1. Overview
Contents
- 1. Overview
- 2. Types of information we may collect
- 3. How we may use the data collected
- 4. Get to know whether third-parties collect information about you on the Site
- 5. How We Protect Your Data
- 6. How long we retain your data
- 7. COPPA (Privacy Policies for Individuals Under 13)
- 8. What rights you have over your data
- 8. Unsubscribe from Geek’s Advice
GeeksAdvice.com is a website dedicated to security online. This Privacy Policy explains how, when, and what types of information we may collect from you in connection with your use of this site. The following statements will also cover why we may collect certain types of data and how it may be used.
2. Types of information we may collect
- a) Anonymous information
Anonymous information (also known as aggregate information) is data that does not reveal user’s identity, f.e., type of browser and operating system you use, the domain name of your Internet Service Provider (ISP), and your IP address. No matter whether you are registered user or not, your IP address will be logged in our web server’s log files. Such practice is common and used by the majority of Internet sites nowadays. It helps to understand which pages the visitors access and how much time they spend on them.
Additionally, our site uses cookies to improve user’s experience on our site. We may also use third-party website analytics tools such as Google Analytics on our site to employ cookies.
Cookies are small text files that websites set on visitor’s computer’s hard drive to recognize the visitor in the future. Cookies help the user use the site easier, for example, allow the user to register an account, remain logged in while the user navigates through different site’ pages and save the password for future visits. To learn how third-parties may use cookies, please see Section 4.
You have the right to disable cookies anytime you want. Please remember that disabling cookies from Geek’s Advice may turn off specific features of the Site.
Some web pages can contain web beacons (a.k.a invisible images) that allow a website to record the number of visitors of particular pages. Geek’s Advice uses these web beacons within the Site only for statistical purposes. To learn how third-parties may use web beacons, please see Section 4.
- b) Personally identifiable information
Geek’s Advice only collects personally identifiable information (PII) that users voluntarily provide. We may ask you to provide your name, e-mail address and other PII if you decide to register on our website. Besides, you may submit PII to us via interactive parts of our site where users can provide content and suggestions, participate in discussions, optional events, sweepstakes, contests or promotion registrations.
3. How we may use the data collected
- Anonymous information
Geek’s Advice may use aggregate information to maintain and improve the Site, provide products and services and respond to users’ interests. We may conduct research on our visitor demographics, interests and behavior using anonymous information collected. Such data does not personally identify our visitors.
- Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
Geek’s Advice may use PII for the following purposes:
- Validation of user’s registration;
- Performing customer service activities;
- For Site administrators to contact a particular user;
- Making available services to you or notifying you about new services or offers we believe you might find interesting;
- Marketing materials. You can refuse to receive marketing materials by following opt-out instructions included in our emails or by contacting our team.
- We use visitor’s IP address, browser user agent string to detect spam. Also, we may collect data shown in the comments form when visitors leave comments on the site. We may check visitor comments through an automatic spam detection service.
Additionally, your email address may be used to generate an anonymized string (also known as a hash) and it may be provided to the Gravatar service to identify whether you are a user of the service already. You can find Gravatar’s Privacy Policy here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. Once we approve your comment, your profile picture will become visible to the public in the context of your comment. - In case you decide to upload visual content to the website, please follow our advice and avoid uploading images with embedded location information (also known as EXIF GPS). Keep in mind that site visitors may download any type of images and extract any location from them.
More about cookies:
When leaving a comment on our site, the user has an option of saving name, email address and website in cookies. Cookies save such data so that you don’t have to re-enter same information when leaving another comment on our site. These cookies will last for one year.
For registered site visitors who log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie which will check whether your browser accepts cookies. This cookie does not contain personal information and disappears when you close your browser.
Once a registered user logs in, we will set up several cookies to save your login data and your screen display preferences. Login cookies last for 2 days, while screen options cookies last for a year. If you pick the “Remember Me” option, your login data will be saved for two weeks. If you manually log out from the website, login cookies won’t be saved.
When editing or publishing an article, an extra cookie will be saved in your browser. It contains no PII and indicates the post ID of the material being edited. The cookie expires after one day.
We do not disclose PII to third-parties except in cases described below:
We may reveal PII to third-parties if you consent such disclosure. For instance, if you confirm that you would like to receive information regarding third-party products or services, we might provide your contact details to third-parties, for example, data aggregators, marketers or others so that they could send you e-mails or reach out to you in another way. We might use the data collected about your interests (the experience you have or preferences you have expressed) to find out whether you might be interested in products/services of a particular third-party.
We may reveal PII to companies and individuals we employ to carry out functions on our behalf (such as third-party service providers). These might include companies that host our site’s web servers, analyze website-related data, provide marketing services, process credit card payments. These third-party service providers may access your PII only in order to perform their functions. These third-party service providers do not have a permission to retain, share, store or use your PII for any other purpose than completion of the services they are hired for.
