“Today me will live in the moment unless it’s unpleasant, in which case me will eat a cookie”. – The Cookie Monster
PLEASE READ THE BELOW TERMS CAREFULLY
– PRIVACY POLICY –
Your privacy is very important to us. This Privacy Policy applies to information that may be collected about you when using http://www.bubbly.buzz (which we called “our site“), our mobile application-based representation of our site or any other related products and services (which comprise our “Services“).
Throughout this Privacy Policy we’ll refer to our websites, mobile applications, and other products and services collectively as “Services”. And if you’d like to learn more about the companies that may be the controller of information about you, take a look at the section below on Controllers and Responsible Companies.
Please note that we use affiliate links to promote products exhibited on our site that are offered for sale by certain third parties (being “Affiliated Vendors“). These Affiliates Vendors maintain their own privacy and cookie governance policies that will also govern their usage of data. If you decide to visit or purchase products or services from an Affiliate Vendor, we’d encourage you to have a look at their relevant privacy and cookie governance policies as well, to ensure you’re comfortable with the way that they may process any data you provide to them. We currently use the following Affiliate Vendors (and we’ve included links to their respective privacy policies):
- Automattic, Inc. (https://automattic.com/privacy/); and
- AWIN Ltd (https://www.awin.com/gb/privacy).
It is possible we may introduce new Affiliate Vendors to our site in future so please do check this page from time to time to see else we are working with.
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 may collect this information from three sources: 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 may collect information that you provide to us directly. At this stage, given purpose of our site, only limited data collection and processing activities are currently envisaged. Here are some examples:
- Content information: You might provide us with information about you in draft and published content (a blog post or comment that includes biographic information about you, or any media or files you upload).
- Communications with us: You might also provide us with information if you contact us or sign up for a newsletter . When you communicate with us via form, email, phone, WordPress.com comment, or otherwise, a copy of our communications (including any call recordings as permitted by applicable law) may be retained.
However, as we indicated above, if you choose to visit and/or transact with one of our Affiliated Vendors, they may collect information (and also issues cookies) for their own purposes, as disclosed within their own privacy and cookie governance policies.
How and Why We Use Information
Purposes for Using Information
If we do collect information about you, we may use information for the purposes listed below:
- To provide our Services. For example, if we offer a newsletter service as part of our site that you would like to receive.
- To ensure quality, maintain safety, and improve our Services. For example, by monitoring and analyzing how users interact with our Services so we can create new features that we think our users will enjoy and that will help them create and manage websites more efficiently or make our Services easier to use.
- To market our Services and measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our marketing. For example, by targeting our marketing messages to groups of our users, advertising our Services, analysing the results of our marketing (like how many people purchased a paid plan after receiving a marketing message), and understanding and forecasting user retention.
- To protect our Services, our users, and the public. For example, by detecting security incidents; detecting and protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity; fighting spam; complying with our legal obligations; and protecting the rights and property of ourselves and others, which may result in us, for example, terminating Services.
- To fix problems with our Services. For example, by monitoring, debugging, repairing, and preventing issues.
- To customize the user experience. For example, to personalize your experience by serving you relevant notifications and advertisements for our Services, recommending content, and providing new posts for your reading pleasure.
- To communicate with you. For example, by emailing you to ask for your feedback, share tips for getting the most out of our products, or keep you up to date; to share offers and promotions that we think will be of interest to you. Where relevant, if you don’t want to hear from us, you can opt out of marketing-related communications at any time.
Legal Bases for Collecting and Using Information
A note here for those in the European Union about our legal grounds for processing information about you under EU data protection laws, which is that our use of your information is based on the grounds that:
(1) The use is necessary in order to fulfill any commitments to you under the applicable terms of our site (or other agreements with you); or
(2) The use is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; or
(3) The use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or
(4) We have a legitimate interest in using your information — for example, to provide and update our Services; to improve our Services so that we can offer you an even better user experience; to safeguard our Services; to communicate with you; to measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our advertising; and to understand our user retention and attrition; to monitor and prevent any problems with our Services; and to personalize your experience; or
(5) You have given us your consent — for example before we place certain cookies on your device and access and analyze them later on, as described in our Cookie Policy (below).
