Effective December 5, 2025, updated February 20, 2026.
I Respect And Honor Your Privacy
This is the side of the moon we see. The other side, not so much. It doesn’t get much more private than the dark side, right? This website, appellateadvisor.com, is committed to your privacy. I do not collect personally identifiable information (PII) from visitors, nor do I use tracking technologies like cookies for profiling or marketing. I do use the service Independent Analytics, the free version plug-in for WordPress websites. As far as I understand, it tells me only the number of hits related to my website and maybe to individual pages.
This Is What Independent Analytics Says On Its Site
According to its website, “There are three ways that Independent Analytics addresses user privacy laws, such as the GDPR (DSGVO) and CCPA. First, Independent Analytics does not communicate with external servers. Unlike third-party apps that save your data on their servers, Independent Analytics is a WordPress plugin that runs entirely on your site. Your analytics data is both created and stored on your server without anyone else ever having access. Second, Independent Analytics does not store personal data. It uses a visitor’s IP address to get their geolocation, then hashes their IP with their User Agent and a salt token to create a unique ID, which gets saved to the database. This allows Independent Analytics to recognize the same visitor when they return without storing personal data. It’s important to note that this unique ID is created with a one-way hash, not using encryption, so there is no key to revert it to the original contents. Lastly, Independent Analytics does not use cookies at all.”
Except Possibly Strictly Necessary Cookies, My Site Does Not Use Cookies
Except for that anonymized information, I collect no information, other than through perhaps what are known as strictly necessary, or essential, cookies. Assuming that the nature of a website must embed strictly necessary/essential cookies, they apparently hold information that somehow is important to maintain a website. And if my site does embed strictly necessary/essential cookies, it’s because the software is doing it as part of just being a website. I have looked at the cookies left on my own computer when I have gone to my site, and they seem minimal. I don’t know what they do, but they are not tracking or acquiring any personal information from me. So they shouldn’t for you, either.
Possible Explanation Of “Strictly Necessary Cookies”
I have found descriptions of “Strictly Necessary Cookies,” also known as “Essential Cookies,” and they generally describe them as important for websites to perform their actions, such as facilitating one’s login to and management of one’s account or to place or maintain items in a shopping cart. Apparently a website may not work without strictly necessary cookies. They help the website work, but they do not collect personally identifiable information about users and do not track their browsing habits. I’m not requiring (and could not accommodate, even) registration or logins, and I’m not selling anything (so there’s no “cart”). I am not selling anything through my site, and I’m not affiliating with any vendors, and I’m not advertising any products on my site. There is no subscription to my site. I don’t (can’t, even) accept money or any form of payment through my site.
What If At Some Point I Enable Comments?
I haven’t decided yet whether I will enable comments, and I don’t know what that process entails or what information it captures. I assume this privacy statement will need to be amended to cover that aspect as well. But whatever it might capture, I will not knowingly share it with anyone. (Well, not unless required by law or in cooperation with an investigation by some government investigation-empowered entity.) I recognize that if I change my operation as information-dispersing only, I should revisit this Privacy Policy to make any appropriate changes.
I Have Provided My Email Contact Info, But Not As A Link
My website contains my email address for people to contact me, but it is not a “click here” link. You’ll have to manually enter the address in your email program if you want to reach out to me. It isn’t in the format that you can simply copy and paste. It is my name (first and last separated by a period)followed by a space followed by the word “at” followed by the domain name followed by a space before [dot] com. (I.e., you can reach me at “gary.mccurdy at appellateadvisor dot com,” except you’ll have to type that in yourself–in the proper format of name@thecorrectdomain.com (which obviously isn’t my real email address)–because I don’t want you to have to click on any more links than absolutely necessary.) Note that the word appellate has a double p and a double l, and that advisor ends in “or,” not “er.” My bad for that choice of terms, as well as for deciding to have a period between my first and last names. Live and hope to learn, eh?
