.

Throughout this Privacy Policy I’ll refer to my website and services collectively as “Services.” Below I explain how I collect, use, and share information about you, along with the choices that you have with respect to that information.

What personal data I collect and why I collect it

I only collect information about you if I have a reason to do so – for example, to provide Services, to communicate with you, or to make my Services better. I collect information in three ways: if and when you provide information to me, automatically through operating my Services, and from outside sources.

Let’s go over the information that I collect:

Information You Provide To Me

It’s probably no surprise that I collect information that you provide to me. The amount and type of information depends on the context and how I use the information. Here are some examples:

  • Basic Account Information: I ask for basic information from you in order to set up your account. For example, I require individuals who sign up for a sfdevops.net account to provide a username and email address – and that’s it. You may provide me with more information – like your name – but I don’t require that information to create a sfdevops.net account.
  • Public Profile Information: If you have an account with me, I collect the information that you provide for your public profile. For example, your username is part of that public profile, along with any other information you put into your public profile, such as a photo or an “About Me” description. Your public profile information is just that – public – so please keep that in mind when deciding what information you would like to include.
  • Content Information: Depending on the Services you use, you may also provide me with information about you in draft and published content (such as for your account or surveys). For example, if you write a blog post that includes biographic information about you, I will have that information, and so will anyone with access to the Internet if you choose to publish the post publicly. This might be obvious to you… but it’s not to everyone!
  • Communications With Me (Hi There!): You may also provide me information when you respond to surveys, communicate with me about a support question, or post a question about my site in my public forums.

Information I Collect Automatically

I also collect some information automatically:

  • Log Information: Like most online services, I collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information. I collect log information when you use my Services – for example, when you create or make changes to posts on the site or access the site to view a post..
  • Usage Information: I collect information about your usage of my Services. For example, I collect information about the actions that site administrators and users perform on the site – in other words, who did what, when and to what thing on the site (e.g., [username] deleted “[title of post]” at [time/date]). I also collect information about what happens when you use my Services (e.g., page views, support document searches) along with information about your device (e.g., screen size, name of cellular network, and mobile device manufacturer). I use this information to, for example, provide my Services to you, as well as get insights on how people use my Services, so I can make my Services better.
  • Location Information: I may determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address. I collect and use this information to, for example, calculate how many people visit My Services from certain geographic regions.

Information I Collect From Other Sources

I may also get information about you from other sources. For example, if you create or log into your sfdevops.net account through another service (like Google) or if you connect your account to a social media service (like Twitter), I will receive information from that service (such as your username, basic profile information, and friends list) via the authorization procedures used by that service. The information I receive depends on which services you authorize and any options that are available.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site I collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Contact forms

 

Cookies

A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Pixel tags (also called web beacons) are small blocks of code placed on websites and emails. sfdevops.net uses cookies and other technologies, like pixel tags, to help me identify and track visitors, usage, and access preferences for my Services.

If you leave a comment on my site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, I will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, I will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

For more information about my use of cookies and other technologies for tracking, including how you can control the use of cookies, please see my Cookie Policy.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

How And Why I Use Information

Purposes For Using Information

I use information about you as mentioned above and for the purposes listed below:

  • To provide my Services – for example, to set up and maintain your account on sfdevops.net;
  • To further develop and improve my Services – for example by adding new features that I think my users will enjoy or will help them to create and manage their accounts more efficiently or securely;
  • To monitor and analyze trends and better understand how users interact with my Services, which helps m improve my Services and make them easier to use;
  • To monitor and prevent any problems with my Services, protect the security of my Services, detect and prevent fraudulent actions and other illegal activities, fight spam, and protect the rights and property of sfdevops.net and others, which may result in the declination of a transaction or the use of my Services;
  • To communicate with you, for example through an email,  to solicit your feedback, or keep you up to date on sfdevops.net and my Services; and
  • To personalize your experience using my Services, provide content recommendations.

