SOFX PRIVACY POLICY
Last Updated: March 26, 2026
Introduction
SOFX is a defense and special operations news and media platform delivering reporting, analysis, and commentary on global armed conflict, military technology, and international security affairs. SOFX connects its audience with timely, relevant content through its website and email newsletter.
SOFX also operates SOFX.NET, a privacy-focused email service founded by Special Operations veterans. SOFX.NET provides encrypted, human-verified email accounts to subscribers.
This privacy policy applies to www.sofx.com, the SOFX newsletter, SOFX.NET, and all other SOFX consumer-facing web properties and services (collectively, the “Services”). Any information that you provide to or that is collected by any SOFX property is covered by this Privacy Policy and the applicable Terms of Service.
BY ACCESSING OR USING ANY SOFX SERVICE, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ, UNDERSTAND, AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THIS PRIVACY POLICY AND OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS, DO NOT USE SOFX. THIS POLICY APPLIES TO REGISTERED MEMBERS, SUBSCRIBERS, AND VISITORS ALIKE.
Information We Collect
Information You Provide Directly
We collect personal information you voluntarily provide when you interact with our Services, including:
Account and profile information: When you create an account on SOFX.com or SOFX.NET, we collect your name, email address, password, and any other information you provide during registration.
Newsletter subscription: When you subscribe to the SOFX newsletter, we collect your email address and any stated preferences.
Comments and submissions: If you post comments or submit content, we collect the information you include.
Survey responses: If you respond to surveys or polls conducted through our website or newsletter, we collect your responses.
Job interest submissions: If you express interest in career opportunities through our recruiting partner Blast Talent, we collect the information you submit (such as your name, email, resume, and professional background). See “Recruiting and Employment Services” below.
Communications: If you contact us via email at [email protected], we collect your email address and the contents of your message.
Information Collected Automatically
When you access our Services, we automatically collect certain information, including:
Device and browser information: IP address, browser type and version, operating system, device type, and language preferences.
Usage data: Pages visited, links clicked, time spent on pages, referring URLs, and general interaction patterns with our website and newsletter content.
Newsletter engagement: Open rates, click-through data, and engagement metrics collected through our email platform.
Cookies and similar technologies: We use cookies, web beacons, pixel tags, and similar tracking technologies as described in our Cookie Policy below.
Information Collected by Third Parties
Our advertising and analytics partners may collect information about your activity on our website. This includes Ezoic (our programmatic advertising partner) and Google Analytics. See the “Advertising and Programmatic Ad Services” and “Cookie Policy” sections below for details.
How We Use Your Information
We use the information we collect for the following purposes:
To provide and maintain our Services, including delivering news content, newsletters, and email services.
To communicate with you about your account, subscriptions, and changes to our policies.
To personalize your experience and recommend content relevant to your interests.
To display advertising, including personalized advertising through our programmatic ad partners.
To connect you with career and employment opportunities through our recruiting partner Blast Talent.
To analyze usage patterns, improve our Services, and develop new features.
To conduct surveys and collect feedback.
To detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, abuse, or violations of our policies.
To comply with legal obligations and enforce our rights.
Legal Basis for Processing (EEA/UK Visitors)
If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA) or the United Kingdom, we process your personal data under the following legal bases:
Consent: Where you have given clear consent for us to process your personal data for a specific purpose, such as subscribing to our newsletter or accepting cookies.
Legitimate interests: Where processing is necessary for our legitimate interests (such as operating and improving our Services, delivering relevant advertising, and ensuring security) and those interests are not overridden by your rights.
Contractual necessity: Where processing is necessary to fulfill a contract with you, such as providing SOFX.NET email services to subscribers.
Legal obligation: Where processing is necessary to comply with a legal obligation.
Information Sharing and Disclosure
SOFX does not sell your personal information. We do not rent or share your personal information with third parties for their own marketing purposes. We may share information in the following limited circumstances:
Service providers: We share information with third-party service providers who perform services on our behalf, such as email delivery, website hosting, and analytics. These providers are contractually obligated to use your information only for the purposes of providing services to us.
Advertising partners: Through our use of Ezoic and programmatic advertising, certain information (as described in the Advertising section below) is shared with advertising partners to serve relevant ads. This sharing is governed by Ezoic’s privacy policy and the preferences you set through our cookie consent mechanism.
