Privacy Policy

Who we are and how to contact us

Our website address is: https://snowboundstories.com. You can contact us by email at laura.jenski@snowboundstories.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 and submit the Contact Laura form, we collect your name, email address, and telephone number, if provided. We retain these data in our records after we have responded to your query unless you ask us to permanently delete all or part of your information.

Mailchimp is the third-party service we use to collect names and email addresses for our monthly newsletter. We save these data until you unsubscribe from the newsletter mailing list. Until you unsubscribe, we use these data to send a monthly newsletter plus other ad hoc emailings that we believe will interest you, unless you have selected the option to receive only newsletters. You can unsubscribe through the emailed link or by contacting us directly.

Cookies

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.

Although currently we do not have a login option for the general public, if we do create a login system in the future, the following policy will apply: 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.

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

We may use analytics within the WordPress environment or by Google Analytics to monitor the timing, frequency, clicks, and other characteristics of hits on the Snowbound Stories website. No personal data will be collected in these analyses.

Who we share your data with

We do not share your data with any third parties unless compelled to by law.

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. Contact us at laura.jenski@snowboundstories.com.

Where we send your data

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

Your contact information

If you share your contact information either in the Mailchimp newsletter mailing list form or the Contact Laura form, we will store that information securely until you tell us to delete some or all of it, or until Snowbound Stories and/or Laura Jenski, author, no longer exists, at which time all data will be deleted.

Additional information

How we protect your data

Data you provide via the Snowbound Stories Contact Laura form is saved on a secure server without public access.

Click here for Mailchimp privacy policy

Click here for Mailchimp security practices

Click here for PayPal privacy policy

What data breach procedures we have in place

To see all PayPal policies, click here.

What third parties we receive data from

We receive information from Mailchimp, specifically, the name, email address, and chosen option regarding mailings in addition to the monthly newsletter.

If you use PayPal to purchase products on the Snowbound Stories, LLC website, we receive notice of the amount and date of purchase, your name, and what payment method you used (not credit card number, but the type, e.g., VISA, MasterCard) and whether the payment was completed or declined.

What automated decision making and/or profiling we do with user data

We do not use your data to target marketing campaigns or select what information you see on the Snowbound Stories website. If applicable, we will use comments you post to make corrections or revisions to the website content and books we publish.

Industry regulatory disclosure requirements

We are not aware of any industry-specific requirements for independent authors.