Wandering Journey Arts

Last Updated: July 2023

At Wandering Journey Arts I, K. Journey, seek to entertain and offer ideas for fantasy and sci-fi writing and artwork. I create and sell artwork, novels, and planner pages, and I share the lessons I learn about project planning, life management, and the ups and downs of being a creative, a parent, and someone who lives with C-PTSD. Wandering Journey Arts is an art and entertainment company only, I am not qualified for, and therefore do not offer legal, career, or medical advice.

For questions about the following Privacy Policy, or to contact me about how your information is being used please contact me here.

This Policy applies to information that I collect on you when:

• You visit my site 
• Comment, like or follow my site
• Regardless of what device or application you are using to access my site

Please note that Automattic and any other products or services accessed through, but not a part of, my site have their own privacy policies. These outside sites include, but are not limited to:

• Automattic 
• Etsy
• Mailchimp

Information I Collect:

• I only collect information about you if I have a reason to do so. For example, to provide Services, to communicate with you, or to make my Services better.
• I collect this information from three sources: if and when you provide information to me, automatically through using my services, and from outside sources.

Information you provide to me:

• Public Profile information: username and any other information in your public profile. 
• Payment and Contact Information: Any information you provide to contact you, as well as any payment information such as your name, and contact information. Your credit card information may be collected by third parties, which I do not have access to. I may also keep a record of your purchases.
• Communication with me: such as information provided when responding to surveys, signing up for newsletters and subscriptions, public posts and comments, and email communications. 

Information I collect automatically:

• Transactional Information: When you make a purchase through my services I collect information about the transaction, such as product details, purchase price, and date and location of the transaction. This includes when you purchase my products through another service like Etsy.
• Interaction Information: such as “likes,” comments and follows on my pages, so that I know what content is being well received for future planning
• Location information: Automattic may determine an approximation of your location via your IP address and notify me of said location. This information helps me to understand my audience better.
• Information from cookies & other technologies: Wandering Journey Arts, and K. Journey may use cookies through Automattic and their other Service Companies. A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Pixel tags (also called web beacons) are small blocks of code placed on websites and emails. Automattic uses cookies and other technologies like pixel tags to help identify and track visitors, usage, and access preferences for Services, as well as track and understand email campaign effectiveness and to deliver targeted ads. For more information about our use of cookies and other technologies for tracking, including how you can control the use of cookies, please see Automattic’s Cookie Policy.

Information I collect from other sources:

• Automattic gives me other information collected from places like Google analytics, Woocommerce, and other services associated with my WordPress website, and the tools they make available to me. 

How and Why I Would Use Your Information:

• To provide my services and to ensure Quality: for example to respond to comments or analyze how well a service is received. 
• To place and Manage ads: to ensure that, when and if I choose to place ads on my site, they are relevant to my audience.
• To market my services and to measure the effectiveness of my marketing: for example, noting when someone clicks to download my free PDFs, so that I can track whether or not they’re being received well.
• To protect my services, audience, customers, and the public: for example to detect and eliminate spam.
• To communicate with you: for example to respond to comments or concerns or to help you opt out of marketing.

Legal Bases for Collecting and Using Information:

A note here for those in the European Union about my legal grounds for processing information about you under EU data protection laws, which is that my use of your information is based on the grounds that:

1. The use is necessary in order to fulfill my commitments to you under the applicable terms of service or other agreements with you: for example when processing a transaction
2. The use is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; or
3. The use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or
4. We have a legitimate interest in using your information: for example, to provide and update my Services; to improve my Services so that I can offer you an even better user experience; to safeguard my Services; to communicate with you; to measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of my advertising; and to understand my user retention and attrition; to monitor and prevent any problems with my Services; and to personalize your experience; or
5. You have given me your consent: for example before Automattic or other parties place certain cookies on your device for me to access and analyze them later on, as described in Automattic’s Cookie Policy.

