Privacy Policy

Who we are

LA Dodger Talk (ladodgertalk.com) is operated by Mark Timmons (“we”, “us”). It is an independent fan site and is not affiliated with Major League Baseball or the Los Angeles Dodgers. For any privacy question or request, email editors@ladodgertalk.com.

The short version

No ads that track you, no analytics trackers, and no selling or renting of your data.
If you comment, your display name and comment are public. Your email address is never shown and we don’t store it in readable form.
We use a couple of first-party cookies, and only for features you use, such as editing your own comments. See the Cookie Policy.

Information we collect

When you read the site

You don’t need an account and we don’t run analytics or advertising trackers. Like any website, the servers that deliver our pages see your IP address, browser type and the page you requested. Our hosting provider, Netlify, keeps these in standard request logs for operating and securing the service. We may also briefly use your IP address in memory to rate-limit abusive traffic. That use is not stored.

When you post a comment

Guest commenters give us:

Display name. Published next to your comment.
Email address. Required but never published. Before anything is saved we convert it into a one-way hash (a fixed-length fingerprint) and store only that. We use the hash to recognise returning commenters, which affects whether a comment is held for review, and to help with moderation. We can’t read your address back out of it or email you.
Your comment. Published on the article once approved. If you edit it, we keep the earlier version in a private edit history for moderation purposes.

We also record, automatically:

A salted hash of your IP address. Never the address itself. We use it to detect spam and duplicate posts and to stop the same person from flagging a comment more than once.
The time you posted, and if you edit, when you edited.
A random ownership token, kept in a cookie on your device, with a hash of it stored alongside your comment. This is how the site knows that the browser you posted from may edit that comment. It contains nothing about who you are.

Likes and flags work the same way: a like is tied to that ownership token, or to a staff account, and a flag is tied to a hashed IP address. Neither stores your identity.

Information stored only on your device

“Remember me”. If you tick this box when commenting, your browser keeps your name and email in its local storage for up to 12 months so the form fills in next time. It stays on your device and is only sent to us as part of a comment you choose to post.
Comment drafts. Unfinished comments are saved in your browser’s local storage so you don’t lose them. They are deleted when you post, and they are never sent to us until then.

Writer and editor accounts

Only LA Dodger Talk writers and editors have accounts. They sign in with Google, and we receive their name, email address and profile picture from Google. For security we keep a sign-in log (email address, IP address, browser and the result of the attempt), which we review and prune periodically. Readers don’t need, and can’t create, an account.

Embedded content and links

Articles and comments can include videos and posts from YouTube, Vimeo and X (Twitter), and comments can include images hosted on other websites. When your browser loads one of these, it connects directly to that service, which receives your IP address and may set its own cookies under its own privacy policy. YouTube videos use YouTube’s privacy-enhanced (“no-cookie”) player. Links to sponsors and other sites carry a tag identifying LA Dodger Talk as the referrer, but nothing about you.

How we use information

To publish and display comments, and to let you edit or like them.
To moderate the community and keep out spam, abuse and duplicate posts.
To run, secure and troubleshoot the site and staff accounts.
To respond when you contact us.

We don’t use your information for advertising, we don’t build profiles, and we don’t sell or rent personal information to anyone.

Who we share it with

Only the service providers that run the site, and only so they can do that job:

Netlify: hosting, content delivery, image processing and file storage.
Neon: our database, which holds articles and comments.
Google: sign-in for writers and editors only.
Cloudinary: a small number of older files from the site’s earlier years are still served from Cloudinary.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect the site, our users or the public from fraud, abuse or harm.

How long we keep it

Comments, along with their hashes and edit history, stay as long as the comment is on the site. Most comments stay indefinitely as part of the site’s archive, which goes back to 2003.
Comments caught as spam are stored hidden and are never published.
Staff sign-in logs are reviewed and pruned periodically.
Data on your device (cookies, “remember me”, drafts) stays until it expires or you clear it.

Your choices and requests

Edit your comment using the Edit button from the browser you posted it from.
Ask us to remove a comment, or all of your comments, by emailing editors@ladodgertalk.com with links to them. Because we only store a hash of your email, we may ask you to confirm the address and name you posted with, so we can be sure the comments are yours.
Clear site data in your browser at any time. This removes the cookies, “remember me” details and drafts. You’ll lose the ability to edit comments you posted from that browser.

Depending on where you live, you may have legal rights to access, correct or delete personal information about you. We will honour those requests from anyone, wherever they live. We don’t track people across other websites, so there is nothing for Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signals to switch off.

Children

The site is for a general audience and isn’t directed at children. You must be at least 13 to post a comment. If you believe a child under 13 has posted personal information here, email us and we’ll remove it.

Security

The site is served only over HTTPS. Commenter email and IP addresses are hashed before they’re stored. Cookies that matter are locked to our site and can’t be read by scripts on the page. Staff sign-in goes through Google. No system is perfectly secure, but we keep what we hold to a minimum.

Where data is processed

The site and its database are run by providers in the United States. If you visit from elsewhere, your information is processed in the U.S.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle information, we’ll update this page and the “Last updated” date above.