Please read this Privacy Policy (“Policy”, “Privacy Policy”) carefully before using the https://ericwtsmith-vultr.us9.cdn-alpha.com Website (the “Service”, “Site, “Website”, or “Services”) operated by Eric Smith, collectively: “us”, “Us”, “we”, “We”, “Eric W.T. Smith”, “Our” or “our”. Your access to and use of the Service is conditioned on your acceptance of and compliance with the Terms of Service (“Terms”, “Terms of Service”) found on this Website. This Policy applies to all visitors, users and others who access or use the Service. BY JOINING OR EACH TIME YOU ACCESS AND USE THE SERVICES, YOU SIGNIFY THAT YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTAND, AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY, THIS POLICY. If you disagree with any part of the Policy then you may not access the Service.
We are concerned about privacy issues and want you to be familiar with how we collect, use, and disclose information. This Policy has been compiled to better serve visitors to the Site with how their ‘Personally identifiable information (“PII”) is being used online. PII, as used in United States privacy law and information security, is information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate a single person, or to identify an individual in context. Data that does not allow identification of you, for example anonymized and/or de-identified data, is not considered personally identifiable information. Please read our Privacy Policy carefully to get a clear understanding of how we collect, use, protect or otherwise handle your PII in accordance with our Website.
What personal information do we collect from the people who visit our blog, website or app?
When visiting our Site, you may be asked to enter your name or other details to help you with your experience. Additionally, your IP Address is collected and stored and user ID (local and WordPress.com), role (e.g. subscriber), email address, username and display name. The following pieces of data relating to the site are also used: WordPress.com-connected site ID, locale/language, title, URL, and icon.
Additionally, for activity tracking: IP address, WordPress.com user ID, WordPress.com username, WordPress.com-connected site ID and URL, user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp of event, Email, Phone Number, First and Last Name, City, State, and ZIP Code, Gender, browser language, country code, for reasons stated in this Privacy Policy.
When do we collect information?
We collect information from you when you register on our Site, subscribe to a newsletter, subscribe to our email list, leave a comment, post media, respond to a survey, fill out a form, submit a form, RSVP to an event on our Site or a 3rd party site handling our RSVPs, Use Live Chat, visit our Site, log into our Site, log out of Our Site, or enter information on our Site.
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.
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.
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.
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
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.
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.
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 tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
How do we use your information?
We may use the information we collect from you when you interact with our Website, including but not limited to when you: register, make a purchase, sign up for our newsletter, respond to a survey or marketing communication, surf the Website, or use certain other Site features in the following ways:
- To personalize user’s experience and to allow us to deliver the type of content and product offerings in which you are most interested;
- To improve our Website and analyze our traffic in order to better serve you;
- To allow us to better service you in responding to your customer service requests;
- To provide social media features;
- To enable Us to better serve you by utilizing third-party business partner(s) and their application(s) solutions, such as for: processing payments, tracking orders, maintaining membership profiles, and backing up of data;
- To ask for ratings and reviews of services or products;
- To follow-up with you after correspondence (live chat, email, mail and/or phone inquiries);
- To minimize the opportunity of successful unauthorized access of Our Site;
- To bill and collect money owed to us by you;
- To comply with legal requirements and/or to prosecute and defend a court, arbitration, or similar legal proceeding;
- To provide information to our representative(s) and advisor(s), including but limited to: attorneys and accountants;
- To manage registration and scheduling of events
- To send you system alert messages;
- Product retargeting
- To detect logged in users and allow them increased access to portions of Our Site. It also allows Us to detect non-logged in users and restrict their access to secure areas and what level of access a visitor has, to help Our security measures make smarter decisions about who to allow and who to block.
- To enforce compliance with our Terms of Service and applicable law, including but not limited to: the protection of the rights and safety of our Members and third parties, as well as Us.
How do we protect visitor information?
We use security measures to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of the information under our control. When you enter payment information (such as a credit card number) on our order forms, we refer you to a payment Website and the payment Website encrypts the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). We have also implemented a secure socket layer technology (SSL) on our Website. We use additional commercially reasonable security measures.
We anonymously share data with our security vendor(s) on hack attempts. In return, Our Site receives the IP address information of alleged hackers that are currently engaged in brute force hacking activity so that Our Site can immediately block those alleged hackers before they are able to engage in a brute force attack on Our Site.
We follow generally accepted standards to protect the personal information transferred to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. If you have any questions about the security of your personal information, you can contact us at eric [at] ericwtsmith [dot] com. We may retain your information indefinitely as needed to provide you services, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements.
Do we use ‘cookies’?
Yes. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the site’s or service provider’s systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information. For instance, we use cookies to help us remember and process the items in your shopping cart. They are also used to help us understand your preferences based on previous or current Site activity, which enables us to provide you with improved services. We also use cookies to help us compile aggregate data about Site traffic and Site interaction so that we can offer better Site experiences and tools in the future.
