1. We don’t ask you for personal information unless we truly need it. (We can’t stand services that ask you for things like your gender or income level for no apparent reason.)
2. We don’t share your personal information with anyone except to comply with the law, develop our products, or protect our rights.
3. We don’t store personal information on our servers unless required for the on-going operation of our service.

Below is our privacy policy which incorporates these goals:

Like most website operators, GovCheck 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. GovCheck’s purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is to better understand how GovCheck’s visitors use its website. From time to time, GovCheck may release non-personally-identifying information in the aggregate, e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of its website.

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

Certain visitors to GovCheck’s websites choose to interact with GovCheck in ways that require GovCheck to gather personally-identifying information. This usually includes asking for a username and email address (and optionally, their name). GovCheck collects such information only insofar as is necessary or appropriate to fulfill the purpose of the visitor’s interaction with GovCheck. GovCheck 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.

GovCheck may collect statistics about the behavior of visitors to its websites. For instance, GovCheck may monitor the most popular petitions. GovCheck may display this information publicly or provide it to others. However, GovCheck does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below.

GovCheck 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 GovCheck’s behalf or to provide services available at GovCheck’s websites, 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 GovCheck’s websites, you consent to the transfer of such information to them. GovCheck 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, GovCheck discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only when required to do so by law, or when GovCheck believes in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of GovCheck, third parties or the public at large. If you are a registered user of a GovCheck website and have supplied your email address, GovCheck 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 GovCheck and our products. We primarily use our blog 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. GovCheck takes all measures reasonably necessary to protect against the unauthorized access, use, alteration or destruction of potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information.

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

Although most changes are likely to be minor, GovCheck may change its Privacy Policy from time to time, and in GovCheck’s sole discretion. GovCheck encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.

We would like to thank Automattic Inc. (makers of WordPress.com) for publishing their privacy policy under a permissive license (Creative Commons Sharealike). This privacy policy has been written using their privacy policy as a template.

In the same vein, this privacy policy is released under the Creative Commons Sharealike license as well, which means you’re more than welcome to steal it and repurpose it for your own use, just make sure to replace references to us with ones to you, and if you want we’d appreciate a link to GovCheck.net somewhere on your site.