Privacy Policy

Effective Date: 31 March 2021

Introduction

We respect your personal information, and your privacy is important to us. We strive to maintain information security and appreciate the trust that you place in us. This Privacy Policy explains important information about the kind of information Author Ready (also “AR”, “We”, or “Us”) collects and why. It applies to all information we may collect from you or that you may voluntarily provide when you visit our “Site” (which may be our website, other app or service, or other electronic medium we provide) or purchase products or services from to AR (collectively “Services”). It also explains our practices for gathering, using, protecting, and disclosing that information.

Our guiding principles include the following key elements:

  • We only ask for personal information that we absolutely need to provide our services or to improve them.
  • We only store personal information that we need in order to continue to provide a service.
  • We don’t sell personal information. That means that we will never sell or give away your name or email address to a third party.
  • We don’t share your personal information with anyone unless we are required to by law, we need to in order to protect our rights, or to develop our products and services, or unless you give us express permission to.

Your Use of This Site Means You Accept This Policy

PLEASE READ THIS PRIVACY POLICY CAREFULLY. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY, PLEASE DO NOT USE OUR SERVICES. By using this Site and/or any Services available through it, you indicate that you accept this Privacy Policy and any associated Terms of Service. If you continue to use this Site or Services after we post changes to this policy, that usage indicates that you accept those changes.

Your Responsibilities

Our role in protecting your information is outlined in this Privacy Policy. There are also a few things you must do to help keep your information secure:

  • Log out of the Site
  • Do not share your user ID or password with anyone else
  • Be vigilant against malware on any device you use to access the Site

Legal Basis to Use Your Information

The legal basis for our use of your information includes the following:

  • It is necessary for us to fulfill our obligations under a contract with you, such as when you purchase services from us
  • To protect our legitimate interests, or those of third parties
  • To process information in accordance with any legal obligations
  • When we have your consent, in accordance with law

Information We Collect and How We Use It

This section explains some of the more common elements of information we use to provide our Services. While this list is not exhaustive, it provides a good representation of the type of information we use. Note that some Services that we provide require us to use some types of information. If you do not provide us with the necessary information, or ask us to delete it, you may not be able to access or use our Services.

Information You Provide

We collect several elements of information that you provide in order to interact with our Site and access our Services. Examples of such information include your name and email address when you create an account. This may also include your address for billing purposes. You may also voluntarily provide additional information through your user profile, customer service interactions, feedback forms, and participation in activities offered through our Site and Services.

We use this and other information we collect to better serve you and improve our operations. Examples include the following:

  • Completing and fulfilling a purchase, including for internal transaction records
  • Updating you with information about our Site, Services, and your purchases
  • Inform you of updates, opportunities, and offers
  • Customer service requests
  • Customize your experience
  • Better understand your preferences, interests, and needs so we can improve and expand our Site and Services
  • Improve Site performance and security
  • Comply with legal requirements and regulations where required
  • Establish, exercise, or defend our legal rights where necessary on behalf of us our the legitimate legal interest of other parties

Information From Purchases

Purchases through our Site are performed through third party payment processors. Such third party sites have their own privacy policies, which you may review on their website.

We may receive information from these sites, including your name and email address. However, we do not receive any payment information other than the amount paid. We use this information to complete your transactions, including a receipt showing that you made a purchase, and for our own bookkeeping. We may use this information to invite you to purchase again or to notify you of other opportunities.

With some purchases, we may provide your email address to certain approved third party partners in order to provide you with offered benefits or additional information. We will only provide personal information that you specifically authorize to be shared, during the purchase, as part of the offer fulfillment by the third party.

Please see the Information Security section of this privacy policy for more information on payment processing.

Information You Post

You may be able to share thoughts, comments, and other information through our Site or Services. Any information that you submit through any such feature is not confidential, and we may use it for any purpose, including in testimonials or other marketing materials. Any information you post in these ways will be available to the general public and may be accessible through third party search engines. We reserve the right to retain, use, or delete such content in our sole and absolute discretion.

