Privacy policy and cookie policy

At Modculture, I have always taken your privacy seriously and have never sought to access any more information than is necessary for the running of the site functionally and commercially. However, in light of GDPR (and CCPA) coming into play, I wanted to take the opportunity to add as much clarity/transparency as I can to both my Privacy Policy and in relation to cookies on the site.

The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to inform you what personally identifiable information may be collected and how it may be used. This statement only applies to this website.

Information collected and how it is used:

1. Information voluntarily submitted to the website:
We may collect personal information from you such as your name or email address. For example, you may submit information to the website by leaving a comment, subscribing to our newsletter, or getting in touch via the ‘contact us’ page.

2. Information collected from others:
We may receive information about you from other sources, for example, if you link your website, profile or leave a comment. If you opt to do so, your profile may be displayed at the side of your name.

3. Automatically-Collected Information:
We automatically collect certain information about you and the device when you access the website. For example, we will log your IP address, operating system type, browser type, referring website, pages you viewed, and the dates/times when you accessed the site. We may also collect information about actions you take when using the website, such as links clicked.

4. Cookies:
We may log information using cookies, which are small data files stored on your browser by the website. We may use both session cookies, which expire when you close your browser, and persistent cookies, which stay on your browser until deleted, to provide you with a more personalised experience on the website.

How your information is used:

The information collected could be used in the following ways:
To operate and maintain our website.
To send you promotional information, such as newsletters. Note that every email we send has an opt-out / unsubscribe.
To respond to your comments or inquiries.
To track and measure advertising on the website
To protect, investigate, and deter against unauthorised or illegal activity. Essentially to keep you and fellow users safe.

Third party use of information

We may share your information with third parties when you explicitly authorise us to share your information.
Additionally, the website may use third-party service providers to service various aspects of the Website. Each third party service provider’s use of your personal information is dictated by their respective privacy policies.

We currently use the following third party providers:

Google Analytics – tracks website usage and provides information such as referring websites and user actions on the Website. Google Analytics may capture your IP address, but no other personal information is captured by Google Analytics. Note that for this site, I anonymise data for added protection.

Mail Chimp – this service is used for delivery of email updates and newsletters. I store your name and email address for purposes of delivering such communications. Please refer to Mail Chimp’s privacy policy for further information. I do not sell this information and you are free to unsubscribe at any point.

Wordfence – This site uses Wordfence for protection against unauthorised and/or illegal activity. It’s a wall to keep you safe. IP addresses are used to track and block malicious traffic. You can see its privacy policy here.

Cloudflare – the site uses Cloudflare to control traffic and block any malicious traffic to the site. Again, IP addresses are used to control this traffic. Please refer to the Cloudflare privacy policy here.

At this time, your personal information is not shared with any other third-party applications. This list may be amended from time to time in the website’s sole discretion.

Except when required by law, we will not sell, distribute, or reveal your email addresses or other personal information without your consent. However, we may disclose or transfer personal information collected through the website to third parties who acquire all or a portion of our business, which may be the result of a merger, consolidation, or purchase of all or a portion of our assets, or in connection with any bankruptcy or reorganisation proceeding brought by or against us.

Anonymous data

From time to time, we may use anonymous data, which does not identify you alone, or when combined with data from other parties. This type of anonymous data may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses. Examples of this anonymous data may include analytics or information collected from cookies.

Cookies and cookie policy

This website uses cookies to store visitors’ preferences, record user-specific information on what pages users access or visit, ensure that visitors are not repeatedly sent the same banner ads, customise website content based on visitors’ browser type or other information that the visitor sends. Cookies may also be used by third-party services, such as Google Analytics, as described previously.

Users may, at any time, prevent the setting of cookies, by the website, by using a corresponding setting of your internet browser and may thus permanently deny the setting of cookies. Furthermore, already set cookies may be deleted at any time via an internet browser or other software programs. This is possible in all popular internet browsers. However, if users deactivate the setting of cookies in your internet browser, not all functions of our website may be entirely usable.