We use cookies to:
- Keep track of advertisements, if any are implemented.
- Compile aggregate data about Site traffic and Site interactions in order to offer better Site experiences and tools in the future. We may also use trusted third-party services that track this information on our behalf. Aggregate data not only helps us understand data trends and compare our Website’s performance with those of other websites in our industry, but also helps us pinpoint performance problems and estimate how much we can improve Site metrics. Aggregate data used for benchmarking has identifiable information about our Website removed and is combined with other anonymous data before it is shared with others.
- For purposes described in this Privacy Policy.
You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You do this through your browser (like Internet Explorer) settings. Each browser is a little different, so look at your browser’s Help menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookies.
If users disable cookies in their browser:
If you disable cookies, some features will be disabled. It will turn off some of the features that make your Site experience more efficient and some of our services will not function properly, such as: your accounts which lists your orders and updating your profile information, Facebook likes, Google+ “+1s”, and/or Pinterest “Pins”. “Facebook”, “Likes”, “Google”, “+1s”, “Instagram”, “Pinterest”, and “Pins” are registered copyrights, trademarks, and/or service marks of their respective companies.
Third-party disclosure
We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your PII unless we provide users with advance notice, which will be found in this Policy online. 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 Our or others’ rights, property, or safety.
However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, to improve our Site and/or Services, or other uses as described herein.
Third-party links
Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third-party products or services on our Website. These third-party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our Site and welcome any feedback about these sites.
We have implemented the following:
Google Services
Google Analytics, Google reCAPTCHA, Google Signals which collects data about our Website traffic in addition to data collected through a standard Google Analytics implementation in order to provide additional features like cross-device audiences and insights, and may include end user location, search history, YouTube history, and data from sites that partner with Google—and is used to provide aggregated and anonymized insights into Our users’ cross device behaviors, Benchmarking Data, Remarketing with Google Analytics, Google Display Network Impression Reporting, DoubleClick cookie, WordPress cookie(s), Facebook Pixel(s) with Advanced Matching, Facebook Custom Audience, Facebook Connect, Gravatar, WordPress pixel, Eventbrite tracking pixel(s), Google Analytics tracking pixel(s), Akamai, Akamai Cookie Sync) or other third-party identifiers, WordPress Jetpack site stats, Google Enhanced Analytics Demographics and Interest Report, GA Audiences, Google Tag Manager, Google Campaign Manager, and Integrated services that require Google Analytics to collect data for advertising purposes, including the collection of data via advertising cookies and identifiers.
We, along with third-party vendors, such as Google, use first-party cookies and/or pixels (such as the Google Analytics cookies) and third-party cookies and/or pixels (such as the DoubleClick cookie, WordPress cookie(s), Facebook Pixel(s) with Advanced Matching, Facebook Custom Audience, Facebook Connect, Gravatar, WordPress pixel, Eventbrite tracking pixel(s), Google Analytics tracking pixel(s), Akamai, Akamai Cookie Sync) or other third-party identifiers, WordPress Jetpack site stats, together to compile data regarding user interactions with ad impressions and other ad service functions as they relate to our Website and other websites, to show you ads across the Internet and serve you ads based on your past visits to our Website, per our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
Google’s advertising requirements can be summed up by Google’s Advertising Principles. They are put in place to provide a positive experience for users at https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/1316548?hl=en
We use Google Analytics, Google Signals, and may use Google AdWords and Google AdSense on our Website. Please see “We have implemented the following:” herein this Policy for more details.
Google, as a third-party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on our Site. Google’s use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to our users based on previous visits to our Site and other sites on the Internet. Users may opt-out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google Ad and Content Network privacy policy.
We use a tool called “Google Analytics” and “Google Signals” to collect information about use of this Site, such as how often users visit the Site, what pages they visit when they do so, and what other sites they used prior to coming to this Site. We give Google marketing specialists and/or Google sales specialists access to our Google Analytics data and account so they can find ways to improve our configuration and analysis, and share optimization tips with Us. Google technical support representatives can access our Google Analytics data and account when necessary to provide service and find solutions to technical issues. Google can access and analyze our Analytics data to better understand online behavior and trends, and use this this data to improve Google products and services. For example, this data can be used to improve the Google Ads system tools that We use to create, manage, and analyze Our ad campaigns, as well as to better detect and remove invalid advertising traffic like click fraud. Data We collect, process, and store using Google Analytics (“Google Analytics data”) is secure and kept confidential by Google. This data can include authenticated visitation data which is associated with Google user accounts. This data is used to maintain and protect the Google Analytics service, to perform system critical operations, and in rare exceptions for legal reasons as described in Google’s privacy policy.
