Privacy Policy
Website: https://pietrocottone.com
Last updated: November 2, 2026
- Introduction
Welcome to pietrocottone.com, the personal website of Pietro Cottone, Ph.D.
This website provides information about my scientific research, teaching activities, educational simulators, music, media appearances, and personal interests.
I respect the privacy of visitors and am committed to handling personal information responsibly, transparently, and securely.
This Privacy Policy explains what information may be collected when you visit the website, how it is used, when it may be shared with third-party service providers, and what choices and rights you may have regarding your information.
The website is operated from Massachusetts, United States, and is intended primarily for informational, educational, and personal purposes. It does not directly sell products or services.
- Website Owner and Contact Information
The website is owned and operated by:
Pietro Cottone, Ph.D.
Massachusetts, United States
Website: https://pietrocottone.com
For questions about this Privacy Policy, requests concerning your personal information, or other privacy-related inquiries, please use the Contact page.
This website is independently maintained and is not an official website of Boston University or Brainstoy LLC.
- Information We Collect
The amount and type of information collected depend on how you interact with the website.
3.1 Information you voluntarily provide
When you use the Contact form, you may provide:
- Your name.
- Your email address.
- The content of your message.
The form is designed to send this information directly by email to the website owner.
The form’s notification settings include the submission date and time. The standard notification does not intentionally include your IP address, browser user-agent information, or other unnecessary technical metadata.
Contact submissions are not configured to be stored in Elementor’s submissions database as a separate action.
Please avoid submitting sensitive medical, financial, or other confidential personal information through the general Contact form.
3.2 Information collected automatically
When you visit the website, certain technical information may be processed automatically by the hosting environment, WordPress, or security-related services.
Depending on the service involved, this may include:
- IP address.
- Browser and device information.
- Operating system.
- Date and time of requests.
- Pages or resources requested.
- Referring website or URL.
- Error reports and security-related events.
This information may be used to deliver website content, maintain website functionality, investigate technical problems, prevent abuse, and protect the security of the website.
The website does not intentionally use a dedicated visitor-behavior analytics platform such as Google Analytics.
Routine hosting logs and security monitoring should not be confused with advertising or behavioral profiling.
- How We Use Personal Information
Personal information may be processed for the following purposes:
Responding to communications: To receive and answer inquiries submitted through the Contact form.
Website operation: To deliver pages, media, and other resources and maintain the website’s technical functionality.
Security and spam prevention: To identify suspicious activity, prevent automated abuse, and protect the website against unauthorized access or malicious requests.
Maintenance and troubleshooting: To investigate errors, diagnose performance problems, maintain backups, and improve reliability.
Legal obligations: To comply with applicable legal requirements or respond to legitimate legal requests when necessary.
The website does not operate an email newsletter or use Contact form submissions for unsolicited marketing.
Personal information submitted through the Contact form is not sold to advertisers or used to create advertising profiles.
Where applicable data-protection legislation requires a specific legal basis for processing, the relevant grounds may include legitimate interests in operating and securing the website and responding to inquiries, consent for optional technologies where required, and compliance with applicable legal obligations.
- Contact Form and Google reCAPTCHA
The Contact form uses Elementor Pro and Google reCAPTCHA to help distinguish legitimate visitors from automated submissions and reduce spam.
Google reCAPTCHA may process technical information about your device, browser, IP address, and interactions with the website as part of its risk analysis.
It may also use cookies or similar technologies, including the _GRECAPTCHA cookie.
Information processed by Google is subject to Google’s applicable policies:
The website owner does not independently control Google’s processing practices.
Browser privacy settings or cookie restrictions may affect the operation of reCAPTCHA and, consequently, the availability of the Contact form.
- Cookies and Similar Technologies
This website uses WordPress and Complianz to manage cookies and related technologies.
Cookies are small data files stored on your device that can support website functionality, remember preferences, or enable interactions with external services.
Depending on the pages visited and the services used, cookies may fall into the following categories:
Functional cookies: Support essential website operations, security, and consent preferences.
Preference cookies: Remember certain visitor choices or settings.
Statistics cookies: May be used by integrated services to analyze activity, where applicable.
Marketing or third-party cookies: May be associated with external platforms or embedded content.
Not every category is necessarily used by the website itself.
Complianz provides a consent-management interface through which visitors can accept, deny, or adjust preferences for optional cookies, subject to the applicable configuration.
Certain third-party services or embedded content may still initiate technical requests when their resources are loaded. The presence of a consent banner does not necessarily prevent every external connection.
You can also manage or delete cookies through your browser settings.
Additional information about specific cookies, their purposes, and retention periods is provided through the website’s Cookie Policy and consent-management interface.
- Embedded Content and Third-Party Services
Some pages contain content provided by external websites.
7.1 YouTube
The website includes embedded YouTube videos, including video galleries.
When YouTube content loads, your browser may communicate directly with Google’s or YouTube’s servers. These services may receive technical information, including your IP address, browser information, and interaction data, and may use cookies or similar technologies according to their policies.
Depending on the implementation, these connections may occur when the page loads or when you interact with the embedded player, including when optional cookies have not been accepted.
YouTube’s processing of information is governed by Google’s Privacy Policy.
7.2 Spotify, Apple Music, and other music platforms
The Music section includes links to external streaming and distribution platforms, such as Spotify and Apple Music.