Legal Bases For Collecting And Using Information

A note here for those in the European Union about my legal grounds for processing information about you under EU data protection laws:

My use of your information is based on the grounds that: (1) The use is necessary in order to fulfill my commitments to you under my Terms of Service or other agreements with you or is necessary to administer your account – for example, in order to enable access to my website on your device; or (2) The use is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; or (3) The use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or (4) I have a legitimate interest in using your information – for example, to provide and update my Services, to improve my Services so that I can offer you an even better user experience, to safeguard my Services, to communicate with you, to better understand user retention and attrition, to monitor and prevent any problems with my Services, and to personalize your experience; or (5) You have given me your consent – for example before I place certain cookies on your device and access and analyze them later on, as described in my Cookie Policy.

Sharing Information

How I Share Information

I do not sell my users’ private personal information. I share information about you in the limited circumstances spelled out below and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy:

  • Subsidiaries, Employees, and Independent Contractors: I may disclose information about you to my subsidiaries (if any), my employees (if any), and individuals who are my independent contractors (if any) that need to know the information in order to help me provide my Services or to process the information on my behalf. I require my subsidiaries, employees, and independent contractors to follow this Privacy Policy for personal information that I share with them.
  • Third Party Vendors: I may share information about you with third party vendors who need to know information about you in order to provide their services to me. This group includes vendors that help me provide my Services to you (if any), those that assist me with my marketing efforts (if any), those that help me understand and enhance my Services (like analytics providers), and companies that make products available on  websites (there are currently none), who may need information about you in order to, for example, provide technical or other support services to you. I require vendors to agree to privacy commitments in order to share information with them.
  • Legal Requests: I may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request. For more information on how I respond to requests for information about WordPress.com users, please see my Legal Guidelines.
  • To Protect Rights, Property, and Others: I may disclose information about you when I believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of sfdevops.net, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if I have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, I may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
  • Business Transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of blog assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of my blog by another company, or in the unlikely event that sfdevops.net goes out of service or enters bankruptcy (since we’re not a business this is HIGHLY unlikely), user information would likely be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. If any of these events were to happen, this Privacy Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use your information, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
  • With Your Consent: I may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction. For example, I may share your information with third parties with which you authorize me to do so.
  • Aggregated or De-Identified Information: I may share information that has been aggregated or reasonably de-identified, so that the information could not reasonably be used to identify you. For instance, I may publish aggregate statistics about the use of my Services.
  • Other Site Owners: If you leave a comment on my site, and because I am connected with the WordPress.com’s JetPack service, your IP address and the email address associated with your account may be shared with the administrator(s) of the other sites.
  • Published Support Requests: And if you send me a request (for example, via a support email or one of my feedback mechanisms), I reserve the right to publish that request in order to help me clarify or respond to your request or to help me support other users.

Information Shared Publicly

Information that you choose to make public is – you guessed it – disclosed publicly. That means, of course, that information like your public profile, posts, and other content that you make public on my website or affiliate sites, are all available to others – and I hope you get a lot of views! I also provide a RSS stream of public data (like posts and comments) that may be viewed and analyzed (all subject to my Terms of Service), and re-published publicly. Public information may also be indexed by search engines or used by third parties. Please keep all of this in mind when deciding what you would like to share.

How long I retain your data

I generally discard information about you when I no longer need the information for the purposes for which I collect and use it – which are described in the section above on How And Why I Use Information – and I am not legally required to continue to keep it. For example, I keep the web server logs that record information about a visitor to my website, such as the visitor’s IP address, browser type, and operating system, for approximately 30 days. I retain the logs for this period of time in order to, among other things, analyze traffic to my site and investigate issues if something goes wrong on my site. As another example, when you delete a post, page, or comment from your account, it stays in your Trash folder for thirty days just in case you change your mind and would like restore that content – because starting again from scratch is no fun… at all. After the thirty days are up, the deleted content may remain on my backups and caches until purged which typically occurs every 30 days but may extended beyond that time period.

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so I can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on my website (if any), I also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

Security

While no online service is 100% secure, I work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so, such as monitoring my Services for potential vulnerabilities and attacks.

