At DIYInvesting.org, we collect and manage user data according to the following Privacy Policy. This document is part of DIYInvesting.org’s Terms of Service, and by using DIYInvesting.org (the “Website”), you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service. Please read the Terms of Service in their entirety and refer to those for definitions and contacts.
Who We Are
Our website address is https://www.diyinvesting.org. This website is called DIY Investing and is a blog created by Trey Henninger. If you would like to contact us regarding this privacy policy please email us at [email protected]
Data Collected, Use, and Why We Collect
DIYInvesting.org collects information about you through our Website in several ways. This information is used to provide users with DIYInvesting.org products and services, to allow us to understand how visitors navigate our Website, and to provide advertising that is relevant to your interests.
We collect anonymous data from every visitor of the Website to monitor traffic, fix bugs, and show you more relevant ads and measure their effectiveness. For example, we collect information like link clicks, web requests, the data sent in response to such requests, the Internet Protocol address, the browser type, the browser language, and a timestamp for the request.
We ask you to log in and provide certain personal information (such as your name and email address, username, and password) in order to be able to comment on posts, access member-only content, purchase products, and perform other similar actions on The Website. In order to enable these or any other login-based features, we use cookies to store session information for your convenience. You can block or delete cookies and still be able to use DIYInvesting.org, although if you do you will then be asked for your username and password every time you log in to the Website. In order to take advantage of certain features of the Website, you may also choose to provide us with other personal information, such as your picture or personal website, but your decision to utilize these features and provide such data is voluntary.
Purchase and Login Information
If you purchase DIYInvesting.org products or services from our Site, we may request that you provide your name, email address, billing and shipping address, credit card information and any other information necessary to complete the transaction. We do not collect or store your full credit card information. Patreon is our provider for membership services. Patreon may collect and store full payment information from you if you choose to become a member. They have their own privacy policy, and terms of conditions which you may be subject to when using their service.
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.
Patreon features in this website
In order to enable you to use this website with Patreon services, we save certain functionally important Patreon information about you on this website if you log in with Patreon.
These include your Patreon user id, Patreon username, your first, last names and your vanity name. Additionally, the id of your campaign at Patreon and your campaign’s Patreon URL are also saved.
If you request that your data be deleted from this website, this data will also be deleted and Patreon functionality will not work. You would need to register on this website and log in to this website with Patreon again in order to re-populate this data and have Patreon functionality working again.
Mailing List Information
You may choose to submit your email address via a submission form located on our Site or when you sign up for a DIYInvesting.org account. Your email address may be used to send you news about DIYInvesting.org investing and personal finance related services, products, posts, podcasts, videos, surveys, or promotions. We may use one or more service providers, including to administer these messages, but we do not share your email address with spammers or any other third parties without your permission.
DIYInvesting.org may contact you, by email or other means. For example, DIYInvesting.org may send you promotional emails relating to the Website or other third parties or products DIYInvesting.org feels you would be interested in or communicate with you about your use of the DIYInvesting.org website. DIYInvesting.org may also use technology to alert us via a confirmation email when you open an email from us. You can modify your email notification preferences by clicking the appropriate link included in the footer of email notifications. If you do not want to receive emails from DIYInvesting.org, please opt out of receiving emails at the bottom of any DIYInvesting.org emails.
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the Website 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.
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.
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service
WordPress Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to save 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.
Online Tracking and Your Choices
Website Use Information: Like many websites, we and our third-party partners analyze log file information and other data collected through cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technology, to collect information about your browsing behavior when you visit our Site, including for example, your browser type, domains, page views, IP address, referring/exit pages, information about how you interact with our Website’s web pages and with third-party links, traffic and usage trends on the service, etc. We use session cookies to keep you logged in while you use features of our Site; these disappear after you close your browser. We also use persistent cookies, which stay in your browser and allow us to recognize you when you return to the Site. We use this to remember your information so you will not have to re-enter it, to better understand how you use our website and products and services, to diagnose and fix technology problems, and otherwise enhance our Site, products, and services. In some of our email messages, we use a “click-through URL” linked to content on the Site. We track this click-through data to help us measure the effectiveness of our customer communications. We also use third-party analytics tools (including Google Analytics) to assist us with analyzing and improving our service. Most Internet browsers automatically accept cookies, but you may be able to change the settings of your browser to stop accepting cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from the websites you visit. If you set your browser to reject cookies, parts of our Site may not work for you. Please note, depending on your type of device or browser, it may not be possible to delete or disable all tracking mechanisms on your device.