These platforms operate independently and have their own privacy policies.
If you follow a link to one of these services, any subsequent collection or processing of information by that service is governed by its policies.
7.3 Academic and research resources
The website may link to or display information derived from external academic services and institutions, including Boston University, The Scripps Research Institute, Google Scholar, research databases, scientific publishers, and other publicly available scholarly resources.
Some information may be retrieved or displayed using custom WordPress integrations.
Depending on how an integration operates, technical requests may be made by the website server or by a visitor’s browser.
External providers remain responsible for their own data-processing practices.
7.4 Other external websites
The website may contain links to news organizations, Amazon, Brainstoy LLC, scientific publications, and other third-party websites.
Following these links takes you to services that operate independently of pietrocottone.com.
This Privacy Policy does not govern how those external websites collect or use your information. Visitors are encouraged to review their respective privacy policies.
- Educational Simulators
The website provides interactive educational tools designed to help visitors explore concepts in pharmacology, physiology, neuroscience, and related scientific disciplines.
These tools are intended for educational use rather than clinical decision-making.
Using the simulators does not ordinarily require visitors to create an account or provide their name, email address, or other directly identifying information.
Certain simulator functions may perform calculations in the visitor’s browser, remember temporary settings, or generate files such as graphs and reports.
Normal website requests, hosting logs, and any external resources loaded by the simulator may still involve the processing of technical information.
If future simulator features introduce additional collection or transmission of personal information, this Privacy Policy will be updated accordingly.
Further details about the scientific limitations, permitted use, and intellectual property of these tools are provided in the separate Simulator Terms, License & Disclaimer.
- Website Security and Administration
The website uses WordPress and security-related tools to help protect against unauthorized access, malicious requests, and automated abuse.
Security and administration tools may process technical information, including IP addresses, login attempts, and security events.
Such information is used for website protection, maintenance, troubleshooting, and incident investigation.
Administrative access is restricted to authorized users. The website is not intended to provide general public account registration.
Reasonable technical and organizational precautions are used to protect information processed through the website. However, no website, electronic transmission, or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.
- Sharing of Information
Personal information may be accessible to third-party service providers when reasonably necessary to operate the website.
These may include:
- Website hosting and infrastructure providers.
- Email service providers used to receive contact messages.
- Website maintenance, backup, and security services.
- Google, in connection with reCAPTCHA and embedded YouTube content.
- Other external providers whose services are integrated into particular pages.
Information may also be disclosed where required by applicable law, a valid legal process, or when reasonably necessary to protect the website, its users, or the rights of others.
The website owner does not sell personal information collected through the Contact form or provide it to third parties for independent direct-marketing campaigns.
- Data Retention
Personal information is retained only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, subject to applicable legal obligations.
Contact messages: Correspondence may be retained while an inquiry is being handled and for a reasonable period afterward when needed for follow-up, recordkeeping, or legitimate administrative purposes.
Technical and security logs: Records may be retained according to the operational, security, and troubleshooting needs of the website and its service providers.
Backups: Website backups may contain information previously processed by WordPress or associated services. Backup copies are maintained according to the applicable backup and maintenance arrangements.
Cookie preferences: Consent choices and related technical information may be retained for periods determined by the relevant cookie-management configuration.
Information that is no longer reasonably needed will be deleted, anonymized, or allowed to expire under applicable retention procedures, subject to technical and legal limitations.
- International Visitors and Data Transfers
The website is operated from the United States and is accessible internationally.
Information processed through the website may be stored or handled in the United States or other countries where relevant service providers operate.
Privacy and data-protection laws may differ among jurisdictions.
Where applicable laws impose particular requirements for international transfers of personal information, such requirements will be considered in connection with the relevant processing activities.
- Your Privacy Rights
Depending on your location and the laws applicable to a particular processing activity, you may have rights concerning your personal information.
These may include the right to:
- Request access to personal information held about you.
- Request correction of inaccurate information.
- Request deletion of information, subject to applicable exceptions.
- Object to or request restrictions on certain processing.
- Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.
- Request a copy of certain information in a portable format, where applicable.
You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with an appropriate data-protection authority where applicable law provides that right.
To submit a privacy-related request, please use the website’s Contact page.
Additional information may be requested where reasonably necessary to verify your identity or process your request securely.
Requests will be considered and addressed in accordance with applicable law.
- Children’s Privacy
This website is intended primarily for a general audience interested in science, education, music, and personal projects.
It is not designed to collect personal information from children under the age of 13.
The website does not knowingly solicit personal information from children under 13 through its Contact form or educational simulators.
If you believe that a child has submitted personal information through the website, please contact the website owner so the situation can be reviewed and appropriate action taken.
Links to Brainstoy LLC or other educational resources may lead to separate websites governed by their own privacy policies.
- Changes to This Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy may be updated periodically to reflect changes in website functionality, third-party services, technical configurations, or applicable legal requirements.
The date at the top of this page indicates when the policy was last updated.
Significant changes may be communicated through an updated notice on the website when appropriate.
Visitors are encouraged to review this page periodically.
- Contact Regarding Privacy
For questions about this Privacy Policy or requests concerning personal information processed through pietrocottone.com, please contact:
Pietro Cottone, Ph.D.
Massachusetts, United States
The website owner will review privacy-related requests and respond as appropriate under applicable law.