Privacy Policy

We offer the following free services, which require some type of voluntary submission of personal information by users:

• Electronic newsletter policy (Updates)
  • We offer a free electronic update newsletter to users. Pavingexpert.com gathers the email addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe. Users may remove themselves from this mailing list by following the link provided in every newsletter that points users to the subscription management page.
• Message boards/forums policy
  • Users of the Brew Cabin Message Board must register separately for this service (which is completely free of charge) in order to post messages, although they needn't register to visit the site or to read messages posted by members. During registration the user is required to supply a username, password, and email address.
• " E-mail this to a friend " policy
  • Our site users can choose to electronically forward a link, page, or documents to someone else by clicking "e-mail this to a friend" or similar links and buttons throughout the site. The user must provide their email address, as well as that of the recipient. This information is used only in the case of transmission errors and, of course, to let the recipient know who sent the email. The information is not used for any other purpose.
• Polling
  • We occasionally offer interactive polls to users so they can easily share their opinions with other users and see what our audience thinks about important issues. Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not identifiable to any particular user. Pavingexpert.com normally uses a cookie to "tag" users after they have voted, so they can vote only once on a particular question. This tag is not correlated with information about individual users.
• Surveys
  • Pavingexpert.com may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target our content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated demographic information in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers and partners. We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.

Consistent with the various rules and regulations that clutter all our lives, regardless of where we live, we will never knowingly request personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 16 without requesting parental consent.

Pavingexpert.com tracks user traffic patterns throughout the site. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. Pavingexpert.com does break down overall usage statistics according to a user's domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user's browser).

Pavingexpert.com tracks and records the search terms which users enter in our SEARCH function, but this tracking is never associated with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.

We may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. The only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can't read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. Pavingexpert.com uses cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above).

Google Ad-Sense Cookies

• Third-party vendors, notably Google's Ad-Sense Programme, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to the website.
• Google's use of cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to this sites and/or other sites on the Internet.
• Users may opt out of the use of the Google cookie by visiting the advertising opt-out page on Google's site.

You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you've set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in message boards, forums, polling and surveys.

Pavingexpert.com uses any information voluntarily given by our users to enhance their experience on the site, whether to provide interactive or personalised elements on the sites or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our users.

This may include publishing photographs supplied by users of the website that may help visualise and/or explain a particular issue. Please state clearly, when submiitting photographs, if you do NOT want such images to be published, regardless of their instructional or educational value to other site users.

As stated above, we use information that users voluntarily provide in order to send out electronic newsletter updates and to enable users to participate in polls, surveys, message boards, and forums. We send out newsletter updates to subscribers on a fairly irregular schedule (depending on the content), and occasionally send out special editions when we think subscribers might be particularly interested in something we are doing. Pavingexpert.com never shares the mailing lists with any third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or partners.

We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. However, we do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. We track search terms entered in Search function as one of many measures of what interests our users. We do NOT track which terms any particular user enters.

Pavingexpert.com creates aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic patterns for advertisers, sponsors and partners. This allows our advertisers to advertise more effectively, and allows our users to receive advertisements that are (allegedly) pertinent to their so-called needs. Because we don't track the usage patterns of individual users, an advertiser or sponsor will never know that a specific user clicked their ad. We will not disclose any information about any individual user except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.

Pavingexpert.com uses the above-described information to tailor our content to suit your needs and help our advertisers better understand our audience's demographics. This is essential to keeping our service free. We will not share information about individual users with any third party, except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.

Pavingexpert.com operates secure data networks provided by RackSpace, one of the most respected hosting companies in the world. The network is protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorised individuals have access to the information provided by our customers.

We give users options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices include:

• Opting not to register to receive our electronic newsletters.
• Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas, which completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable information from our users

By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by Pavingexpert.com. Should we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.

If you've not actually nodded off yet, you might want to read the site's Terms & Conditions which should just about finish you off….

The site is owned and operated by me, Tony McCormack. It is largely funded from my own pocket, although as the site has grown in size, this is now supplemented by the fees paid by advertisers and sponsors. Where sponsors have paid for inclusion on the site, or to have specific content published on the site, this is made clear. Advertising is sub-contracted to Google's Ad-Sense program and those adverts are always boxed off and visually distinct from the main content.

I personally regard advertising as a necessary evil, and so I strive to keep the ads to the bare minimum necessary to cover the running costs of the site.