Last updated on May 23, 2018

Who we are

Velvet Ashes is committed to protecting your privacy, and that includes protecting the privacy of any data you share with us. This policy sets out what data we collect, what we do with your data, when and how we store your data, and what you can do if you have questions or wish to exercise rights you have with respect to your data.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Contact forms

If you submit a contact form on our site you will be opting in for us to save your name, email address and other relevant information.  We do not use the information submitted for marketing purposes unless consent is explicitly given.

Subscription forms

If you submit an 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 so we can notify you about related content, discounts & other special offers.  You can opt our or unsubscribe at any time in the future by clicking link in the bottom of any email.

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.

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.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, 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 tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

Our hosting provider monitors traffic and maintains logs including IP addresses for performance and security reasons.

In addition, we use Google Analytics as a traffic monitoring service to provide us with insights into how visitors use our site.

Social Sharing

Certain pages on our site include social sharing buttons:

We embed a Facebook widget to allow you to see number of likes/shares/recommends and “like/share/recommend” our webpages. This widget may collect your IP address, your web browser User Agent, store and retrieve cookies on your browser, embed additional tracking, and monitor your interaction with the widget, including correlating your Facebook account with whatever action you take within the widget (such as “liking/sharing/recommending” our webpage), if you are logged in to Facebook. For more information about how this data may be used, please see Facebook’s data privacy policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/update

We use a Twitter Tweet widget at our website. As a result, our website makes requests to Twitter’s servers for you to be able to tweet our webpages using your Twitter account. These requests make your IP address visible to Twitter, who may use it in accordance with their data privacy policy: https://twitter.com/en/privacy#update

We use Pinterest Save widget at our website to allow you to pin images to Pinterest from our webpages. These requests may track your IP address in accordance with their data privacy policy: https://policy.pinterest.com/en/privacy-policy

Who we share your data with

We share information with third parties who help us provide our service, including:

  • Google Analytics for site statistics so we can analyze how people use our site.
  • PayPal for billing your credit card.
  • Stripe for billing your credit card.
  • Mailchimp for email subscriptions and product drip campaigns.
  • KnownHost for performance and security reasons.

Who on our team has access

Members of our team have access to the information you provide us. For example, both Administrators and Shop Managers can access:

  • Order information like what was purchased, when it was purchased and where it should be sent, and
  • Customer information like your name, email address, and billing and shipping information.

Our team members have access to this information to help fulfill orders, process refunds and support you.

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.

We generally store information about you for as long as we need the information for the purposes for which we collect and use it, and we are not legally required to continue to keep it.  This includes your name, email address and billing addresses.

Where we send your data

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

How we protect your data

We adopt appropriate data collection, storage and processing practices and security measures to protect against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure or destruction of personal information, username, password, transaction information and data stored on our Site.

Sensitive and private data exchange between the Site and its users happens over an SSL secured communication channel and is encrypted and protected with digital signatures.

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.

You have a right to know if we have any of your personal data and to have access to that data, and you have the right to have any incorrect personal data corrected. If you have given us consent to have or use your data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. You also have the right to have your personal data erased or to transport your data. Ordinarily we do not use automated decision-making with respect to any personal data, but if we do, you have the right to object.

You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. Which authority is appropriate varies depending on your jurisdiction. If you wish to lodge a complaint, we can assist you in determining where the complaint should be lodged.

You may contact us at any time at [email protected], to exercise any of these rights. Understand that sometimes we have to have your data in order to interact with you, and so exercising some or all of these rights might impact your ability to use our website or our products and services.

Affiliate Links

Some blog posts and web pages within this site contain affiliate links.

An affiliate link is used as a mechanism for revenue generation. This revenue is generated by users who click on ads or hyperlinks within this website and then subsequently make a purchase on a third party website.

While the link usage does not increase a visitor’s purchase price, usage of the link may result in a commission that is credited to this site.

We have chosen to recommend products and services that we personally use or have thoroughly researched.

The opinions expressed here are not necessarily the opinions of nor reflect the views of any merchants we are affiliated with or represent via affiliate links.

What if you have further questions?

If you have any additional questions about our privacy practices, please contact us at [email protected]