Privacy

What we collect

This site is a set of static pages. It has no accounts, no logins, no comment system and no newsletter, and it never asks you for personal information. The hosting provider keeps standard server request logs for security and to see which pages are used.

Analytics

This site uses Google Analytics 4 to count visits and see which pages people use. It records the page you opened, roughly where you are (city level, from your IP address, which Google shortens and does not store), which site or search sent you, and what kind of device and browser you used. It does not record your name or your email.

The ZIP code you can type into the calculator is looked up in your browser and is never sent anywhere; only the pay area it points to is counted.

Google Analytics also counts some things on its own: this site has its standard “enhanced measurement” switched on. It counts each page you open, and a change of address within a page, which happens here when the comparison page writes the pair you picked into its address; scrolling to near the bottom of a page; following a link to another site, such as OPM or the Bureau of Labor Statistics (which link); and opening a file from a link, such as a PDF, CSV or spreadsheet on those sites (which file). The same measurement also covers site search, videos and forms, but this site has no search box, no videos and no form that is sent, so those parts have nothing to count.

On top of that, this site sends three events of its own: using the calculator or the pay bar of a locality page (the grade, step, pay plan and pay area you picked, once per page), following a link in the text of a page to another page of this site (which page), and scrolling a table sideways (that it happened, nothing more).

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, no analytics cookie is set at all. For those regions the measurement runs in a cookieless mode by default: signals arrive without an identifier being stored in your browser. Elsewhere, Google Analytics sets its own cookies to tell one visit from the next.

The advertising code described below is set to request non-personalized advertisements everywhere, and advertising storage on this site's own pages stays switched off; the code keeps one setting of its own in your browser, named in the list below. Visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are served either no advertisements or Google's limited ads, which are not personalized and for which Google uses cookies and local storage only to detect invalid traffic and fraud; Google does not require a consent choice for that, which is why no consent banner is shown here. If personalized advertising is ever switched on, a consent choice will appear before it, and this page will say so first.

Analytics data is kept for 14 months and then deleted. If you would rather not be counted anywhere at all, Google publishes a browser add-on that turns Google Analytics off across every site, and any tracker blocker will do the same for this one; nothing on this site depends on analytics, so blocking it changes nothing you can see.

What your browser loads

Your browser contacts two outside services on the pages of this site, named below. The hosts Google's advertising code contacts are chosen by Google and can change. You can compare this list with the network tab of your browser.

• Google Analytics 4 — counts page views so we can see which pages are read. Your browser fetches it from www.googletagmanager.com and it contacts a regional Google collector, such as region1.google-analytics.com. It sets its own cookies, under its own policy, outside the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.
• Google AdSense — the advertising code, plus Google's own check on the quality of the traffic it sees. Your browser fetches it from pagead2.googlesyndication.com and it contacts ep1.adtrafficquality.google and ep2.adtrafficquality.google. It sets no cookies here. It keeps one setting of its own in your browser, named google_auto_fc_cmp_setting.

Besides these, the hosting provider keeps standard server request logs for security and capacity.

This page changes before anything new starts loading on this site, not after: it describes what your browser in fact loads, not what the publisher intends to do later.

Advertising

This site uses Google AdSense. Its code is on every page except the “page not found” error page, and from the first page you open Google AdSense is told your IP address, your browser and which page you are on. It sets no cookies on this site's pages, because advertising storage is switched off on every page; it does keep one setting of its own in your browser, named above. Advertisements, where they appear, are requested as non-personalized and are labeled “Advertisement”.

Whenever advertisements are served on this site, third parties, including Google, may place and read cookies on your browser, or use web beacons and similar technologies, to collect information as a result of that ad serving. This site requests non-personalized advertisements only, so that information is not used to build an advertising profile of you: for non-personalized advertisements Google still uses cookies, but for frequency capping, aggregated ad reporting and to combat fraud and abuse rather than for targeting.

How Google uses this information is set out on its own page: How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.

You can turn off personalized advertising from Google in Google’s Ads Settings, and from many other advertising companies at aboutads.info.

US state privacy rights

Residents of states with comprehensive privacy laws have rights to access, correct and delete personal information, and to opt out of its sale or of targeted advertising. This site sells no personal information. Its advertising code is set to request non-personalized advertisements, so nothing here is used to target an advertisement at you.