Google Analytics collects only the IP address assigned to you on the date you visit this Site, rather than your name or other identifying information, except Google Analytics can also collect authenticated visitation data associated with Google user accounts. Google Analytics plants a permanent cookie on your computer and/or web browser to identify you as a unique user the next time you visit this Site. This cookie cannot be used by anyone but Google, Inc. The information generated by the cookie will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States.
The use of the Google reCAPTCHA is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Google Terms of Use. Per Google’s reCAPTCHA website: “…reCAPTCHA…works by collecting hardware and software information, such as device and application data, and sending these data to Google for analysis. The information collected in connection with your use of the service will be used for improving reCAPTCHA and for general security purposes. It will not be used for personalized advertising by Google.” reCAPTCHA is used to fight spam and abuse on our website.
hCaptcha
We may use the hCaptcha anti-bot service (hereinafter “hCaptcha”) on our website. This service is provided by Intuition Machines, Inc., a Delaware US Corporation (“IMI”). hCaptcha is used to check whether the data entered on our website (such as on a login page or contact form) has been entered by a human or by an automated program. To do this, hCaptcha analyzes the behavior of the website or mobile app visitor based on various characteristics. This analysis starts automatically as soon as the website or mobile app visitor enters a part of the website or app with hCaptcha enabled. For the analysis, hCaptcha evaluates various information (e.g. IP address, how long the visitor has been on the website or app, or mouse movements made by the user). The data collected during the analysis will be forwarded to IMI. hCaptcha analysis in the “invisible mode” may take place completely in the background. Website or app visitors are not advised that such an analysis is taking place if the user is not shown a challenge. Data processing is based on Art. 6(1)(f) of the GDPR (DSGVO): the website or mobile app operator has a legitimate interest in protecting its site from abusive automated crawling and spam. IMI acts as a “data processor” acting on behalf of its customers as defined under the GDPR, and a “service provider” for the purposes of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). For more information about hCaptcha and IMI’s privacy policy and terms of use, please visit the following links: https://hcaptcha.com/privacy/ and https://hcaptcha.com/terms.
Automattic Services
We have implemented Automattic’s Jetpack connection, including the Akismet Service, on our content management system to better serve our members per our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Automattic uses cookies and other technologies like pixel tags to help identify and track visitors and Site usage, and to deliver targeted ads when ads are enabled for free WordPress.com sites or when ads are enabled on a Site through WordAds or Jetpack Ads. You may review what our Site’s content management system tracks, and your options by visiting https://automattic.com/privacy-notice/. For more information about how to manage and delete cookies, visit aboutcookies.org, and for more information on interest-based ads, including information about how you may be able to opt out of having your web browsing information used for behavioral advertising purposes, please visit aboutads.info/choices. For more information about Automattic’s use of cookies and other technologies for tracking, including how visitors can control the use of cookies, please see their Cookie Policy.
Akismet works by checking all comments against Akismet’s constantly-growing global spam database to remove irrelevant, malicious content before it gets published and damages our site’s credibility. Only the personal data needed to carry out Akismet’s core function of protecting our site against comment spam is collected from commenters on our site. Per the Akismet privacy website, Akismet does not sell the data you or we send to the Akismet service, and Akismet does not keep it for long. Akismet has short retention periods of between two weeks to ninety days for the vast majority of Akismet’s spam-related data, at which point it is automatically deleted from Akismet’s databases.
We embed a WordPress social plugin to allow you to leave a comment or comments at our website using your WordPress.com, Google, Twitter, or Facebook account(s). This plugin may collect your IP address, your web browser User Agent, store and retrieve cookies on your browser, embed additional tracking, and monitor your interaction with the commenting interface, including correlating your WordPress.com, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, or Facebook account with whatever action you take within the interface (such as “liking” someone’s comment, replying to other comments, sharing an article and/or page), if you are logged into WordPress.com, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook account. For more information about how this data may be used, please see: Facebook’s data privacy policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/update, as well as the policies for Twitter: https://twitter.com/en/privacy#update, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy, WordPress.com: https://automattic.com/privacy, Instagram: https://help.instagram.com/402411646841720, Pinterest: https://policy.pinterest.com/en/privacy-policy, and Google: https://policies.google.com/privacy-if you login with your Google account, from this interaction Google automatically collects and stores certain information in server logs like IP address, device event information such as crashes, system activity, hardware settings, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request, in accordance with their data privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy.
Cloudflare Services
We use Cloudflare to optimize our web traffic. For more information on how Cloudflare collects and processes data, please review the Cloudflare Privacy Policy.
