Block
Privacy
There are no accounts and no third-party advertising network. Some archive pages may show clearly labelled BEE2.IO product cards; they are our own cross-promotions, not network advertising. Google Analytics run only if you agree, and the only cookies are the ones they set if you do. Cloudflare, which hosts this site, also counts visits in aggregate on every page, without cookies. Nothing is measured by Google and no cookie is set before you choose. This page sets out what happens either way, because a privacy policy that opens by saying "nothing" and then lists exceptions is not honest.
Analytics, and your choice
We would like to know which pages people read, so we know what to add next. We use Google Analytics for that, and only if you agree.
Nothing is measured before you choose. The Google script is not loaded, not requested and not contacted until you press Allow. If you decline, or close the banner, or press Escape, nothing is loaded at all and no analytics cookie is ever set. Declining costs you nothing: every page works identically either way, and nothing is withheld.
If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, we take that as a no without asking you again.
When you do agree, Google Analytics sets cookies in your browser and receives your visit: the pages you view, roughly where you are from your network address, and general information about your device. Your address is anonymised, and we have switched off Google Signals and advertising personalisation, so the data is not used to build an advertising profile of you or followed across devices. We do not sell or share personal information.
If you agree, we also measure whether a clearly labelled product card was shown or selected, a research-tool link was selected, a source link was opened, a site search returned results, or a citation or record was saved. Those measurements contain the app, placement, page type, state, county and button variant where available. They do not contain what you typed into search, an address, the title of a saved item, citation text, or the address of a source link.
You can change your mind at any time, and it is as easy as agreeing was: reopen the choice.
Cloudflare Web Analytics run on every visit. Cloudflare serves this site, and it counts page views in aggregate: which pages are read, the site each visitor came from, their browser and device type, and their approximate country. It uses a random number stored in your browser rather than a cookie to tell visits apart. That number is not used to identify you, the data is not used to follow you across sites, and it is not used to build an advertising profile. We use it to know how many people visit and which pages matter. Because it is aggregate and sets no cookies, it runs whether or not you allow Google Analytics.
What is stored on your device
| Light or dark theme | One entry in your browser's local storage holding the word light or dark, so the site does not change appearance every time you arrive. It never leaves your device. |
| Your analytics choice | One entry in local storage holding granted or denied, so we do not ask again. Kept in local storage rather than a cookie on purpose: a visitor who declines should leave with no cookie at all. |
| Cookies | None, unless you allow analytics. In that case Google Analytics sets its own. |
What leaves your browser
| Browsing and searching by place | Nothing. Place and site search run entirely in your browser against small index files served from this domain. What you type is not sent anywhere. |
| Searching a street address | The address you type is sent to this site's own server, which passes it to the United States Census Bureau's public geocoder to turn it into a coordinate. The address is sent in the body of the request, never in the web address, so it does not appear in our server's request logs, in any intermediate cache, or in your browser history. The Census Bureau receives the address under its own privacy notice. We do not store it and we keep no record of searches; the resulting coordinate is used to draw your results and is not kept. |
| The location button | Your position is requested only when you press that button, never on page load. It is used to build the address of the results page in your own browser and is never sent to this server or stored. |
| Images and maps | Served from this domain. Apart from the analytics scripts and the Translate control described below, the site loads no third-party scripts, fonts, images or frames, and its content security policy forbids them. |
| The translate button | The header's Translate control is an in-page translator. The language list is fetched from Google when the page loads, but nothing is translated until you choose a language. When you do, the text you see is sent to Google through this site's own server and the translation is written back onto the same page: the address, the layout, the images and every button stay exactly as they are, and only the text changes. Google's own privacy notice governs what it does with the text you ask it to translate. The original records on the page are not changed, and search engines see only the English original. |
Links to other sites
Every record on this site links back to the archive that holds it: the Library of Congress, the United States Geological Survey, the National Park Service, the Census Bureau, the Internet Archive, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons among others.
Following one of those links takes you to their site, where their privacy policy and their terms apply, not ours. We do not share anything about you with them, and a link is not a recommendation of how they handle your data.
Who is responsible, and where the data goes
This site is published by BEE2.IO LLC, and for the purposes of United Kingdom and European Union data protection law BEE2.IO LLC is the controller of any personal data described on this page. Write to info@blockbefore.com to exercise any of the rights below.
If you allow analytics, Google acts as our processor and the data is handled on Google servers, including servers in the United States, under Google's own terms. It is kept for the retention period set on the Analytics property and deleted automatically at the end of it; if you want to know the period currently in force, ask and we will tell you. We have turned on network-address anonymisation and turned off Google Signals and advertising personalisation, so the data is not used to build an advertising profile of you or to follow you across devices. If you do not allow analytics, no personal data leaves this site at all and nothing is retained.
This site is a historical archive and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone, of any age, beyond what is described on this page.
Your rights
If you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, the lawful basis for analytics is your consent and nothing else, which is why you are asked before anything loads. You may withdraw it at any time, and you have the right to ask what is held about you, to have it corrected or erased, and to complain to your national supervisory authority.
If you are in California, you have the right to know what is collected, to have it deleted, and to opt out of sale or sharing. We do not sell or share personal information, and we honour the Global Privacy Control signal automatically.
We hold no accounts and no mailing list, so in practice the only data connected to you is what Google Analytics holds if you allowed it, together with any message you choose to send us and the address you send it from, which we keep only for as long as it takes to deal with it. To have analytics data removed, write and say so.
Contact
Questions, access requests and deletion requests: info@blockbefore.com. We answer from the same address.
If you would rather not write, the only data connected to you is what Google Analytics holds, and only if you allowed it - you can revoke that at any time from the cookie choice link in the footer of any page, which stops all further measurement immediately.
Corrections and memories you send us
Every page has a "Correct this page" control. When you use it, your message, the page it concerns, and the optional contact you give are sent to our server and held for up to ninety days so a person can review them. They are not published, not shared and not used for anything else. A correction is checked against the source record the page cites, and the correction policy on the terms page applies.