Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes how Forward Deployed News ("we", "us") handles information when you visit forwarddeployednews.com (the "Site").

What we collect

• Request data. Our hosting provider processes standard request data, including IP address, browser type, the page requested and the referring address, to deliver and secure the Site.
• Approximate location. Our server learns from our hosting provider the country, region and city your connection appears to come from, and records only that approximate location, never your IP address.
• Browser and device type. From the user agent your browser sends, our server takes the browser name and version, the operating system and the device type (desktop, mobile or tablet). The user agent itself is not recorded.
• First-party analytics. Each page runs a short script we wrote, which reports only to our own server: which pages you view, the page address (with campaign tags such as utm_source), the page you came from, your screen and window size, how far you scroll, how long the page is in view, whether a recommendation comes into view, and which links and buttons you click (their text, address and position on the page). It loads nothing from other companies, sets no cookies of its own and stores nothing in your browser.

Device key

With each event our server computes a device key: a keyed one-way hash (HMAC-SHA256) of your IP address and user agent, shortened to 32 characters. The same browser on the same connection gives the same key, so it can link visits that probably come from one device, on this Site and on other websites that share our analytics. The key cannot be turned back into your IP address or user agent, and neither of those is stored or sent to our analytics provider. Many people can share one connection, for example in an office or on a mobile network, so the key is an approximate signal, not an identity.

Analytics provider

Our analytics processor is PostHog, Inc. Our server sends it the events described above along with the visitor ID, the device key and the approximate location, and PostHog stores and processes them for us in the United States. It never receives your IP address, your user agent, your name or your email address.

Our analytics account is shared with a company we have a business connection with, which uses it for its own website, so that company can see the events described above. How we are funded names it.

If you write to us

When you write to us through the form on our contact page, we collect your email address, your message, your name if you choose to give one, and the approximate country your connection appears to come from, which our hosting provider tells our server. We do not store your IP address or your user agent with the message.

We use what you send only to read it and to reply to you. We store it with a database service provider in the United States, keep it for up to 12 months and then delete it. We never use it for marketing, and we share it with no one except the service providers that store and deliver it for us. You can ask for a message to be deleted sooner through the same form on our contact page; tell us the email address you used.

The visitor cookie

We use one first-party cookie, set by our own server on forwarddeployednews.com. It contains a random visitor ID, how many visits you have made, when you last visited and a check code proving our server set it. That lets us count visits and tell new visitors from returning ones. Page scripts cannot read it, it goes only to this Site over secure connections, and it expires 400 days after your last visit. You can remove it in your browser settings whenever you like.

Recommendation links

If an article links to a company we recommend, the link goes first to an address on this Site. Our server notes the click (which page it was on, where the link sat and which of that company's pages it points to) and then passes you on to that company's website. The address you land on carries a one-time click ID, your visitor ID, the name of this Site, the page you came from and a signature proving the link came from this Site, so the company can tie your visit to its website to your visits here. No visitor ID is passed when the rules under Your choices apply to you. How we are funded identifies the company and our connection to it.

Your choices

• Global Privacy Control. We honor the Global Privacy Control signal. When your browser sends it, we set no cookie (and delete an earlier one), compute no device key, include no visitor ID in links to a company we recommend, and count your page views only under an anonymous ID that changes daily and is different on every site, so your visits are not followed.
• Visitors from Europe, the UK and Switzerland. Visits that appear to come from the European Union, the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, and visits whose location we cannot tell, get the same treatment automatically.
• Your rights. Laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act and the GDPR may give you rights of access, correction and deletion, depending on where you live.

Disclosure

We do not sell personal information. Our hosting provider processes request data and our analytics provider processes analytics events, both on our behalf as described above. We disclose information when the law requires it. Messages sent through the contact form are stored by our database provider, also on our behalf.

Children's privacy

The Site is meant for adults, and we do not knowingly collect information from children under 13.

Get in touch

Send privacy requests, including a request to delete a message you sent us, through the form on our contact page.