Privacy Policy

This document was last updated on July 13, 2019.

Who We Are

Our website address is: http://www.albertastars.com/ (referred to in this Privacy Policy henceforth as “the website“). We are a team of volunteers who publish the content in the public interest within our right to freedom of expression, and within the public’s right to have access to information of their own choosing.

Acknowledgement and Acceptance of Terms

AlbertaStars.com is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Statement (the policy) sets forth our current privacy practices with regard to the information we collect when you or your computer interact with the website.

By accessing AlbertaStars.com, you are agreeing to be bound by this policy. If you do not agree with the policy, then please do not use the website. Your continued use of the website following the posting of changes to the policy will be deemed as your acceptance of those changes.

If you are accessing and using the Service on behalf of a company (such as your employer) or another legal entity, then you represent and warrant that you have the authority to bind that company or other legal entity to this policy.

Participating Merchant Policies

Related services and offerings with links from the website, including vendor sites, have their own privacy statements that can be viewed by clicking on the corresponding links within each respective website. Online merchants and others who participate in the website’s services are encouraged to participate in industry privacy initiatives and to take a responsible attitude towards consumer privacy. However, since we do not have direct control over the policies or practices of participating merchants and other third parties, we are not responsible for the privacy practices or contents of those sites. We recommend and encourage that you always review the privacy policies of merchants and other third parties before you provide any personal information or complete any transaction with such parties.

Information We Collect and How We Use It

You can visit the website and use most of our services without having to tell us who you are or reveal any personally identifiable information to us. There are, however, a few instances where we do collect personally identifiable information in order to fulfill your request.

Whenever you visit the website, our web server logs automatically receive and record anonymous information from your web browser including your IP Address, the website’s cookie information, the website’s page(s) you request, the time spent on each web page, details of the type of device, the operating system, the browser, and information about the means of connection to the Service, such as Internet Service Providers utilised and other similar related information.

The website uses this anonymous information to customize your experience on our site, to show you more relevant advertising messages, and to improve our services in general. This information allows other users to benefit from the quality searches you perform, ultimately receiving the most relevant, pertinent information. We ordinarily do not attempt to link this information to a specific person.

When you register to become a member of the website, the website collects certain information such as your e-mail address, your IP address and your user name. In addition, the website may collect survey responses or other information regarding our users’ interests and preferences.

The website will not distribute, sell or rent any of the personal information about you to other people or nonaffiliated companies except to enable the provision of services or products you have requested or when we have your permission to do so.

Some contests, sweepstakes and other promotions that may appear on the website may also be sponsored by other companies. These companies may also seek to collect personal information from you. You can avoid providing your personal information to these companies and sponsors by not participating in these contests, sweepstakes or promotions. In any event, you are encouraged to make yourself familiar with the privacy policy specific to any such event prior to your agreement to participate.

Please remember that any personal information voluntarily disclosed by you that you choose to share is done within your sole discretion and we are not responsible for the outcome of that information. We encourage you to always remain aware of this possibility. The website encourages you to use common sense and be cautious about what information you may provide on-line, whether through our websites or elsewhere on the Internet.

Web Server Logs

When you visit the website, we may track information to administer the site and analyze its usage. This includes any registered user’s chosen username, their email address, personal account preferences; and technical data, which may include:

  • Your Internet Protocol address.
  • The kind of browser or computer you use.
  • Number of links you click within the site.
  • State or country from which you accessed the site.
  • Date and time of your visit.
  • Name of your Internet service provider.
  • Web page you linked to our site from.
  • Pages you viewed on the site.

The website runs on the open source platform WordPress. By default WordPress does not collect any personal data about visitors, and only collects the data shown on the User Profile screen from registered users. We do not use any optional data analytical scripts on the website (such as Google Analytics TM). However some of the WordPress plugins collect additional data which track some of the registered user’s activity on the website, including what comment, activity update, or forum post they made.

How Do We Use Personal Information

The collection of personal identification information is limited to Registered Users of the website. Personal identification information will only be collected from Registered Users if they voluntarily submit such information to us. Users can always refuse to supply personal identification information, with the understanding that it may prevent them from engaging in certain website related activities. Explicit consent to this Privacy Policy is required when registering as a User of the Service.

Our primary goal is to provide members with useful and enjoyable experience while visiting the website. Our advertisers will never be privy to your personal membership information, unless you permit us to give it to them so that they can provide you with products or services. Your e-mail address may be used by us for communications related to the the website’s services, including but not limited to sending notices about new features, products, or other information of interest to you.

The website is constantly evolving and changing in content and in features. Member Information helps guide such changes and the evolution of our websites. Our advertisers and affiliates may be provided general information or data regarding membership usage patterns or interests, so that they too can better serve your needs and preferences, but such disclosure will not include individually identifiable information. The collection of usage and interest information allows us to provide a constantly evolving and user-sensitive package of services, products, and features that satisfy member needs, wants and desires but always with the priority of protecting individual member privacy.

In the few instances where the website collects personally identifiable information, the website will not share it with other companies or individuals unless:

We have your permission to share the information; or

We need to share your information with certain third parties with which we have a business relationship in order to provide a product or service you have requested. Unless we tell you otherwise, these third parties do not have the right to use your personal information we share with them beyond what is necessary to deliver your requested product or service; or

We are responding to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process, to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims.

If the website is acquired by another company whether through merger or purchase of its assets, we will share the information with the acquiring company.

