Who we are
Our website address is: https://howtosquirrel.com.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
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.
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.
Contact forms
When you fill out a contact form on howtosquirrel.com we only collect the information you enter into the contact form. If the form asks for your name, email address, or any other personal information, then that information is sent to us via email. We only retain that information—including your email address—for as long as necessary to address your purpose in contacting us. We never sell information from contact forms to any third parties for any purpose.
Cookies and Web Beacons
We use third party advertisements on howtosquirrel.com to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).
You can chose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.
In addition, 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.
If you have an account and you log in to this site, we 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, we will also set up several cookies to save your 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 will persist 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.
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.
Analytics
As you use this Website, we use automatic data collection technology (Google Analytics) to collect certain information about your device, browsing actions, and patterns. This generally includes information about where you are, how you use our website, and any communications between your computer and this site. Among other things, we will collect data about the type of computer you use, your Internet connection, your IP address, your operating system, and your browser type.
We collect this data for statistical purposes and we don’t collect personal information. The purpose of this data is to improve our Website and offerings.
If you wish to opt out of Google Analytics so that none of your personal information is collected and stored by Google Analytics, you can download and install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on here. For more information on how Google collects and uses your data, you can access the Google Privacy Policy here.
Who we share your data with
We don’t sell or share your data with anyone.
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.
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.
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.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Your contact information
For questions regarding your data and how we use it, you can reach us at privacy@howtosquirrel.com You can also email us here if you would like an extract of all of your personal information stored on our website or to request that we delete all of your information stored on our website.
THIRD PARTY LINKS AND INFORMATION COLLECTION AND USE BY OUR USERS
Some of our Services provide links to other websites. Because we do not control the information policies or practices of these third party sites, you should review their privacy policies to learn about how they collect and use personal information.
You may also log in to some of our Services using sign-in services such as Facebook Connect or an Open ID provider. These services will authenticate your identity and provide you with the option to share certain personal information with us, such as your name and email address to pre-populate our sign up form. For example, if you take advantage of certain of our social media features, such as the Facebook Like button, and widgets, such as the “Share This” button or interactive mini-programs that run on our site, the applicable social networking sites may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our websites, and may set a cookie to enable it to function properly.
What data breach procedures we have in place
CHILDREN
Our Services are not directed to persons under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided us with personal information without such parent or guardian’s consent, he or she should contact us. If we become aware that a child under 18 has provided us with personal information, we will delete such information from our files.
YOUR RIGHTS
Where the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679, or GDPR, applies, in certain circumstances and subject to data processing agreements, you have rights in relation to the personal information we hold about you. We set out below an outline of those rights and how to exercise those rights. Please note that we will require you to verify your identity before responding to any requests to exercise your rights by providing details only known to the account holder. To exercise any of your rights, please contact privacy@howtosquirrel.com. Please note that for each of the rights below we may have valid legal reasons to refuse your request, in such instances we will let you know if that is the case.
ACCESS
You have the right to know whether we process personal information about you, and if we do, to access data we hold about you and certain information about how we use it and who we share it with.
PORTABILITY
You have the right to receive a subset of the personal information you provide us if we process it on the legal bases of our contract with you or with your consent in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and a right to request that we transfer such personal information to another party. If you wish for us to transfer the personal information to another party, please ensure you detail that party and note that we can only do so where it is technically feasible. We are not responsible for the security of the personal information or its processing once received by the third party.
CORRECTION
You have the right to require us to correct any personal information held about you that is inaccurate and have incomplete data completed. Where you request correction, please explain in detail why you believe the personal information we hold about you to be inaccurate or incomplete so that we can assess whether a correction is required. Please note that while we assess whether the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete, you may exercise your right to restrict our processing of the applicable data as described below.
ERASURE
You may request that we erase the personal information we hold about you in the following circumstances:
- where you believe it is no longer necessary for us to hold the personal information;
- we are processing it on the basis of your consent and you wish to withdraw your consent;
- we are processing your data on the basis of our legitimate interest and you object to such processing;
- you no longer wish us to use your data to send you marketing; or
- you believe we are unlawfully processing your data.
Please provide as much detail as possible on your reasons for the request to assist us in determining whether you have a valid basis for erasure.
RESTRICTION OF PROCESSING TO STORAGE ONLY
You have a right to require us to stop processing the personal information we hold about you other than for storage purposes in the following circumstances:
- You believe the personal information is not accurate for the period it takes for us to verify whether the data is accurate;
- We wish to erase the personal information as the processing we are doing is unlawful but you want us to simply restrict the use of that data;
- We no longer need the personal information for the purposes of the processing but you require us to retain the data for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims; or
- You have objected to us processing personal information we hold about you on the basis of our legitimate interest and you wish us to stop processing the personal information while we determine whether there is an overriding interest in us retaining such personal information.
OBJECTION
You have the right to object to our processing of data about you and we will consider your request. Please provide us with detail as to your reasoning so that we can assess whether there is a compelling overriding interest in us continuing to process such data or we need to process it in relation to legal claims.
You also have the right, at any time, to object to our processing of data about you in order to send you marketing, including where we build profiles for such purposes and we will stop processing the data for that purpose.
WITHDRAWAL OF CONSENT
Where you have provided your consent to us processing your personal data, you can withdraw your consent at any time by visiting the
NOTIFICATION OF CHANGES
We reserve the right to modify this privacy policy at any time, so please review it frequently. In all cases, your continued use of any Services constitutes acceptance to any such changes.
COMPLAINTS
In the event that you wish to make a complaint about how we process your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Officer at privacy@howtosquirrel.com and we will try to deal with your request.