*Update Summer 2016* In my ongoing quest to be a legit and honest publisher, I have an ethical obligation to let you know what Google is NOW doing in the background if you come to my site. The advertisements you see (which are all properly sectioned AWAY from the content AND LABELED, so YOU KNOW what is my original creations and what is Google trying to sell you something) IF you have a Google account and you are logged into it when you come to my site ….
THEN Google will use EVERYTHING IT KNOWS ABOUT YOU (which is probably a lot or more than you’d want anyone to know…) to CRAM EVEN MORE CUSTOM-TAILORED ADS SPECIFICALLY FOR YOU ALL UP IN YOUR FACE. This might actually help connect you with goods and services you might actually be interested in, so if some good comes out of it, we’d sure ‘ppreciate if you used our site as a “jumping off point” to get to said hypothetical sponsored-link that you are legitimately interested in learning more about. You don’t ever need to buy anything from these sites, they are as heavily-audited (more so) than content-sites like mine, so they are all safe to go to, plus I edit and ban things I don’t like, or don’t think you will like, or sound weird or at all shady to me….the point is, I’m not aloud to actually say it but I think you get the point, if you use my site to get to a sponsored-linked-from-google site that theyve spent billions on tailor-making just for you (and the 7 trillion other people walking around)…we get a small amount of money, so if YOU like TapCast, if you like my rants on this site, my research, my code, my artwork, my music, any of my stuff, the best way to support is to do what I definitely didn’t just tell you that you could do … you could also
a) go to my paypal donation page
b) go to my linkedin page, review my skills and throw some work at me (make me earn it!)
Anyway, there’s an update to what Google is doing in the background, so you know, so it’s fair, ethical all that good stuff that we like here at the Pic….what follows is more about Google Analytics, what my Adsense partnership means to me, you, this site and what happens when you come here, etc…as I originally wrote it when we landed the sponsorship of Google for our little website. Thanks for your support & vote 4 Hillary Clinton for president.
-The Publisher, July 2016———————————————————————————–
Our practices & policies regarding bots/readers/viewers/listeners follows:
First of all, if “you” are a bot trying to spam this site, you won’t be able to. This site has been comment AND email-spam-free since September 2014 when we made some security upgrades (not sold in stores) that detect the bot…tell it to “keep walkin'” …and it listens…I won’t bore you with PGP or RSA or the little extra spam and hack protection I and my cousin put together. I have gone into the deep-interwebs and dared black-hats to try to hit the site… when you send an email to chris@tapper7.com? It is more secure than Gmail…by a quite a bit actually. If you leave a comment…you have to jump through about 7 CAPTCHAS I set up…that had the effect of keeping comment-spam @ ZERO and making it such a b—- to leave a comment that few of you do anymore…I understand that and believe me I apologize on behalf of the Spammers I started a war against in 2014. We blew up the comment section and we are both at fault. j/k…it’s THEIR FAULT.
Victory – they and their bots don’t bother me anymore.
Loss – it is such a a hassle to comment, they’ve become scarce…fair trade-off, my analytics don’t lie, which is what concerns us on this pg.
This Web site is monetized by Google Adsense because I provide a great deal of quality, original, innovative content that is of interest to their high-level sponsors. This also means that ME and THIS SITE get audited and background-checked heavily and often. I mentioned before in an ethics piece that Google is pretty much on lock-down when it comes to affiliate-sponsorships. Google is the most exclusive and expensive ad agency in the world…they will only place adverts on high quality, secure, w3c-compliant providers of informative/entertaining and original content. You may have noticed that everyone from GM to YouTube, to Graduate Universities, to Law Firms to Google themselves have chosen to post ads in the places I allow (and properly label) as ad-space (PER SPJ Code-of-Ethics).
That said…I have an upgraded Google-analytics account that they donated to this site — sounds generous but it’s really to help THEM increase revenue…we simply get access to enhanced data and reports by proxy, it’s info we’d like to have and thus win-win. I assure you the bigger win is to Google.
