Question Vault: Questions worth asking, for the conversations you want to get right.

The short version

Question Vault is a free reference site operated by Click Clack Labs LLC, a company based in New York, United States (“we”, “us”). Where data protection law uses the term, we are the data controller for this site. There are no accounts and nothing to sign up for, so we never ask for your name or email address. The site is paid for by display advertising, and it measures traffic with Google Analytics. Both of those use cookies, and this page explains what that means and how to opt out.

Information you give us

Only what you choose to send. If you email us with a correction or a question, we keep your address and your message for as long as it takes to deal with it. There is no newsletter, no comment system and no account to create.

Information collected automatically

When you visit, our hosting, analytics and advertising partners may collect:

IP address, and the approximate location derived from it
Browser type, operating system, device type and language
Pages visited, time on page and the site that referred you
Cookie and advertising identifiers, described below

Searches run in your browser against a downloaded index, so there is no search server logging them. The search term does appear in the address of the results page, which means it is recorded by analytics like any other page address.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics to understand which pages are read and how people arrive at them. For visitors in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland it runs without cookies. Elsewhere Google sets cookies to do this. Either way it processes the data under its own privacy policy. You can opt out on any site with the Google Analytics opt-out add-on.

Advertising

We work with Mediavine to manage the third-party, interest-based advertising that appears on this site. Mediavine and its advertising partners serve ads when you visit, and may use first-party and third-party cookies to do so. A cookie is a small text file that a website stores on your computer or mobile device so that it can recognise your browser on a later visit.

First-party cookies are set by the site you are visiting.
Third-party cookies are set by a different domain, in this case Mediavine’s advertising partners, and are what allow advertising to reflect your interests across the sites you visit. Advertising partners may also use web beacons and similar technologies for the same purpose.

Through these technologies, advertising partners may collect your IP address, operating system and device type, browser type and language, and information about your activity on this site, such as the time of your visit and the ads you were shown or clicked. They may combine this with information collected elsewhere to deliver targeted advertising, to limit how often you see the same ad, and to measure whether ads work. We do not pass them your name or email address, because we do not have either.

For details of what Mediavine collects and the partners it works with, see the Mediavine privacy policy. The advertising partners themselves, the data each one collects and their privacy policies are listed on Mediavine’s ad partners page.

Opting out of personalised advertising

You will still see ads after opting out, but they will not be chosen using your browsing history.

Block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Blocking third-party cookies is enough to stop most cross-site ad targeting.
Use the industry opt-out pages run by the Network Advertising Initiative, the Digital Advertising Alliance and, in Europe, the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance.
On a phone or tablet, use the advertising settings in iOS or Android, or the AppChoices app.
Where the law requires consent, including the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, Mediavine’s consent tool asks for it before advertising cookies are set, and lets you change your choice later.

How we use information

To serve the site and keep it secure
To understand which pages are useful and which are not
To show advertising, which is what keeps every question free to read
To reply when you write to us

Sharing, and “sale” of data

We do not sell lists of people, and we have none to sell. However, letting advertising partners set cookies and collect identifiers, as described above, can count as a “sale” or “sharing” of personal information under some US state privacy laws, including California’s. You can opt out of it with the tools in the section above, with a “Do not sell or share my personal information” link where one is shown to you, or by turning on Global Privacy Control in a browser that supports it.

Beyond advertising and analytics, information is shared only:

With the service providers that host and deliver the site
When the law requires it, or to protect our rights
As part of a transfer of the site to a new owner

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct or delete personal information held about you, to object to or restrict its use, to withdraw consent, and to opt out of its sale or sharing. We hold almost nothing ourselves, so most requests about advertising data are best made through the opt-out tools above or to Mediavine directly. For anything else, email us and we will help. We will not treat you differently for exercising any of these rights.

EEA, UK and Switzerland

Our legal basis for analytics and advertising cookies is your consent, which you can withdraw at any time through the consent tool. Our legal basis for delivering and securing the site is our legitimate interest in running a safe, working website. You also have the right to data portability and the right to complain to your local data protection authority. The site is operated from the United States, and information collected through it is processed there and in the other countries where our providers operate, under safeguards such as the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses.

US state privacy laws

In the past 12 months the categories of personal information collected through this site were identifiers (IP address, cookie and advertising identifiers), internet activity (pages viewed, referring page, interactions with ads) and approximate location derived from your IP address. All of it was collected automatically, and it was disclosed to our hosting and analytics providers and to our advertising partners for the purposes described above. We do not collect sensitive personal information, and we do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16. To ask what has been collected about you, or to have it corrected or deleted, email us and say which state you live in; an authorised agent may write on your behalf with proof of your permission. We reply within 45 days, and if we decline a request you can appeal by replying to our decision.

How long information is kept

We keep emails only as long as it takes to deal with them. User-level data in our Google Analytics property is kept for no longer than 14 months. Cookies set by advertising partners expire on the schedules those partners set.

Data security

The site is served as static files over HTTPS and stores no user database. No method of transmission is perfectly secure, but there is very little here to expose.

Third-party links

Pages and advertisements may link to other websites. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of sites we do not run.

Children’s privacy

This is a general-audience site. It is not directed to children under 13 (or under 16 in the EEA and UK), and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, email us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, the new version is posted here and the date at the top of the page is updated.

Contact us

Questions about this policy: [email protected].