What Data Does Georgia Innovation Collect?
A plain-language account of what we gather when you visit, why we gather it, and how you stay in control.
Last updated: June 2024
Introduction
Georgia Innovation publishes research, case studies, and practical guidance on the industries shaping the state's economy — from aerospace and advanced manufacturing to life sciences and agribusiness technology. This policy explains the data side of running that platform: what crosses our servers when you read an article, fill out a form, or click through to a partner program.
We have written it to be read, not skimmed past. If a section raises a question it doesn't answer, the Contact page is the right next step. For the technical detail on cookies specifically, see our Cookie Policy.
Purposes of Processing
Every piece of data we hold maps to one of three reasons. We keep the list short on purpose.
Keeping the site working
Server logs and basic diagnostics help us spot broken pages, slow load times, and the occasional bot storm. A reader in Savannah hitting a 404 on a logistics article tells us something we need to fix that afternoon, not next quarter.
Understanding performance
Aggregate analytics show which guides get read and which get abandoned halfway. That shapes what we write next. None of it requires knowing who you personally are.
Responding to you
When you send a message or subscribe to updates, we use the details you give us to reply or to deliver what you signed up for. Nothing more.
External Services
We don't build everything in-house, and the third parties we rely on touch some data as a result. Here is the honest map of who's involved.
Analytics
A privacy-conscious analytics platform measures traffic patterns. We are evaluating one additional provider for richer page-level reporting; this policy will name it once it goes live.
Advertising
No ad network runs on the site today. Should we integrate one, advertising cookies would be introduced only with your consent, and this section would be updated first.
Hosting & CDN
Our hosting and content-delivery providers process technical request data — the IP and timestamp needed to serve a page, under their own data-protection commitments.
Information Collected
Two streams, and they behave very differently. One flows automatically. The other only exists because you chose to share something.
Technical logs
Visiting any page generates a request record: your IP address, browser and device type, the pages you viewed, and when. This is the unavoidable plumbing of the web, and it stays in aggregate diagnostics.
Contact submissions
If you write to us, we keep your name, email, and message for as long as the conversation — and any sensible follow-up, requires.
Subscription inputs
Sign up for updates and we store the email address you provide. You can pull it back out at any time using the unsubscribe link in every message.
Cookies and Tracking
Cookies are small files a site asks your browser to store. We use them sparingly, and we group them by job rather than by vendor.
- Strictly necessary: these remember your consent choices and keep a session coherent as you move between pages. The site cannot function without them, so they aren't optional.
- Analytics: these help us read visit patterns and load performance in aggregate. They fire only after you allow them.
- Advertising: reserved for future use. If ad personalization ever launches here, the relevant cookies would be set strictly on consent.
You hold the controls. Every major browser lets you block, clear, or restrict cookies from its settings menu, and our on-site banner lets you revisit your choices whenever you like.
Blocking strictly necessary cookies may break consent memory and session features — the site will keep asking you to choose, because it has nowhere to record your answer.
Data Subject Rights
If we hold data about you, the data is yours to inspect and to remove. These rights apply regardless of where you sit, and we don't make you justify the request.
- Access: ask what personal data we hold and we'll provide a copy.
- Deletion: request removal and we'll erase it, keeping only what law genuinely requires us to retain.
- Opt-out: withdraw consent for analytics or any future advertising tracking at any time, without affecting your access to the content.
Route any of these through the Contact page and a real person will handle it.
Storage & Deletion
We keep data only as long as the purpose behind it lives. Technical logs cycle out on a rolling short-term basis once their diagnostic value fades. Contact records persist through the life of a conversation and a reasonable window after. Subscription details remain until you unsubscribe, at which point the address is purged from the active list.
When a deletion request arrives, we remove the data from our live systems and instruct relevant processors to do the same. We can't promise to control every backup tape held by a third-party host indefinitely, but those rotate out on their own schedules and aren't used for any ongoing processing.
Policy Updates
Practices change. New tools get adopted, old ones retired. When that happens we revise this page and move the "last updated" date at the top to match. Material changes — a new analytics provider, the arrival of advertising, get flagged clearly rather than buried in a clause. Reading the current version here is always the most reliable way to know where things stand.