Sharing Information
How We Share Information
If we do hold information about you, we may share this in limited circumstances, and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy. These are spelled out below, as well as in the section called Ads and Analytics Services Provided by Others:
- Subsidiaries and independent contractors: We may disclose information about you to any subsidiaries and independent contractors who need the information to help us provide our Services or process the information on our behalf.
- Third-party vendors: We may share information about you with third-party vendors who need the information in order to provide their services to us, or to provide their services to you (for example – this might be relevant in terms of our Affiliated Vendors). This may also include other vendors that we may use from time to time to help us provide our Services to you (like payment providers that process credit and debit card information, fraud prevention services that allow us to analyze fraudulent payment transactions, cloud storage services, postal and email delivery services that help us stay in touch with you and customer chat and email support services that help us communicate with you); those that assist us with our marketing efforts (e.g., by providing tools for identifying a specific marketing target group or improving our marketing campaigns, and by placing ads to market our services); those that help us understand and enhance our Services (like analytics providers); those that make tools to help us run our operations (like programs that help us with task management, scheduling, word processing, email and other communications, and collaboration among our teams); other third-party tools that help us manage operations; and companies that make products available on our websites. These include our Affiliate Vendors and any other vendors named in this policy or our Cookie Policy (below).
- Legal and regulatory requirements: We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.
- To protect rights, property, and others: We may disclose information about you when we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of ourselves, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if we have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, we may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
- Business transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, any user information that we do hold would likely be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party.
- With your consent: We may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction. For example, to the extent we hold information about you, we may share your information with third parties when you authorise us to do so.
- Aggregated or de-identified information: We may share information that has been aggregated or de-identified, so that it can no longer reasonably be used to identify you. For instance, we may publish aggregate statistics about the use of our Services, or share a hashed version of your email address to facilitate customized ad campaigns on other platforms.
Information Shared Publicly
Information that you choose to make public is — you guessed it — disclosed publicly. Public information may be indexed by search engines or used by third parties. Please keep this in mind when deciding what you would like to share publicly.
How Long We Keep Information
To the extent we do collect information about you, we generally discard this when it’s no longer needed for the purposes for which we collect and use it — described in the section above on How and Why We Use Information — and we’re not legally required to keep it.
Choices
You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:
- Limit the information that you provide: You can choose not to provide optional information. However, please keep in mind that if you do not provide this information, certain features of our Services may not be accessible.
- Opt out of marketing communications: To the extent we decide to provide promotional communications as part of our Services, you may opt out of receiving such communications from us. If you opt out of promotional communications, we may still send you other communications, like those about your account and legal notices, to the extent necessary.
- Set your browser to reject cookies: You can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies before using our site, with the drawback that certain features of our site may not function properly without the aid of cookies.
Your Rights
If you are located in certain parts of the world, including California and countries that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (aka the “GDPR”), you may have certain rights regarding your personal information, like the right to request access to or deletion of your data.
European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
If you are located in a country that falls under the scope of the GDPR, data protection laws give you certain 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 also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority.
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
While our site is directed to users within the United Kingdom, the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) would otherwise require us to provide California residents with some additional information about the categories of personal information we collect and share, where we get that personal information, and how and why we use it (if we comprised a “business” for the purposes of the CCPA). However, given our site is populated with affiliate links sourced from our Affiliate Vendors, some of whom may direct their products and services at California residents, we have included further detail about possible collection and sharing activities for the purposes of the CCPA.
The CCPA requires provision of a list of the “categories” of personal information collected, as that term is defined in the law. Given our site is largely reliant upon our Affiliate Vendors in terms of the collection and processing of information, we would encourage you to refer to their respective privacy policies for further detail regarding the categories of personal information collected. However, we envisage the following categories of personal information may be collected from California residents (by the Affiliate Vendors):
- Identifiers (like your name, contact information, and device and online identifiers);
- Commercial information (your billing information and purchase history, for example);
- Characteristics protected by law;
- Internet or other electronic network activity information (such as your usage of our Services);
- Geolocation data (such as your location based on your IP address);
- Audio, electronic, visual or similar information;
- Professional or employment-related information; and
- Inferences made from such information (such as likelihood of retention or attrition).
You can also find more information about what we collect and sources of that information in the Information We Collect section above.
We may collect personal information for business and commercial purposes described in the How and Why We Use Information section.
