Welcome to our Privacy Policy (henceforth, “this Policy”). We have compiled this Policy to help you better understand the nature of your relationship with us and enable you to make informed decisions about certain aspects of our relationship. Because of that, we encourage you to read this Policy carefully. You continued use of our website confirms your agreement with this Policy.
We understand and respect your concerns about the privacy of your personal information. Because of this and because trust is the main building block of our business, we wish to explain some of the key principles underpinning this Policy. This Policy is intended to attain the following objectives:
- ensure that you understand what kind of information about you we collect with your permission;
- explain what we do with such information; and
- hold us accountable for protecting your rights and your privacy under this Policy.
Personal Information We Collect
As used in this Policy, “personal information” is understood as all data that relates to an identifiable human being whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be inferred, from the data.
Our website does not collect your personal information, with the exception of your IP address and certain information collected by Google Analytics, as will be explained below. In addition, our website may be detecting non-personally identifiable geo-location information to optimize our service, however our website does not collect your precise geo-location or associate the detected geo-location data with a specific user. We do not sell your personal information to advertisers or other third parties. In certain instances, we may request your email address to communicate with you. If this happens, your email address will only be used to communicate with you and deleted upon your request.
Use of IP Addresses and Browser Settings
When you visit our website, we register the IP address and browser settings of your computer or other device. The IP address is the numerical address of your computer or other device used to visit our website. Browser settings can include the type of browser you use, browser language and time zone. We collect this information so that we can trace the computer or device used in cases of misuse or unlawful actions in connection with visits to or use of our website. Moreover, we may collect this information for various internal business purposes, such as:
- generating statistics;
- measuring traffic and popularity of content areas;
- gathering broad demographic data for prospective advertisers;
- identifying usage trends and expanding our business activities;
- general data analysis and administering our site and affiliated sites;
- improving or modifying our website, developing new services and functionality; and
- complying with applicable legal requirements and legal process, requests from governmental authorities, relevant industry standards and our internal policies.
We may also use your IP address and browser settings in other manners and for other purposes for which we will provide specific notice on this website at the time of collection. We may use or disclose your IP address and browser settings for any legitimate purpose to the extent permitted by applicable law.
Google Analytics
We use a tool commonly known as “Google Analytics”, an industry standard analytics tool operated by Google, to collect information about use of our website. We also rely on Google Analytics for purposes of display advertising and personalized advertising, as such terms will be explained below. Google Analytics collects information such as how often users visit our website and what other sites they visited prior to reaching our website. We use the information we obtain from Google Analytics for the purposes of improving our website.
Google Analytics collects only the IP address assigned to your computer or other device and your browser settings on the date you visit our website, rather than your name or other identifying information. We never combine the information collected through the use of Google Analytics with any other kind of personally identifiable information. Although Google Analytics will usually plant a permanent cookie on your web browser to identify you as a unique user the next time you visit our website, such cookie cannot be used by anyone but Google. The ability of Google to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to our website is restricted by the Google Analytics Terms of Use and the Google Privacy Policy. Please note that you can prevent Google Analytics from recognizing you on return visits to our website by disabling cookies on the browser of your computer or device.
Cookies
We may use cookies in order to customize our website for return visitors. These cookies are not required for website functionality. In addition, third-party ad networks and our business partners, such as Facebook or YouTube, may install cookies depending on their configuration. You are not required to accept cookies in order to be able to use our website. Please note, further, that many web browsers contain a feature allowing you to manage your preferences with respect to cookies. More specifically, you can set your browser to refuse certain cookies or delete them entirely. You may be able to manage other technologies in the same way that you manage cookies using your browser’s preferences. On the other hand, please be mindful that if you choose to block cookies, doing so may prevent certain features on our website from functioning.
A cookie is a small file placed on your computer or other device when you visit a website that can be understood by the website that issued the cookie. We and Our Partners (as such term is explained in the next section) use the information collected by cookies to remember who you are to log you in and your preferences, to serve content tailored to your needs or interests and to assess how our website is used. You can accept or decline cookies through your browser settings. To learn more, please look at the cookie settings available in your specific web browser(s).
Display Advertising (Also Known as Third-Party Advertising) on Our Website
We may allow third parties, including carefully selected ad networks and business partners of TheSoul Publishing (henceforth, “Our Partners”), to display advertising on our website. Because of that, our website may display advertisements from Our Partners that link to websites of Our Partners. We cannot control or be held responsible for privacy practices and content of Our Partners. We encourage you to read their privacy policies to find out how they collect and process your personal information.
In addition, some of Our Partners may recognize your computer or device through cookies or other technologies each time they send you an online ad. This enables them to understand where you, or others who are using your computer or other device, saw their advertisement and to deliver ads that they believe may be of interest to you.
