SF Fandom and GDPR
Michael > May 22nd, 2018, 03:25 AM
So here is a quick update on where we stand with GDPR. It's too confusing. There is no practical way to comply with the regulation's requirements if you're running an older version of VBulletin. I'm not even sure a current version of Vbulletin could be made compliant.
For the time being my partner Randy Ray and I have decided to defer attempting to fully comply with GDPR in the Web forums.
The thing is, if anyone requests their "private data", we don't have any way to download it for them. I believe when you delete a user account you can delete all their posts so we could comply with that part of the law.
We do not collect data for the purpose of tracking and analyzing user behavior. We don't "process" anything. But if you have an account here at SF-Fandom we have your email address and at least one IP address.
The advertising networks we use (mostly Google AdSense here on SF-Fandom) do create cookies, just as you create a cookie when you log in here. We don't do anything with cookie data. The ad networks are required to give you an opt-out option for tracking your behavior.
So far as I can determine, if you create an account on a Web forum you HAVE opted in to giving that forum your private information.
And the data must be stored for as long as you have an account with any Website. There is no other way to do that.
Our server log files are purged on a regular basis and the data is quickly aggregated into reports that hide your individual activity.
We'll probably write a short statement summarizing these points and post it as a permanent announcement in our forums. I don't see what else we can do.