Privacy Policy
Last updated: 13 September 2026
Who this covers
Ocean Breeze (oceanbrz.com) is a personal blog written by Brian Sprague, covering the outdoors, music, food and related interests. It is not a business and sells nothing.
This policy explains what happens to your information when you read the site, leave a comment, send a message or subscribe to updates. It covers this website only.
Where your information goes
- Name, email and message from the contact form — to answer you. Stored on this site and emailed to Brian.
- Name and email, if you subscribe — to send occasional updates. Held by Mailchimp.
- Name, email, IP address and comment, if you comment — to publish and moderate comments. Stored on this site, and checked for spam by Akismet.
- Pages viewed, counted anonymously — to see which articles get read. Handled by Jetpack Stats.
- Images and page assets — served quickly through Jetpack’s image network.
- IP address and request logs — to run and secure the server. Held by Bluehost, the web host.
Nothing is sold, rented or traded. There is no advertising on this site, and no advertising network receives your data. Google Analytics was removed in September 2026 and no longer receives anything.
Information you choose to give
Contact form
The form asks for your name, email address and message. All three are stored in this website’s database and emailed to Brian so he can reply. Your email address is used to answer you — it is not added to any mailing list.
Subscribing to updates
The subscribe box asks for your name and email address. These are sent to Mailchimp, which manages the mailing list and sends the emails. Mailchimp is operated by Intuit in the United States and holds your details under its own privacy policy.
Every email includes an unsubscribe link, which removes you immediately and permanently.
Comments
Leaving a comment records your name, email address, IP address and the comment itself. Your name and comment are published; your email address and IP address are not. A scrambled version of your email is sent to Gravatar to look up a profile picture — Gravatar does not receive the address itself.
Spam prevention
The contact and subscribe forms use Google reCAPTCHA v3 to tell real visitors apart from automated submissions. On pages carrying one of those forms it sets a necessary cookie (_GRECAPTCHA) and looks at interaction signals to produce a risk score. That score is used for one thing only: rejecting spam and abuse. It is not used for advertising, profiling or analytics, and it is not used to identify you. There is nothing for you to click — it runs invisibly, and a small reCAPTCHA badge appears in the corner of those pages.
Comment spam filtering
When you leave a comment, your name, email address, IP address and the text of the comment are sent to Akismet, a spam-filtering service run by Automattic, which decides whether the comment looks like spam. That is the only thing the check is used for — it is not used for advertising, profiling or analytics. Comments judged to be spam are held for review rather than published. Akismet was added in September 2026.
Information collected automatically
Server logs
Like every website, this one’s host records each request: IP address, browser and operating system, the page requested, the referring page, and the date and time. These logs keep the site running and help diagnose problems.
Visitor statistics
This site uses Jetpack Stats, from Automattic, to count page views and see which articles get read. It does not build a profile of you, follow you to other websites, or use your data for advertising.
Google Analytics was previously used. It was removed in September 2026 and no longer runs on this site.
Cookies and local storage
Reading this site sets no tracking or advertising cookies. There is no advertising network and no cross-site tracking. Three things are stored in your browser, and only for practical reasons:
- A note in local storage that the subscribe box has already been shown to you, so it does not reappear on every page.
- WordPress cookies, set only if you leave a comment and ask it to remember your details, or if you log in.
- A Google reCAPTCHA cookie (
_GRECAPTCHA), set on pages with the contact or subscribe form, used only for spam prevention as described above.
You can block or clear any of these in your browser settings. The site will still work, though the subscribe box may show again.
How long information is kept
- Contact messages — kept indefinitely, at our discretion.
- Comments — kept indefinitely, so conversations under posts stay readable.
- Subscriber details — kept until you unsubscribe.
- Visitor statistics — kept by Jetpack as aggregate counts, not tied to you personally.
- Server logs — kept for a short period by the web host and rotated automatically.
Your rights
Whoever and wherever you are, you can ask to see what information this site holds about you, correct anything that is wrong, delete it (including your comments and any messages you have sent), receive a copy in a portable format, or withdraw consent you previously gave.
Send the request through the contact form. This is a personal blog run by one person, not a company with a support desk, so please allow reasonable time for a reply. There is no charge.
If you are in the EU or UK and are unhappy with the response, you may complain to your national data protection authority.
Children
This site is not aimed at children and does not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If a child has sent something through the site, use the contact form and it will be deleted.
Where your information is held
This site is hosted in the United States, and Automattic and Mailchimp are US companies. If you are reading from outside the United States, your information is transferred there and handled under US law and each company’s own safeguards.
Changes to this policy
If what the site does with information changes, this page will be updated and the date at the top changed with it.
Getting in touch
Questions about this policy, or any request about your information, go through the contact form.