Privacy Policy

(Updated December 20, 2020)

Who we are

Brandy Heineman (“us”, “we”, or “our”) is the pseudonym of Brandy Steffensen, the author and speaker who operates this website (the “Service”). Our website address is: https://brandyheineman.com. The purpose for this website is to introduce interested readers to the author and help them locate our books wherever available.

This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information when you use our Service.

We will not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy.

Brandy Steffensen is registered to collect sales tax in the State of Georgia, and is also the data controller for this website. You can email Brandy Steffensen or submit a request through this contact form if you wish.

We use your Personal Information for providing and improving the Service. By using the Service, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

While using our Service, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you. Consent is the legal basis for my use of data you provide, and as such, you may withdraw it at your discretion. Personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”) may include, but is not limited to the following:

Log Data

We collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit our Service (“Log Data”). This Log Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages and other statistics.

Analytics

The data processing partners of brandyheineman.com collect traffic data such as:

  • websites that refer visitors
  • search engine terms that bring viewers to the site
  • the number of views on individual posts and pages
  • clicks to links on the site and conversion rates
  • limited location data

These analytics do not provide us with your personally identifiable information. Rather, they help us to understand reader response to content and adapt accordingly. This information is not linked to individuals and cannot be used to identify or contact you.

Distributors and outlets that sell Brandy Heineman’s books may provide us with sales data. Other than limited regional sales totals, no buyer information is made available to us by booksellers.

Comments and Contact forms

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.

Brandyheineman.com allows visitors to submit certain data, including:

  • Messages via contact form
  • Comments on blog posts
  • Likes on blog posts
  • Follow requests via WordPress Reader
  • Email marketing requests via MailChimp

Subscription forms

If you submit a subscription form on our site you will be opting in for us to save your name, email address and other relevant information. These subscriptions are used to notify you about related content, discounts and other special offers. You can opt our or unsubscribe at any time in the future by clicking link in the bottom of any email.

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.

Demographics and behavioral information

Brandy Heineman’s campaigns, administered through MailChimp, generate data, including:

  • Open rates and click rates
  • Location data
  • Users’ preferred languages
  • Users’ preferred email clients
  • Demographics, including age range and gender
  • Time and date stamping

Giveaway winner and customer data

We occasionally host giveaways, and we may offer paperback copies of the author’s books for sale at events. Therefore, we keep records of certain data, including:

  • Name and physical address of winners
  • Payment information and sales receipt copies of purchasers
  • Contact details for newsletter sign-ups and requests for information

Giveaways using third-party utilities generate data and collect user-submitted data. Your participation is optional.

Cookies

Cookies are files with small amount of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a web site and stored on your computer’s hard drive.

We use “cookies” to collect information. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our Service.

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.

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 visit our login page, 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.

We use the plugin Popup Maker, which generates the following cookies:

Cookie Name Usage Time
pum-7584 Cookie used to prevent popup from displaying repeatedly. 1 month
pum-6960 Cookie used to prevent popup from displaying repeatedly. 1 month
pum-6930 Cookie used to prevent popup from displaying repeatedly. 1 hour

We use anonymous cookies to prevent users from seeing the same popup repetitively in an attempt to make our users experience more pleasant while still delivering time sensitive messaging.

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.

How we use your personal data

Interacting with brandyheineman.com leaves a record of your personal data, including your user name, email address, IP address, the text of comments, and your avatar if you use one. This information is used to communicate with you within the reasonable scope of your participation on the site. IP addresses and email addresses may be used to block spam and disruptive comments.

Your contributions on brandyheineman.com will result in your comments, user name, and avatar being publicly displayed on this site. The site owner reserves the right to delete or decline to publish comments at our sole discretion.

Information submitted through WordPress Reader and MailChimp newsletter opt-in forms is used to provide you with requested content, including marketing messages. We use demographic data both to customize content and to deliver it to the readers likely to benefit from it.

Likewise, behavioral information obtained through email tracking is used to create list segments to tailor email campaign audiences. To illustrate, users who have not opened any recent email campaigns may be added to an inactive subscriber list in order that we may send a re-engagement marketing message or offer. In another example, highly engaged subscribers may be selected to receive VIP offers or communications.

Names and addresses of giveaway winners are used to deliver prizes.

User data submitted as entries in giveaways may be used for marketing purposes. You may opt out at any time.

Purchasers’ payment information is retained for our tax and business records.

Newsletter sign-up sheets are uploaded to MailChimp and treated equally with other opted-in subscribers.

Requests for information are handled individually and respectfully.

Who we share your data with

Service Providers and Data Processing Partners

We may employ third party companies and individuals to facilitate our Service, to provide the Service on our behalf, to perform Service-related services or to assist us in analyzing how our Service is used.

These third parties have access to your Personal Information only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.

Data processing partners provide the software and services that collect and house the data that allows us to publish and deliver content. Our data processing partners are:

Our books are available at Amazon, via Kindle Direct Publishing. Read Amazon’s privacy policy here.

We also use the WordPress theme Jomsom by Catch Themes as well as various plugins to add aesthetic value and functionality to our website.

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

We collect information about visitors who comment on Sites that use our Akismet anti-spam service. The information we collect depends on how the User sets up Akismet for the Site, but typically includes the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL (along with other information directly provided by the commenter such as their name, username, email address, and the comment itself). Akismet is a product of Automattic, and you can find their privacy policy here.

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

Compliance With Laws

We will never sell, rent, or share your Personal Information without your consent. We will only disclose your Personal Information where required to do so by law or subpoena.

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.

Subscriber information is retained in the local database indefinitely for analytic tracking purposes and for future export.

Data will be exported or removed upon users request via the existing Exporter or Eraser.

When we sync data to a third party service like Mailchimp, data is retained there indefinitely until deleted.

What rights you have over your data

You have rights over your personal data, including:

  • The right to request a copy of the data about you we have stored
  • The right to request the correction or removal of the data about you we have stored
  • The right to manage your WordPress subscriptions
  • The right to opt-in and opt-out of email marketing messages via the “Update Your Preferences” link included in every email

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.

To make a request, you can email us or submit a request through this contact form. We will honor requests to delete your data from our third party services, although we may request reasonable verification (such as the deletion request coming from the email address you are asking us to delete.)

How we protect your data

The security of your Personal Information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Links To Other Sites

Our Service may contain links to other sites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third party link, you will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit.

We have no control over, and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third party sites or services.

Children’s Privacy

Our Service does not address anyone under the age of 18 (“Children”).

We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 18. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with Personal Information, please contact us. If we discover that a child under 18 has provided us with Personal Information, we will delete such information from our servers immediately.

Changes To This Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page.

You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us.