Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 26, 2026

The short version

MinesNearMe.com has no accounts, no logins, and no sign-up forms. We set no cookies of our own, and we do not write your searches to any database. The site does use Google Analytics, does show advertising, and loads maps and address suggestions from other companies’ servers — and each of those means someone other than us sees something about your visit. One detail deserves its own section, because it is not obvious: the address you search for is carried in the web address of the results page.

The address you search is in the page URL

When you look up a location, the results page has an address like /lookup?q=123+Main+St,+Denver,+CO. Your search sits in the URL rather than being posted invisibly. That is what lets you bookmark a result, refresh it, or send someone the exact search you ran.

It also means your search is part of the page address, and page addresses travel with every request. Your search text is therefore visible to:

• our own server and its access logs,
• Cloudflare, which sits in front of this site and keeps ordinary short-term logs,
• Google Analytics, which records the full address of the page you viewed — this includes the address you searched,
• advertising partners, which receive the address of the page an ad appeared on, and
• your own browser history, and anywhere you paste or share the link.

We are telling you this plainly because people use this site to check their own home. We do not save your searches to a database, we do not associate them with you, and we build no profile from them — but “not stored by us” is not the same as “not seen by anyone,” and it would be misleading to write only the first half. If you would rather not have a specific street address recorded anywhere, search by ZIP code, city, or county instead — the results for mines within a 25-mile radius are effectively the same.

Address suggestions, geocoding, and “use my current location”

There are three separate paths, and they behave differently:

• While you type, suggestions come from Esri’s ArcGIS geocoding service, requested by your browser directly. Esri receives your IP address and whatever you have typed so far. This happens before you submit anything.
• When you submit a search, the location is turned into coordinates by OpenStreetMap’s Nominatim service, requested by our server. On this path Nominatim sees the address but not your IP, because the request comes from us rather than from your browser.
• If you press “use my current location,” your browser asks your permission and then hands us your coordinates, which are placed into the page URL as latitude and longitude. Your browser decides how precise those are; we do not request continuous or background location, and we do not store the result.

Esri’s handling of what it receives is governed by Esri’s privacy policy, and OpenStreetMap’s by the OSM Foundation privacy policy.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 to see which pages get visited and how people move through the site. It uses cookies and reports to us only in aggregate — we cannot see individual visitors. As noted above, the page addresses it records include search text. You can opt out with the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

Advertising

Advertising on this site is served through Mediavine Journey. Journey and its advertising partners may use cookies, device identifiers and similar technologies to select and measure ads, including ads based on your activity on other sites. What they typically receive includes your IP address, browser and device type, the pages you viewed and the time of your visit.

You can limit or opt out of personalised advertising here:

• Digital Advertising Alliance opt-out (US)
• Your Online Choices (EU/UK)
• Network Advertising Initiative opt-out
• Google Ads Settings

Mediavine’s own disclosures are at mediavine.com/privacy-policy. If you are in a region with consent requirements, a consent prompt is presented before personalised ads are served, and you can change your choice at any time through that prompt.

Other companies whose servers your browser contacts

Loading this site fetches a few things from elsewhere. Each of those companies sees your IP address simply because your browser asked them for a file:

• CARTO — the base map tiles on our maps.
• unpkg — the Leaflet mapping library.
• Esri — address suggestions, as above.
• Google — analytics, as above.
• Mediavine Journey and its advertising partners — ads, as above.

OpenStreetMap’s Nominatim is contacted by our server rather than your browser, so it does not see your IP address.

Server logs

Our web server and Cloudflare record ordinary access information — IP address, browser type, addresses requested, timestamps — for security and debugging. These are not sold or shared.

What we do not do

We do not require or accept accounts. We set no cookies of our own. We have no contact forms, mailing list, or newsletter, and we do not collect email addresses. We do not write your searches or your coordinates to any database. We do not sell personal information.

Your rights

If you are a California resident, the CCPA/CPRA gives you the right to know what personal information is collected about you and to opt out of its sale or sharing. We do not sell personal information ourselves; to opt out of personalised advertising specifically, use the links above.

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or another jurisdiction with comparable law, you have rights of access, correction, deletion and restriction under the GDPR or its local equivalent. Because we hold no accounts and store no searches, we usually have nothing on file to return or delete — but for any request or question, write to p@pwhite.org.

Children

This site is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.

About the mine data itself

Mine records come from the USGS Mineral Resources Data System and the Mine Safety and Health Administration. These are public-record federal datasets about mine sites and the companies that operate them. Operator and company names appear because they are part of the public record; nothing on this site derives from private personal information, and we add nothing to those records.

Security and changes

The site is served over HTTPS. No website can promise absolute security, but we take reasonable measures. If this policy changes materially, the “last updated” date above will change.

Contact

Privacy questions: p@pwhite.org