Opting out
Users can set preferences for how Google advertises to you using the Google Ad Settings page. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to this Site is restricted by the Google Privacy Policy. You can prevent Google Analytics from recognizing you on return visits to this Site by disabling the Google Analytics cookie on your browser. Alternatively, you can opt out by visiting the Network Advertising initiative opt out page or permanently using the Google Analytics Opt Out Browser add on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/
You may unsubscribe from our emails at any time by clicking the “Unsubscribe” button in the email. You also may opt out of Mailchimp data analytics projects by sending an email to personaldatarequests@mailchimp.com.
You may “opt out” of receiving Eventbrite electronic communications by clicking on the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any such electronic communication. In addition, you may also manage your email preferences at any time by logging in (or signing up and then logging in), clicking on “Account” and then “Email Preferences.”
You may adjust your Facebook Ads Preferences by visiting https://www.facebook.com/about/ads
You may “opt out” of all Akismet long-term tracking for the very small subset of data Akismet does keep longer by using Akismet’s contact form. For more information, please visit Akismet’s Privacy Notice.
You may review what our Site’s content management system tracks, and your options by visiting https://automattic.com/privacy-notice/. For more information about how to manage and delete cookies, visit aboutcookies.org, and for more information on interest-based ads, including information about how you may be able to opt out of having your web browsing information used for behavioral advertising purposes, please visit aboutads.info/choices. For more information about Automattic’s use of cookies and other technologies for tracking, including how visitors can control the use of cookies, please see their Cookie Policy.
Transfer of Data Abroad
If you are visiting this Site from a country other than the United States, your communications with us may result in the transfer of information across international boundaries. Furthermore, you acknowledge and agree that in order to best and promptly service our visitor’s requests, inquiries and/or issues, our communication(s) with you, you are communicating with a person or persons located in Texas in the United States and that such information provided will be transferred to the United States. In any event, your information will be processed in accordance with this Privacy Policy. By visiting this Site, calling or communicating with Us, or otherwise communicating electronically with Us, you consent to such transfers.
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.
California Online Privacy Protection Act
This Site is intended for visitors only in the State of Texas. Additionally, users can visit our Site anonymously.
Once this Privacy Policy is created, we will add a link to it on our home page or at a minimum, on the first significant page after entering our Website.
Our Privacy Policy link includes the word ‘Privacy’ and can be easily be found on www.ericwtsmith.com
Users will be notified of any privacy policy changes:
- On our Privacy Policy Page; or
- Via the contact email and/or address on our Privacy Policy Page
EU User Consent Policy
For potential end users in the European Union:
This Site is intended for users ONLY in the United States in the state of Texas. Additionally, we use commercially reasonable efforts to disclose clearly and obtains consent to any data collection, sharing, and usage that takes place on www.ericwtsmith.com as a consequence of a user’s use of Our Site; and We use commercially reasonable efforts to ensure that an end User is provided with clear and comprehensive information about, and consents to, the storing and accessing of cookies or other information on the end User’s device where such activity occurs in connection with a product to which this Policy applies, pursuant to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, both of which are contained on www.ericwtsmith.com.
How does our Site handle do not track signals?
Due to the inherent de-centralized nature of the internet and the various configurations of computers and web browsers, we cannot guarantee that a “do not track” signal will be honored. Users can opt-out of the Google Analytics Advertising Features we use, including through Ads Settings, Ad Settings for mobile apps, or any other available means (for example, the NAI’s consumer opt-out). Users may also visit Google Analytics’ currently available opt-outs for the web at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/
Does our Site allow third-party behavioral tracking?
We allow third-party behavioral tracking per our Terms and Privacy Policy-please also specifically see “Google” section herein.
COPPA (Children Online Privacy Protection Act)
When it comes to the collection of personal information from children under 13, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) puts parents in control. The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, enforces the COPPA Rule, which spells out what operators of websites and online services must do to protect children’s privacy and safety online. We do not specifically market to children under 13.
Fair Information Practices
In order to be in line with Fair Information Practices we will take the following responsive action, should a data breach occur:
We will notify the users via in-Site notification
- Within 72 hours
CAN-SPAM Act
We collect your email address in order to:
- Send information, respond to inquiries, and/or other requests or questions
- Process orders and to send information and updates pertaining to orders.
- Send you additional information related to your product and/or service
- Market to our mailing list or continue to send emails to our clients after the original transaction has occurred.
To be in accordance with the CAN-SPAM Act, we agree to the following:
- Not use false or misleading subjects or email addresses. Identify the message as an advertisement in some reasonable way, if the message is an advertisement.
- Include the physical address of our business.
- Monitor third-party email marketing services for compliance, if one is used.
- Honor opt-out/unsubscribe requests quickly.
- Allow users to unsubscribe by emailing us at: eric@www.ericwtsmith.com or by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link in emails sent from us and/or on our behalf.
Contacting Us
If there are any questions regarding this Privacy Policy you may contact Us using the information below:
www.ericwtsmith.com
eric@ericwtsmith.com