Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY

Your privacy is important, and we want you to understand what information is collected when you visit https://retrorenovation.com or http://savethepinkbathrooms.com or http://knottyisnice.com (the websites) and how we use it.

Why we collect, use and retain data

The websites are journalistic in nature and depend on advertising revenues to sustain them. In order to run the websites efficiently including in a manner expected in today’s media world, we collect customer-, user-, technical- and marketing data that enable features of value to users and which enable us to administer and sustain the sites effectively. The data collected are used to run the websites and not sold to third parties. As possible, we use well-known, industry-standard and industry-leading technologies such as WordPress, Google applications, professional servers, professional newsletter services, etc. In a number of cases, you provide consent and proactively submit data (for example, your email address, when you comment or sign up for a newsletter.) In other cases, technologies like cookies, log files, etc. are activated and other data such as IP addresses are captured in order to do such things as target advertising and analyze our websites so that we can effectively operate our business and offer you these websites and their content.

If you would like to opt out of data collection and/or retention, details on how to do so are contained in the following sections including with the provision of links to or addresses for other websites’ Privacy Policies and control center pages where you can proactively direct the use of your data. 

Comments, Subscribe to Comments, Contact Forms, Newsletter Subscriptions, emails, and other Info You Provide:

You do not need to register to use or access the websites.  However, the sites may make comment sections, forums, message boards, or similar features available to its users. You may be required to register for these features, particularly if you wish to leave comments or post information, and at that time the information you provide, along with info such as your IP address, will or may be captured in our databases and stored. When you prepare a comment, you also may have the opportunity to add the name of your website or blog within the submission form; if you do, your name as it appears in the published comment will be hotlinked to your blog or website. Should you choose to e-mail us, we will have your e-mail address and whatever other personally identifiable information you send to us.

If you do register and provide us with personally identifiable information in the process, we will use it as is described below.  Except as provided in this privacy policy, we will not share your information with any third-party organization without your express consent.

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. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Please note that if you post comments, pictures, or other information to the main blog or any forum or message board, any personally identifiable information you provide may be read, collated and used by anyone viewing them.  As such, we are not responsible for personally identifiable information you may choose to make available through these features.

The “Subscribe to Comments” feature captures your email address within our database; it includes a full-featured subscription manager that users can use to unsubscribe to certain posts, block all notifications, or even change their notification e-mail address. Learn more about this feature here. 

Gravity Forms is the plugin that we use for our Contact Form. When you click on the button that says you have agreed to Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, you are consenting to having your submitted data being collected and stored. We may keep this information indefinitely for potential future use or contact with you, but we do not use the information submitted for marketing purposes.

Visitors to our websites have the opportunity to sign up to receive communications from us, including our e-mail newsletters.  We rely on a third party e-mail marketing company, Constant Contact, to deliver this service.  Read Constant Contact’s Privacy Statement and information here. If you would like to sign up, you will need to provide your email address. These communications may include our regular newsletter, product promotions, and any other information that we feel you might find interesting. Emails sent to you will also include standard tracking, including open and click activities. You may opt out of receiving any, or all, of these communications by emailing us at retrorenovation (at) gmail (dot) com, by clicking on the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any email we send to you, or by replying to any email we send you and entering the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

We use a third-party company, Mail Munch, to help promote newsletter sign-ups. You can read their Privacy Policy here.

We use a plugin called Jetpack, which is owned by Automattic, which operates WordPress, an underlying technology framework for this site. This plugin provides a variety of functionality features within the site that enables us to operate the site efficiently so that we may offer you its content. Jetpack’s privacy policy is under Automattic’s here.

Media

If you upload or provide 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. Our websites may use the Smush plugin; this plugin sends images to the WPMU DEV servers to optimize them for web use. This includes the transfer of EXIF data. The EXIF data will either be stripped or returned as it is. It is not stored on the WPMU DEV servers.

