Legal

Last updated: October 10, 2026

Welcome to ethanjhulbert.org, the personal website of Ethan J. Hulbert.

This website contains original writing, photography, artwork, research, software, interactive tools, personal projects, and assorted other things. Some sections operate on WordPress; others are independently developed websites or applications.

This page explains the terms governing use of the website, my intellectual property policies, and how visitor information may be collected and processed.

The policies below apply to ethanjhulbert.org and its subdirectories and associated services unless a particular project or service provides different or additional terms.

For questions about these policies, please contact me using the email address published here.

Part I. Terms of Use

1. General Terms

By accessing or using this website, you agree to comply with applicable laws and these Terms of Use, to the extent that an enforceable agreement is formed under applicable law.

If you disagree with these terms, please discontinue use of the website.

I reserve the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the website, including individual projects and services, without prior notice.

These terms do not restrict any rights granted to you by applicable law.

2. Copyright and Intellectual Property

Unless otherwise indicated, original articles, photographs, illustrations, graphics, designs, code, research compilations, and other creative materials produced by me and published on this website are owned by Ethan J. Hulbert and protected by applicable copyright and intellectual property laws.

Third-party trademarks, software, images, quotations, embedded media, and other materials remain the property of their respective owners or licensors.

You may view, access, and make ordinary personal use of publicly available website content. You may also link to publicly accessible pages, quote limited portions where legally permitted, and make uses authorized by applicable law.

Except where explicitly licensed or otherwise permitted, you may not reproduce, republish, commercially distribute, sell, or create unauthorized derivative works from substantial portions of my original content.

Requests for reproduction, licensing, or commercial use may be directed to me.

3. Use of Content for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Express authorization is required for the use of my original content in artificial intelligence or machine-learning training datasets, except where such use is independently permitted by applicable law or an existing license.

This reservation of rights applies to original written works, photographs, illustrations, videos, audio, artwork, and other copyright-protected materials under my ownership or control.

Restricted Uses

Without prior written authorization, I do not grant permission to:

Collect or reproduce my original content for the purpose of creating, training, retraining, or fine-tuning artificial intelligence or machine-learning models.
Incorporate my original content into commercial or publicly distributed training datasets.
Systematically scrape, extract, or reproduce substantial collections of my original work for AI-training purposes.
Redistribute datasets containing unauthorized copies of my original content.
Use my original work to develop synthetic media or generative systems in ways that require authorization under applicable copyright law.

These restrictions are intended to apply regardless of whether the relevant system produces text, images, audio, video, code, or another form of output.

Licensing and Compensation

Organizations and individuals wishing to license my content for AI-related purposes must obtain express written authorization in advance.

Such licenses may require payment. Licensing fees and conditions will be negotiated individually and may depend on the nature of the content, quantity, intended use, commercial scope, and duration of the proposed license.

Unauthorized use does not create an automatic license or substitute for obtaining permission.

Where unauthorized use infringes my rights or violates an enforceable agreement, I reserve the right to seek applicable remedies, including damages, injunctive relief, and recovery of legal costs where permitted by law.

Exceptions and Clarifications

These restrictions do not override rights provided by law, including applicable exceptions and limitations to copyright.

They do not prohibit ordinary human reading, lawful quotation, permitted research, routine browser access, or conventional search-engine indexing solely by virtue of involving automated software.

They also do not supersede specific licenses granted to software, datasets, or other materials distributed with their own terms.

The presence of material on a publicly accessible website should not be interpreted as an affirmative grant of a license for AI training.

Automated Access and Technical Restrictions

I may publish machine-readable crawler instructions, including robots.txt directives and other applicable signals expressing restrictions or preferences concerning automated access and AI-training uses.

Such signals supplement this policy. Their technical interpretation and legal effect may vary.

No failure to deploy, update, or enforce a particular technical restriction should be interpreted as an intentional grant of rights.

4. Software, Extensions, and Interactive Tools

This website includes software, browser extensions, web applications, experimental utilities, downloadable files, and other technical projects.

Individual projects may have their own licenses, privacy policies, notices, or usage terms. Where a project-specific agreement applies, it takes precedence over conflicting general website terms for that project.

Unless otherwise stated, access to publicly available tools does not grant permission to redistribute proprietary source code, misrepresent authorship, or commercially exploit the software outside the terms of its applicable license.

