Privacy Policy
Information We Collect
We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so–for example, to provide our Services, to communicate with you, or to make our Services better. We collect information in three ways: if and when you provide information to us, automatically through operating our Services, and from outside sources. Let’s go over the information that we collect.
Information You Provide to Us
It’s probably no surprise that we collect information that you provide to us. The amount and type of information depends on the context and how we use the information. Here are some examples:
- Basic Account Information: We ask for basic information from you in order to set up your account. For example, we require individuals who sign up for an account to provide an email address along with a username.
- Public Profile Information: If you have an account with us, we collect the information that you provide for your public profile. For example, your username is part of that public profile, along with any other information you put into your public profile, such as a photo or an “About Me” description. Your public profile information is just that–public–so please keep that in mind when deciding what information you would like to include.
- Content Information: You may also provide us with information about you (e.g. in a survey). For example, if you write a comment post that includes biographic information about you, we will have that information, and so will anyone with access to the Internet if you choose to publish the post publicly. This might be obvious to you…but it’s not to everyone!
Information We Collect Automatically
We also collect some information automatically:
- Log Information: We collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information.
- Usage Information: We collect information about your usage of our Services. For example, we collect information about the actions that site administrators and users perform on our site using–in other words, who did what, when and to what thing on a site (e.g., [username] edited “[title of post]” at [time/date]). We also collect information about what happens when you use our Services (e.g., page views, features enabled for our website and other parts of our Services). We use this information to, for example, provide our Services to you, as well as get insights on how people use our Services, so we can make our Services better.
- Information from Index & Other Technologies: A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Takeover uses cookies and other technologies to help us identify and track visitors, usage, and access preferences for our Services. For more information about our use of cookies and other technologies for tracking, including how you can control the use of cookies, please see our Cookie Policy.
storing of data about your usage of our site and Hotjar’s use of tracking cookies on other websites by following this opt-out link.
How and Why We Use Information
Purposes for Using Information
We use information about you as mentioned above and for the purposes listed below:
- To further develop and improve our Services–for example by adding new features that we think our users will enjoy or will help them to create and manage their websites more efficiently;
- To monitor and analyze trends and better understand how users interact with our Services, which helps us improve our Services and make them easier to use;
- To measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our advertising, and better understand user retention and attrition--for example, we may analyze how many individuals purchased a paid plan after receiving a marketing message or the features used by those who continue to use our Services after a certain length of time;
- To monitor and prevent any problems with our Services, protect the security of our Services, detect and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities, fight spam, and protect the rights and property of Takeover and others;
- To communicate with you, for example through an email, about offers and promotions offered by Takeover and others we think will be of interest to you, solicit your feedback, or keep you up to date on Takeover and our products; and
Sharing Information
How We Share Information
We do not sell our users’ private personal information. We share information about you in the limited circumstances spelled out below and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy:
- Subsidiaries and Independent Contractors: We may disclose information about you to our subsidiaries and individuals who are our independent contractors that need to know the information in order to help us provide our Services or to process the information on our behalf. We require our subsidiaries, employees, and independent contractors to follow this Privacy Policy for personal information that we share with them.
- Legal Requests: We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.
- With Your Consent: We may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction.
- Aggregated or De-Identified Information: We may share information that has been aggregated or reasonably de-identified, so that the information could not reasonably be used to identify you.
Information Shared Publicly
Information that you choose to make public is–you guessed it–disclosed publicly. That means, of course, that information like your public profile, posts, other content that you make public on your website, and your “Likes” and comments on other websites, are all available to others–and we hope you get a lot of views! For example, the photo that you upload to your public profile, or a default image if you haven’t uploaded one. Your public profile information may also display with your comments, “Likes,” and other interactions on our website, Public information may also be indexed by search engines or used by third parties. Please keep all of this in mind when deciding what you would like to share.
How Long We Keep Information
We generally discard information about you when we no longer need the information for the purposes for which we collect and use it--which are described in the section above on How and Why We Use Information--and we are not legally required to continue to keep it. For example, we keep the web server logs that record information about a visitor to one of Takeover’s websites, such as the visitor’s IP address, browser type, and operating system, for approximately 30 days. We retain the logs for this period of time in order to, among other things, analyze traffic to Takeover’s websites and investigate issues if something goes wrong on one of our websites. After the thirty days are up, the deleted content may remain on our backups and caches until purged.
Choices
You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:
- Limit the Information that You Provide: If you have an account with us, you can choose not to provide the optional account information and profile information.
- Set Your Browser to Reject Index: At this time, Takeover does not respond to “do not track” signals across all of our Services. However, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies before using Takeover’s websites, with the drawback that certain features of Takeover’s websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.
- Close Your Account: While we’d be very sad to see you go, if you no longer want to use our Services, you can close your account here. Please keep in mind that we may continue to retain your information after closing your account, as described in How Long We Keep Information above--for example, when that information is reasonably needed to comply with (or demonstrate our compliance with) legal obligations such as law enforcement requests, or reasonably needed for our legitimate business interests.
Your Rights
If you are located in certain countries, including those that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (AKA the “GDPR”), data protection laws give you rights with respect to your personal data, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the rights to:
- Request access to your personal data;
- Request correction or deletion of your personal data;
- Object to our use and processing of your personal data;
- Request that we limit our use and processing of your personal data; and
- Request portability of your personal data.
You can usually access, correct, or delete your personal data using your account settings and tools that we offer, but if you aren’t able to do that, or you would like to contact us about one of the other rights, scroll down to How to Reach Us to, well, find out how to reach us. EU individuals also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority.
How to Reach Us
If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact us about any of the rights mentioned in the Your Rights section above, please contact us.
Other Things You Should Know
Ads and Analytics Services Provided by Others
Ads appearing on any of our Services may be delivered by advertising networks. Other parties may also provide analytics services via our Services. These ad networks and analytics providers may set tracking technologies (like cookies) to collect information about your use of our Services and across other websites and online services. These technologies allow these third parties to recognize your device to compile information about you or others who use your device. This information allows us and other companies to, among other things, analyze and track usage, determine the popularity of certain content, and deliver advertisements that may be more targeted to your interests. Please note this Privacy Policy only covers the collection of information by Takeover and does not cover the collection of information by any third party advertisers or analytics providers.
Privacy Policy Changes
Although most changes are likely to be minor, Takeover may change its Privacy Policy from time to time. Takeover encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the change log below, and, in some cases, we may provide additional notice. Your further use of the Services after a change to our Privacy Policy will be subject to the updated policy.
Adapted from Automattic's.