About and Privacy - AtCharlie - Find Animal Rescues

Revised 10/04/2024

Steve Veigel (31 Degrees outside having coffee)

AtCharlie does not use and will not use “AI” to produce any articles. It is all me (Steve Veigel of Virginia Beach, Virginia). I do not knowingly or willingly use any AI product that searches you out or seeks to use your information. I do not get paid for by or use advertisers with obnoxious video ads between every paragraph you’re trying to read.

This is an active evolving website. The date of the last website update is proudly posted at the top under the header on full display.

I, Steve Veigel (S.Veigel) of Virginia, WILL NEVER ASK YOU FOR MONEY. If anyone contacts you claiming they represent AtCharlie, AtCharlie.com, AtCharlie, Inc. or Steve Veigel of AtCharlie, asking you for money to help animals, report them as fraud.

Note: This happened on Facebook (META) once via FB Messenger.

The use of the word “donation” on this website means this: I am asking you to use my listings to find an animal rescue in your area and to donate money, time or material needs to them directly (NOT ME).

This website is: My dime. My time. My way.

I: Mission Statement

To inform and entertain the public regarding animals, rescue efforts and animal care. To promote and encourage local and national support for rescues. To elevate rescues by providing free quality informative listings and to also do so by providing web presence they may not have the funds or resources to provide for themselves.

II: Atcharlie Rescue Listings are Unique

Instead of getting just the “Top Ten” search results mixed with advertisements when you are searching for an animal rescue my listings use a table format. That way you can see more listings in one view and quickly scroll up and down through an entire U.S. State to find what you want. You’ll also see each listing sorted by city/town AND each listing tells you the “Focus” of the rescue; i.e. Cats, Dogs, Cats and Dogs, Horses, Farm, Birds, Various. With this added feature it is even easier to find things that aren’t always in the name.

Also! Using the built in search feature of your laptop or tablet, I have a selection to show you how to highlight a particular word in my listings. For example, if you are looking just for cats, you can highlight every listing in a State that has “cats” with just a couple clicks. Looking for horses? Highlight every listing that has “horses”.

These listings are reviewed annually to ensure the link is still valid, that the organization appears to still be in business and that there are no – as best as I can determine – obvious or egregious problems.

How do I get my rescue listed for free?

III: About the people I write about

I write about the better side of human nature. I do not get involved with the personal politics or religious views of the people in my articles unless they are actively engaged in some egregious act. Here it’s about the animals. If they’re doing something special to help animals I support that. But their political or religious views do not necessarily reflect upon my views or the views of AtCharlie.

IV: Privacy Statement

Photos and Content:

All the web design, photos, articles and listings, unless otherwise noted, are accomplished by Steven N. Veigel of Virginia Beach, Virginia (No not from Texas or Australia or other) and some family members. Photos contained within an article about an organization are often sent in by someone from that organization (since I cannot travel) with permission granted for me to use their photos in the article. (Please no stock photos).

If I request and obtain permission to use photos belonging to an organization I’m writing about, those are their photos. I am only using them for the expressed purpose of illustrating the article about them. I also note in the article who provided the photos and/permission. I do not knowingly or willfully provide or sell their photos to other persons or entities.

I may sell a few photos of my own for use by others, if I think they are of good quality and content. But only those I produce and own. Here I would ask you to note. If you see a photo on another website (given that I may sell some) that is the same photo I use here, it is my photography (unless I otherwise noted). I DO NOT USE STOCK PHOTOS.

Voice Recordings:

I prefer to record conversations when I’m working on a story/article, so I get facts and context correct. I ask permission to do this. Since these stories/articles are supportive, “off the record” private conversations or comments means “off the record”. I DO NOT intentionally or willfully or knowingly post or distribute these recordings. I DO NOT intentionally or willfully or knowingly allow these conversations to be posted or distributed.

Website Owner, Developer and Management:

For general information the word “I” here refers to Steven (Steve) Veigel of Virginia Beach, Virginia. Domain/Admin: Steve Veigel. Web Developer: Steve Veigel. Writer: Steve Veigel (unless otherwise noted). Photos by (unless otherwise noted): Steve Veigel and family. Listings – Production/research and annual review: Steve Veigel. Layout and content: Steve Veigel. Content and SEO database development and management: Steve Veigel. Web Hosting: IPage.com. Web application: Word Press. Word Press theme: Responsive Pro.

Malware scanning by SiteLock.com

Use of cookies or web use tracking:

This website does not knowingly or willingly employ or deploy data mining applications or services. There are no products for sale and no financial applications. There are no email, email contact or email tracking applications. There is no server or database owned or operated by AtCharlie that stores personal information. The servers used by AtCharlie are only the web hosting services owned by IPage.com.

I try to keep this website clean and functional. On May 23, 2020 I requested a CookieBot.com GDPR Compliance scan of atcharlie.com. GDPR means “General Data Protection Regulation” mandated by the EU. The subsequent report indicated that there were 4 cookies used by my website. Three of those cookies would not be compliant unless I provided an “Opt Out” button and all of those 3 were Facebook cookies. To make my website more compliant I removed the Facebook “Like” and “Share” buttons that were using my website for tracking and advertising data.

If you wish to follow me on Facebook, you can’t. I quit Facebook (META) in 2023 because they irritated me 1 too many times. Blocking me for 1 hour, with no explanation, because I was clicking animal rescue posts. Maybe too many. Who knows? The algorithm never tells you and there is nothing in the P.R. style “Community Standards” to explain it. I did, however, send them an improvement suggestion.

To my knowledge there is 1 cookie used by my website as of May 28, 2020. This is a cookie called PHPSESSID. It is a cookie used by the “Webserver” and it “Preserves user session state across page requests”. According to the CookieBot compliance report this is a basic web function cookie with “Adequate” GDPR compliance.

I do receive a usage report from IPage.com but that’s only a few columns of numbers. They include average, total monthly and total annual visits to my website.

In the name of transparency: On August 16, 2022, I ran another CookieBot scan, but this was a free report (not a full site scan). Based on this report atcharlie.com was still compliant with zero cookies detected.

Web Links:

I sometimes provide a link to a non-profit or an information website. I provide links to rescues that I do articles on. I provide links to as many rescue organization websites I can find. However, I avoid “Deep Links” (where someone links to a page within another site) unless I’m referencing a specific research page or definition. When I link to a non-profit or information website I think is meaningful I first get permission, link only to the Home Page and post who gave me permission to do so. Within my listings I only provide a link to each rescue’s Home page and I only provide the basic public information they post so you can go to view their website or contact that rescue organization. When you click on these links they open in a seperate tab.