Open-source projects are governed by their stated open-source licenses. Nothing in these general terms is intended to revoke rights granted under those licenses.

Use of Interactive Tools

Some applications may process files, metadata, source code, or other information supplied by users.

The processing and storage behavior of individual tools may differ. Consult any documentation or privacy notices accompanying a particular application before submitting sensitive information.

You are responsible for ensuring that you have the necessary rights and authority to analyze, upload, modify, or otherwise process materials using these tools.

You must not use the website or its applications to violate applicable laws, interfere with other systems, compromise website security, or infringe the rights of others.

5. Guestbook and User Contributions

Certain areas of the website allow visitors to submit comments, guestbook entries, or other contributions.

Information submitted to a public guestbook may be visible to other visitors. Please do not include private or sensitive information you do not wish to make public.

By submitting material for public display, you grant me a nonexclusive, royalty-free license to host, reproduce, display, and technically adapt that material as necessary to operate, maintain, and preserve the relevant website feature.

You retain ownership of material you submit, subject to the rights of others.

I reserve the right to moderate, edit for formatting, decline, or remove contributions, including spam, abusive material, unlawful content, or submissions that interfere with the operation of the website.

I do not guarantee the preservation or continued availability of user contributions.

Requests to remove or correct a guestbook entry may be submitted through my published contact email. I may request reasonable information to verify the request.

6. Accuracy of Information

This website contains personal observations, research, commentary, experiments, and occasionally unfinished work.

Although I try to maintain accurate information, I cannot guarantee that everything published is complete, current, or error-free.

Historical, scientific, technical, and other informational material should not be treated as professional advice without independent verification.

Nothing on this website should be interpreted as legal or medical advice.

I may correct or revise published material without notice.

7. Opinions and Professional Independence

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, opinions expressed on this website are my own.

They do not necessarily represent the positions of my current or former employers, clients, colleagues, professional associations, or other organizations with which I may be associated.

References to organizations or professional experiences do not imply their endorsement of this website.

8. External Links and Third-Party Content

This website may link to external websites, services, publications, software repositories, or other resources.

I do not control the content, security, availability, or privacy practices of those external services.

A link does not necessarily imply endorsement, affiliation, sponsorship, or approval.

External websites and services may be governed by separate terms and privacy policies.

9. Disclaimer of Warranties

To the extent permitted by applicable law, this website and its materials, downloads, and applications are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis.

I make no guarantee that the website will operate continuously, remain error-free, meet any particular requirement, or be free from vulnerabilities.

Software and experimental tools may produce incomplete, inaccurate, or unexpected results.

Users should maintain appropriate backups and exercise independent judgment when relying on software, technical information, or other materials provided here.

Nothing in this disclaimer excludes warranties or legal protections that cannot lawfully be excluded.

10. Limitation of Liability

To the extent permitted by applicable law, Ethan J. Hulbert shall not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages resulting from use of, inability to use, or reliance on this website and its materials.

This includes, where applicable, lost profits, business interruption, data loss, or other consequential losses.

These limitations do not apply where prohibited by law and do not exclude liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

11. Changes to the Website and These Terms

I may update these terms to reflect changes in the website, its projects, applicable laws, or operating practices.

The revision date will appear at the top of this page.

Changes will apply prospectively to the extent required by law. Where additional notice or consent is legally required, I will endeavor to provide it.

12. Governing Law

To the extent permitted by applicable law, disputes concerning these website terms shall be governed by the laws of the State of California, United States, without regard to conflict-of-law principles.

This provision does not override mandatory legal protections or jurisdictional rights available to visitors under applicable law.

Part II. Privacy Policy

13. Introduction

I operate ethanjhulbert.org as a personal website containing writing, art, photography, software, research, and other projects.

I use website analytics to understand visitor traffic, how content is discovered, and how visitors interact with different parts of the site.

This includes Google Analytics and Yandex Metrica. Yandex Metrica is configured to provide interaction tracking, heatmaps, and session recordings.

I do not operate a business that sells visitor information, and I do not use information collected through website analytics to personally identify or contact individual visitors for marketing purposes.

However, my analytics providers and hosting services may process technical information and online identifiers as described below.

This policy applies to the website itself. Individual browser extensions and other applications may have separate privacy policies describing their own data-handling practices.

14. Information That May Be Collected

Depending on how you use the website, the following categories of information may be collected or processed.

