Privacy Policy

I Heart Romance & Other Things (IHROT) is a personal blog run by Ezrah Tuble using WordPress. My website address is http://www.eyeheartromance.com. At IHROT, I am committed to protecting your privacy with the information you provide to interact with me on this blog (detailed below). If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, my contact information can be found at the bottom of this page.

Data Collected

Comments

To interact with posts on this blog via the comments section, you will be asked to provide your name, email address (which will not be shown), and blog/site URL (optional).

Once visitors leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form (name, email address, blog/site URL), 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. After approval of your comment, your profile picture, name, and blog/site URL are visible to the public in the context of your comment.

By leaving a comment, you are not automatically added to the IHROT newsletter, nor is your contact information sold or shared.

Newsletter

IHROT newsletter list data is collected, stored, and managed by MailChimp. MailChimp’s privacy policy is located here. It is not ever sold to another third party or made available for sale. The information collected, such as your name and email address, is stored in order for you to receive updates and/or blog posts on IHROT. When you sign up for my newsletter, you will be asked to consent to the collection of personally identifiable information (name and email address). The opportunity to unsubscribe is presented at the bottom of every newsletter you receive. Clicking on that link will remove you from the list, and your personally identifiable information will be deleted and no longer stored by IHROT.

WordPress Follow

IHROT visitors have the option to follow the blog the WordPress.com follow option. WordPress follow option is only available to those logged in to WordPress.com. IHROT does not collect or retain data through these services. WordPress.com’s privacy policy can be found here.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on my blog you may opt-in to save 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.

Purchase links/Affiliate Links

Please note that if you purchase a book or other item through a link on IHROT, your purchase will be handled by the vendor you select (Amazon, Kobo, Nook, Apple, Google Play, etc.) and they may collect, process, and control their own separate information about you that is NOT shared with IHROT. IHROT does not collect, process, or control any such information.

Social Media

If you use a third-party connection, like Facebook or Twitter for following, liking, or sharing IHROT pages, that third party may pass certain information about your use of its service. IHROT does not collect, process, or control any of this information.

Contact form

A contact form is available on IHROT with the same format as if leaving a comment (see above).

If you contact IHROT via the contact form, you will be asked to provide your name and email address. Once you have contacted me, data in the contact form (name, email address), and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection, may be collected, but not visible to the public. Please read how long data is retained below.

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.

Giveaways/Contests

PERSONALLY HOSTED GIVEAWAYS/CONTESTS

Giveaways and/or contests hosted by me will be run through Rafflecopter. Rafflecopter’s privacy policy is located here. The only requirement to join any contest and/or giveaway hosted by me is by leaving a comment (read comment policy). All other options for additional entries are voluntary and not a requirement to participate in the giveaway/contest.

If you are the winner of a contest or giveaway, IHROT may contact you at the email address submitted in your comment and IHROT may request shipping address information.  By providing that information, you are consenting to its collection, and to have the applicable contest or giveaway item mailed to you at such address, which may involve sharing that information with the applicable postal or shipping service, Amazon (used for US giveaways) or The Book Depository (used for International Giveaways). IHROT may store such information in an email archive. IHROT will also delete shipping address information from Amazon and The Book Depository once item/s have been shipped. Personal information will not be sold or distributed.

THIRD-PARTY HOSTED GIVEAWAYS/CONTESTS

Giveaways and/or contests run by blog tours or PR companies are managed and run by the company hosting the tour. If you are a winner, they will directly contact you. IHROT does not collect information related to Third-Party Hosted Giveaways/Contests. By joining the giveaway and/or contest, you consent to the tour host contacting you if you win.

If the prize for the giveaway and/or contest is provided by the Publisher, IHROT will contact the winner via email provided via Rafflecopter and will ask for your shipping information and share it with the publisher. The publisher’s name will be provided prior to entering the giveaway and/or contest. By entering the contest, you consent that your personally identifiable contact information will be shared with the Publisher.

Jetpack

IHROT uses the Jetpack WordPress Plugin for the following options (see below). These features are only available to those who are logged in to WordPress.com. WordPress.com’s privacy policy can be found here.

Comment Likes

This feature is only accessible to users logged in to WordPress.com. In order to process a comment like, the following information is used: WordPress.com user ID/username (you must be logged in to use this feature), the local site-specific user ID (if the user is signed in to the site on which the like occurred), and a true/false data point that tells us if the user liked a specific comment. If you perform a like action from one of our mobile apps, some additional information is used to track the activity: IP address, user agent, timestamp of event, blog ID, browser language, country code, and device info.

Contact Form

If Akismet is enabled on the site, the contact form submission data — IP address, user agent, name, email address, website, and message — is submitted to the Akismet service (also owned by Automattic) for the sole purpose of spam checking. The actual submission data is stored in the database of the site on which it was submitted and is emailed directly to the owner of the form (i.e. the site author who published the page on which the contact form resides). This email will include the submitter’s IP address, timestamp, name, email address, website, and message.

Likes

This feature is only accessible to users logged in to WordPress.com. In order to process a post like action, the following information is used: IP address, WordPress.com user ID, WordPress.com username, WordPress.com-connected site ID (on which the post was liked), post ID (of the post that was liked), user agent, timestamp of event, browser language, country code.

Mobile Theme

A visitor’s preference for viewing the mobile version of a site. Activity Tracked: A cookie (akm_mobile) is stored for 3.5 days to remember whether or not a visitor of the site wishes to view its mobile version. Learn more about this cookie.

Notifications

This feature is only accessible to registered users of the site who are logged in to WordPress.com. IP address, WordPress.com user ID, WordPress.com username, WordPress.com-connected site ID and URL, Jetpack version, user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp of event, browser language, country code. Some visitor-related information or activity may be sent to the site owner via this feature. This may include: email address, WordPress.com username, site URL, email address, comment content, follow actions, etc.

Sharing

When sharing content via email the following information is used: sharing party’s name and email address (if the user is logged in, this information will be pulled directly from their account), IP address (for spam checking), user agent (for spam checking), and email body/content. This content will be sent to Akismet (also owned by Automattic) so that a spam check can be performed.

WordPress.com Stats

Data Used: IP address, WordPress.com user ID (if logged in), WordPress.com username (if logged in), user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp of event, browser language, and country code. Important: The site owner does not have access to any of this information via this feature. For example, a site owner can see that a specific post has 285 views, but he/she cannot see which specific users/accounts viewed that post. Stats logs — containing visitor IP addresses and WordPress.com usernames (if available) — are retained by Automattic for 28 days and are used for the sole purpose of powering this feature.

Activity Tracked: Post and page views, video plays (if videos are hosted by WordPress.com), outbound link clicks, referring URLs, and search engine terms and country. When this module is enabled, Jetpack also tracks performance on each page load that includes the Javascript file used for tracking stats. This is exclusively for aggregate performance tracking across Jetpack sites in order to make sure that our plugin and code are not causing performance issues. This includes the tracking of page load times and resource loading duration (image files, Javascript files, CSS files, etc.).

Analytics

Data Sharing

IHROT may collect analytics data, or use third-party analytics tools and services.  IHROT uses Google Analytics, to help measure traffic and usage trends. These tools may collect information sent by your browser or mobile device, including the pages you visit and other information that assists in improving your user experience. This analytics data is collected and used in aggregate form such that it cannot reasonably be used to identify any particular individual user. Click here to read more about how Google Analytics collect data.

Data Retention

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.

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.

Your Data Rights

If you have an account on this blog 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.

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. Your data will not be sold.

Contact

If you have questions or clarifications, please email me at ezrah@eyeheartromance.com.