This Privacy Policy describes how your personal information is collected, used, and shared when you visit or make a purchase from. It is my policy to respect your privacy regarding any information I may collect while operating my website.

How to objectively read a privacy policy (what I feel you should know)

• In my experience, people don’t fully understand what opting out of cookies means. Cookies are usually harmless and if you opt out of cookies in order to avoid seeing ads on other sites (being followed around), this will not stop you seeing any ads. It will only make sure that the ads you see are less relevant to your interests. it’s up to you to choose what’s more annoying: ads which are relevant to your interests, or ads which are irrelevant to your interests.

Summary

• I do not store any privacy-sensitive data about you unless you give consent to do so. For example: if you subscribe to one of my email newsletters.
• I do not collect any personally identifying data in my web server logs.  Actually, I don’t hold any logs at all, meaning I do not store your IP address on my server(s).
• Whenever I work with partners who store IP addresses, I make sure they comply to EU privacy law.
• I only work with partners who comply with EU and Global privacy laws and/or directives. You can find a list of my partners and links to their privacy and cookie policies further down this page.
• You may opt-out of the cookies I use at any time, however, this might have an influence on the operation of the website or the personalized experience I try to deliver.
• You have the right to opt-out of email subscriptions whenever you want. There is an unsubscribe link at the bottom of each email send you.
• I use analytics tools, tracking services and advertisement services, which are compliant with the EU privacy law and are registered with the US-EU privacy shield. I select my partners to be of the highest quality in regard of their service as well as their privacy and security policies.
• If you subscribe to any of my email newsletters, I will send you updates about my content, send you important notifications (updates to the site), messages about my services, and commercial messages in which I promote products and/or services, which I feel could be of interest to you, my reader. I will always keep my brand mission in mind while doing this.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Personal Information I collect
2. How I use the personal information I collect
3. Cookies/Tracking Technologies
4. Social Network and Platform Integration
5. How I share information
6.Anonymous Data
7. Transfer of data from the EU to the US
8. How I respond to ‘do not track’
9. Advertising
10. Choice and Opting-Out of Communications
11. Retaining, modifying, and erasing your information
12. EU data subjects rights (cookies)
13. Security measures (US – EU privacy shield)
14. Changes to this policy
15. Contact us

PERSONAL INFORMATION I COLLECT

When you visit the Site, I automatically collect certain information about your device, including information about your web browser, (anonymized) IP address, time zone, and some of the cookies that are installed on your device. Additionally, as you browse the site, I collect information about the individual web pages you view, which links you click, what websites or search terms referred you to the site, and information about how you interact with the site.

From this point on I will refer to this automatically-collected information as “Device Information.”

My purpose in device information is to better understand how my visitors use this website so that I can make better choices about the content I serve my audience(s) and optimize my advertising message(s). For example: if I notice that a certain topic (or article) on the site is more popular than others, I might serve my audience more similar content. In regard of advertising messaging, I make choices based on device information in order to make my message(s) more interesting for new audiences and more relevant to existing audiences.

 I collect Device Information using the following technologies:

• “Cookies” – these are data files that are placed on your device or computer and often include an anonymous unique identifier. For more information about cookies, and how to disable cookies, visit: http://www.allaboutcookies.org. You may also opt-out of cookies by using an online tool or my consent mechanism. Please visit our cookie policy to learn how.
• “Web beacons,” “tags,” and “pixels” – these are electronic files used to record information about how you browse the Site. These are little pieces of JavaScript code which I place on my pages. They are harmless and only tell us that someone visited that specific page. That data is then aggregated into my analytics tool, so I can analyze it.
• “Email subscription forms” – these are used in order to collect your name and email address when you decide to sign up to one of my newsletters.  I use EU privacy law compliant forms and store the information with compliant and trusted partners.

HOW DO I USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

 I use the information which I collect to make a better choice about the type of content I serve my audience. This means that I analyze the aggregated information I collect and determine which articles, videos, email articles, product offers and so forth, my audience(s) are most engaged with. Based on the conclusions I draw from this information this I decide which new content to add to the site.

Additionally, I use the device information that I collect to help improve and optimize the functioning of my Site. For example, by generating analytics about how my customers browse and interact with the site, I can redesign the user experience to better suit the needs of my visitors (think about better and more clear navigation to certain parts of the site).

 I also use the information I collect from cookies to assess the success of my marketing and advertising campaigns. In some cases, I use the information in the cookies in order to set up advertising and where applicable retargeting campaigns. Retargeting campaigns are advertising campaigns which allow us to serve you relevant and personalized advertisement or commercial messages on other sites.

COOKIES AND TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES

 I use tracking technologies, such as cookies and pixel tags on this site.

Cookies are small pieces of text that are placed on your computer. They hold simple information for various different reasons. Cookies can be deleted at any time. There are different types of cookies, for different tools and they all have different functions. These cookies have a specific lifetime set to them. This means that after this time passes, the cookie deletes itself.

 I place cookies because the bits of information that the cookie holds make it possible for us to:

• improve the way the site works,
• serve you better content, because it’s more relevant to your interest(s),
• increase my reach by using targeted advertising and retargeting advertising. This means that if I run advertising through one of our trusted partners, you might see advertising messages that are relevant to your interests, instead of irrelevant ads on other sites. In this case, the messages will be relevant to your interests. If you opt-out of cookies, you will still see advertising on other sites, however, the chances are bigger than the ads will be irrelevant to your interests.

You can read about cookies and the different types of cookies I place in my cookie policy.

SHARING OR TRANSFERRING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

I share your personal information with EU privacy law compliant partner to help us use your Personal Information, as described in the paragraphs above. Whenever my partners are not located in the EU, I make sure that my partners are registered members of the US-EU Privacy Shield, to ensure the security of your personal information.

As described above, I use your Personal Information to provide you with targeted advertisements or marketing communications I believe may be of interest to you. For more information about how targeted advertising works, you can visit the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) educational page.

Finally, I may also share your Personal Information to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to respond to a subpoena, search warrant or other lawful requests for information I receive, or to otherwise protect my rights.

OPTING OUT OF TARGETED ADVERTISING

 I use targeted advertising technologies in order to improve the relevance of the advertisement message for my audience and in order to increase our reach. You can opt-out of the cookies that make this possible in several ways, however, you this does not mean that you will suddenly not see ads. It means that you will not see my advertisements messages, which are tailored to your interest and might see relevant messages from other companies that use the same advertising services as I do.

You can read how to opt-out of cookies that make the above possible in my cookie policy.

DO NOT TRACK

Please note that I do not alter my site’s data collection and use practices when I see a Do Not Track signal from your browser.

YOUR RIGHTS AS AN EU CITIZEN

As noted above, I do not keep any web server logs. However, my partners such as email list hosts, analytics services, and some tracking services do. As stated, I work with EU privacy law compliant partners and the data retention time they adhere to is listed in their policies. You can find a list of all our partners and links to their policies in our cookie policy.

Retaining, modifying, and erasing your information

If you are a European resident, you have the right to access personal information I hold about you and to ask that your personal information be corrected, updated, or deleted. If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us through the form on the contact page.

Additionally, if you are a European resident I note that I am processing your information in order to fulfill contracts I might have with you (for example if you make an order through the site), or otherwise to pursue my legitimate business interests listed above. Additionally, please note that your information will be transferred outside of Europe, including to Canada and the United States to our trusted partners.

CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

 I may update this privacy policy from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to my practices or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons.

CONTACT US

For more information about my privacy practices, if you have questions, or if you would like to make a complaint, please contact me by email at lex[at]lexgabrees.com or by the form on this page.