The following information, published October 14, 2026, is deemed current and accurate but may be subject to change without notice.

Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information (CCPA/CPRA Notice)

The Social Critic does not sell your personal data or email records to outside brokers or advertising firms. However, under modern state privacy frameworks, the automated collection of anonymous site traffic logs using third-party trackers may be considered data “sharing.”

To maintain total user transparency, our website automatically honors the Global Privacy Control (GPC) browser signal as a valid, automated request to opt-out of cross-context data sharing. If your browser transmits a GPC signal, our data compliance systems will automatically restrict non-essential analytical tracking cookies for your session without requiring you to click a manual “Do Not Sell My Information” link.

Global Privacy Control, GDRP and Do Not Track (DNT) Disclosure

• Global Privacy Control (GPC): Our site honors valid GPC signals by automatically restricting third-party analytics to a “Denied” state for your session
• This website respects GDRP signals from European visitors’ browsers.
• Do Not Track (DNT): We do not dynamically alter functions for standard DNT headers due to a lack of industry consensus, but visitors can manage preferences via our cookie banner.

Website Hosting & Site Analytics

Google Site Kit is used to monitor website traffic, analyze user behavior, and improve website performance. This service collects anonymous analytical metrics, such as your browser type, device info, and the pages you visit. Visitors are encouraged to review Google’s privacy and terms.

The Social Critic also uses WordPress themes and plugins, on a domain that is hosted by the Canadian firm DotEasy. These providers are subject to their own privacy policies, local and national laws.

Marketing

The site does not currently host ads. In the event ads are present on the site in the future, we may utilize WordPress Blaze (or similar) to manage promotional and advertising campaigns. If activated, this network uses tracking cookies and automated scripts to measure ad performance, deliver accurate traffic metrics, and assess audience engagement.

The Social Critic does not track visitors across third-party websites to provide targeted advertising. However, this website does include social sharing buttons (such as Facebook, X, and LinkedIn) to allow readers to share our articles. These integrated widgets may deploy analytical and marketing cookies (such as Meta and LinkedIn browser identifiers) of their own to track share metrics and platform interactions. These scripts are blocked by default and will not load unless you explicitly opt-in via our cookie consent settings.

Payment Processing & Security

At this time, website content is not behind a paywall. However, The Social Critic does accept donations (e.g. “Buy Me a Coffee”) and may offer paid subscriptions in the future. The payment processor is Stripe. When you initiate a transaction on this website, Stripe collects financial data and transaction details directly via cookies and similar web technologies. This information is used strictly to facilitate payment processing, ensure transaction security, manage identity verification, and perform fraud detection. For more details on how your billing records are managed, please review the Stripe privacy policy.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we 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. (View the Gravatar service privacy policy here.) After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

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 tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

How long data is retained

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

For registered website users (e.g. subscribers), we 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.

Where data is sent

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Rights over your data

You may request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us in the form of comments/replies. You may also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes, or data that payment processors may be obligated to keep.

Online Safety

Site visitors are encouraged to familiarize themselves with best practices for safe browsing on this or any other website, to include but not limited to up-to-date software, browser privacy settings, VPN, antivirus, multi-factor authentication and encryption where appropriate. The Social Critic is not responsible for circumstances arising from the use or misuse of such tools.

No claims, guarantees or warranties, express or implied, about the reliability, functionality or security of this website or any third-parties, are made herein.

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Cookies

If you leave a comment on our 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.

This website does not currently accept logins from site visitors. However, if in the future such a feature exists, a temporary cookie will be set to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

This website does not currently allow for users to create accounts. However if in the future such a feature is added, several cookies will be set 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.

This website does not currently allow visitors to publish articles, to edit content or to upload media. However, if in the future such a feature exists 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.

This Social Critic does not currently share data. However, if in the future such a feature exists and you should request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.