Analytics / Log Files

We employ commonly used third-party analytic services that automatically collect anonymous information about visits to our websites and store this information in server log files. This information does not identify individual users: it includes such data as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, operating system used and date/time stamps.  We do not have direct control over the tools these third-party analytic services use to collect data. We use this information to get a better sense of how our websites are being used over time so that we can improve them and make them more relevant to users. Each of these services has their own privacy policy, which includes how to opt out:

• Google Analytics
• Quantcast

Cookies

Our site uses “cookies” to provide easier and faster access to website features such as log-ins or repeat visits, and advertising networks and advertisers may use cookies to track your visits on the web. Cookies are very small text files that are stored on personal computers for reference purposes. We do not link the information we store in cookies to any personally identifiable information you have submitted while on our site.

We may use both session cookies and persistent cookies. A session cookie makes it easier for you to explore our sites, but expires when your browser is closed. A persistent cookie may stay on your hard drive for an extended period of time, and can perform such activities as storing your log-in information for forums or message boards so you do not have to sign in every time you visit those areas. Persistent cookies may be used to enable us to track and target the interests of our users so as to enhance the visitor’s overall experience.

Following is more information on cookies that may be used on the site including in technical add-ons that provide various features, by advertisers, for use in analytics, or to enhance your use of the site:

Advertising Privacy Statement – AdThrive

This Site is affiliated with AdThrive, LLC (“AdThrive”) for the purposes of placing advertising on the Site.  AdThrive uses standard and widely-available tools for the placement and serving of ads, including those provided by Google, Inc. and its affiliates. We publish interest-based advertisements on the Site; that is, ads that are tailored to reflect your interests. To help understand your interests, AdThrive, Google and our other advertising partners will track your behaviour on our website and on other websites across the Internet using cookies.  

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.  Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

By using this Site, you consent to the use of such cookies and the sharing of data captured by such cookies with AdThrive, Google, and our other third party partners. You can view, delete or add interest categories associated with your browser by visiting: https://adssettings.google.com. You can also opt out of the network cookie using those settings or using the Network Advertising Initiative’s multi-cookie opt-out mechanism at: http://optout.networkadvertising.org. However, these opt-out mechanisms themselves use cookies, and if you clear the cookies from your browser your opt-out will not be maintained.  

For European Economic Area Residents

If you reside in a country in the European Economic Area (EEA), then under the GDPR and applicable data protection laws you have the rights, among other things, to access your personal data, have us erase it, and/or restrict its further processing.  If you wish to access or delete your personal data (if any) maintained by us or AdThrive related to advertising on the Site, you can contact us at retrorenovation@gmail.com and contact AdThrive at info@adthrive.com. If you wish to see a list of the advertising partners we work with or change which of those partners track your behavior using cookies, click the ad preferences link at the bottom of the site. (Available in the EU.)

Links to Other Websites

Our websites contain links to other sites that we do not control.  When you click on a link to another site, we urge you to read its privacy policy. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or policies of any website other than our own.

Access to Personally Identifiable Information

If your personally identifiable information changes, or if you no longer wish us to possess your information, you may request correction, updating, or deletion of your information by emailing us at retrorenovation (at) gmail (dot) com.  Contact information is repeated at the end of this privacy policy.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can access a feature that enables a website to recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue and for the purposes of administering the website.

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. We may retain this information indefinitely for the purposes of administering the website.

We may retain your direct emails indefinitely in order to be able to communicate with you in the future.

Other data is  retained based on the goals and purposes of its functionality.

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

https://retrorenovation.com/ is hosted by WebSynthesis/Studio Press. You can read their privacy policy here. 

http://savethepinkbathrooms.com is hosted on Bluehost. You can read their privacy policy here.

https://knottyisnice.com/ is hosted by wordpress.org / Automattic. You can read their privacy policy here.

Security

Our website is professionally maintained and we take reasonable steps to protect any information in our possession. Because no electronic storage system can ever be 100% secure, we do not guarantee the absolute security of your information.

Legal Disclaimer

We reserve the right to disclose personally identifiable information as required by law, if we believe disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or other legal process.

We reserve the right to disclose your email address if we believe you are a spammer trying to leave text-url links, in order to alert companies that may be victim to such unethical marketing schemes. In such cases, we will send you an email letting you know we are doing so and give you 12 hours to clarify your relationship to your comment before we contact the company involved.

Contact:

If you have any questions or concerns, our contact information is as follows:

retrorenovation (at) gmail (dot) com