If you are a California resident, you have additional rights under the CCPA, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the right to:
- Request to know the categories of personal information collected, the categories of business or commercial purpose for collecting and using it, the categories of sources from which the information came, the categories of third parties the information may be shared with, and the specific pieces of information collected about you;
- Request deletion of personal information collected or maintained;
- Opt out of any sale of personal information; and
- Not receive discriminatory treatment for exercising your rights under the CCPA.
Controllers and Responsible Companies
Different Affiliate Vendors are the controllers (or co-controllers) of personal information, which means that they are the companies responsible for processing that information, based on the particular service and the location of the individual using our Services. Depending on the Services you use, more than one Affiliate Vendor company may be the controller of your personal data.
The chart below explains the current controllers who might process your personal information. Where relevant, we use the term “Designated Countries” to refer to Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, and all countries located in the European continent.
Automattic Inc.
60 29th Street #343
San Francisco, CA 94110 (if you reside outside of the Designated Countries)
Aut O’Mattic A8C Ireland Ltd.
Business Centre, No.1 Lower Mayor Street
International Financial Services Centre
Dublin 1, Ireland. (if you reside in the Designated Countries)(Automattic Inc. is also the controller for some of the processing activities related to Services provided by Aut O’Mattic A8C Ireland Ltd.)
AWIN AG
Eichhornstrasse 3
10785 Berlin
Germany
AWIN Limited
5th Floor, 2 Thomas More Square
London
E1W 1YN
United Kingdom
How to Reach Us
While we don’t currently have a dedicated Data Protection Officer, if you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact us about any of the rights mentioned above, please contact us at – cheers@bubbly.buzz.
Within the EEA and the United Kingdom, you can also find further details about your rights (including a right of complaint) in terms of the processing of your information from your relevant supervisory authority. We have included the details of the competent supervisory authorities in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland below for reference (though if you are resident in another EEA member state, please do not hesitate to approach your local supervisory authority for additional information):
Republic of Ireland – Data Protection Commissioner (www.dataprotection.ie)
United Kingdom – Information Commissioner’s Office (www.ico.org.uk)
Other Things You Should Know (Keep Reading!)
Transferring Information
Because many Affiliate Vendors operate on a multinational or worldwide basis and we are based in the United Kingdom, the information about you that we and they may process when you use the Services in the EU may be used, stored, and/or accessed by individuals operating outside the European Economic Area (EEA); including individuals who work for such Affiliate Vendors, other affiliated companies of these Affiliate Vendors, or third-party data processors. This may be required for the purposes listed in the How and Why We Use Information section above. When providing information about you to entities outside the EEA, the Affiliate Vendors will be required to take appropriate measures to ensure their recipients protect your personal information adequately in accordance applicable law. These measures include:
- In the case of US-based entities, entering into European Commission approved standard contractual arrangements with them, or ensuring they have signed up to the EU-US Privacy Shield; or
- In the case of entities based in other countries outside the EEA, entering into European Commission approved standard contractual arrangements with them.
Ads and Analytics Services Provided by Others
Ads appearing on any of our Services may be delivered by advertising networks (including those operated by Affiliate Vendors). 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, among other things, analysis and usage tracking usage, determination of the popularity of certain content, and delivery of ads that may be more targeted to your interests. Please note this Privacy Policy does not cover the collection of information by any third-party advertisers or analytics providers, including Affiliate Vendors.
Privacy Policy Changes
Although most changes are likely to be minor, we may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. We encourage visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to the Privacy Policy. Your further use of the Services after a change to our Privacy Policy will be subject to the updated policy.
(We would like to thank Automattic, Inc. for allowing us to utilise and adapt their privacy policy for our site.)
– COOKIE POLICY –
This policy specifically explains how we, our partners, and users of our Services deploy cookies, as well as the options you have to control them.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small pieces of data, stored in text files, that are stored on your computer or other device when websites are loaded in a browser. They are widely used to “remember” you and your preferences, either for a single visit (through a “session cookie”) or for multiple repeat visits (using a “persistent cookie”). They ensure a consistent and efficient experience for visitors, and perform essential functions such as allowing users to register and remain logged in. Cookies may be set by the site that you are visiting (known as “first party cookies”), or by third parties, such as those who serve content or provide advertising or analytics services on the website (“third party cookies”).
Both websites and HTML emails may also contain other tracking technologies such as “web beacons” or “pixels.” These are typically small transparent images that provide statistics, for similar purposes as cookies. They are often used in conjunction with cookies, though they are not stored on your computer in the same way. As a result, if you disable cookies, web beacons may still load, but their functionality will be restricted.
