Privacy Policy1

I’m not a Nigerian Prince(ss) attempting to give you gold in exchange for setting up a bank account, and quite frankly, it took me six years to figure out where I even kept your data on my blog. I don’t collect credit card information, so if you’ve left it (or your social security number, shoe size or bank account number) here you’ve got bigger security problems. (Please do us a biggie and just don’t leave that stuff here. Thanks.)

We collect your IP address and your email address so you can leave a comment (and I can more easily tell that you aren’t a Russian or Chinese spammer). I won’t sell your information for money because I was raised with a healthy dose of Italian-Catholic guilt and because it’s not a nice thing to do. I also won’t send you things you didn’t ask for, because that’s pushy and obnoxious, and we’re introverts here.  We’re just grateful you’re visiting.

Things on my website (like ads or videos) might also collect your information, and it basically works just like you are visiting their website – so don’t give them your social security number or other stuff, either.

This website uses cookies which are not edible, but instead are little pieces of data that help us remember if we gave a big thumbs up to your last comment or to tell us we don’t know you yet and we need to check it out before we approve it. Things on my website like ads or videos or the things that make the website work might also use cookies to help me figure out how long people are visiting or where they are from (your country, not the street you’re on) and it also helps advertisers fine tune the ads they show you. (You know how you do a search for things like purple shoes and then you get ads for purple shoes? That is the creepy magic of cookies.)

Oh, and by visiting my site, you are agreeing to how we handle your data as spelled out in the rest of this policy.

That’s not exactly official per GDPR rules, but it sums it up nicely.
You might want to click on the rest of the document for the full details.

In fact, maybe you should.

My imaginary lawyer asks that you do, pretty please. (He’s looking a little nervous over there.) Go click on the next tab. We did say please.

Our Data Collection Principles

• We collect the bare minimum data needed required for any purpose. The bare minimum is kind of like a life goal.
• Processing is limited to the purpose. Our Processing activities fit the purpose for which Personal Data was gathered.
• We value the privacy and security of your data, and we have processes in place to keep your data safe.
• Our data collection and processing is transparent and follows the below privacy policy. We collect only the data we need to run our site as well as what you choose to share by leaving comments and/or signing up for our newsletter.

What we collect

We may collect the following information:

• contact information including email address and name that you voluntarily provide by leaving a comment or subscribing to our newsletter;
• IP address from the location you visit this website (anonymized to prevent identifiable information from being shared);
• information about you that is publicly available, such as social media profiles.

What we do with the information we gather

We collect all this stuff to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:

• We may use the information to improve our “products” – meaning the articles we create and share on this site
• We may periodically (because we’re still working on consistency in publication here) send newsletters regarding the posts on our site, presuming you have actually signed up for said newsletters (which is how we got your information in the first place, duh), and they will incorporate a two-step verification process. We take the sending of spam seriously (as in, we don’t want to spam anyone – it’s only fun in a Monty Python skit) and only want to send you emails you want to receive.

 

And then There’s Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to measure traffic on our website. Google has their own Privacy Policy which you can review here. If you’d like to opt out of tracking by Google Analytics, visit the Google Analytics opt-out page. Your IP address is anonymized through this website, which means we do not collect personally identifiable information when you visit.

At this time, your personal information is not shared with any other third-party applications – that would be rude.

Except when required by law, we will not sell, distribute, or reveal your email addresses or other personal information without your consent; however, we may disclose or transfer personal information collected through the Website to third parties who acquire all or a portion of our business, which may be the result of a merger, consolidation, or purchase of all or a portion of our assets, or in connection with any bankruptcy or reorganization proceeding brought by or against us.

Our contact forms request your name and email address, and will ask you to for your consent to store the information with the request.

If  you leave comments on the site (please, please, and thank you) we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string (a technical thingy) to help spam detection. Visitor comments are checked through an automated spam detection service; cookies help us see if we’ve already approved a comment from you previously, and you’ll get an electronic thumbs up.

Well done, you.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) is provided to the Gravatar service to see if you have set one up. I’m not really sure what this means, but basically after approval of your comment, the profile picture you loaded into your Gravatar account with your comment.   Don’t you look nice!

The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here.

 

I love cookies, and you might even see a recipe on this blog for them, but unfortunately, that’s not the kind of cookie I’m referring to here.

I’m talking about the data kind of cookie. They are zero calorie but not as delicious.

Cookie Usage

This policy lays out how and why we use cookies on our site, and offers resources that will allow you to make an informed decision regarding the acceptance, rejection or deletion of any cookies that we use.

By using this website, you consent to our use of cookies, so you probably should read this, but like any legal gobbledygook you probably won’t even get this far, so kudos if you did. Along with our Privacy Policy, it forms part of the contract that make up our website rights and reviews, so we recommend that you read through that page, too. (I wish I had real, gluten-filled cookies to share with you while you read through all this.)

This cookies policy may change at any time, so please check it regularly. It was last updated on May 24, 2018.

Although if you have spare time to look at my cookie policy, you should really go look at my book list.