- Your selection of the “Do Not Track” option provided by your browser may not have any effect on our collection of cookie information for analytic and internal purposes. The only way to completely “opt out” of the collection of any information through cookies or other tracking technology is to actively manage the settings on your browser or mobile device to delete and disable cookies and other tracking/recording tools. (To learn more about cookies, clear gifs/web beacons and related technologies, you may wish to visit allaboutcookies.org).
- We may permit third-party advertising partners to use cookies and other technology to collect information about your browsing activities over time and across different websites when you use our Site. For example, we may use advertising services provided by third-party ad partners, such as Google Display Network and AdRoll, to market our services to you on other websites and online services. Through a process called “retargeting,” each service places a cookie on your browser when you visit our Site so that they can identify you and serve you ads on other sites around the web based on your browsing activity. To avoid use of this information for advertising by these third-party ad partners, you can change your browser settings to reject cookies or to notify you when cookies are set and you could select the Do Not Track option on your browser, though we have no control over and cannot confirm whether these third-party ad parties honor the Do Not Track browser signal. Additionally, many advertising companies are members of the NAI or DAA and/or provide opt-outs on those industry pages at networkadvertising.org/choices or aboutads.info/choices.
Minors: Our site does not knowingly collect or store any personal information about children under the age of 13. By using the Website, you represent that you have the legal capacity to enter into a binding agreement.
Use of the Data
We use your personal information to provide you the DIYInvesting.org services and products or to communicate with you about the services or products of the Website, our partners, or our affiliates. This can include marketing materials and promotional emails.
If you choose to make any information public on The Website, such as through the comment functions, we recommend you redact any and all references to people and addresses, as we can’t protect public data and we are not responsible for any violation of privacy law you may be liable for.
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 currently use Google Analytics (traffic analysis, SEO optimization) and AWeber (mailing list management). We may use other services to improve and operate the DIYInvesting.org Website and service that we transmit similar information to, and this list may not always include every service used. By using the Website, you accept the sending of information to these unnamed third-party services as well. We listed below examples of what data these named third parties extract. This list may not be all-inclusive. Feel free to check out their own Privacy Policies to find out more.
- Google Analytics: anonymous (ad serving domains, browser type, demographics, language settings, page views, time/date), pseudonymous (IP address)
- Aweber: name and email for our subscription list
DIYInvesting.org is operated from the United States. If you are visiting the Website from outside the United States, you agree to any processing of any personal information you provide us according to this policy. You also agree to the transfer of that personal information to the United States.
Sharing of Data
Under no circumstance do we share personal information for any commercial or marketing purpose unrelated to the delivery of DIYInvesting.org Products and services without asking you first. Period. We do not rent or sell our customer lists.
The following are the limited situations where we may share personal information:
- With your permission: We may share personal information when we have your permission. One example of this would be if you sign up for programs offered by our partners or affiliates. If you do this, we may share certain information with the partner or affiliate. When you use third-party services integrated with the DIYInvesting.org Products and Services, their own terms and privacy policies will govern those services.
- For external processing: We have vendors, service providers, and technicians who help with some of our processing and storage, including helping to answer your questions. They may also assist with monitoring our servers for technical problems. These technicians (as well as DIYInvesting.org employees) can access certain information about you or your account in line with this work but these technicians are not allowed to use this data for non-DIYInvesting.org purposes.
