Privacy Policy

Privacy matters a lot to me, but it can be confusing as well. On this page I try to explain my approach to privacy on UkuTabs.com and how it affects you, as a user.

TL;DR: All collected data is anonymised and will never be shared with third parties!

Short Version

Statistics are collected anonymously about your visit using Google Analytics. Social services such as Facebook, twitter, YouTube and Google+ are known to track your steps carefully if you use their services, by using their code (e.g. sharing buttons) implemented on sites. Nowhere I have implemented such code, you will find no social sharing buttons, so rest assured that you are not being tracked by these services.

I take great care to keep your information safe if you register an account on UkuTabs. I will never share the information of your account (such as your email address) with third parties. Your information is stored safely on a secure server behind a firewall and all connections to UkuTabs and its servers use secure SSL protection with the maximum achievable A+ SSL rating

These are just the key points. If you want to know more details about how and which statistics are collected, feel free to keep on reading.

Long Version

Measuring Visitors

I measure visitors using the mainstream and secure Google Analytics (referred to as GA) tool. GA anonymously records what pages you view within website, how you arrived at the webpage and some basic metadata. I can't stress enough that all that information is anonymous – so I will never know who you are; I will just see that somebody visited a certain webpage within the network.

The information I collect from these analytics helps me understand what parts of UkuTabs are doing well, how people arrive at a specific webpage and so on. Like most websites, I genuinely use this information to make UkuTabs better as it allows me to discover errors or faulty pages within the network.

If you want to learn more about Google Analytics and how it works, you can read this detailed WikiPedia page if you wish.

Facebook, Twitter and other social networks

These services provide code which can be embedded onto websites. This code mainly provides social (sharing) buttons and similar features such as the “Like” and “Tweet” buttons. This allows these services to track your ‘digital' steps and follow where you go. Because I, as a web developer, have no control at all over these services and their privacy policy I choose to not use services like this. I do provide stripped forwarding links to those social networks in the footer of each page, for example to the UkuTabs twitter account or UkuTabs YouTube account, but I do not use code provided by them.

If you sign up on UkuTabs

All services on UkuTabs are 100% free of charge. When you sign up for an account on UkuTabs you can register with only a name and a email address. The username can be anything you want. An email address is a necessity to activate your account (preventing spam) and to properly create an account. Also for example to restore your password. I will never share this information of your account with third parties. When you favorite a song, it is recorded that your account (for which I only have a username and email address) favorited that specific song. This information is only viewable by the administrator, me, and never shared with anybody else. The only way that I use the information about you favoriting a specific song, is to construct the 99 Top Tabs by Favorites.

Other anonymous information logged from your account is activity related. Allow me to explain each one of together with why this is logged.

• What you have searched and how many results were returned. This helps me to detect issues with the search function or find out what is missing on UkuTabs since many people search for it.
• The last time you logged in and how many times you have logged in. This is necessary information so that I can delete inactive accounts. Accounts without a login for 1 year are deleted.
• Profile activity is logged (new avatar, new cover image, new information), but not the actual information is stored and retained. Only that you have once changed your profile picture for example, but the old picture is not retained.

Your information is never linked, shown or shared. Passwords are encrypted and stored in a secure MySQL database, cf. the SSL ratings above or read on the next section about security.

You can also expand your profile on UkuTabs filling in some additional information about yourself, sharing your socials and make some friends. All of which is stored safely in a separate database which is encrypted. Of course also this information will never be shared.

Security

Here at UkuTabs I take many precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information. These precautions include (but are not limited to):

• Use of strict full SSL encryption (HTTPS) for every connection to the server or websites. You can check the security rating of every website within the UkuWorld network by clicking the links above.
• The server hardware is stored in secured data centers and I've configured the firewalls of the servers myself to make them as strict as possible.
• All access to information is restricted by password and/or secure keys.
• Restrictions to what information can be accessed via any location.

Whilst I take great care to ensure that any confidential information remains protected, I cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the Internet. It is for example possible that your computer is infected with malware or that the server gets hacked by experienced hackers. In almost ten years there hasn't been one issue and I will do my very best to keep it this way.

You are of course responsible for keeping your password and user details confidential. Nobody at UkuTabs will ever ask you for your password, so please don't trust anybody asking you for it!

Cookies

Several cookies are used on UkuTabs to enhance your experience as a user. I use cookies for example to store the color you have chosen for the chords, the line height, text size as well as which tuning (standard or baritone) you prefer. Furthermore, when you are a logged in user, a cookie is set to make sure that you see only content that is tailored to your experience. For example that you only see your favorite songs. When you are a premium member, an additional cookie is set to make sure that you don't see any ads.

Advertisement

Two main advertising agencies are used on UkuTabs. UkuTabs is mainly using Freestar and Tonefuse for its monetization. To properly display advertisements third party cookies are used. On your first visit you will be asked to agree to access information on your device such as cookies and process personal data, such as unique identifiers and standard information sent by a device for personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, and audience insights, as well as to develop and improve products. You can turn these off at any time in time, or by clearing your cookies. Again, all this data is anonymous. On UkuTabs you have the option to register for a premium account in order to remove the advertisements. You can find Freestar's Privacy Policy on this page for more information.

UkuTabs.com is affiliated with Publisher First, Inc. dba Freestar ("Freestar") for the purposes of placing certain advertising on the Site, and Freestar will collect and use certain data for advertising purposes. To learn more about Freestar’s data usage, click here

Quick Q&A

Who am I?

My name is Jonas and the website address is: https://ukutabs.com.

What about comments?

When visitors leave comments on the site the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection are collected. An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media?

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies?

If you leave a comment on the site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, it will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser. When you log in, the site will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select "Remember Me", your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

With who is data shared?

Nobody.

What personal data is collected and why?

All searches performed using the internal site search are logged in the database, including the following information: the search query, the number of hits found, user ID for users who are logged in and date and time. The search logs are stored for 7 days before they are automatically removed.

An IP address will be collected and anonymized before storing it to the database when logging in. Additional data such as login time and number of logins will be stored for analytical and security reasons Subscriber information is retained in the local database indefinitely for analytic purposes and for future export. Data is retained until requested or user has been deleted.

How long is data retained?

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on the website, the site also stores the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data?

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data it holds about you, including any data you have provided. You can also request that I erase any personal data I hold about you. This does not include any data I am obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where we send your data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Updates to this policy

I reserve the right to update this privacy policy from time-to-time, particularly as technology changes, without giving notice. You can always check this page for the latest version.

Questions?

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, your personal data or something else, feel free to send me an email at jonas [at] ukutabs.com or use the contact form.