How are cookies used
Cookies may be used for a number of different purposes on or through our site. Some cookies are necessary for technical reasons; some enable a personalized experience for both visitors and registered users; and some allow the display of advertising from selected third party networks. Some of these cookies may be set when a page is loaded, or when a visitor takes a particular action (clicking the “like” or “follow” button on a post, for example).
Some of the cookies used are only set if you are a registered WordPress.com user, while others may be set whenever you our site, irrespective of whether you have a WordPress.com account. These cookies may be set by Automattic, Inc. or AWIN Limited (being Affiliate Vendors); it is also possible other Affiliate Vendors that we use in future may set cookies too. If we contact you by email, it is also possible cookies may be included in relevant correspondence.
For more information on the choices you have about the cookies used, please see the Controlling Cookies section below.
Types of Cookie
The table below explains the types of cookies that may be used on our websites and why they are used.
Category of cookies | Why they may be used |
Strictly Necessary | These cookies are essential for our site to perform its basic functions. |
Functionality | These cookies may be used to store preferences, where relevant, set by users such as account name, language, and location. |
Security | These cookies may be used to help identify and prevent potential security risks. |
Analytics and Performance | Performance cookies may collect information on how users interact with our site, including which pages are visited most, as well as other analytical data. These details may be used to improve how our site functions and to understand how users interact with it. |
Advertising | These cookies are used to display relevant advertising to visitors who use our site, as well as to understand and report on the efficacy of ads served on our site. They track details such as the number of unique visitors, the number of times particular ads have been displayed, and the number of clicks the ads have received. They are also used to build user profiles, including showing you ads based on products you’ve viewed or acts you have taken on our (and other) sites. These may be set by Automattic, Inc., other Affiliate Vendors and trusted third party networks, and are generally persistent in nature. |
Third Party / Embedded Content | Sites hosted on WordPress.com make use of different third party applications and services to enhance the experience of website visitors. These include social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter (through the use of sharing buttons), or embedded content from Youtube and Vimeo. As a result, cookies may be set by these third parties, and used by them to track your online activity. We have no direct control over the information that is collected by these cookies. |
User Sites
In addition to the cookies set on our own site, cookies are utilised for the Site Stats feature that is made available to us by our website hosting provider. This tallies the unique numbers of visitors to a site, as well as the number from specific geographic locations. A visitor is counted when we see a user or browser for the first time in a given period.
Examples
Below are examples of the cookies that may be set by Automattic, Inc. (or other Affiliate Vendors) with explanations of their purpose. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list, but rather aims to be representative. Information about cookies that may be set by third parties, such as our ads partners, is below.
Advertising
Cookie | Purpose |
ads | Tracks if a visitor has clicked an ad before. |
wordpress_eli | Reduces the display of ads for repeat visitors. |
Please also see the section below on third party advertisements that you may see on our site.
Analytics and Performance
Cookie | Purpose |
__pdvt | Used in log of Crowdsignal survey data to aid in debugging customer problems. |
_hjIncludedInSample mp_6d7c50ad560e01715a871a117a2fbd90_mixpanel optimizelyBuckets optimizelyEndUserId __hstc hubspotutk optimizelySegments | Gathers information to help indicate how visitors interact with our site, which allows creation of better visitor experiences. |
ab | Used for “AB testing” of new features. |
nux_flow_name | Identifies which user signup flow was shown to the user. |
tk_ni / tk_ai / tk_qs | Gathers information for Affiliate Vendor analytics tool about how their services are used. A collection of internal metrics for user activity, used to improve user experience. |
tk_*r | Referral cookies used to analyse referrer behavior for Jetpack connected sites using WooCommerce. |
wp-affiliate-tracker | Remembers the ID of the affiliate that referred the current user to WordPress.com |
utma / utmb / utmc / utmt / utmz / ga / gat / gid | Google Analytics. Gathers information that helps Affiliate Vendors understand how visitors interact with websites, which allow creation of better experiences for visitors. |
Functionality
Cookie | Purpose |
__stripe_sid / __stripe_mid | For processing payment and to aid in fraud detection. |
_longreads_prod_new | Authentication for Longreads.com Member accounts. Only active when logged in, on *.longreads.com domains. |
