Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy informs you of our privacy practices and of the choices you can make about the way information about you, including from your online activity is collected and how that information is used by Mirage News. This statement is readily available at the bottom of every web page on this website.

Originally launched as a blog, Mirage News is not a member of the Australian Press Council (the voluntary self-regulatory body) or the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, but we attempt to be fully compliant with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) in relation to the handling of personal information. Please see our code of ethics

Mirage News is strongly committed to protecting your privacy when you interact with us, our content, products, services or any other means provided via this website.

Here is information on what types of personal information we receive and collect when you use and visit MirageNews.com, and how we safeguard your information.

Log Files
As with most other websites, we may collect and use the data contained in log files. The information in the log files include your IP (internet protocol) address, your ISP, the browser you used to visit our site (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox), the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site. Information of this type is regularly removed.

Cookies, Web Beacons and Third Party Content

We do use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you visit our site.

Cookies are small text files created by a web server, delivered through a web browser, and stored on your computer. They provide a means for websites that you visit to keep track of online patterns and preferences, as well as to identify return visitors. Cookies make the personalization of your web experiences possible, so that you do not need to re-enter your information each time you visit a website.

We also use third party advertisements on MirageNews.com to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

  • Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to your website.
  • Google's use of the DoubleClick cookie enables it and its partners to serve ads to your users based on their visit to your sites and/or other sites on the Internet.
  • Users may opt out of the use of the DoubleClick cookie for interest-based advertising by visiting Ads Settings.

We display ads from different networks including Google Adsense, and additionally are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

We also may use DART cookies for ad serving through Google's DoubleClick, which places a cookie on your computer when you are browsing the web and visit a site using DoubleClick advertising (including some Google AdSense advertisements). This cookie is used to serve ads specific to you and your interests ("interest based targeting"). The ads served will be targeted based on your previous browsing history (For example, if you have been viewing sites about visiting Las Vegas, you may see Las Vegas hotel advertisements when viewing a non-related site, such as on a site about hockey). DART uses "non personally identifiable information". It does NOT track personal information about you, such as your name, email address, physical address, telephone number, social security numbers, bank account numbers or credit card numbers. You can opt-out of this ad serving on all sites using this advertising by visiting http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/dart_adserving.aspx

You can choose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.

Deleting cookies does not mean you are permanently opted out of any advertising program. Unless you have settings that disallow cookies, the next time you visit a site running the advertisements, a new cookie will be added.

This site contains links to other websites, where possible, we make sure their are reliable partners. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of those, or any other, sites. If you have questions about how those websites collect and use data, you should carefully read those sites’ privacy policies.

We also use Cloudflare for proxy and dns, and Google Analytics, a service that records non-personally identifiable data such as browser type, operating system, the date and time of a visit, where visitors came from, the pages visited on this website, the time spent viewing site, where visitors went when they left the site, and return visits to the site.

We aggregate this non-personally identifiable data to better understand how visitors use our site, and to help manage, maintain, and report on use of our website.

Personal Information Collected on this Website

Certain personal information is provided by you to create an account, become a subscriber, become an advertiser, post comments, receive a newsletter . Where appropriate, users can submit questions or comments and provide contact information including name and email. We collect this personal information so that we can respond to these inquiries, comments, and questions. We will not share your private information under normal circumstances. We may disclose your personal information if required to do so by law, including by search warrant, subpoena, or court order of the Commonwealth of Australia or under international law. You do not need to disclose any personal information to us in order to submit a comment or complaint about us. Where possible you may have the option of interacting with us anonymously or using a pseudonym. However, we may be unable to respond or take appropriate action if your information is incomplete. We do not merge any of the personal information collected via our contact form with anonymous data collected on our website.

Some information via social media feeds may also be posted on this website.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

As our organization and services evolve, this Privacy Policy may be revised to reflect those changes. We reserve the right to amend this Privacy Policy at any time, for any reason. Users are encouraged to check our site frequently to review the current Privacy Policy in effect.

This privacy policy is applicable from 10 January 2015 and reviewed annually.