Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

At Sherlock Forum, we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

To better protect your privacy we provide this notice explaining our online information practices and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used. To make this notice easy to find, we make it available at the bottom of every page.

This Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure. 

We may change this Policy from time to time - when we do so, you'll be informed in your next visit to the site, so you can ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Policy.

Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email to privacy@sherlockforum.com

The tl;dr version 

• You still need to read the rest of this policy - this is just the summary! 
• The only identifiable information we keep is your email address, the IP address you use when visiting the site, and whether you are over 18 years. Neither of these are visible to other users. 
• We do not email you unless you tell us we can - and you can change this at any time in your user preferences. If you are unsure how to do this, please get in touch and we'll walk you through it. 
• We do not share any of your information with anybody else. 
• You can get in touch with privacy@sherlockfoum.com if you want us to delete your user account, and then we'll all forget you ever existed on this site.
• We do use cookies, because the site doesn't work without them. These cookies do not store any personal information. But you can tell your browser to eat them, if you don't want us to use them.  
• We do periodically deactivate and eventually delete users that have not visited us in more than two years.

Who are we?

We are fans of BBC Sherlock, who one day realised there were no fan forums for the show and decided to remedy the situation. We are in this for the love of the show, and because we had an opportunity to provide a hub for like minded people to gather and meet. 

You can get in touch with us via email, at admins@sherlockforum.com

What information do we collect?  

The personal information we collect includes:

• Your email address (we ask you for this when you register for an account). This is only visible to forum staff. 
• IP address. This is only visible to forum staff.   
• Information regarding what pages are accessed and when. See the section "Log Files" below for more details on this. 
• You will also be asked to confirm that you are over 18 in order to gain access to certain areas of the forum. 
• If at any time you require the removal of your account and its associated data, please contact us at admins@sherlockforum.com. We will need to know if you require us to remove all comments and threads made by your username or if you would simply like them to be anonymised. It is not possible for the forum software to keep an account active without an email point of contact for the user, for that reason we cannot remove a user’s email without removal of their account from the system.

Additionally, you can provide further information in your profile (such as social media handles or website addresses), but this is entirely your choice - you don't need to provide any of this to use the website. 

We may use your information to:

• Verify your email address when you first register. 
• Notify you of changes to our services. 
• Send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you. These may include information about new posts on specific topics, or newsletters you have subscribed to. 

This is also a good time to remind you that we do periodically deactivate and eventually delete users that have not visited us in more than two years

Who has access to your information?

Your personally identifiable information is not visible to other users of the site. Only staff (moderators and admins) can see your details. 

We will not sell, rent or share your information to third parties. Ever. 

Log Files

Like many other Web sites, www.sherlockforum.com makes use of log files. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol ( IP ) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider ( ISP ), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses, and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable.

We need these log files to help us figure out what went wrong when something goes wrong. Other than that, these are frequently ignored... 

Your Choices

By default, we will not send you any emails unless you tell us we can. The only email you will get from us is a validation email when you first create an account. After that, if you choose not to hear from us, we'll respect that. 

• When creating an account, you can choose whether you want us to send you news and updates. You can change this choice at any time by editing your account preferences. 
• When you post on the forums, you can choose whether you want to be notified of replies or not. You can alter this at any point in the "Manage followed content" section of your profile. 

How You Can Access Or Correct Your Information

You can access all your personally identifiable information that we collect by accessing your profile on the website. You can also alter the data we hold about you there. 

You can also check all your posts on the site by using the "My activity" feature under your account. 

A useful place to start if you think we're emailing you too much is here: http://www.sherlockforum.com/forum/notifications/options/

You can get in touch with us at privacy@sherlockfocum.com if you wish to delete your account on this website. When you do so, we'll anonymise any and all content that you may have posted to the site, so that it cannot be linked to you. 

Our Commitment to Children's Privacy

Protecting the privacy of the very young is especially important. For that reason, we never collect or maintain information at our website from those we actually know are under 13, and no part of our website is structured to attract anyone under 13.

Cookies and Web Beacons

www.sherlockforum.com does use cookies to store information about visitors preferences, record user-specific information on which pages the user access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors browser type or other information that the visitor sends via their browser.

This website does not store any information that would, on its own, allow us to identify individual users of this service without their permission. Any cookies that may be used by this website are used either solely on a per session basis or to maintain user preferences. Cookies are not shared with any third parties.

If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browsers' respective websites

DoubleClick DART Cookie

Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on www.sherlockforum.com.

Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to users based on their visit to www.sherlockforum.com and other sites on the Internet.

Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy at the following URL - http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html

Some of our advertising partners may use cookies and web beacons on our site. Our advertising partners include ....

• Google Adsense
• Amazon

These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology in the advertisements and links that appear on www.sherlockforum.com which is send directly to your browsers. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies ( such as cookies, Javascript, or Web Beacons ) may also be used by the third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and / or to personalize the advertising content that you see.

www.sherlockforum.com has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.

You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. www.sherlockforum.com's privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites.

If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browsers' respective websites