In New York City, many parents obsessively supervise their children as they swing on playground monkey bars. I’m sure there are parents like that in Berlin, but the ones I know take their kids to a city-run “adventure playground” where kids use hammers, saws and splintery plywood to build their own towers and forts.
A few years after the playground opened, the kids got together and made up the rules they wanted to follow. The rules are posted in different languages. You can read the English version on this page.
If we all lived in positive and practical communities, I would allow my website to exist without “rules” – i.e. this attached Privacy Policy. There are legal reasons for having a Privacy Policy (this statement was vetted by a lawyer). But I also have a personal obligation. In my novels and non-fiction essays I have criticized the attack on privacy in our surveillance culture. As the author of THE TRAVELER, I have a particular duty to explain what I’m doing with this author website.
No one involved with this website is going to ask you for your real name and home address unless a selected bookstore mails you a signed copy of CERTAINTY (read below). There’s no reason to send me any sort of financial information so don’t worry about that. If you’ve registered an email address with my author website or with the Random House website, you hear from me a few times before the new novel is published.
If you register an email address with Substack, you’ll be able to read my weekly essays about the possible dangers of so-called “superintelligence” and an informed description of how A.I. is going to change our jobs and personal relationships. I don’t control Substack, and you need to be aware of their rules and procedures. For example, because of the Online Safety Act in the UK, Substack will ask my British readers to verify their age.
Over the years, hundreds of readers have asked me for signed books. It’s my hope that my publisher will find a bookstore that will sell you a signed copy of CERTAINTY. Using your email address, I will inform you of this opportunity. When this happens, I will show up at these stores and sign the books that will be sent to you. The bookstore will be responsible for this commercial transaction. I’m just the guy in a back room, signing books.
Aggregated Statistics
This website and Substack may collect statistics about the behavior of visitors to its websites. This information is practical stuff like how many visitors the site has each day and how many people download a free e-book. Note: I’m talking about statistics, not email addresses or names. I may display this “metadata” publicly or provide it to others.
So why would I do that? For example, if I want a foreign publisher to translate and print physical copies of my books, I will show them the numbers of people that visited this website
However, I will not disclose your potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information (the email address) other than as described below.
Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information
I may have to disclose potentially personally-identifying information and personally-identifying (your email address) to a website designer or to someone directly involved with the design, reboot or maintenance of the website. For example, if the website crashes for some reason, I might need an Internet genius to look at the entire site and figure out what happened.
But I will never rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone.
So, what happens if I receive a subpoena, court order or other governmental request requesting potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information?
Well, first of all, they are going to have to find me – which might be difficult to do. And then – if they tracked me down – I would fight this court order with every legal means.
Yes, anything can happen. But I will take 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. This website will not try to send you cookies, but WordPress, Substack and Random House use cookies for logged-in visitors (i.e. those people who comment or log-in to access password-protected materials).
I strongly recommend that your computer uses an anti-virus program that routinely scans your hard disk for cookies.
Business Transfers
I promise never to transfer your email addresses to anyone else. If I go back to the monastery in Nepal – and stay there – the website will post one final message and then will be shut down. If I get lured into covering another war and get blown-up by a land mine, I’ve asked my children to post one final message. It will tell you that it was both a pleasure and an honor to write books that some people have enjoyed reading. My children will not sell or transfer your email messages either. They know that behavior would really annoy me.
Comments
There is no message board on this site, but Substack encourages responses. As previously stated, I don’t control Substack and you need to be aware of that website’s rules and regulations. When I published AGAINST AUTHORITY, I encouraged my readers to create multiple identities when on the Internet.
Privacy Policy Changes
I’m reserving the right to change this Privacy Policy if there is some necessity to do so. I’m not going to be sneaky about this. The changes will be summarized and posted on this page. Your continued use of this site after any change in this website’s Privacy Policy, whether or not you are aware of any change, will constitute your acceptance of such change.
In Conclusion
Thank you for buying and reading my books. Over the years, my wonderful readers have sustained me during my journey.