Furthermore, the website will not sell or disclose your personally identifiable information as customer lists to anyone. Nor will we share with anyone personally identifiable information about you that is of medical, financial or sexual nature.

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

On the website, registered users may upload media files. All uploaded files are usually publicly accessible.

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

The website uses a contact form plugin. It is used for customer service purposes and to afford the users the means to suggest content for publishing. The use of a contact form collects a username, email address, IP address from which the contact form was submitted, what type of agent (internet browser) was used, date and time when the form was submitted as well as the message written by the submitter.

We do not use the information submitted through contact forms for marketing purposes.

Use of Cookies

The website may use cookies to personalize or enhance your user experience. A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your hard disk by a Web page server.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. For example, if you personalize a web page, or navigate within a site, a cookie helps the site to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. Hence, this simplifies the process of delivering relevant content and eases site navigation by providing and saving your preferences and login information as well as providing personalized functionality.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies. If you reject cookies by changing your browser settings then be aware that this may disable some of the functionality on the website.

Advertisers or advertising services may set cookies but this information is not shared with the website nor is it personally identifiable information.

Cookies Set on Your Computer by The Website

If you have an account and you log in to the website, 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.

In compliance with GDPR, users accessing the website are notified by an overlay message of the use of cookies by the website. The website will then set up a cookie storing the information about whether you agreed to the message in order to remove it. Without this cookie, the message will keep appearing on every page you visit.

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

We do not use any third party analytics packages.

By default WordPress does not collect any analytics data and we do not use any WordPress plugin that provides analytics services.

However we use CloudFlare as our proxy and CDN (Content Delivery Network) service. Their privacy policy can be found on https://www.cloudflare.com/security-policy/.

Who We Share Your Data With

By default, WordPress does not share any personal data with anyone. Administrators of the website likewise do not share any personal data with anyone.

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.

Personal Information Collection

Visitors to the website can register to use services. When you register, we may request some personal information such as name, address, email, and other relevant information. In the future we may offer services that require a purchase. If you are purchasing a service, we will request financial information. Any financial information we collect will be used only to bill you for the services you purchased. If you purchase by credit card, this information may be forwarded to your credit card provider. For other types of registrations, we will ask for the relevant information. You may also be asked to disclose personal information to us so that we can provide assistance and information to you. For example, such data may be warranted in order to provide online technical support and troubleshooting.

We will not disclose personally identifiable information we collect from you to third parties without your permission except to the extent necessary including:

  • To fulfill your service requests for services,
  • To protect ourselves from liability,
  • To respond to legal process or comply with law, or
  • In connection with a merger, acquisition, or liquidation of the company.

Third Party Advertising

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies use non-personally identifiable information regarding your visit to this website and other sites, such as the user IP address, pages viewed, date and time of your visit, and number of times you have viewed an ad (but not your name, address, or other personal information), to serve ads to you on the website and other sites that may be of interest to you. In the course of serving advertisements to this site, our third-party advertiser may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser.

In addition, we may use clear GIFs or pixel tags to help manage our online advertising. These clear GIFs enable our ad serving company to recognize a browser’s cookie when a browser visits this site. This allows us to learn which banner ads bring users to our website. The information we collect and share through this technology is not personally identifiable.

What Rights You Have Over Your Data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can 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. If you have an account, you can also request to access data we have on you.

Where We Send Your Data

Your data may be stored on servers in the USA, where it is safeguarded to European data protection standards.

How We Protect Your Data

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

Administrators of the website continually educate themselves in data protection in order to guarantee the latest and most appropriate safeguards for your data. Furthermore, WordPress utilizes industry standard password protection.

Only certain employees have access to the information you provide us.

What Data Breach Procedures We Have in Place

Through our network of supporters, we stay informed on possible data breaches in order to respond adequately and quickly.

What Third Parties We Receive Data From

We do not receive data from third parties.

What Automated Decision Making and/or Profiling We Do with User Data

Our web site does not provides a service which includes automated decision making.

How Can You Exercise Your Rights Under the GDPR

Access: If you wish to exercise your right to access a free copy of your data, you can contact us by contacting us.

Deletion: You can delete your account by clicking the Delete Account link on your profile page. Alternatively, You can ask us to delete your data. To do so, please contact us. However, there may be circumstances where we are legally entitled to retain it.

Updating: If you wish to update your data, you can do this directly by editing your user settings.

Objection to legitimate interests: If you wish to object to our processing of your data where we are pursuing our legitimate interests or those of a third party please contact us.

If you are contacting us to exercise any of your rights under the GDPR, you will have to provide valid proof of identification. We are required to respond to your request within 1 month.

Withdrawal of Consent

If at any time a Registered User wishes to withdraw their consent to this policy they can do so by contacting us. Withdrawal of consent will result in the Account concerned being suspended and scheduled for termination. All content, activity and associated information relating to the Account will be removed as part of this process.

Changes to This Statement

The website has the discretion to update this privacy statement at any time. When we do, we will also revise the “updated” date at the top of this Privacy page.It is important that you frequently review this privacy statement to stay informed about how we are helping to protect the personal information we collect. By using the Service, you acknowledge and agree that it is your responsibility to review the policy periodically to become aware of modifications. As the website is constantly evolving over time, we may change or discontinue all or any part of it, at any time and without notice, at our sole discretion.

Contacting Us

If you have questions regarding our Privacy Statement, its implementation, failure to adhere to this Privacy Statement and/or our general practices, please contact us by filling up our convenient contact form.

The website will use commercially reasonable efforts to promptly respond and resolve any problem or question.