Last updated: May 7, 2026
Boone Beat is a hyper-local news site covering Boone County, Indiana. This page describes what information we collect from visitors, how we use it, and the choices you have.
What we collect
When you contact us. If you fill out the contact form, we receive the name, email address, subject, and message you submit. We use that information solely to respond to your tip, correction, or question.
Server logs. Like any website, our hosting provider keeps standard server logs that include your IP address, the page you requested, the time of the request, and your browser’s user-agent string. These logs are used for security, troubleshooting, and aggregate traffic analysis. They are not used to identify individual visitors for any other purpose.
Cookies. We do not use third-party tracking cookies or behavioral advertising cookies. WordPress sets a session cookie only when an editor logs in to the admin area; ordinary readers receive no cookies from Boone Beat.
What we do not collect
- We do not run Google Analytics, Meta Pixel, or any cross-site tracking that profiles visitors across the web.
- We do not participate in display-ad networks.
- We do not sell, rent, or share visitor information with any third party.
- We do not set tracking cookies. Our analytics tool (described below) is cookieless and doesn’t identify individual visitors.
- We do not maintain a newsletter or email list at this time. If that ever changes, this policy will be updated and any signup will be opt-in only.
Aggregate page-view counting
To see which stories readers are finding, we run a small page-view counter we built ourselves. It lives in our WordPress install — no third-party analytics service is involved.
What it does:
- counts how many times each post is read,
- estimates how many distinct readers we had on a given day (using a daily-rotating hash that combines IP address and browser; the hash expires after 24 hours and is never stored as a permanent fingerprint),
- records what hour of day reads happen, so we can see whether traffic patterns look like real readers or like bots,
- records the hostname of the site that linked to us (e.g., google.com, facebook.com) — so we can see how readers are arriving — but never the full URL or any tracking parameter,
- separately records when known crawlers (Googlebot, Bingbot, GPTBot, ChatGPT, ClaudeBot, etc.) hit the site, so we can tell apart human reads from search/AI indexing.
What it does not do:
- does not use cookies,
- does not store your IP address as a permanent record,
- does not identify you across visits or across pages,
- does not share any data with anyone — the counts live in our database and nowhere else,
- does not load any external script.
The counter is fired by JavaScript five seconds after the page loads, or when you first scroll — whichever comes first. If you have JavaScript disabled, your visit is invisible to it. We won’t know the difference. Old data auto-deletes after 90 days.
Affiliate disclosure
Boone Beat is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, Boone Beat earns from qualifying purchases. When a Boone Beat post links to a product on Amazon, the link is typically an affiliate link — if you click it and make a purchase, Amazon may pay us a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Affiliate links never influence our editorial coverage. We don’t take payment in exchange for stories, and the inclusion of any affiliate link does not imply endorsement beyond the context of the post it appears in.
Third parties we rely on
To keep the site running, Boone Beat uses:
- Hostinger for web hosting, edge caching, and outbound email delivery. Hostinger maintains its own server-access logs (IP, request URL, time, browser user-agent) for security and reliability — these are governed by Hostinger’s privacy policy and we do not have direct access to them.
- The U.S. National Weather Service for the active-alerts banner that appears at the top of pages during severe weather.
- The public RSS feeds, calendars, and websites of city, county, school, sheriff, and funeral-home sources we summarize and link to. Visiting those linked sources is governed by their own privacy policies.
We do not control how those third parties handle data once you click through to them.
Embedded content
Some posts may include embedded content (images, videos, documents) hosted on third-party servers. Embedded content behaves the same as if you visited the third-party site directly — it can collect data about you, set its own cookies, and track interactions.
How long we keep information
Contact-form messages are retained as long as needed to respond and for a reasonable record afterward. You may request deletion of any message you have sent us at any time by writing to us through the contact form.
Server logs are retained according to our hosting provider’s standard policies, typically 30 to 90 days.
Your rights
You can ask us to delete any contact-form message you sent. If you live somewhere with stronger privacy rights (such as the EU or California), those rights apply — write to us via the contact form and we will honor any lawful request.
Children
Boone Beat is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the “Last updated” date at the top of this page will change too. Substantive changes will also be noted with an Update tag at the top of the page.
Contact
Questions about this policy? Use the contact form. We read every note.