akm_mobile | Stores whether a user has chosen to view the mobile version of a website. |
botdlang | Used to track the language a user has selected to view popular blogs in. |
landingpage_currency | Defines the currency displayed in WordPress.com landing pages. |
pd_dashboard | Records last used folder in Crowdsignal dashboard so it can be reopened upon user’s next visit. |
PD_USER_AUTH | Login cookie used to identify Crowdsignal user. |
wordpress_logged_in* | Checks whether or not the current visitor is a logged in WordPress.com user. |
wp-settings-{user_id} | Persists a user’s wp-admin configuration. |
wp_sharing_{id} | Tracks whether or not a user has already performed an action. |
Security
Cookie | Purpose |
csrftoken | Python/Ajax security cookie used on accounts.longreads.com. |
Strictly Necessary
Cookie | Purpose |
country_code | Used in order to determine whether or not the cookie banner should be shown. Set immediately on page load and retained for 6 hours to remember the visitor’s country. |
sensitive_pixel_option | Remembers the state of visitor acceptance to the cookie banner. Only set when the visitor clicks Accept. |
twostep_auth | Set when the user is logged in using two factor authentication. |
wordpress_test_cookie | Checks if cookies are enabled to provide appropriate user experience. |
Advertisements from Third Parties Through Automattic’s Ads Program
Automattic, Inc. may show ads on our site. We may also choose to place ads on our site through an ads program offered by Automattic, Inc., by other Affiliate Vendors and in emails.
As part of the operation of these advertisements, cookies may be used to collect certain information. Advertising cookies enable ads to be served and personalised based on information like visits to our site and other sites on the Internet.
Below is a representative list of advertising program partners, along with information on the cookies that that each partner sets. These partners may change from time to time, and this is not an exhaustive list. Your choices to control cookies related to our ads are described below.
Below is a representative list of the cookies that may be set by our ads partners in connection with ads that appear in emails.
Cookie | Purpose |
pi-userid | Used to personalize email-based ads. |
eid_ | Used in email-based ads to track if a visitor has clicked an ad and report to advertisers how their ads performed. |
Jetpack Comments (if deployed on our site)
Cookie Name | Purpose |
comment_author_{HASH} | Remembers the value entered into the comment form‘s name field. Specific to the site from which it is set. This cookie mirrors one set by the core WordPress software for commenting purposes. |
comment_author_email_{HASH} | Remembers the value entered into the comment form‘s email field. Specific to the site from which it is set. This cookie mirrors one set by the core WordPress software for commenting purposes. |
comment_author_url_{HASH} | Remembers the value entered into the comment form‘s URL field. Specific to the site from which it is set. This cookie mirrors one set by the core WordPress software for commenting purposes |
Mobile Theme
Cookie Name | Purpose |
akm_mobile | Remembers whether or not a user wishes to view the mobile version of a site. |
Subscriptions
Cookie Name | Purpose |
jetpack_comments_subscribe_{HASH} | Remembers the state of the post and comment subscription checkboxes. |
jetpack_blog_subscribe_{HASH} | Remembers the state of the post and comment subscription checkboxes. |
EU Cookie Law Banner
Cookie Name | Purpose |
eucookielaw | Remembers the state of visitor acceptance to the EU Cookie Law banner. |
Please note that this section is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather aims to be representative.
Controlling Cookies
Visitors may wish to restrict the use of cookies or completely prevent them from being set. Most browsers provide for ways to control cookie behavior such as the length of time they are stored – either through built-in functionality or by utilizing third party plugins. If you disable cookies, please be aware that some of the features of our site may not function correctly.
To find out more on how to manage and delete cookies, visit aboutcookies.org. For more details on your choices regarding use of your web browsing activity for interest-based advertising you may visit the following sites:
On a mobile device, you may also be to adjust your settings to limit tracking.
For example, you can opt out of Google Analytics by installing Google’s opt-out browser add-on, or from Hotjar by using the Do Not Track header.
Consent and Choices for Advertisements Through Our Ads Program
You should see a “cookie banner” on our website, particularly if you are in the European Union. If so, then our ad program should not set, or allow our ad partners to set, cookies that are used to show you targeted ads before you accept. When you consent in this manner, we and our advertising partners may set third party advertising cookies on our network in order to show you personalized ads. We’ll display the banner to you periodically, just in case you change your mind.