Friday, June 12, 2009

Hobo Mama's astonishingly full disclosure and privacy policy

Posted June 12, 2009
Last updated March 18, 2010


I've decided it's a good idea to post a disclosure policy outlining my blog's practices in regards to advertising, reviews, privacy, comments, and copyright. I'll include a permanent link to this policy on my front page and will update it as necessary.

Contact: Lauren Wayne, www.HoboMama.com, Mail AT HoboMama DOT com



CONTENT

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by Hobo Mama, aka Lauren Wayne. For questions about this blog, please leave a comment or contact me directly. I appreciate all communication, but I (sadly) don't always respond quickly or consistently, so if it's very important or urgent, please mark it as such or contact me again.

My posts reflect my own honest opinions and research on varied subjects, mostly to do with natural parenting (breastfeeding, babywearing, attachment parenting, continuum parenting, cloth diapers, elimination communication, child-led weaning, home birth, gentle discipline, unschooling, and the like). I am not what this culture considers an expert on any of these matters. I have, so far, one 2-year-old child, Mikko, who daily teaches me what I do not know. I reserve the right to be ignorant and ill-informed and to change my mind when such matters are pointed out to me. I reserve the right to accuse others of the same, but I try not to be mean to individuals. If I've hurt your feelings, I'm truly sorry. Sometimes when I write, I am far rantier and less gracious than I would be in real life. Please do not take my opinions as the only and final word on any matter. Cross-check with your own intuition, child(ren), co-parent(s), other family members, community, research, real-life experts, trustworthy books, and healthcare professionals as necessary.

I may occasionally invite guest bloggers, who will be identified as such and whose opinions, though presumably in line with mine, are their own. If you would like to guest post for my blog, please contact me.



COOKIES

I don't personally implement cookies. I don't know anything about cookies.

BUT...I do use advertising venues and other web technology resources that use cookies.

For instance, Google Adsense ads use DoubleClick DART cookies, or so I am told, to serve ads to users based on their visits to various websites, including www.HoboMama.com. Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

Certain Amazon Associates ads (such as Omakase widgets) serve advertisements based on previous items you have searched for or purchased on Amazon.com. All Amazon ads contain an Amazon Privacy Policy link at the bottom for more information.

Some of our advertising partners may use other cookies and web beacons on our site. Our advertising partners include:
     • BlogHer Ads
     • Google Adsense
     • Commission Junction
     • LinkShare
     • ShareaSale
     • eBay Partner Network
     • Pepperjam Network
     • Bandelettes
     • Educents
     • Amazon Associates

These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to send the advertisements and links that appear on www.HoboMama.com directly to your browsers. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies (such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons) may also be used by the third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and/or to personalize the advertising content that you see.

www.HoboMama.com has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.

You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt out of certain practices. www.HoboMama.com's privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, other such advertisers or web sites.

If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browsers' respective websites.



ADVERTISING

We accept advertising from the partners listed under Cookies above.

Most of them are referral affiliates. That means that for every product a visitor purchases through a link, a small percentage of revenue goes back to my site to help support it. So far, I've earned a little money but not enough to reach the threshold for being paid at most venues, so I'm not quitting my day job!

I do not control the content of Adsense or BlogHer ads. I am able to control the categories of BlogHer ads shown, and I have opted out of categories I deem offensive to my readers, including ads that go against the promotion of breastfeeding.

With the other advertisers, I have selected both the banner and text ads myself. If you have a concern about any of the ads I've chosen, please contact me. If you have a concern with a product you've purchased through one of the affiliates, please contact the company directly, since I have no control over customer service. For banner ads, I try to select only companies and products that align with my values and interests as a parent, but I have not tried out all the companies and their products and am not implying specific endorsements.

For links to products within my blog posts, even if they are affiliate links, please refer to the content of the post as to whether I endorse a product or am using it only as an example. Often I will use affiliate images and links as handy illustrations of a particular type of product, with no endorsement implied.

Any Amazon links are almost certainly affiliate links. Those are the links I use most often, since Amazon has such a broad product range and handy product illustrations.

No one directly pays me to review or endorse products. If this happens in the future, I will disclose it and will probably host it on my review site, Hobo Mama Reviews. Sometimes I receive free products to review or as a prize, but my opinion is my own. I will note in individual posts whether I have received the product for free. I tend to write positive reviews, because it makes me feel bad to slam products, particularly from small, mama-based businesses. I've done it, but then I've regretted it. So don't take the fact that almost all of my product reviews are endorsements to mean that I am being seduced into endorsing products. I also tend to be very enthusiastic and salesperson-y about products I like, which is due to (a) my enthusiasm about the products and (b) my day job as a salesperson. It doesn't mean anything more than that. I like to suggest products that I think my readers would appreciate, particularly products that have been beneficial to me as a mama. Sometimes there is overlap between a product I recommend and an affiliate link — that's on purpose! I seek out affiliate relationships with those companies whose products I love. Please note that the love did not come second. Please note also that I frequently recommend products or websites with which I have no financial affiliation.