Recruiting partner (Blast Talent): If you submit your information in connection with career or employment opportunities listed on SOFX, we may share your submitted information (such as your name, email address, resume, and professional background) with our recruiting partner Blast Talent. You may also be directed to Blast Talent’s website or job board to complete your submission. Once your information is provided to Blast Talent, it is subject to Blast Talent’s own privacy policy. We encourage you to review their privacy practices before submitting your information.
Legal requirements: We may disclose information if required by law, legal process, or government request, or if we believe disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, your safety, or the safety of others.
Business transfers: In the event of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction.
Recruiting and Employment Services
SOFX partners with Blast Talent to present career and employment opportunities relevant to the defense and special operations community. When you interact with job listings or recruiting content on SOFX:
You may be directed to Blast Talent’s website or job board to view opportunities or submit your application. Any information you provide directly to Blast Talent is governed by their privacy policy.
If you submit your information through a form or feature on SOFX in connection with a job opportunity, we may pass that information along to Blast Talent so they can contact you regarding relevant positions.
The information shared with Blast Talent may include your name, email address, phone number, resume or CV, and any other information you provide in your submission.
SOFX does not use job submission data for advertising purposes. Your recruiting information is shared solely with Blast Talent for employment-related purposes.
If you have questions about how Blast Talent handles your data, please contact them directly or review their privacy policy on their website.
Advertising and Programmatic Ad Services
SOFX is partially supported by advertising revenue. We use Ezoic Inc. (“Ezoic”) to manage third-party programmatic advertising on our website. While we do not share your Personal Information directly with advertisers, Ezoic and its advertising partners may collect and use certain data to serve relevant ads.
Ezoic Services
This website uses the services of Ezoic Inc. (“Ezoic”), including to manage third-party interest-based advertising. Ezoic may employ a variety of technologies on this website, including tools to serve content, display advertisements and enable advertising to visitors of this website, which may utilize first and third-party cookies.
A cookie is a small text file sent to your device by a web server that enables the website to remember information about your browsing activity. First-party cookies are created by the site you are visiting, while third-party cookies are set by domains other than the one you’re visiting. Ezoic and our partners may place third-party cookies, tags, beacons, pixels, and similar technologies to monitor interactions with advertisements and optimize ad targeting.
Please note that disabling cookies may limit access to certain content and features on the website, and rejecting cookies does not eliminate advertisements but will result in non-personalized advertising. You can find more information about cookies and how to manage them at allaboutcookies.org.
The following information may be collected, used, and stored in a cookie when serving personalized ads:
Ezoic and its partners may use this data in combination with information that has been independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements across various platforms and websites. Ezoic’s partners may also gather additional data, such as unique IDs, advertising IDs, geolocation data, usage data, device information, traffic data, referral sources, and interactions between users and websites or advertisements, to create audience segments for targeted advertising across different devices, browsers, and apps.
You can find more information about interest-based advertising and how to manage your preferences at networkadvertising.org. You can view Ezoic’s privacy policy here, or for additional information about Ezoic’s advertising and other partners, you can view Ezoic’s advertising partners here.
Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
SOFX does not sell your personal information as defined under applicable state privacy laws. However, certain data sharing with advertising partners for purposes of serving targeted ads may constitute “sharing” under some state laws. You may opt out of this sharing at any time by:
Clicking “Reject” or adjusting your preferences on the cookie consent banner displayed on our website.
Enabling Global Privacy Control (GPC) or another recognized universal opt-out preference signal in your browser. We honor GPC and similar opt-out signals as valid requests to opt out of sharing for targeted advertising.
Contacting us directly at [email protected] with your request.
Third-Party Analytics
We use third-party analytics services, including Google Analytics, to evaluate the performance of our website and understand how visitors interact with our content. These services may collect information such as your IP address, browser type, pages visited, and time spent on pages. We do not share personally identifiable information (such as your name or email address) with analytics providers.
You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, available at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Data Retention
We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to provide you with our Services and fulfill the purposes described in this policy. Specific retention periods include:
Account information: Retained while your account is active and for a reasonable period after closure for legal and operational purposes.