What rights you have over your data

Choices

You have several choices when it comes to information about you:

  • Limit the Information that You Provide: If you have an account with us, you can choose not to provide the optional account information, profile information.
  • Limit Access to Information On Your Mobile Device: Your mobile device operating system should provide you with the ability to discontinue my ability to collect stored information or location information via mobile browser apps.
  • Opt-Out of Electronic Communications: You may opt out of receiving promotional messages from us. Just follow the instructions in those messages. If you opt out of promotional messages, I may still send you other messages, like those about your account and legal notices.
  • Set Your Browser to Reject Cookies: You can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies before using sfdevops.net’s website, with the drawback that certain features of my Services may not function properly without the aid of cookies.
  • Close Your Account: While we’d be very sad to see you go, if you no longer want to use my Services ( 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 ), you can delete your accounts. Please keep in mind that I may continue to retain your information after closing your account, as described in How Long I Keep Information above – for example, when that information is reasonably needed to comply with (or demonstrate my compliance with) legal obligations such as law enforcement requests, or reasonably needed for my legitimate business interests.

Your Rights

If you are located in certain countries, including those that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (AKA the “GDPR”), data protection laws give you rights with respect to your personal data, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the rights to:

  • Request access to your personal data;
  • Request correction or deletion of your personal data;
  • Object to my use and processing of your personal data;
  • Request that I limit my use and processing of your personal data; and
  • Request portability of your personal data.

You can usually access, correct, or delete your personal data using your account settings and tools that I offer, but if you aren’t able to do that, or you would like to contact ,e about one of the other rights, scroll down to How To Reach Me to, well, find out how to reach me. EU individuals also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority.

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data I hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that I erase any personal data I hold about you. This does not include any data I am obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Controllers And Responsible Companies

sfdevops.net is based in San Francisco, CA, United States and is the soul controller of personal information associated with the sfdevops.net website. Different companies associated with different third party tools in use on the site – for example, WordPress.com’s Jet Pack Service – are the controller (or co-controller) of personal information for which they collect, which means that they are the company responsible for processing that information, based on the particular service and the location of the individual using the Services. Depending on the Services you use, more than one company may be the controller of your personal data. Generally, the “controller” is the sfdevops.net website that entered into the contract with you under the Terms of Service for the the Services you use.

How To Reach Me

If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact me about any of the rights mentioned in the Your Rights section above, please contact me.

Other Things You Should Know

Transferring Information

Because the Services are based in the United States, the information about you that I process when you use the Services in the EU may be used, stored, and/or accessed by individuals operating outside the European Economic Area (EEA). This is required for the purposes listed in the How And Why I Use Information section above. When providing information about you to entities outside the EEA, I will take appropriate measures to ensure that the recipient protects your personal information adequately in accordance with this Privacy Policy as required by applicable law. These measures include:

  • In the case of US based entities, entering into European Commission approved standard contractual arrangements with them, or ensuring they have signed up to the EU-US Privacy Shield; or
  • In the case of entities based in other countries outside the EEA, entering into European Commission approved standard contractual arrangements with them.

You can ask me for more information about the steps I take to protect your personal information when transferring it from the EU.

Ads And Analytics Services Provided By Others

Advertisigin

At the current writing of this document, sfdevops.net does not utilizing advertising services. If, in the future, advertisement services become necessary; this privacy policy will be updated to provided additional information on those services.

Analytics

Other parties may provide analytics services via my Services. These analytics providers may set tracking technologies (like cookies) to collect information about your use of my Services and across other websites and online services. These technologies allow these third parties to recognize your device to compile information about you or others who use your device. This information allows me and other companies to, among other things, analyze and track usage, and determine the popularity of certain content.

Please note this Privacy Policy only covers the collection of information by sfdevops.net and does not cover the collection of information by any third party analytics providers.

Third Party Software

sfdevops.net heavily utilizes third party tools to provide a rich user experience, to secure the site, to prevent SPAM, and to ensure the security of your personal information. Keep in mind that when you interact with the sfdevops.net website, you will be interacting with these third party tools and you may provide information about yourself (or your site visitors) to those third parties. I DO NOT own or control these third parties and they have their own rules about collection, use and sharing of information, which you should review.

For complete list of third party tools in use on the sfdevops.net website, please use contact form to request this information.

Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, sfdevops.net may change its Privacy Policy from time to time. I encourage visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to my Privacy Policy. If I make changes, I will notify you by revising the change log below, and, in some cases, I may provide additional notice (such as adding a statement to my homepage or sending you a notification through email or your dashboard). Your further use of the Services after a change to my Privacy Policy will be subject to the updated policy.

That’s it! Thanks for reading.