Information Automatically Collected

We may use various technologies (including cookies and similar tools), either directly or through service providers, to automatically collect data about your use of our Site. For example, when you use our Site, we may use information such as your general location (general information through your IP address), browser type, browser language, operating system, software and hardware attributes (including device IDs), referring and exit pages and URLs, click paths, pages viewed (including click sequence), date and time of use, content viewed, total time viewed, error logs, and similar information about how you use the Site.

We use this data to customize your experience, remember your preferences, and to help us improve our operations, including to administer and improve the Site. We may also use these technologies to personalize your experience and to provide useful features such as saving your preferences.

Technologies that we may use include:

  • Log Files, which may collect information such as Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, geographic location, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp and clickstream data
  • Persistent cookies
  • Session cookies
  • Flash cookies
  • Tracking pixels
  • Web beacons. These may be embedded in our Website or used in HTML-based communications to help measure the effectiveness of our electronic communications. (If you prefer to receive newsletters that do not contain such technologies, you can request text-only newsletters.)

Your browser may offer tools to reject or delete cookies. If you reject cookies on your browser, you may still use our site, but your ability to use some areas of our site may be limited. Even if you set your browser to reject cookies, we may continue to collect data automatically through other technologies.

Cookies

A cookie is a small string of data that a website stores on your computer when you visit a website. That data string provides information to the website when you return to help identify you as a returning user, your preferences in using the website, and to help personalize your experience. We may use first and third party cookies to enhance your experience on our websites.

You may set your web browser to refuse cookies before using our Sites, or you may set it to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you do so, please note that some parts of the Site may no longer function properly without cookies.

Analytic Information

We may use third party services such as Google Analytics that may use cookies and similar tools to collect information about your online activities over time. You may learn more about how Google Analytics collects and processes data and the choices Google may offer to control these activities here: http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/partners/.

If you receive email from us, we may use analytics tools to capture information such as when you open our message or clink on any links, images, banners, etc. contained in the email. We use this information to determine how effective our email messages are and to improve our marketing efforts.

We may use this information to perform audits, research, or reporting for a variety of purposes, including Services improvement and fraud prevention.

Information from Social Media

If you access our Site or Services through a third-party, such as through a social media service, you may grant us access to, and permit us to store, information from your social media profile(s). If you do not wish to share such information with us, do not access our Site through a third-party. Please refer to the policies of such third-parties for details on how they handle your personal information, and any control you may have over how they collect, handle, and share information that they may receive from you.

Surveys

You may have the opportunity to participate in surveys through our Site, or through a third party service provider. Surveys are completely voluntary and, except as otherwise outlined in this policy, we will not share with a third party any personal information you provide through a survey unless we first give you a choice to opt out.

Information from Other Sources

We may collect additional information from third parties. We may receive demographic and statistical information from researchers, analysts, marketers, business partners, and other parties. We use this type of information to examine and improve the Services that we provide, as well as other business functions such as advertising. We may collect other information that is not specifically detailed in this Privacy Policy. Any such information that we collect will be used in accordance with this Privacy Policy or as otherwise allowed with your permission.

Merged and Aggregated Information

We may merge information obtained through any of the sources outlined in this Privacy Policy. We may also aggregate and/or anonymize any and all information that we obtain so that it cannot be connected with you or the device you use to access our Services. This information is unrestricted, and we may use this information for any of a variety of purposes, including research, marketing, and Services improvement, including sharing aggregated information with third parties. Any use of merged or aggregated information may be used for advertising, promotional, or other business development purposes, and will be used in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Specific Examples

The following examples are meant to help illustrate some of the information that we may collect and how we use it. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list.

Website: We collect non-personally-identifying information that is provided by your web browser and internet servers, such as browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of your connection to our website. We use this information to better understand how Visitors and Users interact with our site.

Creating an Account: Depending on the type of Service you use, you may be asked to provide information such as full name, email address, phone number, an account username, and similar information.

Payment: Depending on the type of service you use, we may also ask for a billing address, mailing address, payment information such as a credit card, and other information related to the purchase.

