A collection of news and information pertaining to silent era films. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Privacy Policy

Internet privacy is a serious issue. The staff of Silent Era respects your privacy as an anonymous visitor to our website. However, personal information about your computer system, your Internet service provider, or other information may be collected as you visit the website.

This document will, to the best of our ability and as completely as possible, disclose to you the type of information that may be gathered and who is gathering it.

Our Intended Users  /  Your Personal Information  /  Information We Do Collect  /  E-Mail Communications  /  Information Security  /  Cookies, Website Beacons and Other Tracking Technologies  /  Online Advertising  /  Personalized URL Links  /  Links to Other Internet Websites  /  Notification of Policy Changes  /  Questions Regarding This Statement

Our Intended Users

Silent Era: The Silent Film Website (hereafter referred to as ‘Silent Era’) is an information resource on motion pictures produced during the generally accepted ‘silent era’ of cinema, 1894-1929. The majority of our intended users will be adults interested in films of this period and in the people who produced them. Silent Era is not directed at children under 13 years of age. Parents and educators of young children need to determine on an individual basis the appropriate use by their children of this website. However, we strive to maintain website content that is reasonably appropriate for users of all ages.

Your Personal Information

As a general rule, Silent Era does not collect and retain personal information on our users. You can visit Silent Era without being required to tell us who you are and without revealing personal information. We have not amassed e-mail addresses for our use or for sale to businesses. However, we will soon be introducing an opt-in Silent Era newsletter, managed online by a third-party vendor, which will collect names and e-mail addresses on a voluntary basis for the sole purpose of delivering the newsletter. Users who opt into the newsletter will have the option to remove their names from the delivery list at any time. Names and e-mail addresses retained for the purpose of newsletter delivery will not be used by or sold to third-parties. We also do not track individual user identities. However, some third-parties vendors, such as Google, will track user Internet usage, including usage of the Silent Era website, for the purpose of customizing advertising messages delivered to the user on the Silent Era website and elsewhere on the Internet. For details, see below.

At some point in the future we may, and reserve the right to, begin collecting personal information on our users. Before such a change in our privacy policy is implemented, we will post a public notice on the main page of Silent Era informing users of our intended changes. Such a notice will be posted for 30 days before the implementation of the stated policy changes. Some changes to our privacy policy may require immediate implementation. In those cases, a public notice will be posted on the main page of Silent Era for 30 days after the implementation of such changes.

Information We Do Collect

Although it is our stated policy not to collect and retain personal information on our users, through our website host services provider, we do track some general information about you when you visit Silent Era. That information includes but is not exclusive to the domain name of your Internet service provider, the type of computer operating system software you use, the Internet browser software (with its version number) you use, the amount of time you browse Silent Era, whether someone from your domain has visited before, the domain you left to come to Silent Era, whether you arrived at Silent Era through a search engine, a website link or a browser bookmark, what keywords may have been used in a search engine to find Silent Era, where you enter and exit the website, and other general information.

While this information tracks your use of Silent Era, the information itself remains generally anonymous. This information generally cannot be used to trace backward to an individual and specific user. It is our stated policy not to do so. However, in the case of Internet website ‘hacking’ or other criminal use of our Internet domain, e-mail accounts, servers, etc., we reserve the right to cooperate with legal authorities to identify and procecute the instigators of any and all criminal acts.

This type of general information tracking is standard among nearly all Internet websites and is sometimes known as ‘clickstream data.’ General website information metrics allows our webmaster to determine how many visitors a month come to Silent Era, from which domains in which countries users are visiting, the number of times users encountered pages they couldn’t load into their browsers (bad links, etc.), the total number of pages and file components were served to users, the most requested website pages, the website’s busiest times of the day, week and month, and other information that allows them to identify and correct website technical issues.

This type of general information may be shared with trusted affiliates, advertisers, independent contractors and/or business partners for research regarding the reach and effectiveness of the website and the promotional efforts of Silent Era, its trusted affiliates, advertisers, independent contractors and/or business partners.

E-Mail Communications

Users need to be aware that personal communications with Silent Era via Internet e-mail (requests for information, top 100 silent films list votes, etc.) will provide information about the specific and individual user including the identity of the SMTP service that sent your e-mail, your e-mail server address, your personal e-mail address used, and other specific and technical information related to your e-mail communication. This information is sent with every Internet e-mail transmission and can be viewed by the e-mail recipient if their e-mail client software is configured to do so.