How I Share Information:

• Third party vendors: when they may need the information to provide their services to me or to you. This includes vendors that help me provide my services (like Automattic and their third party service providers), those that assist with marketing efforts, those that help me understand and enhance my services, those that make tools that help me run operations and companies that make products available on my website who may need information in order to provide support services to you. Other vendors I may work with are listed above, or in Automattic’s more specific policies (e.g., their Cookie Policy).
• Legal and Regulatory Requirements: In response to a subpoena, court order, or other government requests.
• To protect rights, properties or others: I may disclose information about you when I believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Wandering Journey Arts, Automattic, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if I have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, I may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
• With your consent: For example sharing with third parties when you authorize me to do so.
• Published support requests: If you send me a request for assistance (for example, via a support email), I reserve the right to publish that request in order to clarify or respond to your request, or to help support other users.

Information shared publicly:

• Information shared publicly is public. Likes, comments, and anything that can be seen by the public and are available to others.

How long I keep Information:

Until it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected and used, such as analytics, or until it is no longer needed for legal purposes. 

Security:

I use the security measures offered by Automattic, so here is what they have to say about their security:

While no online service is 100% secure, we work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so. We monitor our Services for potential vulnerabilities and attacks.

To enhance the security of your account, we encourage you to enable our advanced security settings, like Two Step Authentication.

Third party companies, such as Etsy, have their own security in place, which should be outlined in their policy information.

Choices:

You can choose to do several things to avoid disclosing information:

• Limit the Information you provide: be mindful of comments and other indicators in public areas
• Set your browser to reject cookies
• Opt out of services: like following or signing up for my newsletter 

Your Rights:

If you are located in certain parts of the world, including some US states and countries that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (aka the “GDPR”), you may have certain rights regarding your personal information, like the right to request access to or deletion of your data.

European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):

If you are located in a country that falls under the scope of the GDPR, data protection laws give you certain rights with respect to your personal data, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the rights to:

• Request access to your personal data;
• Request correction or deletion of your personal data;
• Object to our use and processing of your personal data;
• Request that we limit our use and processing of your personal data; and
• Request portability of your personal data.
• You also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority.

US Privacy Laws:

Laws in some US states, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and Virginia, require me to provide residents with additional information about the categories of personal information I collect and share, where I get that personal information, and how and why I use it. You’ll find that information in this section 

(if you are a California resident, please note that this is the Notice at Collection we are required to provide you under California law).

In the last 12 months, I, or Automattic, have collected the following categories of personal information, depending on the Services used:

• Identifiers (like your name, contact information, and device and online identifiers);
• Commercial information (your billing information and purchase history, for example);
• Characteristics protected by law (for example, you might disclose your gender with your name or profile picture);
• Internet or other electronic network activity information (such as your comments Services);
• Geolocation data (such as your location based on your IP address);
• Audio, electronic, visual or similar information (such as your profile picture, if you uploaded one);
• Inferences we make (such as likelihood of retention or attrition).

In some US states you have additional rights subject to any exemptions provided by your state’s respective law, including the right to:

• Request a copy of the specific pieces of information I collect about you and, if you’re in California, to know the categories of personal information I collect, the categories of business or commercial purpose for collecting and using it, the categories of sources from which the information came, and the categories of third parties I share it with;
• Request deletion of personal information I collect or maintain;
• Request correction of personal information I collect or maintain;
• Opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information;
• Receive a copy of your information in a readily portable format; and
• Not receive discriminatory treatment for exercising your rights.

Right to Opt out:

I get my information about you through my services at Automattic and the other companies that they work with. As Automattic handles the collection and storage of your personal data, these are their policies, which I would also abide by:

We never directly sell your personal information in the conventional sense (i.e., for money).

We may share your information as necessary with our third-party service providers to provide our services to you. To the extent that we share your information with certain advertising, marketing, or analytics vendors, this can be considered a “sale” or “share” in certain U.S. States, which you may have the right to opt out of.