What is a cookie?

Confession – I still don’t understand all this cookies stuff entirely but basically it’s a little file that a website saves to your computer (or mobile device) that records information.  When you visit a website, it (should) ask permission to store a cookie in the cookies section of your hard drive.

It’s hard to avoid cookies – they are used everywhere on the internet to make  websites work, to make them work more efficiently, or to provide information about your usage of the site to the site owner or other third parties. Restricting cookies can affect how a website works; for this one, it mostly means your comments will need to be approved by me every single time.

Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.  But not in a creepy way.

Different types of cookies

Some cookies, known as “session cookies”, are stored only for the duration of your visit to a particular website. “Persistent cookies” but others can be stored in the cookie file of your browser for longer periods of time – sometimes until you clear your browser’s cache manually, depending on the lifetime of the specific cookie.

Specifically, these are the types of cookies that may be in use:

• Necessary cookies – these cookies are required for you to be able to use some important features on our website. These cookies don’t collect any personal information.
• Functionality cookies – these cookies provide functionality that makes using our service more convenient and makes providing more personalized features possible. For example, they might remember your name and e-mail in comment forms so you don’t have to re-enter this information next time when commenting.
• Analytics cookies – these cookies are used to track the use and performance of our website and services.
• Advertising cookies – these cookies are used to deliver advertisements that are relevant to you and to your interests. In addition, they help limit the number of times you see an individual advertisement. They are usually placed on the website by advertising networks with the website operator’s permission. These cookies remember that you have visited a website and this information is shared with other organizations such as advertisers. Often targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organization.

How do we use cookies?

We use cookies to improve the way our website works, such as the cookies used by our subscription service so that you aren’t asked to subscribe every time you visit (and to remember that yay, you have subscribed, thank you very much).

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyze data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes, and then the data is removed from the system.

We also use third-party cookies set by Google Analytics so that we can see how we’re doing – they tell us how many people in general visit the site, where in the world they are coming from, and how long they stay (but don’t worry, our data is anonymized – so we can’t actually see what YOU individually are doing.

That would be creepy.

We may also use cookies built by Facebook and by Google AdSense to improve our online marketing efforts – meaning, those ads on the side might be something you are interested in, instead of seeing ads for Yeti underwear or cat sombreros or something equally uninteresting. Although cat sombreros could be interesting.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. Seriously – we have a hard enough time getting our own computer to cooperate – we don’t want responsibility to yours.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

You can remove cookies stored in your computer via your browser settings. Alternatively, you can control some 3rd party cookies by using a privacy enhancement platform such as optout.aboutads.info or youronlinechoices.com. For more information about cookies, visit allaboutcookies.org.

Additionally, the Website may use third-party service providers to service various aspects of the Website. Each third-party service provider’s use of your personal information is dictated by their respective privacy policies.

Third-party cookies

A third-party cookie is one that is associated with a different domain or website than the one that you visit. For example, on this site, we use third-party cookies built by Google to enable website analytics, but as our site is not on the Google domain, this makes their cookies “third-party” cookies.

Google Analytics

As I talked about above, the Google Analytics cookie will recognize and count the number of people who visit our site (which I could probably do on my hands and feet but this is easier), as well as providing other information such as how long visitors stay, where they move to on our site, and what pages receive the most visits. We have no control over how these Google cookies behave, and the information they retrieve is delivered to a Google Analytics account, not to our website, which is why they are third-party: the information about this site is delivered to another website.

I’m supposed to share with you this information about Google Analytics cookies:

This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser. However please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

Aren’t you glad to know all that?

Google Analytics does not store any personal information about any website users. They offer a comprehensive review of their Analytics data privacy and security commitments in Google Support.

You Tube

We occasionally will share a fun You Tube video and You Tube uses cookies to keep track of what you like so it can recommend more of what you like. Thoughtful, right?
They also track user activity like where you are and how long you watch and things like that.

Mail Chimp – this service is used for delivery of email updates and newsletters. We store your first name and email address for purposes of delivering such communications. Mail Chimp also collects who opens emails when we send them, the IP address where you open it, and what links (if any) you click once you open it. Please refer to Mail Chimp’s privacy policy for further information.

MailMunch – This is a plugin that gathers email addresses if you choose to subscribe to our newsletter;  It collects the data you submit and passes it to Mail Chimp that houses the newsletter subscriber list for this website. They’re kind of buddies.

GoDaddy – This company hosts this website and gives me gray hairs. To make all this bloggy magic happen, they must run cookies (necessary cookies as defined above), but they do not collect any personally identifiable information. GoDaddy also runs a backup of this site to ensure it remains available if technical issues arise.

CloudFlare – This is a service that caches this site to allow for faster loading for you when you visit this site after a first visit or visit multiple pages on this site. traffic optimization and distribution service provided by CloudFlare Inc. The way CloudFlare is integrated means that it filters all the traffic through this Website, i.e., communication between this Website and the User’s browser. CloudFlare may gather certain information regarding use of this website. This typically includes items such as contact information, IP addresses, security fingerprints, DNS log data, and website performance data derived from browser activity. They process such data in order to provide the caching service in accordance with applicable laws, including the GDPR.