While it is not the policy of Silent Era to contact individual users (unless it is in direct response to an e-mail inquiry or voting submission) or to allow third-parties to contact user through us, any change in this policy with be implemented on an ‘opt-in’ basis. Whether the change in policy is the implementation of an e-mail newsletter or a special product offer from one of our affiliates, you will given the opportunity to ‘sign-up’ to receive such communications. You will never be required to ‘opt-out’ from a Silent Era communications program, that is be required to do something to have your name removed from a list.

Information Security

Until such time that we may collect and retain individual, personal information on our users, we have no policy or measures to ensure the security of any information transmitted directly or indirectly to Silent Era, including but not exclusive to e-mail communications or online form submissions.

At a future time, we may choose to implement some direct form of online retail services or other services which might require the collection, processing and retention of sensitive and privileged personal information on and for our users. At that time, revised privacy policies will be established, and security and quality measures will be implemented. The details of such changes in policies and measures will be made public to our users.

Cookies, Website Beacons and Other Tracking Technologies

At the current time, Silent Era does not utilize cookies, website beacons or other technologies that personally identifies and tracks its users. Advertisers and marketing affiliates associated with Silent Era may utilize such technologies, and their usage of such is governed by the privacy policies of those individual advertisers and marketing affiliates and not by Silent Era.

A ‘cookie’ is a small data file that resides on your computer’s hard-disk drive (usually either in your OS folder or in the folder containing your Internet browser software). The data file may contain information about your computer system, your name, your e-mail address, your website preferences, or other specific and individual information. Cookies are used by the servers of remote websites to identify visiting users, tailor website user interfaces to your preferences, and/or automatically fill online forms fields, as determined by the engineers of the website being visited. This personal information could be associated with information on your site usage and be provided to third-party vendors as governed by the website’s privacy policy. Most cookies are set with an ‘expiration date’ after which the cookie either needs to be renewed or is deleted from your computer.

Some websites also use ‘website beacon’ technologies to tailor the user’s experience of their sites. Website beacons may be placed on a number of pages throughout a site. When a user accesses these pages, an anonymous notice of that visit is generated which may be processed by the website administrators or by their vendors. Website beacons generally work in conjunction with cookies.

Among third-party vendors of the Silent Era website, Google utilizes cookies to serve advertisements to users. And, among other technologies, Google utilizes the Double Click DART cookie, which specifically targets advertising to users based on their previous page-viewing and ad-click experience on the Silent Era website and elsewhere on the Internet. Internet users may choose to opt-out of Google’s use of the DART cookie after visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

You may configure most browsers to accept all cookies sent by websites, prompt you to accept or reject individual cookies or all cookies associated with a website, or to reject all cookies altogether. Most browsers offer a method of listing all the cookies on your computer, the ability to change your ‘accept’ or ‘reject’ preferences for each cookie, or the ability to delete any or all cookies residing on your computer. Check your browser’s Preferences module.

Silent Era reserves the right to begin utilizing website cookies after 30 days of a public posting stating an impending change of policy to the use of cookies.

Online Advertising

Silent Era utilizes selected online advertising serving companies to help us deliver to users online advertising graphics and their associated URL links. These companies may collect and use information about their customers that are associated with Silent Era to tailor their offers and promotions to their customers. The collection and use of such information is governed by the privacy policies of those companies and of their individual advertisers and marketing affiliates and not by Silent Era.

You may prefer that these companies not collect information on your Internet usage. Visit the PrivacyChoices website at www.privacychoices.org and follow their ‘opt-out’ instructions. You may also choose to opt-out of Google’s use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy and follow their ‘opt-out’ instructions.

Personalized URL Links

Some advertisers and marketing affiliates of Silent Era may establish URL links that direct users to personalized web pages. The purpose of these pages may be to tailor product or services promotions to the user. Some advertisers and marketing affiliates may track purchases or even subsequent pages visited on their websites to tailor future offers to users. Most of these personalized pages are enabled by cookies (see above) and can be discontinued by disabling cookies for individual websites.

Links to Other Internet Websites

Silent Era contains URL links to other Internet websites. Silent Era is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of other Internet websites.

Notification of Policy Changes

This privacy policy statement was last updated on the date noted at the top of this page. If a change in our privacy policy is deemed necessary, we will post a public notice on the home page of Silent Era informing users of our intended changes. Such a notice will be posted for 30 days before the implementation of the stated policy changes. Some changes to our privacy policy may require immediate implementation. In those cases, a public notice will be posted on the home page of Silent Era for 30 days after the implementation of such changes.

Questions Regarding This Statement

Questions regarding this privacy policy statement should be directed to the Silent Era editor for clarification.