Location, Technical, and Usage: We automatically collect information that your system sends to us that helps us understand how you interact with our Site. This includes information such as the IP address that is communicating with us, the date and time, which browser is displaying our Site, operating system and computer or device information if available, as well as pages viewed and click paths. We also gather any location information that is provided by your device.

Aggregated Statistics: We use Google Analytics and other analysis programs to help us better understand how users interact with our Site and services. This data is typically viewed in aggregate to give us an overall view of usage patterns. We may occasionally publish this information to provide information on how our Sites are used.

How We May Share Your Information

By using our Services, you acknowledge and agree that we may retain, use, and share your information if we are required to by law, or if we believe that such retention, use, or sharing is necessary in order to:

  • Respond to your requests for customer service;
  • Support our business and provide our services. For example, we may contract with third parties to perform services including sales, advertising, marketing, billing, payment processing, Services content and features, analytics, research, customer service, data storage, fraud prevention, security, and legal services.
  • Fulfill the purpose for which you provide it. For example, if you give us an email address to receive communication from an affiliate partner, we will share your email address with them to fulfil the request;
  • Fulfill a purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information, or with your consent;
  • Comply with a legal demand or requirement such as a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on us;
  • Investigate violations of or to enforce our Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, or other agreements with you;
  • Investigate or respond to claims that any content violates the rights of third parties;
  • Provide fraud protection, spam/malware protection or prevention;
  • Protect the rights, property, or safety of Author Ready, its owners, employees, agents, affiliates, customers, and/or any other party;
  • Fulfill part of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Author Ready’s assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by us is among the assets transferred (including your email address);
  • Any other purpose deemed reasonable and prudent by us to protect the rights of Author Ready or other person or entity.

We may share your information with our agents, subsidiaries, contractors, service providers, and affiliate partners to accomplish any of the aforementioned purposes. If so, we make reasonable efforts to ensure that they are bound by contractual obligations to keep personal information confidential and use or share it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them.

Information Security

We take the security of your personal information seriously. We use commercially reasonable safeguards to help protect your personal information. Systems we use may include encryption technologies such as Secure Socket Layer (SSL). Author Ready uses Stripe to process our credit card payments and no credit card details are stored on our servers. Stripe has been audited by a PCI-certified auditor, and is certified to PCI Service Provider Level 1. This is the most stringent level of certification available.

However, no Internet or email transmission is ever fully secure or error free. Please be vigilant and cautious when disclosing any information online. In case of an unauthorized security intrusion that materially affects you, we will notify you as soon as possible and will, within a reasonable time, report the action we took in response.

Correcting or Updating Personal Information

You may request to update, correct, or deactivate your personal information stored in our data systems by emailing us at [email protected].

Opting-out of Communications

We may provide the opportunity to receive electronic communication from us, including email newsletters, purchase invitations, etc. You may opt out of these communications at any time by following the instructions included in each message. You may also be able to opt out of specific types of communication, and still receive other types, at your option.

After you opt-out, you will continue to receive transaction-specific communications, such as purchase confirmation, and information on activities or events that you have registered for. We may also send you messages regarding your account status or other essential information regarding the use of our Site.

Data Retention

We will only retain data as long as necessary to accomplish the purpose for which it was collected, or as required by law, whichever is longer. When you delete your account, all related Personal Data stored by us will be deleted, in accordance with applicable laws, with the exception of any data necessary to accurately complete any billing, customer support, legal, or investigative requirements. If an account has been suspended for a Terms of Service violation, we will retain any information necessary to enforce any suspension for a period up to ten years.

Data Storage Locations

All personal data we process is stored directly on US-based servers which we lease from a third-party datacenter. We have also subcontracted certain monitoring and maintenance functions to provide analytic information.

Third Party Interactions

We may provide information from, referrals to, or direct access to third parties through various means and methods. As a result, you may have an opportunity to voluntarily share your personal information with third parties. This will typically be when you provide information to a third party to receive a product or service from the third party. While our agreements with such third parties prohibit them from using this information in any way that is illegal or unethical, we encourage you to use caution and good judgment when providing any such personal information.

