Effective date: October 16, 2026

This policy explains what information is collected when you visit Federal Exposure (https://federalexposure.com), who collects it, and the choices you have. The site is published by C. Zakarian ("we", "us").

The short version

Information we collect

Information you send us. If you email contact@federalexposure.com, we receive your email address, your name if you include it, and the content of your message. We use it to reply, to investigate corrections and to keep a record of them.

Information collected automatically. When your browser requests a page, it sends technical information that any website receives. This includes your IP address, browser type and version, operating system, the page you requested, the page that referred you, and the date and time. Our host and our advertising partner collect this information as described below. We do not combine it with your email or try to identify you from it.

We do not ask for, and do not knowingly collect, sensitive information such as government identification numbers, financial account details, health information or precise location.

Cookies and similar technologies

A cookie is a small text file that a website or a third party stores in your browser. Similar technologies include local storage, pixels and device identifiers.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Blocking cookies does not stop the site from working, but you may still see ads, which will be less relevant to you.

Advertising: Google AdSense

We use Google AdSense to show ads. Google is a third-party vendor, and it may work with other ad vendors and networks.

Google explains how it uses this information in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services. Google's own privacy policy is at policies.google.com/privacy.

We do not see your browsing history, and Google does not give us information that identifies you. We receive aggregate reports, such as how many times ads were shown and clicked.

Your advertising choices

You can opt out of personalized advertising at any time:

These opt-outs usually work by setting a cookie, so they apply only to the browser and device you use, and clearing your cookies may undo them. Opting out does not remove ads. It means the ads you see will not be chosen based on your browsing on other sites.

Visitors in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland

If you visit from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, you will see a consent message before personalized ads or advertising cookies are used. The message is Google's own consent management platform, which Google certifies and which works with the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF).

The message lets you accept, reject or choose among specific purposes and vendors. If you do not consent, Google may still show ads that are not personalized, under the limits that apply to them. You can change your choices at any time through the privacy and cookie settings link that the message provides.

Where these laws apply, the legal basis for advertising cookies is your consent. The legal basis for host security processing and for answering your email is our legitimate interest in running a secure site and responding to readers. You have the right to access, correct, delete or restrict the use of your personal data, to object to its use, to receive a copy of it, and to complain to your local data protection authority.

U.S. state privacy rights

Residents of California and of a growing number of other states, including Colorado, Connecticut and Virginia, have rights under state privacy laws. In California these come from the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA/CPRA).

What we collect. In the past 12 months, the categories of personal information collected through this site were:

Where it comes from. From you, from your browser or device, and from our advertising and hosting partners.

Why it is used. To deliver and secure the site, to show and measure ads, to answer messages and to correct errors.

Who receives it. Our host, Cloudflare, and Google and its advertising partners. Allowing advertising cookies to be used for ads based on your activity across websites may count as "selling" or "sharing" personal information for targeted advertising under some state laws. We do not sell personal information for money, and we do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16.

Your rights. Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

How to opt out of sale or sharing. Visitors in states with these laws may see Google's U.S. state regulations message, which gives a way to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information for ads on this site. You can also use the advertising opt-outs listed above. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, we treat it as a valid request to opt out of sale and sharing for that browser: our pages detect the signal and ask Google to serve only non-personalized ads.

How to make a request. Email contact@federalexposure.com with "Privacy request" in the subject line and say which right you want to use. We hold very little information that is tied to a person, mostly email correspondence, so we may ask for details to match your request to our records. You may use an authorized agent, who must show us your written permission. We will respond within 45 days, and we will tell you if we need more time. If we decline your request, you may appeal by replying to our answer with "Appeal" in the subject line, and we will explain our decision in writing.

Server logs and hosting

The site is a set of static files hosted on Cloudflare. We do not run our own web server, so we keep no server logs of our own.

Cloudflare processes request data, including IP addresses, to deliver pages quickly, block attacks and keep the service running. It handles that data under the Cloudflare privacy policy. We can see aggregate traffic statistics in Cloudflare's dashboard, such as the number of requests and the countries they come from.

Analytics

We plan to measure readership with a cookieless analytics tool, such as Cloudflare Web Analytics. A tool of this kind counts page views and referring sites without setting cookies and without building a profile of you across websites. If we add an analytics tool that uses cookies or identifies individual visitors, we will update this policy first.

Children

This site is written for adults interested in finance and public spending. It is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them, consistent with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). If you believe a child has sent us personal information, email contact@federalexposure.com and we will delete it.

Data retention

We keep email correspondence for as long as we need it to answer you and to keep an accurate record of corrections, and we delete it on request unless we must keep it to meet a legal obligation. If we credit a reader for a correction, we use your name only with your permission. Cloudflare and Google keep the data they collect for the periods set out in their own policies.

Security

Every page is served over an encrypted HTTPS connection. The site has no accounts, passwords or databases of reader information, which limits what could be exposed. No method of sending or storing data is perfectly secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Our pages link to other websites, especially SEC filings on sec.gov and award records on USAspending.gov. Those sites have their own privacy practices, and this policy does not cover them.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when our practices or the law change. We will post the new version on this page with a new effective date, and we will note material changes in the change log.

Contact

For any question about this policy or your data, email contact@federalexposure.com.

Federal Exposure, published by C. Zakarian, Virginia.