What personal data we collect and why we collect it

While using our Site, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you. Personally, identifiable information may include but is not limited to name, email address, cookies, usage data, password.

We may use your personal information to:

  • Send you our newsletters from time to time (IF you provide your email address only)
  • Manage contacts and send messages
  • Ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer
  • Provide you with information, products or services that you request from us which may be of interest to you
  • Carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us
  • Interact with external social networks and platforms (e.g. social media widgets and share bars)
  • Allow registration and authentication (e.g. affiliate portals and membership areas)
  • Allow access to third-party services’ accounts
  • Monitor infrastructure
  • Manage hosting and backend infrastructure
  • Carry out remarketing and behavioral targeting (including display ads)
  • Display content from external platforms
  • Carry out commercial affiliation (e.g. display ads)
  • Interact with support and feedback platforms
  • Manage user database

In addition to the above, we may collect log data and use cookies.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Cookies are files with small amount of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a web site and stored on your computer’s hard drive.

Like many sites, we use “cookies” to collect information.

We use cookies to save the user’s session and to carry out other activities that are strictly necessary for the operation of this Site, for example in relation to the distribution of traffic.

We use cookies to save browsing preferences and to optimize your browsing experience.

The third parties we use such as for example Google Analytics collect statistics in an anonymized and aggregated form and may not require the consent of the user or may be managed directly by us without the help of third parties.

These may be used to track users’ browsing habits – in addition to the information specified herein and without our knowledge. Please refer to the privacy policy of the listed services for detailed information.

In addition to what is specified in this privacy policy, the user can manage preferences for cookies directly from within their own browser and prevent – for example – third parties from installing cookies.

Through browser preferences, it is also possible to delete cookies installed in the past, including the cookies that may have saved the initial consent for the installation of cookies by this Site.

Users can, for example, find information about how to manage cookies in the most commonly used browsers (e.g. Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Microsoft Internet Explorer) on the website of the browser of choice.

With regard to cookies installed by third parties, users can manage their preferences and withdrawal of their consent by clicking the related opt-out link (if provided), by using the means provided in the third party’s privacy policy, or by contacting the third party.

Log Data

Like many site operators, we collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit our Site.

This Log Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, browser version, the pages of our Site that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages and other statistics.

In addition, we may use third-party services such as Google Analytics that collect, monitor and analyze this data.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where we send your data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

LAWFUL BASIS OF PROCESSING PERSONAL DATA

 We may process personal data relating to users if one of the following applies:

  • users have given their consent for one or more specific purposes;
  • provision of data is necessary for the performance of an agreement with the user and/or for any pre-contractual obligations thereof;
  • processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject;
  • processing is related to a task that is carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in us;
  • processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party.

DATA RETENTION

We process and store your personal data for as long as required by the purpose they have been collected for.

Therefore:

  • personal data collected for purposes related to the performance of a contract between us and the user will be retained until such contract has been fully performed;
  • personal data collected for the purposes of our legitimate interests will be retained as long as needed to fulfill such purposes;
  • we may be allowed to retain personal data for a longer period whenever the user has given consent to such processing, as long as such consent is not withdrawn;
  • we may be obliged to retain personal data for a longer period whenever required to do so for the performance of a legal obligation or upon order of an authority.

Once the retention period expires, personal data will be deleted and some of your rights (i.e. the right to access, the right to erasure, the right to rectification and the right to data portability) cannot be enforced after expiration of the retention period. 

THIRD-PARTY DISCLOSURE

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personal information unless we provide users with advance notice. This does not include website hosting partners and other parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or serving our users, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release information when its release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others’ rights, property or safety.

However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

We reserve the right to update or change our Privacy Policy at any time and you should check this Privacy Policy periodically. Your continued use of our Site after we post any modifications to the Privacy Policy on this page will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified Privacy Policy.

If we make any material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you either through the email address you have provided us, or by placing a prominent notice on our website.


CONTACT US

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us on our “Contact Us” page.

YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THESE TERMS

By using this Site, you signify your acceptance of this policy and terms of service. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use our Site. Your continued use of the Site following the posting of changes to this policy will be deemed your acceptance of those changes.