Who am I?
I’m a writer. My website address is: http://www.allyblue.com.
What personal data do I collect and why?
Comments
WordPress is set up as a blog, but that’s not how I use it. I use it to give the public information about my books and that’s all, so I have my website set to not allow comments. That said, I do still get comment attempts, mostly spam. That comment will go to my dashboard. It will not be seen by the public. The data collected in that instance is whatever’s typed in the comments field, 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/.
Media
I have no idea if anyone could actually do this or not, but am leaving this statement here from the form page WordPress provided just in case: 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
If you contact me via the contact form on this website, I’ll receive your email information and whatever name you give me via my email. This information is not stored on this website. I generally delete emails after I’ve answered them. I do NOT share emails, email addresses, or names with others.
Cookies
Again, leaving all this here even though I do not allow comments, because people do manage to attempt comments, therefore the cookie information applies:
If you leave a comment on this 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
Who we share your data with
I never deliberately share anyone’s information with another party. I assume that WordPress has access to information on those who try to leave comments. If you sign up for my newsletter (there’s a pop-up form, or you can use the provided link) that information is collected by Mailchimp. Their privacy policy can be found on their website.
Sorry if thisn’t very useful. I don’t share on purpose, and WordPress didn’t give me a baseline script to work with on this section.
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.
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.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Your contact information
I receive your contact information via the contact form, if you use it; and via the newsletter signup form, if you use that. If you try to comment, I’ll see the IP information. If you subscribe to my site, I have your username and email. If you have a profile set up, I should be able to view the same as any other member of the general public. That’s it. None of the information collected here is shared by me with any third party. I assume WordPress has access to the same user information I do, and I assume Mailchimp has access to information on those who sign up for newsletters. That should be spelled out in their policies.
Additional information
Ads
You’ll see I have ads on my site. I do not have individual information on who clicks the ads. I honestly don’t know if WordPress collects that anywhere, or if the retailers who sponsor the ads do, but I don’t have access to that information.