You can learn more about this sharing and how to opt out by clicking the “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link in the footer of our websites, or from the settings page within our apps. Note that in some instances this link will only display to individuals visiting our sites from within the relevant states.

Our opt-out is managed through cookies, so if you delete cookies, your browser is set to delete cookies automatically after a certain length of time, or if you visit sites in a different browser, you’ll need to make this selection again.

We also respect the GPC browser signal and will treat it as a valid means of communicating your desire to opt out.

We do not collect or process your sensitive (and potentially sensitive) personal information except where it is strictly necessary to provide you with our service, where the processing is not for the purpose of inferring characteristics about you, or for other purposes that do not require an option to limit under California law. We don’t knowingly sell or share personal information of those under 16.

Your Information & Personalized Advertising:

Our mission is to democratize publishing and commerce, and that means making our Services accessible to as many people as possible. We show ads on some of our users’ sites as well as some of our own sites, and the revenue these ads generate lets us offer free access to some of our Services so that money doesn’t become an obstacle to having a voice. Our ads program also allows our users to earn revenue to support and grow their own sites. As part of our advertising program, we and our users do use cookies to share certain device identifiers and information about your browsing activities with our advertising partners, and those advertising partners may use that information to show you personalized ads on some of our users’ sites and some of our own.

The personal information we share includes online identifiers; internet or other network or device activity (such as cookie information, other device identifiers, and IP address); and geolocation data (approximate location information from your IP address). These disclosures may be considered a “sale” or “share” of information under some US state privacy laws. We do not sell (or share) information through our ads program that identifies you personally, like your name or contact information. Learn how you can opt out by going to Advertising on WordPress.com Sites and Sites in the WordAds Program.

Contacting Us About These Rights:

You can usually access, correct, or delete your personal data using your account settings and tools that we offer, but if you aren’t able to or you’d like to contact us about one of the other rights, scroll down to “How to Reach Us” to, well, find out how to reach us.

When you contact us about one of your rights under this section, we’ll need to verify that you are the right person before we disclose or delete anything. For example, if you are a user, we will need you to contact us from the email address associated with your account. You can also designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf by giving us written authorization. We may still require you to verify your identity with us.

Appeals Process for Rights Requests Denials:

In some circumstances we may deny your request to exercise one of these rights. For example, if we cannot verify that you are the account owner we may deny your request to access the personal information associated with your account. As another example, if we are legally required to maintain a copy of your personal information we may deny your request to delete your personal information.

In the event that we deny your request, we will communicate this fact to you in writing. You may appeal our decision by responding in writing to our denial email and stating that you would like to appeal. All appeals will be reviewed by an internal expert who was not involved in your original request. In the event that your appeal is also denied this information will be communicated to you in writing.  Please note that the appeal process does not apply to job applicants.

If your appeal is denied, in some US states (Colorado, Connecticut, and Virginia) you may refer the denied appeal to the state attorney general if you believe the denial is in conflict with your legal rights. The process for how to do this will be communicated to you in writing at the same time we send you our decision about your appeal.

Controllers and Responsible Companies”

Automattic’s Services are worldwide. Different Automattic companies are the controller (or co-controller) of personal information, which means that they are the company responsible for processing that information, based on the particular service and the location of the individual using our Services.

Depending on the Services you use, more than one company may be the controller of your personal data. Generally, the “controller” is the Automattic company that entered into the contract with you under the Terms of Service for the product or service you use. In addition, Automattic Inc., our US-based company, is the controller for some of the processing activities across all of our Services worldwide.

The Information below explains the current controllers for processing your personal information. We use the term “Designated Countries” to refer to Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, and all countries located in Europe (including the UK and ROI).

All Automattic Services (except WooCommerce)

If you reside outside of the Designated Countries:

Automattic Inc.

60 29th Street #343

San Francisco, CA 94110

If you reside in the Designated Countries:

Aut O’Mattic A8C Ireland Ltd.