SOFX.NET email accounts: Account data is retained while the subscription is active. Upon cancellation, account data is deleted within 90 days, subject to any legal retention obligations.
Newsletter subscriptions: Your email address and preferences are retained while you remain subscribed. Upon unsubscribing, your information is removed from active mailing lists within 30 days, though suppression records may be maintained to honor your opt-out.
Website usage data and analytics: Aggregated and anonymized usage data may be retained indefinitely. Identifiable log data is retained for no longer than 24 months.
Job submissions: Information submitted in connection with recruiting opportunities is retained for up to 12 months after submission, unless you request earlier deletion.
Comments and user-submitted content: Retained indefinitely unless you request deletion.
Your Privacy Rights
Rights for All Users
Regardless of your location, you may:
Request access to the personal information we hold about you.
Request correction of inaccurate personal information.
Request deletion of your personal information, subject to legal retention requirements.
Opt out of promotional emails by clicking the “unsubscribe” link in any marketing email.
Manage your cookie preferences through the consent banner on our website.
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at [email protected]. We will respond to your request within 30 days, or within the timeframe required by applicable law.
Additional Rights for California Residents (CCPA/CPRA)
If you are a California resident, you have the following additional rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act:
Right to know: You may request that we disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the sources of that information, the purposes for collection, and the categories of third parties with whom we share it.
Right to delete: You may request deletion of your personal information, subject to certain exceptions.
Right to correct: You may request that we correct inaccurate personal information.
Right to opt out of sharing: You may opt out of the sharing of your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. See “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” above.
Right to non-discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your privacy rights.
We honor Global Privacy Control (GPC) and other recognized opt-out preference signals as valid opt-out requests under California law.
Additional Rights for EEA/UK Residents (GDPR)
If you are located in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you have the following additional rights under the General Data Protection Regulation:
Right of access: You may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Right to rectification: You may request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
Right to erasure: You may request that we delete your personal data in certain circumstances.
Right to restrict processing: You may request that we restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
Right to data portability: You may request a copy of your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
Right to object: You may object to our processing of your personal data based on legitimate interests, including for direct marketing purposes.
Right to withdraw consent: Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time.
To exercise these rights, contact us at [email protected]. If you believe we have not adequately addressed your concerns, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.
Additional Rights Under Other State Laws
Residents of states with comprehensive privacy laws (including but not limited to Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Texas, Oregon, Montana, Delaware, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Indiana, Kentucky, and Rhode Island) may have similar rights to those described above, including the right to access, correct, delete, and opt out of targeted advertising and data sales. We honor universal opt-out mechanisms including Global Privacy Control as valid opt-out requests under all applicable state laws. To exercise your rights, contact us at [email protected].
SOFX.NET Email Service
SOFX.NET is a privacy-focused email service operated by SOFX. The following additional provisions apply specifically to SOFX.NET subscribers:
Account data: We collect your name, chosen email address, password (stored in encrypted form), and payment information (processed by our third-party payment processor; we do not store full payment card details).
Email content: SOFX.NET does not read, scan, or analyze the contents of your emails for advertising or any other purpose. Email content is stored on our servers solely for the purpose of delivering email services.
Logging: We retain minimal server logs necessary for security, abuse prevention, and service maintenance. Logs may include connection timestamps, IP addresses, and message metadata (sender, recipient, subject line). Logs are retained for no longer than 90 days.
No advertising: SOFX.NET does not serve ads and does not share subscriber data with advertising partners.
Deletion: Upon account cancellation, all email data and account information is permanently deleted within 90 days.
Two-factor authentication: SOFX.NET may require two-factor authentication for account security. 2FA configuration data is stored securely and deleted upon account cancellation.
Children’s Privacy
Our Services are not directed at individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18. If you are under 18, please do not use our Services. If we learn that we have inadvertently collected personal information from a child under 18, we will take steps to delete that information promptly. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us at [email protected].
Security
We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. However, no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. We are not responsible for the actions of hackers or other unauthorized third parties who breach our reasonable security measures.
International Data Transfers
SOFX and its servers are located in the United States. If you access our Services from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, which may have different data protection laws than your country of residence. By using our Services, you consent to this transfer. For EEA/UK users, we rely on applicable legal mechanisms (such as Standard Contractual Clauses) to ensure adequate protection of your personal data during international transfers.