We may also link to third party websites and other locations, whether through advertisements, referral links, recommendations, etc. This may include social media sites, and third party plugins (for example: the Facebook “like” button and Twitter “follow” button). Any interaction with any other website, app, or entity are subject to their own privacy policies and terms of service. We do not have any control over their content, terms of service, or privacy policy. Be vigilant and responsible when choosing to click on any link or advertisement. This applies to any links from our Site or related products and services, and any links to our Site from a third party.

Children's Privacy

Our Site and Services are not intended for children under 13 years of age, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we become aware that we have obtained the personal data of any user of our site under the age of 13, we will promptly delete that information from our database and will work to prevent that individual from accessing our services in the future, unless we are under a legal obligation to retain the data.

We encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children’s online activity and teach them responsible use of online tools. If you believe that we have collected or otherwise received personal information from a child under 13, please contact us at [email protected] to request that the information be deleted. You may refer to the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act for more information.

In addition, we do not knowingly collect personal information from EU residents under 16 without parental consent. If you believe that we have collected or otherwise received personal information from an EU resident under 16, please contact us at [email protected] to request that the information be deleted.

Your Data Rights and Options

Depending on where you live, you may have certain rights regarding your information. If you would like to know more about your legal rights under any applicable law, or would like to exercise any of those rights, please contact us at [email protected]. Your local laws may allow you to request that we:

  • Provide a copy of, or access to, certain information about you that we hold
  • Prevent use of your information for direct-marketing
  • Update any incorrect information
  • Delete certain information
  • Restrict how we use or disclose certain information
  • Transfer your information to a third party
  • Revoke your consent to use your information

We will respond to all requests within the time frame established by law. Please be aware that some information may be exempt from such requests in certain circumstances, such as the need to fulfill a legal obligation. We may also request information from you to confirm your identity before addressing your request.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

Author Ready is subject to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) for any users living or doing business in California. In those cases, the following apply:

  • We do not sell your personal information. You can read more about this in our How We May Share Your Information and Third Party Interactions sections.
  • Cookie Policy. You can learn about this in our Cookies section.
  • Accuracy and Access To Your Personal Information. You may modify, update, or correct your personal information through the Edit tab for your profile. Should you need to contact us for in-depth support, we may request specific information from you to confirm your identity.
  • Deleting Your Personal Information. You can learn about this in our Correcting or Updating Personal Information section.

International Users

The country we operate from may have different privacy and data protection laws than the laws of your country. Note that these laws may be less protective than your country. You accept this risk, regardless of where you live, when you use our Site and Services and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. If you should decide to withdraw your consent, please see the Correcting or Updating Personal Information section.

Residents of the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA)

Author Ready primarily operates in the United States, and the servers where we store all personal data are located in the U.S. Any information you provide to us, including personal information, will be transferred to the U.S. By using our service, and by providing personal information to us, you are consenting to its storage and use as explained herein.

To ensure the legality of any transfer of personal data of EEA or Swiss citizens to sub-processors located outside the EEA or Switzerland, Author Ready applies additional terms via our Data Processing Agreement (DPA). You must complete and submit this DPA, and receive positive confirmation back from us, before the agreement with you is in effect.

Business Transfers

As is possible with any business, we may decide to buy or sell assets, up to and including the entire company. If that ever happens, customer information is often one of the business assets transferred to or acquired by a third party. You acknowledge that such transfers may occur, and that any third party that acquires this information may continue to use your personal information as outlined in this policy.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may modify this Privacy Policy at any time, for any reason, in our sole and absolute discretion, without notice to you. Any changes to this Privacy Policy will be made on this page, and will include the date it was last revised. You agree that it is your responsibility to check this page regularly for any changes. If you continue to use the Site or our Services after any change, that will mean that you accept the change.

Contact Us

We appreciate your trust in us and we take your privacy very seriously. Please let us know if you have any questions or comments about our Privacy Policy. You may contact us at [email protected].

Thank you again from the Author Ready team!

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