Who we are
Our website address is: https://laurelsbylaurie.net.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
The following outlines what personal information we collect when you visit our website. This information will be used to: display the website and provide functionality; send you promotional information (such as newsletters if you opt in); send you administrative emails (such as alerts of new comments or posts if you opt in); respond to your comments or inquiries; provide you customer service; or protect against or investigate fraudulent or illegal activity.
Information you submit voluntarily
We may collect personal information that you choose to submit, such as your name and email address. For example, you may choose to leave a comment, use the contact form, subscribe to our newsletter or subscribe to comments and posts.
Information collected automatically
As we use WordPress.com Stats, we automatically collect some information about you and how you access our website. For example, your IP address, operating system type, browser type, any referring websites, pages viewed, and dates/times of when you accessed our website. We may also collect information on any actions taken when accessing our website, such as links clicked.
Information collected by third party service providers
We use third parties to provide some of our services. These include Akismet Anti-Spam, jQuery Pin It Button, Instagram Feed by Smashballoon, WordPress and WordPress Jetpack.
Akismet Anti-Spam
We use Akismet for our anti-spam service. You can read Akismet’s privacy policy here: https://automattic.com/privacy-notice/
The Akismet anti-spam service collects information about visitors who comment or use the contact form in the interests of tackling spam. This typically includes the IP address, user agent, referrer, and site URL (along with other information directly provided such as the name, username, email address, and the comment itself).
Analytics
As we use WordPress.com Stats, we automatically collect some information about you and how you access our website. For example, your IP address, operating system type, browser type, any referring websites, pages viewed, and dates/times of when you accessed our website. We may also collect information on any actions taken when accessing our website, such as links clicked.
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.
Cookies
We may use cookies to provide a better user experience. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device. These cookies can be functional (to ensure you can easily browse and access our website) or performance (to gather anonymised tracking data). You may choose to disable these cookies in your browser. You can find out more about cookies here: https://automattic.com/cookies/ or by doing a websearch for “what are internet 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.
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.
jQuery Pin It Button
We use a jQuery Pin It Button plugin by High Five Plugins to display a pinterest button on images. We are not aware of any data stored or transferred by this plugin. You can read about High Five Plugins here: https://highfiveplugins.com/
This plugin makes requests to Pinterest’s servers, and you can read Pinterest’s privacy policy here: https://policy.pinterest.com/privacy-policy/
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.
Post Sharing
We use WordPress Jetpack to display social network sharing buttons below posts. You can read WordPress Jetpack’s privacy policy here: https://jetpack.com/support/privacy/
Post and Comment Subscriptions
We use WordPress and WordPress Jetpack to offer post and comment subscriptions. You can read WordPress Jetpack’s privacy policy here: https://jetpack.com/support/privacy/
Who we share your data with
We do not personally sell, distribute, share or disclose your personal information such as your name or email address.
To display the website and provide functionality, or if you voluntarily opt in to some services (for example: signing up to our newsletter, posting a comment), some data may be shared with third party service providers as detailed above. We may also share your data if required to by law (for example: with government officials or law enforcement).
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.
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.
We have no control over the personal information and data stored by the third party services we use, as detailed above.
Please do not submit sensitive personal information to this website, such as your social security number, political opinions or religious beliefs. If under the age of 16, please ask an adult before submitting any comments or opting in to any services.
Where we send your data
We do not personally send your data anywhere. Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
We are based in the US, and our site is hosted via Hostgator. You can read Hostgator’s privacy policy here: https://www.hostgator.com/privacy/
We use third party service providers as detailed above, and they may be based in the US or other countries, or send your data to them. Please refer to their privacy policies or contact them for more information.
Contact information
Please contact me here.