- As part of business transitions: Upon the sale or transfer of the company and/or all or part of its assets, your personal information may be among the items sold or transferred. We will request a purchaser to treat our data under the privacy statement in place at the time of its collection.
- For legal reasons: We may provide information to a third party if we believe in good faith that we are required to do so for legal reasons. For example, to respond to legal process, or comply with state and federal laws (or the applicable laws of foreign countries other than the United States).
- Doing so is appropriate to carry out your own request.
- We believe it’s needed to enforce our Terms of Service, or that it is legally required;
- We believe it’s needed to detect, prevent or address fraud, security or technical issues;
- otherwise protect our property, legal rights, or that of others.
We may share non-personal information (for example, aggregated or anonymized customer data) publicly and with our partners. We may also share non-personal information with our partners, for example, if they are interested in providing services or other products to our users. We take steps to keep this non-personal information from being associated with you and we require our partners to do the same.
Your personal information may be collected, processed and stored by DIYInvesting.org or its service providers in the United States and other countries outside the European Union where our servers reside. As a result, your personal information may be subject to legal requirements, including lawful requirements to disclose personal information to government authorities, in those jurisdictions.
Third-Party Sites and Features: Our Site may contain links to other websites operated by third parties and may include social media features such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ buttons (such as “Like,” “Tweet” or “Pin”). These third-party sites may collect information about you if you click on a link and the social media sites may automatically record information about your browsing behavior every time you visit a site that has a social media button. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing the feature, not by our privacy policy. We do not control what information these third parties collect. Please review your privacy settings on your social media sites and think carefully before clicking on links which may take you to a third-party website.
We employ and contract with people and other entities that perform certain tasks on our behalf and who are under our control (our “Agents”). We may need to share personal information with our Agents in order to provide products or services to you. Unless we tell you differently, our Agents do not have any right to use Personal Information or other information we share with them beyond what is necessary to assist us. You hereby consent to our sharing of Personal Information with our Agents.
Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on our website. These third-party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We, therefore, have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.
We may share, as described in this Privacy Policy, information with our affiliates and subsidiaries, and third parties. We may disclose information in response to legal process and lawful requests by public authorities in the United States and other countries, for the purposes of law enforcement and national security.
We may choose to sell The Website. In these types of transactions, user information is typically one of the transferred business assets. Moreover, if we, or substantially all of our assets, were acquired, or if we go out of business or enter bankruptcy, user information would be one of the assets that are transferred or acquired by a third party. You acknowledge that such transfers may occur and that any acquirer of us or our assets may continue to use your personal information as set forth in this policy.
What Rights you have over your Data
Individual Rights in the European Economic Area: If you are located in the European Economic Area, you may seek confirmation regarding whether DIYInvesting.org is processing personal information about you, request access to your personal information, and ask that we correct, amend or delete your personal information. In addition, you may object to DIYInvesting.org’s processing of your personal information at any time. However, doing so may impact your use of the DIYInvesting.org Products and Services.
If you would like to view, change, or remove your data you can contact us at [email protected] stating your request. We will follow up with your request as soon as commercially reasonable. You can also remove your data directly by clicking the unsubscribe link in your email if you’re on the email list. If you’re a member you can remove your data directly by deleting your profile and account.
Changes to the Privacy Policy
We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. Use of information we collect is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time such information is used and subsequent Privacy Policy’s if a user continues use of the Website, Services, or Products. If we make major changes in the way we collect or use information, we will notify you by posting an announcement on the Website or sending you an email. Major changes will be tracked via a listing below the privacy policy. A user is bound by any changes to the Privacy Policy when he or she uses the Services after such changes have been first posted.
Should you have any question or concern, please write to [email protected].
[Change log:
v.0. [Major] First finalized on May 9, 2015.
v.1. [Major] Updated to comply with GDPR on May 25, 2018
v.1.1 [Minor] Minor wording changes recommended by Patreon for Patreon related services on July 6, 2018]
