Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Who we are

Our website address is: http://cactuscatz.com.  I use wordpress blogging software.  The privacy info below was granted to me from WordPress on how the software uses privacy info. I am not a software writer so the privacy info used is pretty much how WordPress uses it.  i do require email address to leave a comment to avoid spammers — basically if you have certain keywords in your email address (for instance certain medicines spammers are fond of for some reason) I will disallow your comment.

Most of this is written by WordPress but I have put (note:) when I’ve added stuff.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

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.

Contact forms

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. (Note: At this time, I am the only writer on this blog)

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.

Analytics

Who we share your data with

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.

(note: I don’t require people to register to view my site.  Some people may be registered at the wordpress.com site as wordpress users so this next bit may apply to them on their own profiles — nothing to do with my site). 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

(note: WordPress says there is a way to take off people’s comments. Honestly I’m not sure how to do this so I expect they are coming out with a widget soon to be able to do this.  I don’t have it set up so you can register for an account on this website so probably an easier way to look things up is just google your username that you use when leaving comments and the name of this blog.  When wordpress puts in a widget or sets it up so that we can do a search for people, then I’ll be able to do this.  Do NOT leave a comment if you think you might want to take it off later.  Seriously who does that?  Blogs are in perpetuity or until the server or writer dies, whichever comes first so do not comment if you think you might want to take it down. this next bit was written by wordpress.  ) 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

(Note: I moderate every comment so I don’t think it goes through any spam detection thing but I could be wrong but WordPress has this next line so I’m leaving it in) Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

More notes from me: If you click on a link that takes you to a different website, those websites may collect your information.  I have no control over any sites once you leave this one.  Also I don’t have a lot of control on the underpinnings of this site as I just use WordPress software, I don’t write it and have no understanding of how it works other than what’s set up in the menu.  Any questions about how WordPress collects info should be addressed to WordPress.org or WordPress.com.  Stats are collected on this site by WordPress, JetPack and Google Analytics but I think they collect stats in aggregate. What they allow me to see is not who clicks a link but how many total click a link, how many total view a page, what countries viewed the site and things like that.    I am also signed up as an affiliate for several companies and they collects stats on how often a link on my site is clicked. Once people leave my site by clicking on the affiliate link, they may collect more stats or info — you will have to check their policies on their site once you leave my site.  I am also using WordFence for security and they do have  a live traffic feature.  This means I can see the last 2000 lines of hits on my site including IP and what page they visited or could not find.  If an IP hits too many pages in a few minutes, especially a bot, then the live traffic helps to identify them.  The live traffic is not kept after 2000 lines as far as I know.  If I use WordFence to block an IP permanently, that IP number is kept even after that live traffic hit is erased.

this next section, WordPress didn’t write anything so it’s all me.  I tried to make it as honest as I know

Your contact information

sorry I am not going to type out my email address because spammers would love that.  I bet they are hitting these privacy pages like crazy to mine email addresses.  However you should be able to view it below.  I don’t check my email often, basically once a week or so as I don’t get a lot of personal email.  if you want me to take off a comment immediately, it will be much faster to post your removal request in the comments of the blog post of the comment that you want removed — I check comments daily.

Additional information

How we protect your data

I don’t protect your data.  However WordPress is set up to protect data, that is how it is protected but I personally don’t know any programming and don’t do anything except write and publish my posts.  Do not put any information in your comments that you feel is private and don’t want the world to know — lots of bots index sites and my site gets indexed — I can tell by how many bots try to hit every page — it’s crazy.  I hate it so I block them if they do it too much.  Still I get indexed so that means everything on my site is probably on a search engine somewhere — google for sure. So do not put any private information in a comment.  Also this is an http site and not a https site so anything you post such as comments can hypothetically be highjacked during transmission.  So again don’t put private info in a comment.

What data breach procedures we have in place

Again i don’t.  However WordPress is set up to protect data, that is how it is protected but I personally don’t know any programming and don’t do anything except write and publish my posts.  Again, and I can’t stress this enough, do not put any private information in a comment because all the comments are open to the world and they get indexed on search engines.  Also this is an http site and not a https site so anything you post such as comments can hypothetically be highjacked during transmission.  So again don’t put private info in a comment.

What third parties we receive data from

I’m not sure how to answer this question.  I get info on my site like pages visited, how long people stay on page, what countries they are from, what links they click to leave a page and things like that from WordPress, JetPack, Google analytics.  I am also affiliates with Amazon, Creative Market, Adobe and companies on ShareASale so I get info on if people click those links.  I also put designs up for sale as POD items like t-shirts, postcards  and stuff on Zazzle and MerchAmazon so I get information from them if you click those links. The information on clicked links is in aggregate — total clicks — not who is clicking what link.  If you buy or sign up on those affiliate or POD sites, I will get aggregate total sales/commission/earnings type info from those sites but not specifically who bought what.  I will see what was bought, not who bought it.

What automated decision making and/or profiling we do with user data

I don’t do anything automatically as I can’t program.  i do notice if some links get clicked on more often and there may be a Pavlov response of creating more posts that are similar to a popular post — for example posts with photographs are more popular than posts without images so I am more likely to create posts with images than not.  But no decisions are automated or computer generated.

Industry regulatory disclosure requirements

on pages that have an affiliate banner, image, link or ad, I have put disclosure info as my understanding is you are supposed to put it on the page where you have it.  If I find out that you can put them all in one place and not worry about putting them on individual pages, then I will put it here.  I think though you can’t do that. You have to put affiliate disclosures directly on the same page.  I try to ensure I put affiliate disclosures on the same post– I’m not perfect though so if you notice that I skipped an affiliate disclosure on a page that has affiliate stuff, just let me know and I will save it.

 

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