Privacy Policy

This privacy policy covers my website at amazeingart.com ("the Site"), a potentially vast multinational enterprise with headquarters in my study ("the Study").

Personal Information

The only personal information I collect from you is your email address (if you sign up for my email newsletter). I value privacy and I will never share your email address with anyone. You can unsubscribe to the newsletter anytime via the link at the bottom of every email.

I use a company called Vertical Response to store, safeguard and manage my email contact list. It has won many awards for its safe and effective email list management.

Third-Party Cookies

You already have zero privacy. Get over it."

—Scott G. McNealy, co-founder and former CEO of Sun Microsystems

An HTTP 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. My Site does not create any cookies of its own on your computer. However, Google and other third-party vendors (advertising networks) may create and use cookies when you visit this Site. This helps them deliver ads tailored specifically for you. In particular, when you visit this Site and some other websites and either view or click on an ad, a cookie may be dropped or updated on your browser. These third-party cookies, stored on your own computer, are recording your visits to this Site and to these other web sites.

I have no direct access to the information in third-party cookies stored on your computer. Via Google Analytics, however, I do have access to aggregate data about all my site visitors. This includes locations (as specific as city names), operating systems, browser versions, the search terms used to find my site, and even the sites people visited prior to coming to Amazeing Art. There is nothing, however, that links all this information with any identifiable visitor (ie, you).

I have mixed feelings about cookies myself. It sounds like a fine idea to be shown ads for things I actually want to buy (a new iPod maybe?), rather than stuff that's useless to me (like rhinestone collars for hamsters). If I'm going to be looking at an ad, it might as well be for something interesting. As an artist I also derive a decent income from ad impressions delivered to you. Its a nice supplement to the sale of books and posters, and gives me freedom to make more maze art. That's good for me and for my site visitors too. On the other hand, the use of such cookies allows companies, advertising networks and even governments to keep track of some of the things we all do on the internet. That I don't like.

Opting-Out of HTTP Cookies

Google's use of the DART cookie enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your website browsing history. You may opt out of the DART cookie by visiting Google's opt-out page. You can also opt out of some, but not all, third-party cookies in one location at the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out website. Opting out of these cookies will not disable ads to you, rather, it will prevent the ads from being customized based on your web history. You will see more ads for rhinestone collars for hamsters and less ads for iPods. Or maybe the reverse — since I don't know if you own a hamster or not (the ad serving companies do, though).

At any time you can clear all HTTP cookies from your browser, deleting them. Here is an easy guide to deleting cookies. If you wish you can also permanently disable all HTTP cookies by changing some settings within your browser. Here is a guide to disabling cookies. In this day and age, however, disabling HTTP cookies often breaks the functionality of many popular websites, particularly sites that require you to login to gain access. I tried running Firefox with all cookies disabled for a week or so, and it was a huge pain: I was unable to do any online banking or financial stuff of any kind, or sign in to any website in which I had a user account.

Learn More

If you want to learn more about cookies two great places to start are the Wikipedia pages on HTTP Cookies and Doubleclick (Google's subsidiary that develops and provides ad serving).

Those interested in privacy may also want to consider disabling Locally Shared Objects ("LSOs" or "Flash cookies"). This Site does not create or use any LSOs, and to the best of my knowledge neither does Google's Adsense code (which delivers my ads to you on this Site). LSOs are pieces of data that websites which use Adobe Flash may store on your computer. Adobe Flash Player (under its default settings) does not seek your permission to store up to 100kb of data to your hard drive. Many websites use Flash cookies for storing user preferences, but in certain circumstances data can also be passed between Flash cookies and shared between websites. Wired magazine wrote a good piece on the serious privacy concerns of Flash cookies. There are some links there explaining how to disable them.

Privacy Policy Changes

This Policy is not intended to and does not create any contractual or other legal right in or on behalf of any party (such as between you and me). I have to reserve the right to modify this Policy in the future (otherwise it would never change). If I do, however, I will post those changes clearly so that if you revisit this page, you will be aware of what information this Site and other third party vendors are collecting and how it is used.

According to the only two ancient historians who saw it with their own eyes, the Egyptian Labyrinth was more impressive than the Pyramids at Giza.

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