Contact me with questions about any of my own claims about a product or service. Any other product claim, statistic, quote or representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.

I freely admit that I buy very few of the products I endorse, particularly books, which I nearly always borrow from the library. Don't feel that I am pressuring you into purchasing a product by providing links. I find links to manufacturers' websites and Amazon book reviews to be helpful in researching what a product is and whether it would be beneficial, which is why I provide them for you, with the acknowledged ulterior benefit to me of potential affiliate income if a visitor does choose to purchase through a link.



PRIVACY

At www.HoboMama.com, the privacy of my visitors is of extreme importance to me. I do not personally collect or use identifiable information from my visitors.

I do use tracking services that provide me with general site analytics based on aggregate information, such as geographical location, type of browser, IP addresses, Internet Service Providers, date/time stamps, referring/exit pages, time spent on specific pages, and search terms. Such information is not personally identifiable and is used only for internal purposes to improve the site's performance.

Certain widgets on www.HoboMama.com collect information on page views and click-throughs to display relevant or popular posts to all readers. This information is not personally identifiable.

When you leave a comment, you choose what contact information you want to offer, such as a link to your Blogger profile or other website address.  If you leave a link to your own site, I might visit you there, which I trust you will enjoy and not find creepy! You can also choose to comment anonymously if it's a sensitive topic, and I will respect your anonymity. If, however, someone chooses to comment anonymously simply to be argumentative, I reserve the right to delete the comment. I want to know where such a commenter is coming from, so give me the courtesy of reading your own site.

If I offer polls, giveaways, or other forms of public contribution, any information you submit will be used for those purposes only. I will keep any identifiable contact information secure, according to your wishes.

If at any time you want a comment or piece of identifiable information removed, please contact me.

I do not sell or share any of your contact information with other companies. If you click through an affiliate or advertising link and offer your contact information to another company, you are bound by that site's privacy policy, and I have no control over that.

I do not use your contact information for any type of unsolicited marketing or SPAM. If I ever choose to offer a service such as a newsletter, you may opt out at any time.

Subscribing to RSS feeds or following my blog or Twitter feed are under your control entirely. You can choose to follow at Blogger anonymously, and my information on RSS subscribers is only in aggregate. If you choose to follow my blog publicly, though, I will gladly check out your blog in return!



COMMENTS

I do not want to delete any legitimate comments on my blog, assuming they fall within the bounds listed in the next paragraph. I have deleted a few SPAM comments and comments that did not meet the requirements listed below. If you ever feel I have deleted a comment in error, please contact me.

I reserve the right to delete malicious, hateful, divisive comments. You are free to disagree with me and my opinions, as well as those of other commenters, but I appreciate keeping www.HoboMama.com a safe and nurturing place for like-minded parents to read, learn, and share with each other. I also reserve the right to delete comments that I feel would be best shared within a private conversation, such as through email, or that divulge personal information that someone wishes to keep confidential. I also reserve the right to delete anonymous, argumentative comments. If you wish to argue, have the courtesy to do so from an established online presence.

I am experimenting with the level of access I grant for leaving comments. I prefer to allow anonymous users, no comment moderation, and no word verification, to make the process as easy as possible for my readers. I have been having some issues with spam comments, however, so I might have to adapt this as I work out these issues. Currently, I have enabled word verification (the little captcha code you have to type in) and I have comment moderation set on older posts, so there will be a delay if you comment on an older post. Let me know if you do not see a comment you submitted appear in a timely manner.



COPYRIGHT

All written content is the property of Lauren Wayne of www.HoboMama.com. ©2010 All rights reserved and all that. You may quote from my articles for the purposes of review or discussion, as long as you give proper attribution and a link back to www.HoboMama.com. For full reprints or commission of new work, please contact me.

When I quote from other sources, I try always to attribute the source and clearly mark direct quotes within quotation marks and, often, emphasized font. I try to link only to sources that have made their writing public, such as in published form or on a search engine-enabled blog. If I have made an error in attribution, or if you do not wish your work to be linked to or cited, please contact me so we can discuss the matter.

Photos and illustrations belong to their respective copyright holders. I try to attribute stock images and other illustrations to their proper owners, and affiliate images to their respective affiliate links. If you dispute an attribution or do not wish for me to use a particular image, please contact me.



THAT'S ALL, FOLKS

Wow, are you still reading? If I didn't cover something in this behemoth of legalese, please contact me with your questions or concerns.

If you require more information or have any questions about this policy, please feel free to contact me by email: Mail AT HoboMama DOT com.


If you would like to adapt this policy for your own blog, 
please feel free, but I would appreciate a little link love, 
such as my attributions here:
I got mondo help writing this policy
from
DisclosurePolicy.org and SerpRank.com.
Photo courtesy Gabriel Doyle at stock.xchng.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, I should write a disclosure for my blog, too! (I don't know if you read my blog, but I totally got attacked last week by someone who said I was claiming things as "fact" based on unsited "research" when I never made such claims--grr.) Seriously, can't I just write about my opinions?

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