PRIVACY POLICY, COOKIE TRACKING, AND COPYRIGHT

WHO WE ARE

Welcome! Our website address is barbhopkins.com, a website which is operated by Barb Hopkins, Author and Freelance Writer, (“BH”). BH makes barbhopkins.com available subject to the terms and conditions outlined below. Your continued use of this site means you consent to our privacy policies. BH is a personal website and blog of Barb Hopkins, an author of fictional stories, book reviewer, and freelance content writer, as such the content offered here is for entertainment purposes only, and anything written on this site does not contain any warranty as to the validity of its content.

PRIVACY POLICY

When you visit barbhopkins.com any personal information you provide to BH is not disclosed or shared with others, except as permitted by this Privacy Policy. Access to your personal information is restricted to those employees and agents of BH who require access for the purpose of responding to your inquiries, or requests, or providing information you have indicated is of interest. BH does not knowingly collect or use personal information from minors. BH reserves the right to disclose your personal information in order to comply with court orders, subpoenas, or in the good faith belief that BH is required to do so by law, including but not limited to disclosure to law enforcement or other government officials in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringements, or other activity that is illegal or may expose you or BH to legal liability.

Any data you provide BH will be stored securely on our own systems and only for the intended purposes of use.

BH may request and/or collect information from you on a voluntary basis when you participate in or register for contests or promotions, or if you email BH. The requested information may include personal information such as your name, email address, telephone number, and home address. For activities such as contests and promotions, BH requests your personal information in order to administer your entry and the contest, award prizes, and may disclose your name in order to announce contest winners. BH may request your age or birth date in order to verify your identity and eligibility to participate. BH does not sell, rent, or otherwise disclose the personal information BH has collected from you to third parties.

BH only retains the personal information provided for as long as reasonably necessary to conduct the contest or promotion for which you have registered to participate, to provide the services you have requested, respond to your inquiry, or to resolve disputes, enforce our user agreement, and as may be required due to technical and legal requirements and constraints related to the security, integrity, and operation of our site.

Please note this website contains links to other sites. BH is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of those websites.

If you use a third-party connection such as other social media by “following” BH pages, the third party may pass certain information about your use of their service. BH does not retain or collect any of this information.

BH reserves the right to modify this privacy statement at any time without notice. Please check this page for the latest version. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy as amended from time to time.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on barbhopkins.com 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 barbhopkins.com, 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 and Emails

When you send email to BH and/or fill the contact form, BH only uses personal information (such as name, mailing address and email address or other personal information you voluntarily provide) contained in your email and/or contact form to respond to your specific inquiry or comments. Although BH may retain your email for a period of time, BH will not use any personal information contained in your email for any purpose other than responding to your specific inquiry or comments, in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

COOKIES

This site uses cookies for the functional running of barbhopkins.com such as to analyze traffic. Personal information will not be collected if you are only browsing this site. We may collect non-personal information such as the device used to access this site, geolocation, browser type, etc. to help BH understand how people use this site.

If you leave a comment on barbhopkins.com you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so you do not have to fill in your details again when leaving another comment. These cookies last for one year.

If you have an account and log into this site, BH 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, BH will also set up several cookies to save 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 remains 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.

BH uses the following types of cookies:

Necessary Cookies

Necessary cookies enable you to navigate this site and use its services and features. Because these cookies are essential for our system to function properly, they cannot be shut off.

Social Media Cookies

Social media cookies are used to enable you to share pages and content on this site through third-party social networking sites and other websites.

Analytics Cookies

Analytics cookies collect information about your preferences and use of this site. BH uses information from these cookies to analyze site traffic.

BH uses a combination of these types of cookies. EU readers have the ability to opt out of targeting and other cookies via the “Cookie Consent” banner available in this site, Settings via the Cookie Consent banner will take effect on all subsequent pageview. Global cookie consent settings can be set to manage which advertising cookies you would like to allow when visiting our site. You can change those settings, or “opt-put” from targeting the following links in your region:

Canada: youradchoices.ca/choices

USA: aboutads.info

Europe: youronlinechoices.eu

Australia: youronlinechoices.com.au

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

BH may collect analytics data, or use third-party analytics tools and services such as Google Analytics, to help understand site traffic, usage trends, send newsletters, or promotions. BH uses tools that collect information sent by your browser, including pages you visit. This data is collected and used in aggregate form so that you remain anonymous.

Who We Share Your Data With

BH does not share your information with third parties, unless legally required to do so through a subpoena or court order.

Where We Send Your Data

We use Akismet anti-spam software to keep our site free of spam. Visitor comments and emails may be checked through this service for spam.

How Long We Retain Your Data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so BH can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our site, BH also stores​ the personal information you provide in your user profile. You can see, edit, or delete your personal information at any time (except you cannot change your username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

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.

How We Protect Your Data

Aside from the procedures set forth by our web host, NameCheap, and WordPress, BH also has our own SSL Certificate purchased through Comodo. This means all data that flows through our site is securely processed.

Privacy Questions

If you have any questions about our privacy and cookie policies, or our use of your data, please email privacy@barbhopkins.com

OTHER INFORMATION

Instagram Feed WD

Instagram Feed WD plugin uses Instagram API on website front end. All the data received from Instagram via API is cached in WordPress database for some short period to provide front end optimization. You may request us to delete your Instagram data if it is accidentally cached in our website database with hashtag feed data. Instagram saves some cookies in browsers of website visitors via API data. These cookies are mostly used for security purposes. They are regulated under terms of Instagram’s Privacy Policy.

Akismet

We collect information about visitors who comment on sites that use our Akismet anti-spam service. The information we collect depends on how the User sets up Akismet for the Site, but typically includes the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL (along with other information directly provided by the commenter such as their name, username, email address, and the comment itself).

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright ©2015-2019 Barb Hopkins. All Rights Reserved. This website is protected under the copyright laws of USA and other countries.

The materials used and displayed on barbhopkins.com, including but not restricted to website design and underlying source code, text, logos, trademarks and service marks, software, graphics, illustrations, and artwork, are the property of BH or its affiliates or licensors, and are protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws.

Barbhopkins.com belongs to BH. All other marks that appear throughout barbhopkins.com belong to BH or the respective owners of such marks and are protected by U.S. and international laws. Any use of any of the marks appearing throughout barbhopkins.com without the express written consent of BH or owner of the mark, as applicable, is strictly prohibited.

If you have a question about this copyright notice, or are seeking permission to use any of the materials on this website, please contact BH directly at privacy@www.barbhopkins.com.