“They” (Internet Searches) Say I Should Tell You What I Don’t Collect Or Track
So apparently I should inform you of what I do not collect and do not track through this website and what maybe the servers might log for their operational functioning.
Information I Do Not Collect:
Names, email addresses, phone numbers, or physical addresses. (Obviously, if you send me an email, I will have your email address and whatever other information you provide in that email. But that won’t be through this website. It will be just your email program sending me an email to my email program, just like you experience through exchanging emails with friends and family. I will not share that email unless you expressly ask me to in that email. I will, of course, cooperate with any lawful court order or investigators employed by government law enforcement entities in connection with lawful investigations.)
IP addresses (unless necessary for security/technical logs, in which case they are not linked to user profiles) except to the extent explained in the part above where I quoted from the Independent Analytics website, and I gather from that the IP address gets anonymized and can’t be reversed engineered.
Information about your browsing history or online activities.
Information I Do Not Track:
I do not use cookies, web beacons, or other trackers to follow you across the web or on our site.
I do not respond to “Do Not Track” (DNT) signals because I don’t track users.
What My Host (Hostinger) Might Log (for Site Improvement Only):
Like most websites, the servers that host my website (Hostinger) may record generic, non-identifiable data for site management and security, such as:
Type of web browser.
Date and time of visit.
Pages accessed and documents downloaded.
This data is aggregated and anonymized, not linked to individuals, and used solely to understand traffic patterns.
Third-Party Links:
I don’t think my site will contain links to other websites. I will permit no advertising (assuming I can prevent it). I will not be an affiliate for any other party or vendor. I am not sponsored by anyone. I really do not bring in any revenue from any source through this website. Conceivably, someone might be interested in services I can provide for a fee, as I describe on my website, but that contact will have to be initiated by the interested person by sending me an email (which will be to the public email address listed for me on the California State Bar website). But if I do find a reason to put a link on my site to another, and you go to that site, I am not responsible for their content or privacy practices. If I do have a link and you click on it, you will leave my site, and their policies apply.
Contact Me:
If you have questions about this policy, please contact me at [I will provide my email address once I formally launch my website after January 15, 2026].
What If I’m Mistaken? Please Tell Me!
If you determine that I am not correct in what I’ve said above about not collecting the information or tracking you, please contact me. I mean what I say above, and if I’m wrong, I need either to fix it so I don’t collect or track, or if that’s NOT possible for some reason, then I need to fix this privacy statement to reflect it. Don’t be angry at me if I’m wrong. Be helpful so I can make it right.
You Can See Whatever Cookies A Website Has Placed, I Think
By the way, if you examine your browser, you should be able to see whatever cookies any website has placed on your computer. I have no idea how to read them, but at least you can see them. Look up on the internet for how to do that with your specific computer and operating system and browser. I use Safari on a Mac, and when I control-click on a webpage, I get a drop-down list that includes the words “Inspect Element.” When I click on that, a window suddenly appears in the bottom half or so of my browser, with a lot of technical information. Across the top is a menu, and apparently the item named “Storage” is where cookies are located, or at least displayed. I don’t know how to read them or even if they can be read, but at least you can see the list.
Your Browser May Have A Private Viewing Mode, Which Protects You Further
And to avoid or minimize embedding of cookies, you probably can first enable a private viewing mode for your browser. On a Mac in 2025, Safari offers under the file menu the option to create a New Private Window. When I do it, an explanation shows up at the top of the page (below the URL and Favorites and Tabs) that says, “Safari will keep your browsing history private for all tabs in this window. After you close this window, Safari won’t remember the pages you visited, your search history, or your AutoFill information.” You might want to take regular advantage of that option in whatever browser you use that offers it. It does mean that sites that require you to log in might ask you to log in even if you have previously stored that login information for ease of logging in when you aren’t in a Private Window. I certainly don’t know how all browsers and all sites and all operating systems work, but that’s been my limited experience.