1. When you come to my site, Google shoots a little Javascript into your Web browser to gather data on you…mainly so they can figure out which ads to stuff in your face….(I keep them at a minimum). Check Help on your browser if you do not wish Google to do this. In Chrome (which half of you use…ill get to that) you can go into their Help section (Click the the 3 horizontal stripes at upper-right) and check out all the readme’s and forums if you want to disable Javascript. Firefox and Safari also enable this.
2. Immediately, your general location is determined. City/State-Province-Territory-Region….no matter where you live. 90% of you are reading this from w/in the contiguous 48. So if you live in Sioux City, Iowa…Google wants that data immediately for regional adverts and this data is reported to me. IT DOES NOT GIVE ME addresses/or any of your “dox.” Rest assured, as one especially malicious spam network that encompassed Arizona, India and Malaysia…got into my Youtube account…caused innumerable headaches for me…I tracked the gentleman from AZ to his home addy, I had the name of his whole family and all their addresses and phone numbers (I had more than that but it gives you an idea of how deeply good guys and bad guys go now). I WILL NEVER DO THAT TO YOU DEAR READER…this individual and his buddies crossed the line so I crossed theirs…I did not publish this man’s dox, but I sent them to him. All their Javascript attacks on my Youtube ceased immediately after. Full disclosure, their attack was forcing my YT account to “like” low-grade, pornogrphic, xenophobic rap videos and if you Googled “Chris Welke” … when you got to the text-snippet below my YT-account page, it said to “Click for XXX videos” ...nice huh? Note that all of this existed due to a security flaw on YouTube, it had no effect on this Web site or any of its admins, readers, users or casual visitors. I mention it as informational example. In general, consider yourself to be IN PUBLIC when on the Web – there are bad guys and [essentially]good guys like me who chase after them. On that note, you should know that I do not communicate with law enforcement unless in an an emergency OR related to a news item. Why is this relevant? If you get attacked online in the method my YT account was and don’t know how to fix it, contacting the police will do you no good. Even if they cared, no one works there who knows anything about programming nee sub-category Web-security….there are many other (and many better) engineers than me, but most will charge $100/hr and the rest will charge more or less, but are themselves not legit –– they can’t help you. Contact me if anyone has you up against a wall. I can make them stop — and I don’t want or need payment. Fairness, justice and protecting my audience is its own reward.
3. Google wants to know which device you are using to access this site. Mobile devices are the most valuable to their customers (according to them), this is likely because more people (w/ more $) use their cell-phones to go on the Web than desktop or laptop computers. I thus optimized my site to look and run BETTER on mobile than on a desktop or laptop (although as of  1/2016 I noticed some strangeness with the way the site looks on iOS 9 – as always, design is a WIP, dear reader. Thus I know your OS, browser and device you used to access my site).
4. Google prefers “Organic” traffic – they prefer (and I deliver) a site that gets most of its pageviews/sessions from Google searches. I publish info people are looking for … so naturally my site comes up in a search, frequently on pg1. Other ways to get to my site are via referral (Social Networks) and Direct. Direct are my regulars…they have the site bookmarked or they just type tap…and my site caches right in and they hit it. I have a healthy mix of direct, organic and referral. This data is reported to me daily.
5. Google NEEDS to know which pages you went to…how long you spent on my site, your “bounce rate” (100%=a bot that walked past, 50% = a real person who stopped to read a clip or check out my multimedia content) On avg…real human beings spend between 7-20 minutes on my site and read three Web pages. This information is also regularly reported to me.
6. Google is always interested in whether my site is growing or not…their customers want to know….so ideally, you want most visitors to be NEW and then you want them to come BACK. I have been very successful with this. Again – I know if ur a n00b or a regular.
7. Google recently rolled out a program that claims to determine the sex of the user. I feel this data is bogus (the computer doesn’t know if you are a man or a woman) if you have a Google account however…and you TOLD them…then they know, they report it to me
and as expected…most readers are male, 18-49, Caucasian and Educated. No surprise there. Don’t get me wrong…20 percent of you are female according the report, you are welcome and many of the best clips ever written were inspired or partially outlined BY a woman. All creeds colors, races, whatever you want to call it are welcome here…you know my tasteless jokes are made with love. I’m a Jew…I know what it’s all about. Trust Me. (you can!)
