This policy explains what information we collect when you use TheGiftShepard’s sites, services, mobile applications, products, and content (“Services”). It also has information about how we store, use, transfer, and delete that information. Our aim is not just to comply with privacy law. It’s to earn your trust.
Information Disclosure
TheGiftShepard won’t transfer information about you to third parties for the purpose of providing or facilitating third-party advertising to you. We won’t sell information about you to a third party.
We may transfer your account information with third parties in some circumstances, including: (1) with your consent; (2) to a service provider or partner who meets our data protection standards; (3) with academic or non-profit researchers, with aggregation, anonymization, or pseudonymization; (4) when we have a good faith belief it is required by law, such as pursuant to a subpoena or other legal process; (5) when we have a good faith belief that doing so will help prevent imminent harm to someone.
If we are going to share your information in response to the legal process, we’ll give you notice so you can challenge it (for example by seeking court intervention), unless we’re prohibited by law or believe doing so may endanger others or cause illegal conduct. We will object to legal requests for information about users of our services that we believe are improper.
Public Data
Search engines may index your TheGiftShepard user profile page, public interactions (such as claps or highlights), and post pages, such that people may find these pages when searching against your name on services like Google, DuckDuckGo, or Bing. Users may also share links to your content on social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter.
Data Storage
TheGiftShepard uses third-party vendors and hosting partners, such as Amazon, for hardware, software, networking, storage, and related technology we need to run TheGiftShepard. We maintain server logs and event logs. By using the Services, you authorize TheGiftShepard to transfer, store, and use your information in the United States and any other country where we operate.
Third-Party Embeds
Some of the content that you see displayed on TheGiftShepard is not hosted by TheGiftShepard. These “embeds” are hosted by a third party and embedded in a TheGiftShepard page so that it appears to be part of that page. For example YouTube or Vimeo videos, Imgur or Giphy gifs, SoundCloud audio files, Twitter tweets, GitHub code snippets, or Scribd documents that appear within a TheGiftShepard post. These files send data to the hosted site just as if you were visiting that site directly (for example, when you load a TheGiftShepard post page with a YouTube video embedded in it, that video appears because of a pointer to files hosted by YouTube, and in turn, YouTube receives data about your activity, such as your IP address and how much of the video you watch).
TheGiftShepard doesn’t control what data third parties collect in cases like this, or what they ultimately do with it. So, third-party embeds on TheGiftShepard are not covered by this Privacy Policy. They are covered by the privacy policy of the third-party service (so, when you watch a YouTube video embedded in a TheGiftShepard post, the use of data about your interactions with the video would be covered by YouTube’s privacy policy).
Some embeds may ask you for personal information, such as submitting your email address, through a form linked to a TheGiftShepard post. We do our best to keep bad actors off of TheGiftShepard. However, if you choose to submit your information to a third party this way, we don’t know what they may do with it. As explained above, their actions are not covered by this Privacy Policy. So, please be careful when you see embedded forms on TheGiftShepard asking for your email address or any other personal information. Make sure you understand who you are submitting your information to and what they say they plan to do with it. We suggest that you do not submit your email address or other personal information to any third party through an embedded form.
When posting on TheGiftShepard, you may not embed a form that allows the submission of personal information by users. You must link offsite to a page that allows such submissions by users, and that page’s appearance must be distinct enough from TheGiftShepard to ensure it does not cause confusion among users over to whom they are submitting personal information. Failure to do so may lead Medium to disable the post or take other action to limit or disable your account.
Tracking & Cookies
We use browser cookies and similar technologies to recognize you when you return to our Services. We use them in various ways, for example, to log you in, remember your preferences (such as default language), evaluate email effectiveness, allow our paywall and meter to function, and personalize content and other services. Without cookies, our metered paywall would not work, so they are necessary to TheGiftShepard’s basic functionality.
Some third-party services that we use to provide the Service, such as Google Analytics, may place their own cookies in your browser. This Privacy Policy covers the use of cookies by Medium only and not the use of cookies by third parties.
Modifying or Deleting Your Personal Information
To protect information from accidental or malicious destruction, we may maintain residual copies for a brief time period (generally several weeks). But, if you delete your account, your information and content will be unrecoverable after that time. TheGiftShepard may preserve and maintain copies of your information beyond this time period when required to do so by law.
Data Security
We use encryption (HTTPS/TLS) to protect data transmitted to and from our site. However, no data transmission over the Internet is 100% secure, so we can’t guarantee security. You use the Service at your own risk, and you’re responsible for taking reasonable measures to secure your account.
Business Transfers
If we’re involved in a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, reorganization, or sale of assets such that your information would be transferred or become subject to a different privacy policy, we’ll notify you in advance so you can opt-out of any such new policy by deleting your account before transfer.
Email from TheGiftShepard
Sometimes we’ll send you emails about your account, service changes, or new policies. You can’t opt-out of this type of “transactional” email (unless you delete your account). But, you can opt-out of non-administrative emails such as digests, newsletters, and activity notifications through your account’s Settings page.
When you interact with an email sent from TheGiftShepard (such as opening an email or clicking on a particular link in an email), we may receive information about that interaction.
We won’t email you to ask for your password or other account information. If you receive such an email, please forward it to us at legal@TheGiftShepard.com so we can investigate.
Changes to this Policy
TheGiftShepard may periodically update this Policy. We’ll notify you about significant changes to it. The most current version of the policy will always be here.
Questions
We welcome feedback about this policy at legal@TheGiftShepard.com.