Privacy Policy

SmartScopeClub (“we”, “us”) is a free educational website about smart telescopes and the night sky. We collect as little personal information as we can get away with, and we never sell it. This page explains what we do collect and why.

What we collect

Photo submissions. If you submit a photo through our community form, we collect the name you choose to be credited by, your email address, your photo, and the description you write. We use these solely to review, publish, and credit your submission, and to contact you about it if needed.

Newsletter signups. If you subscribe to the newsletter, we collect your email address and use it only to send you the newsletter. Every issue includes a way to unsubscribe.

Server logs. Like nearly every website, our server keeps standard technical logs (IP address, browser type, pages requested, timestamps) for security and troubleshooting. These are routinely rotated and are not used to profile you.

Outbound click counts. When you click a “where to buy” link on our Scopes page, we count the click so we can see which equipment interests readers. The count is anonymous, and the links are not affiliate links; we earn nothing from them.

What we don’t do

• No user accounts, and no requirement to identify yourself to read anything here.
• No selling, renting, or sharing of your personal information with third parties for their marketing.
• No advertising networks and no affiliate tracking.

Cookies and embedded content

We do not set tracking cookies. WordPress may set essential cookies for basic site functions. Some pages embed videos from YouTube; playing an embedded video may cause YouTube (Google) to set its own cookies under its own privacy policy. Sky data on our park pages is computed by our own Dark-Sky Engine using your chosen location or a park’s published coordinates; if you tap “Use my location”, your coordinates are used for the lookup and are not stored as a profile.

Where your data lives

Our servers are located in the United States. Weather outlooks are retrieved from Open-Meteo using place coordinates only.

Your choices

You may ask us to remove a published submission, delete the personal information associated with it, or unsubscribe you from the newsletter at any time. Reach us through the submission form on our Community page and we will act on the request promptly.

Children

The site is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their personal information.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with an updated date.