We may disclose PII in case a governmental entity legally requires us to do so. We may also disclose such data if we believe in good faith that such action is essential to the following cases.
a) Conform to legal requirements or comply with legal process.
b) Protect the rights or property of Geek’s Advice or its affiliates.
c) Investigate or prevent a crime or protect national security or cooperate in investigating any incidents in which we believe that you have abused the Site by using it to attack other systems or to gain access to any other system illegally, to engage in spamming or otherwise to violate applicable laws.
d) Protect the personal safety of users or the public.
Geek’s Advice may allow public visibility of user profiles. Remember that you are responsible for composing the profile and that you can edit it anytime you want. Therefore, all personal information you provide may be visible to others.
The Site may provide surveys, optional events, contests, sweepstakes, promotions to members and/or visitors of the Site. Any PII we gather through these events will only reach the associated company for the purpose of delivering the prize. By participating in these events or by completing the submission, you acknowledge that Geek’s Advice has notified you and that you expressly agreed to the sharing of the PII you submitted.
We keep the right to transmit all PII in our possession to a successor entity in the event of a merger, bankruptcy, acquisition, creation of a new business entity, or another sale of all or a portion of our assets. Other than to the extent ordered by a court, the use and disclosure of all transferred PII will be subject to this Privacy Policy or a new one.
In case of a new privacy policy, you will be notified about it and given the right to affirmatively opt-in to accept the new policy. PII submitted and/or collected after a transfer, however, may be subject to a new privacy policy adopted by the successor entity.
4. Get to know whether third-parties collect information about you on the Site
Geek’s Advice may use services of companies providing audience targeting and online research solutions to deliver surveys. These surveys may consist of generic questions that may provide useful anonymous data about our visitors to us. This allows us to provide quality content and advertising campaigns via the Site.
These surveys will not require entering any personally identifiable information. If you do not wish to participate in these surveys, you will receive a cookie from the associated research company. Then you won’t receive any prompts regarding similar surveys for a while, for instance, three months.
We may use third-party advertising companies such as Google for placing ads on our Site. Third-party advertisers may use cookies or web beacons to collect IP address and anonymous (non-personally identifiable) data about the user, for instance, pages viewed, ads clicked and so on. In case a conversion occurred during your visit to the related third-party website or third-party advertiser, collected data may be used to deliver third-party ads that are likely to interest you. Users can opt-out personalized advertising of Google by visiting Ads Settings. Additionally, you can opt out of some third-party vendors’ uses of cookies for personalized advertising by visiting www.aboutads.info.
Articles on our website may contain embedded content (for example, videos, images, articles and similar). Such content that originates from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
Geek’s Advice has no access or control over tracking technologies that third-party companies may use. Keep in mind that data collection and disclosure practices of third-parties are not covered by our Privacy Policy. We strongly advise you to review Privacy Policy documents on every external site you enter. This helps to find out how it uses tracking technologies such as cookies or web beacons.
Affiliates
GeeksAdvice.com inserts third-party affiliate links that allow us to earn a commission at no additional cost to the visitor. This helps us to maintain the website and keep this project alive. We use CJ.com affiliate network (Privacy Policy). When visiting a partner website, cookies are used to identify visitor arrival source (referral) and provide customized content. We are not responsible for how third-parties collect and maintain data.
5. How We Protect Your Data
Geek’s Advice follows generally accepted industry standards to protect user data from unauthorized access. We treat all data we store on our servers as confidential and do everything to keep it private. We protect our servers by using firewalls, and we store the data in secure data facilities. However, even the strongest security measures have their flaws. As a result, we cannot guarantee absolute safety and shall not be liable for any security breach by an outside party.
6. How long we retain your data
If a user leaves a comment on our site, the comment and its metadata remains indefinitely. This helps us to recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
Users who register on our site may provide personally identifiable data in their profiles. We store such information they provide in their user profile. Users have a right to see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time. However, users cannot change their usernames. Admins of this site have a right to access and modify such data at any time.
You can update or change your account information by logging into your account and reaching its settings. Here, you can manage your profile settings. In case you cannot change the information, please reach out to us using contact details provided on our site.
7. COPPA (Privacy Policies for Individuals Under 13)
Geek’s Advice cares about the safety of children who use the Internet. We do understand that children who may visit our site might not understand all of the statements provided in our Site’s Privacy Policy. Therefore, they may not make informed decisions about the choices that are made available to adult visitors of the Site.
Geek’s Advice encourages parents/guardians to talk with their children regarding their online activities and get familiar with sites their children visit. Geek’s Advice is not intended for children under 13. We will never require personally identifiable information from anyone we know to be under 13 years of age without verifiable parental consent.
8. What rights you have over your data
Registered users, or those who have left feedback on this site, can ask us to receive an exported file of the personal information we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we delete any PII we hold about you. This does not include any information we need to hold for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
8. Unsubscribe from Geek’s Advice
If you would like to unsubscribe from Geek’s Advice, please write to us (provide your login name and email address). We will send you a verification email to the provided email address to confirm that you are the owner of the account. Then, according to your preference, we will remove or deactivate the account.