Advertising:

This site uses third party banner and ads, served via the Google Adsense program. They pay for the continued running of this site. Google as a third-party vendor, uses cookies (including the DART cookie) to serve ads on the site, based on previous visits to this site and other sites. If you would like more information about this practice and would like to know your options in relation to these ads, check out its Privacy Policy, as well as details on how to opt-out. Note that from 25th May, these ads will no longer be personalised by default for visitors from the EU and you will be asked to consent to cookies before any ads at all are loaded.

In terms of CCPA, I have a clear ‘do not sell my personal information’ opt-out on the site when you visit the Modculture site for California residents.

Retargeting Ads

From time to time, the website may engage in remarketing efforts with third-party companies, such as Google, Facebook, or Instagram, in order to market the website. These companies use cookies to serve ads based on someone’s past visits to the Website.
Facebook: Opt-out of Facebook remarketing here
Google: Opt-out of Google remarketing here

Affiliate Participation

This website may engage in affiliate marketing, which is done by embedding tracking links into the website. If you click on a link for an affiliate partnership, a cookie will be placed on your browser to track any sales for purposes of commissions. This is one of the ways we finance the website and essentially, keep going.

Modculture is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and links to Amazon.co.uk. As part of this Amazon Associates program, the website will post customised links, provided by Amazon, to track the referrals to their website. This program utilises cookies to track visits for the purposes of assigning commission on these sales.

Modculture is a participant in the Skimlinks Program, an umbrella affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and links to online retailers. As part of this Skimlinks program, the website will post customised links, converted by Skimlinks, to track the referrals to their website. This program utilises cookies to track visits for the purposes of assigning commission on these sales.

Modculture is a participant in the AWIN Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and links to online retailers. As part of this AWIN program, the website will post customised links, provided by AWIN, to track the referrals to their website. This program utilises cookies to track visits for the purposes of assigning commission on these sales.

Newsletters

On the Website, you may subscribe to our newsletter, which may be used for advertising purposes. All newsletters sent may contain tracking pixels. The pixel is embedded in emails and allows an analysis of the success of online marketing campaigns. Because of these tracking pixels, we can see if and when you open an email and which links within the email you click. Also, this allows me to adapt the content of future newsletters to the interests of the user. This behaviour will not be passed on to third parties.

Rights Related To Your Personal Information

Opt-out – You may opt-out of future email communications by following the unsubscribe links in our emails. You may also notify us at [email protected] to be removed from the mailing list.
Access – You may access the personal information we have about you by submitting a request to [email protected]
Amend – You may contact us at [email protected] to amend or update your personal information.
Forget – In certain situations, you may request that we erase or forget your personal data. To do so, please submit a request to [email protected]
Please note that we may need to retain certain information for record-keeping purposes or to complete transactions, or when required by law.

Sensitive Personal Information

At no time should you submit sensitive personal information to this site. This includes financial and government details, information regarding race or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, health information, criminal background, or trade union memberships. If you elect to submit such information to us, it will be subject to this Privacy Policy.

How long we retain your data

We will only keep your personal information for the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy. When these purposes have expired, or are no longer relevant, or you have withdrawn your consent for us to use your personal information (and we have no other lawful basis to use such data), we will delete such data.

If you have not used our services for a reasonable amount of time, we may contact you to ensure you are still happy to receive communications. We may also delete your personal information. Even if we delete your personal information, it may remain on a back-up or in archives.

Please refer to other third-party applications or services used by this website for further details on their data retention policies.

Children’s Information

This site does not knowingly collect any personally identifiable information from children under the age of 16 and the site is not marketed at children. If a parent or guardian believes that the site has personally identifiable information of a child under the age of 16 in its database, please contact us immediately at [email protected] and I will do my best to quickly remove such information from my records.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question. In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policy and practices of the owners of that third party site. We recommend you check the Privacy Policy of that third-party site.

Contact Information

At any time, please contact us at [email protected] for questions related to this Privacy Policy.

Last updated: 24th May 2021.