Grand Canal Dock, 25 Herbert Pl

Dublin, D02 AY86

Ireland

Automattic Inc. is also the controller for some of the processing activities related to Services provided by Aut O’Mattic A8C Ireland Ltd.

WooCommerce Services:

WooCommerce Services includes WooCommerce, WooCommerce Payments, WooCommerce Shipping and Tax, MailPoet, and any products purchased from WooCommerce.com.

If you reside outside of the Designated Countries:

WooCommerce, Inc.

60 29th Street #343

San Francisco, CA 94110

Automattic Inc. is also the controller for some of the processing activities related to Services provided by WooCommerce, Inc.

If you reside in the Designated Countries:

WooCommerce Ireland Ltd.

Grand Canal Dock, 25 Herbert Pl

Dublin, D02 AY86

Ireland

Automattic Inc and WooCommerce, Inc are also the joint controllers for some of the processing activities related to Services provided by WooCommerce Ireland Ltd.

How to Reach Us

If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact us about any of the rights mentioned in the Your Rights section above, please contact us through our web form or via email. These are the fastest ways to get a response to your inquiry, but you can also contact us by telephone at 1-877-273-3049.

Other Things You Should Know (Keep Reading!)”

Transferring Information:

Because Automattic’s Services are offered worldwide, the information about you that we process when you use the Services in the EU may be used, stored, and/or accessed by individuals operating outside the European Economic Area (EEA) who work for us, other members of our group of companies, or third-party data processors. This is required for the purposes listed in the How and Why We Use Information section above.

When providing information about you to entities outside the EEA, we will take appropriate measures to ensure that the recipient protects your personal information adequately in accordance with this Privacy Policy as required by applicable law. These measures include entering into European Commission approved standard contractual arrangements with entities based in countries outside the EEA.

You can ask us for more information about the steps we take to protect your personal information when transferring it from the EU.

Ads and Analytics Services Provided by Others:

Ads appearing on any of our Services may be delivered by advertising networks. Other parties may also provide analytics services via our Services. These ad networks and analytics providers may set tracking technologies (like cookies) to collect information about your use of our Services and across other websites and online services. These technologies allow these third parties to recognize your device to compile information about you or others who use your device. This information allows us and other companies to, among other things, analyze and track usage, determine the popularity of certain content, and deliver ads that may be more targeted to your interests. Please note this Privacy Policy only covers the collection of information by Automattic and does not cover the collection of information by any third-party advertisers or analytics providers.

Third-Party Software and Services:

If you’d like to use third-party plugins or embeds, WooCommerce Payments (powered by Stripe), WooCommerce extensions that enable services provided by third parties, or other third-party software or services, please keep in mind that interacting with them may mean providing information about yourself (or your site visitors) to those third parties. For example, some third-party services may request or require access to your (yours, your visitors’, or customers’) data via a pixel or cookie. Please note that if you use the third-party service or grant access, your data will be handled in accordance with the third party’s privacy policy and practices. We don’t own or control these third parties, and they have their own rules about information collection, use, and sharing, which you should review before using the software or services.

Visitors to Our Users’ Websites”

We also process information about visitors to our users’ websites, on behalf of our users and in accordance with our user agreements. Please note that our processing of that information on behalf of our users for their websites isn’t covered by this Privacy Policy. We encourage our users to post a privacy policy that accurately describes their practices on data collection, use, and sharing of personal information. If you’d like, you can also read more about the data we collect on behalf of our users in our Privacy Notice.

Users control the content posted on their sites, so any disputes regarding content on a user’s site should be made directly to the site owner, through their “contact us” page, at an email address they provide, or by leaving a comment on the site.

Privacy Policy Changes:

Although most changes are likely to be minor, Automattic may change its Privacy Policy from time to time. Automattic encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the change log below, and, in some cases, we may provide additional notice (like adding a statement to our homepage or the WordPress.com Blog, or sending you a notification through email or your dashboard). Your further use of the Services after a change to our Privacy Policy will be subject to the updated policy.