Personalized Advertising (Formerly Known as Interest-Based Advertising)
Our website permits Our Partners to collect certain information about you to provide personalized advertising to you. Our Partners are leading digital performance-based advertising groups which put great effort in making sure that your personal information is safe and used properly. They may be collecting from your computer or device certain information, such as:
- your gender;
- your age;
- your location; and
- areas of your interests.
In addition, they may be collecting certain information related to your PC, laptop, mobile phone or other device attributes and traffic/session information, such as:
- the model of your computer or device;
- the make of your computer or device;
- your computer or device agent details;
- the ID of your computer or device;
- session durations; and
- activity information.
Use of Information Toward Personal Advertising
The information collected by Our Partners is used to analyze trends, understand user activities and gather demographic information to enable, manage and develop their personalized ads and related services. Our Partners may share such information with their affiliates. To do this, Our Partners use technologies such as cookies and web beacons to collect information about your interaction with our website and third-party websites. This type of information does not identify you personally and, typically, is aggregated with other data to create segments – groups of users and general interest categories that are inferred based on a range of factors (for example, “sports fan”). Our Partners use this information to form a more accurate picture of the interests of the audiences with which they interact – including you – so that their ads are more relevant to those interests.
In addition, Our Partners may use the information collected from these types of cookie or similar technologies for a variety of other purposes, including:
- in conjunction with advertising that appears on other third-party websites;
- to measure the effectiveness of web-based and email advertisements; and
- for reporting website traffic, statistics, advertisement data and other interaction with ads and the websites on which they are served.
Our Partners retain your information in accordance with their legitimate business purposes for processing. Thereafter, the information is removed, archived for restricted legitimate interests, or anonymized. Non-identifying information may be kept without time and use limitations.
We do not have access to or control over cookies or other features that Our Partners may use, and the information practices of Our Partners and third-party websites are not covered by this Policy. Please contact them directly for more information about their privacy practices.
Why Would You Want to Receive Personalized Ads?
Consumers like to receive personalized ads for many different reasons. Personalized ads are helpful because they are more tailored to your particular interests. Personalized ads are more likely to help you discover new products and services that are actually relevant to you and your interests. In short, receiving personalized ads can help improve your access to new products, services and features that are most relevant to you. Moreover, you will not see the same ads over and over, because the number of times you see a particular personalized ad is limited. By opting-out of personalized ads, you lose all of these benefits.
Opting-Out of Receiving Personalized Ads
If you do not want our website to show you personalized ads please be advised to do any of the following:
- use Google’s service enabling opt out of seeing personalized ads by clicking Google Ads Help for opting out of seeing personalized ads and follow the instructions;
- use the general opt out mechanism from third party advertisers who are members of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) by clicking NAI Opt Out of Interest-Based Advertising and follow the instructions; or
- disable and delete cookies from the browser settings of your computer or device as follows:
- for Internet Explorer, click Microsoft Support for deleting and managing cookies and follow the instructions;
- for Firefox, click Firefox Support for disabling cookies and changing cookie settings and Firefox Support for deleting cookies to remove the information websites have stored on your computer and follow the instructions;
- for Google Chrome, click Google Chrome Help to clear, enable, and manage cookies in Chrome and follow the instructions; or
- for Safari, click Safari Help for managing cookies and website data and follow the instructions.
Please note that if you choose to opt-out, your opt-out will be managed through the use of cookies. If you delete these cookies or use a different browser or computer, you will have to make this same selection again.
Plugins
Our website may have “plugins” (such as the Facebook “Like” button) to third party sites or offer login (such as log in with Facebook) through a third-party account. Third party plugins and login features, including their loading, operation and use, are governed by the privacy policy and terms of use of the third party providing them.
Other Situations
We may disclose your IP address and other information about you:
- as part of the sale of one of our websites to another company;
- to protect and defend the rights and property of TheSoul Publishing Group (including with respect to enforcing our Terms and Conditions); and
- when required by law, a governmental authority or by a court order.
Contact Us
If you have questions or concerns regarding the privacy of your personal information or this Policy, please contact us directly as specified on the contact form for this website.
Security
We seek to use reasonable organizational, technical and administrative measures to protect your IP address and other personal information within our organization and we regularly monitor our system for vulnerabilities. However, since the Internet is not a 100% secure environment, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of information about you. Please note that electronic communication, particularly email, is not necessarily secure against interception. For these reasons, we request that you refrain from sending to us any personal data about you or any other individuals through world wide web, unless strictly necessary.
Changes to this Policy
If we decide to amend this Policy, we will post the amendments on this website prior to such amendments becoming effective. In addition, we will indicate the effective date when this Policy will be amended. You will then have an opportunity to decide whether you wish to continue using our website under the amended Privacy Policy.