Website Visitors

Like most website operators, The Minaret collects non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. The Minaret’s purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is to better understand how The Minaret’s visitors use its website. From time to time, The Minaret may release non-personally-identifying information in the aggregate, e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of its website.

The Minaret also collects potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. The Minaret does not use such information to identify its visitors, and also does not disclose such information, other than under the same circumstances that it uses and discloses personally-identifying information, as described below.

Gathering of Personally-Identifying Information

Certain visitors to The Minaret’s websites choose to interact with The Minaret in ways that require The Minaret to gather personally-identifying information. The amount and type of information that The Minaret gathers depends on the nature of the interaction. For example, we ask visitors who use our forums to provide a username and email address. In each case, The Minaret collects such information only insofar as is necessary or appropriate to fulfill the purpose of the visitor’s interaction with The Minaret. The Minaret does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below. And visitors can always refuse to supply personally-identifying information, with the caveat that it may prevent them from engaging in certain website-related activities.

Aggregated Statistics

The Minaret may collect statistics about the behavior of visitors to its websites. For instance, The Minaret may reveal how many downloads a particular version got, or say which plugins are most popular based on checks from api.wordpress.org, a web service used by WordPress installations to check for new versions of WordPress and plugins. However, The Minaret does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below.

Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information

The Minaret discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only to those of its employees, contractors, and affiliated organizations that (i) need to know that information in order to process it on The Minaret’s behalf or to provide services available at The Minaret’s website, and (ii) that have agreed not to disclose it to others. Some of those employees, contractors and affiliated organizations may be located outside of your home country; by using The Minaret’s website, you consent to the transfer of such information to them. The Minaret will not rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone. Other than to its employees, contractors, and affiliated organizations, as described above, The Minaret discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only when required to do so by law, or when The Minaret believes in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of The Minaret, third parties, or the public at large. If you are a registered user of a The Minaret website and have supplied your email address, The Minaret may occasionally send you an email to tell you about new features, solicit your feedback, or just keep you up to date with what’s going on with The Minaret. We primarily use our website to communicate this type of information, so we expect to keep this type of email to a minimum. If you send us a request (for example via a support email or via one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish it in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users. The Minaret takes all measures reasonably necessary to protect against the unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction of potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information.

Cookies

A 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. The Minaret uses cookies to help The Minaret identify and track visitors, their usage of The Minaret website, and their website access preferences. The Minaret visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using The Minaret’s website, with the drawback that certain features of The Minaret’s website may not function properly without the aid of cookies.