Website Usage Information

Analytics and hosting systems may process:

Pages visited and URLs requested.
Time and date of visits.
Referring websites and traffic sources.
Browser, operating system, and device characteristics.
Approximate geographic location.
IP addresses and related network information.
Cookie identifiers and other online identifiers.
Page interactions, events, and navigation activity.
Technical information concerning loading performance, errors, and resource requests.

Some information is processed automatically through your browser or the servers hosting this website.

Behavioral Analytics

Yandex Metrica may also collect information about:

Mouse movements and clicks.
Scrolling behavior.
Interactions with navigation elements, buttons, and links.
Page layout and visible content.
Interaction sequences used to reconstruct browsing sessions.
Form interactions and other behavioral events.

These activities may be represented through heatmaps, interaction reports, or session replays.

Information You Provide

If you contact me by email or submit a guestbook entry, I may receive information you voluntarily provide, such as:

Your name or chosen display name.
Your email address, where provided.
Your message or submission.
A website URL or other optional information you include.
Technical submission metadata, where collected by the relevant website software.

Public guestbook submissions may remain visible to other visitors unless removed.

Website and Application Data

Individual tools may process files, source code, text, or other materials supplied by users.

Processing behavior varies by tool. Some applications operate entirely within the browser, while others may use server-side functions.

Where a tool has a separate privacy policy or documentation, consult that information for details specific to the tool.

15. Google Analytics

This website uses Google Analytics 4 (GA4), provided by Google.

Google Analytics helps me understand aggregate website traffic and patterns of use, including which pages receive visits, where visitors arrive from, general geographic and device information, and interactions measured by configured analytics events.

Google may use cookies, browser identifiers, and other technologies to collect and process this information.

The precise information collected depends on Google’s systems, the website’s configuration, and visitors’ browsers and settings.

Analytics data may be processed on Google’s infrastructure and retained according to applicable Google Analytics settings and policies.

For more information:

Google Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
Google Analytics information: https://support.google.com/analytics/

I use this information to evaluate and improve the website, not to create personally identified profiles of individual visitors.

16. Yandex Metrica

This website also uses Yandex Metrica, a web analytics service provided by Yandex.

Yandex Metrica helps me understand website traffic and user interaction patterns, including through features such as:

Traffic and audience reports.
Click tracking and click maps.
Scroll maps and other heatmaps.
Interaction and navigation analysis.
Session Replay, which can reconstruct visitor interactions with a webpage.

Session Replay may capture the appearance and content of webpages as visitors see them, along with their interactions with those pages.

This means the information processed can be more detailed than conventional pageview analytics.

Form Field Protection

My current Yandex Metrica configuration masks the contents of fields where visitors type information, including guestbook form fields.

This is intended to prevent typed messages and other field contents from appearing in session recordings.

Masking does not necessarily prevent collection of all interaction metadata or page content outside those fields.

Third-Party Processing

Yandex processes analytics information under its own privacy practices and contractual terms. Data may be processed or stored outside the visitor’s country, including in jurisdictions with different data-protection laws.

I do not control Yandex’s independent infrastructure or all aspects of its processing.

Further information is available from:

Yandex Privacy Policy: https://yandex.com/legal/confidential/
Yandex Metrica documentation: https://yandex.com/support/metrica/

Visitors should be aware that session recording and interaction analysis can involve substantial collection of behavioral information.

17. Cookies and Similar Technologies

This website and its third-party services may use cookies, browser storage, and other technologies to support operation, preserve preferences, measure traffic, and analyze interactions.

These may include:

Essential technologies: Browser or server mechanisms needed for particular features, administration, security, or ordinary site operation.

Analytics technologies: Cookies and identifiers used by Google Analytics and Yandex Metrica to measure visits, recognize browser activity, and produce statistical reports.

Behavioral measurement technologies: Tracking used by Yandex Metrica to generate interaction reports, heatmaps, and session recordings.

Managing Cookies and Tracking

Visitors can use browser settings to block or delete cookies, restrict tracking, or disable JavaScript.

Browser privacy controls and tracking-protection extensions may also limit analytics functionality.

These controls do not necessarily stop every form of information processing, and disabling cookies may affect certain website features.

Until a site-operated consent interface is available, visitors who do not wish to be subject to optional analytics should use available browser privacy protections or refrain from accessing affected pages.

18. Do Not Track and Browser Privacy Signals

Some browsers offer a Do Not Track (DNT) setting or other privacy preference signals.

