Who we are

Our website address is: https://www.beginnersguidetowriting.com.

At Beginners guide to writing (“We”) are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This policy (together with our terms of website use and any other documents referred to on it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us.  Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

For the purpose of the General Data Regulation (GDPR) effective from May 25th 2018, the Data Officer is Christine Lightfoot at Beginners guide to writing of 2 Magnolia Court, 34 Ashley Road, New Milton BH25 6FG.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Comments

When visitors leave comments on our 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 anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. When you browse websites you may notice that some users have pictures next to their name – these pictures are called ‘avatars’. However, WordPress uses a specific type of avatar called ‘Gravatars’ (Globally Recognised Avatar). Unlike standard avatars, Gravators follow you around the web and automatically appear when you post a comment on a WordPress site such as www.beginnersguidetowriting.com.

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.

Contact forms

If you contact us using our Contact form, you can choose whether you want to permit us to save the information you submit (name, email address and comment/message) so as we can respond to your comment or message. However, we do not use that information for marketing purposes. 

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. Cookies are small text files placed on your computer when you visit some websites. They are used to store information about you such as your name, the contents of your shopping cart, what you are looking at online etc..

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.

You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our site. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you log on to our site. A message is displayed at the top of each screen on the website advising you that if you continue to use the site we will assume that you are happy to accept our use of cookies.

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.

How and where we store your personal data

The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA. Such staff maybe engaged in, among other things, the fulfilment of your order, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

Uses made of your data

We use the data held about you to:

  • ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer
  • provide you with information, products or services that you request from us or which we feel may interest you, where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes
  • carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us
  • allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so
  • notify you about changes to our service

Who we share your data with

We only share your data with payment processors to enable us to fulfil your orders such as eBook purchases and courses.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognise 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.

How we protect your data

Our website (www.beginnersguidetowriting.com) is hosted by SiteGround one of the best hosting providers on the market. To ensure that our website is secure they provide a range of security measures including using sophisticated IDS/IPS systems which block malicious bots and attackers and updating their security rules weekly to protect their customers from the most common attacks. Please contact us if you need any further details about what we do to protect your data.

How to contact us

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to 2 Magnolia Court, 34 Ashley Road, New Milton BH25 6FG or email chris.lightfoot@gmx.co.uk.