Privacy Policy

Big Questions Online (BQO) recognizes the importance of protecting your personal information. This privacy policy explains the types of information we collect and what we do with it. By using the BQO website, you agree to the terms of this privacy policy.

All visitors to BQO: We use software to analyze the traffic that comes to this website, BigQuestionsOnline.com. That software gives us information about the number of visitors to the site and about what pages they visit. We have access to an electronic “address” — a numerical code called an IP address — that represents each computer that visits the site. (You can learn more about IP addresses from Wikipedia here.) We do not do anything else with such IP addresses. This traffic-monitoring software may also put a “cookie” on your computer, a small piece of data that can help us know when you have visited BQO; these cookies cannot be used by us to track your activity on any other websites. (You can learn more about cookies from Wikipedia here.)

Commenters on BQO: We invite our readers to join in the discussions on BQO by posting comments in response to the essays we publish. There are two ways of logging in to post comments: (1) You can log in using an account you already have with one of several third-party vendors — such as Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and WordPress — in which case the publishers of BQO will never see your password or any of your personal information other than your name and e-mail address; or (2) you can log in by submitting your name and e-mail address directly to BQO.

When you submit a comment to BQO, your e-mail address will not be publicly displayed. However, by submitting a comment to BQO, you grant us permission to use your e-mail address to contact you, either about your specific comments, about other users’ comments, or about other content that appears on BQO. Also, like many other websites, BQO may access cookies on your computer if you choose to log in and comment; these cookies will not allow BQO to track your activity on any other websites.

We urge our visitors to use common sense when commenting on BQO. Comments containing inappropriate personal information will not be published. (See our comment policy here.)

Sharing, selling, and disclosing your personal information: To the extent permitted by law, we will not share, sell, or otherwise disclose your personal information with anyone without your prior consent. There is one exception to this policy: the publisher of BQO, the Center for the Study of Technology and Society, may share your personal information with the John Templeton Foundation, which may use your personal information in substantially the same manner as the site’s current publisher.

Questions? Corrections? If you discover errors in any of your personal information on BQO, or if you have questions about our privacy policy, please contact our staff. (Our contact information appears here.)

Updates to this policy: This privacy policy was most recently updated on January 1, 2016. We reserve the right, at any time, to modify or update this policy without prior notice. Your continued use of BQO after modifications are posted constitutes an acceptance of the privacy policy and its modifications.