Note on Privacy and Cookies

Usually this notice is in boring legalese, so I’ll try to make it less stodgy for you.

I want to reach anyone anywhere, and there are many legislations in force on the subject in the world which can differ from one another, as well as change in time, and the task of following them all would be arduous. Therefore I choose to take here as a reference the current European legislation, which seems a good combination of regulatory strictness and jurisdictional scope. The words between quotation marks are taken directly from it.

Firstly, it is doubtful that I am required to draw up this note, because the current legislation “does not apply to the processing of personal data by a natural person in the course of a purely personal activity and thus with no connection to a professional or commercial activity”, activities that “could include correspondence and the holding of addresses, or social networking and online activity undertaken within the context of such activities.” However, in view of this doubt and of the legislative multiplicity and mutability, “melius abundare quam deficere”, better more than less, and I therefore want to draw it up anyway.

Secondly, this note is enough without further notices and requests for consent both because the legislation in force probably does not apply as previously said, and because I do not collect your personal data in the first place at the moment. And even if I did in the future it would never be for using them, or even allow others to use them, for commercial exploitation or social engineering. My stance on the various aspects of the subject will become evident in visiting the website: from your right to privacy, to the more or less unspeakable aims of the infringements of this right, to how the law is a battleground where those who want to defend freedom, justice, the individual and the community, and those who want to sabotage, chain down, squeeze and destroy them, clash. Therefore in this you have my word, and it transcends the contingency of the legislations in force.

If I will ever come into possession of personal data of yours, they will be the bare minimum, consciously and voluntarily provided by you, and for the sole purpose to take part in what takes place on the website or through it, such as for instance a forum. In which case I abide as of now by the legislation by telling you in beautiful legalese that:
I am the “controller” and the “data protection officer”, and my contact details are on the website;
the “purpose of the processing” is your participation to what you provided your data for;
the “legal basis for the processing” is your having provided them voluntarily for that purpose;
there are no other “recipients” of your data;
I do not “intend to transfer” them to others or under other jurisdictions;
the “period for which they will be stored” is as long as you want to participate to what you provided them for;
you have “the right to request from the controller access to and rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing concerning the data subject or to object to processing as well as the right to data portability”;
you have “the right to withdraw consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal”;
you have “the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority”;
you are not “obliged to provide the personal data” for whatever reason;
I do not perform any “automated decision−making, including profiling”;
and I do not “intend to further process the personal data for a purpose other than that for which the personal data were collected”.

With regard to “cookies”, I assume you already know they are data that the internet sites write, read and delete on your device when you visit them, that they are said to be “technical” if they are for allowing the functionalities of the website or “profiling” if they are for spying your behaviour on the internet and exploiting that information, and that they are said to be “first party” if generated by the website you visit or “third party” if generated by other websites to which the one you visit links.

Thirdly, with regard to my “first party cookies”, there is no need for you to give me your consent because they are solely technical and not profiling. The website handles functional aspects such as the character size you choose, and, in−house and anonymously, the statistics of visits; if to do so it creates cookies, these are therefore said to be first party technical.

Fourthly, with regard to my “third party cookies”, there is no need that I refer you to the consents of these third parties because they too are solely technical and not profiling. The website embeds some items provided by third parties, a few and for essential reasons, such as providing the copyright notice for its content, or practical, such as providing you the links to share it on your social channels; if such third parties do create cookies, these are therefore said to be third party technical.

To see what cookies get created by my website, in the web browser you use to navigate the internet, inside the address bar, click on the icon to the left of my address. By adjusting the appropriate settings of the program, you can delete, refuse or accept cookies altogether, or being informed and decide whether to accept or refuse on a case−by−case basis; disabling them may entail some malfunction in some websites, but for mine that is however irrelevant as to its content.

I thank you for your attention, and I hope I’ve been more informative than boring.