Akismet – This is a spam preventing plugin that helps keep this website safe and reduces the likelihood that it gets hacked and helps eliminate nasty spam comments from this site. This collects name, email address, and website as input via your comment. It also gathers IP address to allow approved addresses to automatically approve comments and to help identify potentially spammy IP addresses to segregate comments so they do not get published.

Influencer Networks – From time to time, we partner with brands to work on sponsored campaigns. The brands may include a tracking pixel or link that gathers your IP address and visit history to gauge the effectiveness of the campaign. We do not directly share any information with them, such as name or email address that we may gather through other means.

• Collective Bias
• Bloggin’ Mamas
• Influence Central

Newsletters

On the Website, you may subscribe to our newsletter, which may be used for advertising purposes. All newsletters sent may contain tracking pixels. The pixel is embedded in emails and allows an analysis of the success of online marketing campaigns. Because of these tracking pixels, we may see if and when you open an email and which links within the email you click. Also, this allows the Website to adapt the content of future newsletters to the interests of the user. This behavior will not be passed on to third parties.

Targeting/Advertising

Some of our advertisers occasionally serve you cookies, as well, and we do not have control over cookies placed by advertisers. We may use advertising service vendors to help present advertisements on the website. These vendors may use cookies, web beacons, or similar technologies to serve you advertisements tailored to interests you have shown by browsing on this and other sites you have visited, to determine whether you have seen a particular advertisement before and to avoid sending you duplicate advertisements. In doing so, these vendors may collect non-personal data such as your browser type, your operating system, Web pages visited, time of visits, content viewed, ads viewed, and other clickstream data. The use of cookies, web beacons, or similar technologies by these advertising service vendors is subject to their own privacy policies, not ours, and Service Provider disclaims all liability in connection therewith.

Our advertising comes through the AdSense Network. You can read their partner information here.

Other cookies that may be used come from Doubleclick, which is Google’s advertising bid exchange, or ScoreCard Research, which comes from the third-party app ShareThis, which lets you share our wonderful content with the rest of the world. (Or at least the people you know on Facebook or Google.)

Affiliate Program Participation

The Website may engage in affiliate marketing, which is done by embedding tracking links into the Website. If you click on a link for an affiliate partnership (such as Amazon.com), a cookie will be placed on your browser to track any sales for purposes of commissions.

Momma on the Rocks is a participant in various affiliate programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and links to online retailers.  As part of these programs, the Website will post customized links, provided by the affiliates, to track the referrals to their website(s). These programs utilize cookies to track visits for the purposes of assigning commission on these sales.

All posts that contain affiliate links disclose this at the top of the individual article. You will also have the opportunity to opt out of cookie collection when you click on any affiliate link.

Further information

You can remove cookies stored in your computer via your browser settings. Alternatively, you can control some 3rd party cookies by using a privacy enhancement platform such as optout.aboutads.info or youronlinechoices.com. For more information about cookies, visit allaboutcookies.org.

 

Embedded content from other websites

Posts on this site may include embedded content, such as videos, images, or gifs. 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.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites because we like to share the love. However, when you use these links visit other sites, we aren’t the boss of them so we aren’t responsible for what you share with them or the privacy of that information. That’s when their privacy policy takes over. I bet their policy isn’t as fun to read as ours, so you’re on your own there, friend.

I Hope You’re Over 16

We do not intend to collect or knowingly collect information from children. (This excludes any posts on this website that are written by MY children.) We do not target children with our services;  reviews of children’s book included on this site are intended for the adults that would procure them from a retail location or library. I swear too damn much, anyway.

Controlling your personal information

If you really have trust issues, you may choose to restrict the collection or use of your personal information in the following ways:

• whenever you are asked to fill in a form on the website, look for the box that you can click to indicate that you do not want the information to be used by anybody for direct marketing purposes
• if you have previously agreed to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes, you may change your mind at any time by contacting us.

We’re actually too lazy to do direct marketing and we’re happy just to manage to get out a newsletter on a regular basis, so be confident that we will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission (but we won’t ask) or are required by law to do so.

Opt Out

If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please contact us at jenncaffeinated@gmail.com. You may also unsubscribe from emails at any time by following the link at the bottom of each email newsletter. I’ll only cry for a few days, so no need to feel guilty.

If all this still makes you uncomfortable, you may request that we erase or forget your personal data. Of course, every single comment you make will have to be moderated, so keep that under your hat.

Please note that we may need to retain certain information for record keeping purposes or to complete transactions, or when required by law.

Sensitive Personal Information

For the love of all that’s good and holy, PLEASE do not submit sensitive personal information to the Website. This includes your banking information, social security number, information regarding race or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, health information, criminal background, or trade union memberships, or your opinions on Peeps and Black Jelly Beans. (We know both are disgusting.)

If you elect to submit such information to us, it will be subject to this Privacy Policy. You are also very, very confused if you do.