8. Google especially likes to box you into affinity categories. This is so they can jam even BETTER ads all up in yo’ face. Normally, my number 1 AC is “Technophiles” – whatever that means…then “Music Lovers,” during Xmas “Shopaholics” showed up – see my post on that I was not aware that you could become powerless over Shopahol…anyway, “News Junkies,” Movie Lovers, “News/Political Junkies” …”Law Aficionados,” “Law experts/Lawyers,” “Fitness Buffs,” Doctors or “Health-Care Professionals,” Book-Readers, Researchers and Students pretty much round out the rest of you. This is all reported to me.
9. I’m given a bead on your age. 40 percent are between 18-34, 30 percent round up the 30 and 40-somethings, 20 percent are between 50-70…and the 5 & 5 go to kids and the elderly. My site HAS meta-data on it that IDs it to ALL WEB BROWSERS as “mature” (as opposed to “adult”– Google will not sponsor “adult sites”) I put that there because it is the ethically right thing to do. I am bailing on a lot of traffic from kids, because most parents block sites that are tagged “mature” (again see your browser-help if you would like to block “mature” or “adult” sites) I labeled “mature” it mature because:
a) I investigate cold-case homicides and rapes
b) I discuss violence, drugs, war, disease, terror and all sorts of awful things occasionally that may not be appropriate for lil guys & gals.
c) I am an aficionado of cringe jokes, which means I make jokes DESIGNED TO OFFEND sometimes….ppl who are into the humor (Mostly OnA and Phil Hendrie fans) eat it up..it’s the reason many come to the site, but if visiting for the 1st time you may find a misogynistic comment, an AIDs joke or a racist joke…I don’t care…I say what I want and if I think it’s funny…YOU WILL READ ABOUT IT. Ppl s— talk my “Jewishness” all the time— that is ok…so long as it is done w/ love behind it. I have had to learn to distinguish between comments made that are “just breakin balls” and hate comments…sometimes —USUALLY—jokes are just jokes. getting OT here…
10. Main Point – I will never share any data about you that I have with anyone. ever. If you are MY READER/LISTENER? I got mad love for you no matter who you are or what you believe, whether you hate me or love me…if you visit this site-thank you. Know that I have an obligation to protect your identity and AT MOST I give shout-outs to major urban centers and sometimes countries that are visiting regularly…most of the time That’s San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles, Ventura County, SLO County, Salinas, The Bay Area, Stockton, Sac, Seattle, Texas, Nevada, Chicago and Suburbs, Florida, North Carolina, Washington DC, NY/NJ…Russia, the UK and Brazil and Japan.
Anyway, I been meanin to do this so there ya go..if you have questions or comments…wade through the CAPTCHAS or hit me direct – chris@tapper7.com NO ONE WILL READ YOUR COMMENT/EMAIL EXCEPT ME (It’s mathematically impossible). Rem. the (old) slugline of my site: “Information is free” to add to that “Information is free-FROM ME” —“Information about you is PROTECTED and SACRED to me.” All emails sent are secure, I will never place pop-up ads on this site, you will NEVER get a bug/virus/adware/spyware/malware from visiting this site.

Tapper7.com is the Kittner-Redoubt of Web sites

Much love to my 3,000 regular readers and the 150,000 who were “just passin through recently.” It’s all good. I will NEVER try to sell you anything and I will NEVER lie to you (don’t believe that…) but srsly…it’s not in my nature, I’m an awful poker player. I swore an oath as a professional journalist to bring you facts + my interpretation of facts – nada mas. You won’t find any conspiracy theories here. Only clips, articles, web highlights, news, reviews, tech tips, tech advice, security warnings and spammer/scammer alerts…and the odd AIDs joke. -The Publisher, Chris “Tapper” Welke