This website does not currently operate a unified system that changes its analytics behavior in response to DNT signals.

Global Privacy Control and other legally recognized opt-out signals may have different legal implications. Nothing in this policy is intended to deny rights that apply under relevant privacy laws.

Browser-based blocking tools may independently prevent some analytics technologies from operating.

I intend to review applicable privacy preference signals as part of future updates to the website’s consent and analytics systems.

19. Why Information Is Processed

Information associated with the website may be processed for the following purposes:

Operating, maintaining, and securing the website.
Understanding overall traffic and audience patterns.
Identifying technical errors and usability problems.
Learning which content and tools visitors use.
Improving navigation, design, accessibility, and functionality.
Responding to correspondence and visitor requests.
Operating and moderating the guestbook.
Investigating abuse, spam, or security incidents.
Complying with applicable legal obligations.

Where applicable law requires a legal basis for processing personal information, that basis will depend on the activity and jurisdiction.

For example, certain operational processing may be necessary to provide a requested service, while nonessential analytics and behavioral tracking may require consent.

The website’s current technical implementation should not be taken as a representation that every required consent mechanism has already been implemented.

20. Information Sharing and Service Providers

Personal information and technical data may be processed by third parties involved in operating the website.

These include:

Hosting and infrastructure providers: The website is hosted using services provided by DreamHost. Hosting infrastructure may process server requests, IP addresses, logs, and other technical information necessary to deliver website content and maintain services.

Google: Receives and processes information through Google Analytics.

Yandex: Receives and processes information through Yandex Metrica, including behavioral analytics and session-recording information where those features are enabled.

Other services: Particular website sections may incorporate externally hosted content, libraries, media, or technical services. Interacting with these services may result in information being transmitted to their operators.

I do not sell website visitor lists or directly market identifiable visitor information to data brokers.

This does not mean that third-party analytics processing is legally classified the same way in every jurisdiction. Applicable laws may impose additional restrictions or opt-out obligations on certain disclosures.

I may also disclose information where legally required or reasonably necessary to protect the website, its users, or my legal rights.

21. International Data Processing

This website is operated from the United States and is accessible internationally.

Website infrastructure and third-party service providers may process information in the United States and other countries.

Google and Yandex operate international services, and information processed through their systems may be subject to laws and practices that differ from those in a visitor’s home jurisdiction.

I do not guarantee that all website-related data remains in the United States or within any particular region.

Where applicable law requires particular protections for international transfers, those obligations must be considered in connection with the relevant service and processing activity.

22. Data Retention

Retention depends on the type of information and the systems involved.

Analytics information: Google Analytics and Yandex Metrica retain information according to their respective configurations, retention schedules, and service policies.

Yandex Session Replay: Yandex’s published documentation currently describes a rolling retention period of approximately 15 days for session recordings. Other analytics records may have different retention periods.

Guestbook submissions: Public submissions may remain available for as long as the guestbook operates or until they are removed through moderation or an appropriate request. Associated metadata and backups may persist for additional periods.

Email correspondence: Messages may be retained as reasonably necessary to respond, maintain relevant records, resolve disputes, or meet legal obligations.

Server logs: Hosting systems may retain technical logs for operational, diagnostic, security, and other administrative purposes according to applicable hosting configurations and policies.

I aim to avoid retaining information longer than reasonably necessary for its intended purpose, subject to legal obligations and technical limitations.

23. Security

I use reasonable administrative and technical measures appropriate to a personal website to protect its operation and information under my control.

However, no website, hosting platform, analytics system, or communication method can be guaranteed completely secure.

Third-party service providers maintain their own security practices and infrastructure.

Please avoid sending passwords, financial information, medical records, confidential documents, or other sensitive information through public website features or ordinary email unless necessary and appropriately protected.

If you believe you have discovered a security issue affecting the website or one of its tools, please contact me privately rather than posting exploit details in the guestbook.

24. Visitor Rights and Privacy Requests

Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have rights concerning personal information, including rights to:

Request access to information held about you.
Request correction of inaccurate information.
Request deletion of certain information.
Object to or restrict certain processing.
Withdraw consent where processing depends on consent.
Request information concerning relevant third-party disclosures.
Exercise other rights provided by applicable privacy legislation.

These rights vary by jurisdiction and may be subject to exceptions.