Third-Party Links
Our Services may contain links to third-party websites and services, including but not limited to Blast Talent’s job board and Ezoic’s advertising partners. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those third-party sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party site you visit.
Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this privacy policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by posting the updated policy on our website with a revised “Last Updated” date. For significant changes, we may also notify you via email or through a prominent notice on our website. Your continued use of our Services after any changes take effect constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.
Contact Us
If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this privacy policy or our data practices, please contact us at:
Email: [email protected]
We will make every effort to respond to your inquiry within 30 days.
Effective Date of This Policy: March 26, 2026
SOFX COOKIE POLICY
Last Updated: March 26, 2026
What Are Cookies?
Cookies are small text files placed on your device by a web server when you visit a website. They allow the website to recognize your device and remember information about your visit, such as your preferences, login status, and browsing activity. Cookies may be “first-party” (set by the website you are visiting) or “third-party” (set by a domain other than the one you are visiting).
How We Use Cookies
SOFX uses cookies and similar technologies (including web beacons, pixel tags, and local storage) for the following purposes:
Strictly Necessary Cookies
These cookies are essential for the operation of our website. They enable core functions such as page navigation, secure area access, and basic website functionality. You cannot opt out of these cookies because the website cannot function properly without them.
Session management and login authentication
Security and fraud prevention
Load balancing and server routing
Cookie consent preference storage
Analytics and Performance Cookies
These cookies help us understand how visitors interact with our website by collecting information about pages visited, time spent on the site, error messages encountered, and similar usage data. This information is used in aggregate to improve our website. We use Google Analytics for this purpose.
Page view and session tracking
Site performance monitoring
Content engagement analysis
Advertising and Targeting Cookies
These cookies are placed by our advertising partner Ezoic and its network of demand partners to deliver personalized advertisements based on your browsing activity. They track your activity across websites to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant ads. These cookies may collect:
IP address and geolocation data
Device and browser information
Browsing history and interaction data
Advertising identifiers and unique IDs
Hashed email (if you have provided your email address)
For a full list of Ezoic’s advertising partners and the cookies they may place, visit www.ezoic.com/privacy-policy/advertising-partners.
Newsletter and Engagement Tracking
When you interact with our email newsletters, we may use tracking pixels and similar technologies to measure open rates, click-through rates, and engagement patterns. This data helps us improve our newsletter content and understand what topics are most relevant to our audience.
Your Cookie Choices
When you first visit our website, a cookie consent banner will give you the option to accept or reject non-essential cookies. You must have the ability to:
Accept all cookies: Enables all cookie categories, including analytics and advertising cookies.
Reject non-essential cookies: Only strictly necessary cookies will be placed. You will still see advertisements, but they will not be personalized based on your browsing activity.
Change your preferences: You can update your cookie preferences at any time by clicking the cookie settings link in our website footer.
Other Ways to Manage Cookies
Browser settings: Most web browsers allow you to control cookies through their settings. You can set your browser to refuse cookies, delete existing cookies, or alert you when a cookie is being placed. Note that disabling cookies may affect the functionality of our website.
Global Privacy Control (GPC): If you enable GPC or another recognized universal opt-out preference signal in your browser, we will treat this as a valid request to opt out of cookies used for targeted advertising and data sharing.
Google Analytics opt-out: You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing the browser add-on available at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Network Advertising Initiative (NAI): You can opt out of interest-based advertising from NAI members at www.networkadvertising.org/choices.
Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA): You can opt out of interest-based advertising at www.aboutads.info/choices.
Cookie Retention
Different cookies have different lifespans:
Session cookies: These are temporary cookies that expire when you close your browser.
Persistent cookies: These remain on your device for a set period or until you delete them. Analytics cookies are typically retained for up to 24 months. Advertising cookies may persist for up to 13 months, depending on the advertising partner.
Updates to This Cookie Policy
We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, or legal requirements. The “Last Updated” date at the top of this policy indicates when it was last revised.
Contact Us
If you have questions about our use of cookies, please contact us at:
Email: [email protected]
Effective Date of This Policy: March 26, 2026
