Privacy and Data Collection

So we’ve been told that we need a privacy policy, or something to that effect, like a general statement on what data we collect and what we do with it.  Here goes!  If we left anything out, contact us and let us know what you’d like to know that you didn’t see here.

If this is too long, then rest assured if we have your data we don’t use it for nefarious purposes, we don’t sell any data to anyone, and we don’t distribute any data to anyone for any reason.

Website Usage

With the website, I’m told there are cookies.  I don’t think there any are 3rd party cookies I believe they are all from this website and if I’m wrong please let us know specifics.  If there are 3rd party cookies feel free to block them, I don’t see why any would be necessary to the function of this website, and that is what is important to us.

I do believe however that some cookies are inevitable with modern web development, as they enable functionality on a website that wouldn’t otherwise work properly, such as our shopping cart.  (If you really need a cookie-less shopping cart checkout, we can provide you with direct Paypal links to pay for some of our products, I guess that will do the trick?  But doesn’t Paypal use cookies?  Whatever, just contact us as necessary and we will try to accommodate you.)

I’ll be honest we’re not web developers here, and anyone who cared to investigate would learn that we use WordPress so that point should be obvious.  We do have Google Analytics setup on the site, so whatever that does to track you is probably blocked if you use pretty much any software that blocks any tracking.  I’m not sure why we have it even setup, we don’t use it and are confused by the data it provides anyway.  We also have a chat/feedback plugin that provides some analytics that we don’t use, so maybe that is a thing.  So there shouldn’t be much beyond a little stat gathering, which I know includes landing page stats, and with a very few visitors I can see URLs visitors came from or the search queries that led them here, but that number is so tiny I assume most browsers block whatever does that by default.  I know it also tracks links you may click that leave the site, if that concerns you.  Beyond that I’m not sure what else it does, though on your own you can research these things such as Google Analytics, WordPress, and Jetpack (note this site is not hosted on WordPress.com obviously, you want to look into the WordPress software itself not the site.)

Also we use a few other plugins which may gather some data while you’re just browsing around.  There is a plugin that logs 404 errors and the URL, which doesn’t collect IP (I have this disabled) but does collect oddly enough the browser’s user agent string (I can’t seem to disable this without disabling logging altogether.)  The 404 log is used to fix broken links on our site through redirection to valid URLs, and logs are only kept a week, anything older is purged; this data is not used for any other purpose.  We do have security software that probably gathers IP address for unauthorized login and other hacking attempts, in order to provide IP blocking; however that works it’s entirely automatic to us, but I’m pretty sure unless you are trying to hack the site you won’t be logged.

If we have any other data for any other reason simply because you used our website, I’m not sure what that could be, but we don’t specifically collect or use it.  Nothing is done with any data we do have beyond what is reasonable to expect a website operator to do with it (like the 404 log mentioned above.)

Downloads

We have stat counters that track the number of downloads from our website, but not the downloader or any info about them.  Direct URLs pointing to downloads hosted on our separate download server may or may not log your IP as part of an error or something, I’m uncertain, but to my knowledge all standard logging is disabled on the download server.

At one time we had a few downloads requiring email signup, this was voluntary and we never did anything with those emails; I’m not even certain we still have access to them in fact.

Purchasing Products and Services

As mentioned on our website there is a shopping cart which facilitates most of our non-subscription based purchases, and there are cookies involved in that process; I have no clue what they contain I only know that one is necessary to checkout, so if it is blocked checkout will fail.  We also collect your email address as part of checkout, because we need to email you the receipts and purchase fulfillment info, of course!  We do nothing with the email addresses collected at checkout other than communicate with you about your existing purchase.  The same goes for any email addresses collected in response to any queries or support, these addresses are not ‘logged’ specifically, but we do keep record of all purchase emails and support communications for future reference in customer support.

We also have a different checkout process for our subscription based products (e.g. CryptoPrevent, d7x, and dSupportSuite hosting) and this is a secure checkout provided by a 3rd party subscription/payment processor which may have their own associated cookies, but I am even more unfamiliar with their technology than ours.  Subscriptions of course carry recurring charges, and as such your payment information (credit/debit card data or Paypal account authorization) is stored on file with the subscription processor in order to process future payments.  This data can be deleted upon request but remains on file otherwise, even after a subscription is cancelled or expires.  Don’t ask me why, it’s just how that service does it’s business I guess, but again it can be deleted upon request.  Even when present, full credit/debit card numbers are not accessible by us, other than the last 4 digits for verification purposes.  If your subscription (or one-time purchase) is done through Paypal, we don’t have your credit/debit card data at all, even if you used that to checkout through Paypal.

Email addresses collected as part of a subscription purchase are used to send notifications to subscription account holders for any reason related to the subscription only, such as automated emails for pending renewals, credit/debit card expiration prior to pending renewals, sending invoices after renewals, and cancellation notices and confirmations.

Other Email Address Usage

Email addresses collected during checkout are used to communicate with you regarding your purchase, and may be added to our mailing list for future product specials related to your purchase (should you choose to unsubscribe, we respect that and you will never be added back.)  Email addresses collected during customer service/support scenarios are used for response to those support queries only.  Both sales and support related email addresses are not ‘logged’ per se, but exist in our archived emails from sales and support, should future reference become necessary.  Sales and support email records are never purged, so don’t bother asking.

Subscribers to the blog who willingly signup with their email address will be placed in a database that is used to automatically send emails out when our blog posts are posted.  The only way your email can end up on this list is if you subscribe to our blog using the option in the lower right sidebar (under the recent blog posts) which you will find on most pages of this site.  We do absolutely NOTHING with your email on this list, WordPress just uses it to send those posts to you, that’s it.

Subscribers to our mailing list are indeed on a list we use to email out new product info, promotions and sales to consumers who willingly sign up by providing their email address here.  We don’t use those emails for any other purpose.  Once a year for Black Friday/Cyber Monday we MAY partner with other companies and include their sale promotions in our newsletter along with our own sale promotions, but your email address is not given to those other companies for any reason.  Note that any links you click on from our newsletter are tracked for stats and to determine interest.  Any email addresses can be removed by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the newsletter, and we respect that removal; in fact the unsubscribed email address is saved by our emailing service for cross referencing, to ensure that we cannot manually add your email address back to our mailing list if you already unsubscribed.

Email addresses which were collected at trade event shows (such as CompTia/ChannelCon or Spiceworks/Spiceworld) were added to our mailing list as well.  Your email address can be removed from our mailing list by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the newsletter.  (We hope you enjoyed your flash drives and other swag!)

No email that we collect from you is ever sold, or distributed to anyone outside of our organization, nor is it used for any purpose other than that for which it was intended (by you.)

All Other Data

Whatever that is, we aren’t really sure — but if we have your data we don’t use it for nefarious purposes, we don’t sell any data to anyone, and we don’t distribute any data to anyone for any reason.

Again, if we left anything out, contact us and let us know what you’d like to know that you didn’t see here.