To submit a privacy-related request, contact me using the email address published on my contact page.

Please describe the nature of your request and provide enough information for me to identify the relevant records, if any.

I may request reasonable verification before acting on a request. Please do not send unnecessary identity documents or sensitive personal information.

Some information is processed directly by third-party providers and may need to be addressed through their own privacy controls or request procedures.

I will evaluate applicable requests according to the relevant law and the information reasonably available to me.

25. Visitors in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and Switzerland

Visitors located in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and Switzerland may have additional protections under applicable data-protection and electronic-communications laws.

Where those laws apply to this website’s activities, nonessential analytics cookies and similar tracking technologies may require consent before being placed or accessed.

Data-protection rules may also provide rights concerning access, correction, deletion, processing restrictions, objections, and complaints to the relevant supervisory authority.

26. California and Other United States Privacy Rights

Visitors in California and other U.S. states may have privacy rights under laws applicable to particular businesses and processing activities.

Whether a specific statutory privacy regime applies depends on factors including the nature and scale of operations, the type of information involved, and relevant legal thresholds.

This website is a personal website and is not represented as a large commercial data-processing operation.

Nevertheless, I will consider applicable requests to access, correct, or delete personal information, and other legally required requests, in accordance with relevant law.

Requests may be sent to the contact address listed here.

Nothing in this policy is intended to limit statutory rights that apply to a particular visitor or processing activity.

27. Children

This website is intended for a general audience and is not specifically directed toward children under 13.

I do not knowingly solicit personal information directly from children under 13.

If you believe a child has submitted personal information through a website feature and would like it reviewed or removed, please contact me.

28. Public Contributions and Visibility

Information voluntarily submitted for public display, such as guestbook entries, may be accessible to other visitors and may be indexed, quoted, archived, or copied by third parties.

I can moderate or remove material from systems under my control, but I cannot guarantee removal of independent copies created elsewhere.

Please consider this before publishing identifying or sensitive information.

29. Changes to This Privacy Policy

I may revise this policy when website features, analytics technologies, legal obligations, or data-handling practices change.

Updates will be posted here with a revised date.

Material changes will be accompanied by any additional notification or consent required by applicable law.

Visitors are encouraged to review this page periodically.

Part III. Additional Notices

30. Third-Party Trademarks and Attribution

Names, logos, trademarks, and identifying marks belonging to third parties are the property of their respective owners.

Their appearance on this website does not necessarily indicate sponsorship, affiliation, approval, or endorsement.

Credits and licensing notices for third-party works may appear alongside the relevant material or in project-specific documentation.

31. Accessibility and Technical Compatibility

I aim to make the website usable across modern devices and browsers, but individual projects vary in age, design, and technical requirements.

Some older pages and experimental applications may have limited accessibility, compatibility, or functionality.

Reports of accessibility or compatibility problems are welcome through my published contact information.

32. Affiliate Links and Commercial Relationships

Occasionally, this website may contain affiliate links, referral links, or recommendations associated with commercial partnerships.

If you follow an affiliate link and make a purchase or complete a qualifying action, I may receive a commission, referral fee, or other compensation. This generally does not increase the price you pay, although prices and terms are determined by the third-party provider.

This is primarily a personal and creative website, not an affiliate marketing or advertising platform. Affiliate relationships are incidental to its content and do not necessarily indicate sponsorship or endorsement of the website as a whole.

Where applicable, I will disclose material financial relationships clearly and conspicuously near the relevant links, recommendations, or content.

Affiliate links may use cookies, referral identifiers, or other tracking technologies operated by third-party merchants or affiliate networks. Their data practices are governed by their respective privacy policies.

Unless otherwise indicated, opinions and recommendations expressed on this website are my own.

33. Project-Specific Policies

Some software projects and services published through this website maintain separate legal or privacy notices.

Where applicable, those policies supplement this document and describe additional or more specific terms.

For example:

Comment Excavator browser extension: https://www.ethanjhulbert.org/extensions/comment-excavator/legal/

The policies of third-party platforms distributing my software, such as browser extension marketplaces, may also apply.

34. Contact

Website owner: Ethan J. Hulbert
Location: California, United States
Website: https://www.ethanjhulbert.org/
Legal information: https://www.ethanjhulbert.org/legal/

For copyright permissions, AI-training licenses, privacy requests, security disclosures, legal inquiries, and other questions concerning this website, please contact me using the email address published here.