Privacy Policy

As the Bird flies or www.asthebirdfliesblog (the "Website"), is a for-profit blog managed by Frances M. Thompson. On this page you can read the Website's Privacy Policy ("Privacy Policy") which it adheres to in order to protect your privacy as a reader and/or user of the website ("User").

The Privacy Policy outlines how, when and why your personal information is collected, and the rights you have in managing this. There is also a section about affiliates and advertising so you know how these work on the Website too.

This Privacy Policy will be updated regularly. If you have any questions about your personal information or the details of this Privacy Policy, please email hello@asthebirdfliesblog.com. 

Last updated: December 2019

COLLECTION & USE OF INFORMATION

What information is collected on the website? And how?

Voluntarily-submitted information: The website may collect personal information from you, such as your name and address, when you voluntarily submit this informaion by signing up to our newsletter or leaving a comment. When you subscribe to the newsletter, we store your name and email address in a secure database . We do not store your name or email address - or any other log-in information - you submit when leaving a comment other than that which you choose to be displayed on the third-party Disqus platform which is used to manage comments. You can find Disqus' own privacy policy here.

Information we automatically collect about you: Certain information is automatically collected about you and the device you are using when using the Website, including your IP address, your device's operating system, browser type, referring Website, the pages and posts you view, the links you click on, and the dates and times you access the website. This information is mostly collected and used for purposes relating to the tracking and monitoring of the Website's stats and analytics (i.e. Google Analytics).

Information collected through cookies: The Website uses cookies to collect information about users. Cookies are data files stored in your browser by the website and they help to provide users with a more personalised experience when using the Website. It's possible that we will use both session and permanent cookies. Session cookies expire as soon as your browser's session ends, and permanent cookies stay in your browser until they are manually deleted. These are often used in relation to display advertising and affiliate marketing, see below.

How may your information be used?

Information is collected by the Website to carry out a number of possible functions. This includes:

  • The overall running, monitoring and maintenance of the Website.
  • The personalisation of your experience when accessing the Website.
  • The ability to add you to the Website's newsletter so you can receive email communication about the website. Each newsletter provides you with information about how to opt-out of any future communication.
  • To display, edit and respond to your comments which you voluntarily enter.
  • To provide and manage advertising on the Website.
  • To track and measure advertising on the Website.
  • To track and measure users on the Website.
  • To investigate and/or prevent unauthorised or illegal activity on or associated to the Website.

Do we share your information with third parties?

As a general rule the Website does not share your information with third parties as standard. Only once explicit authorisation is given from you will we potentially share your information with third parties.

The website may use third parties to support and manage certain aspects of the website's functions. These third-party providers collect and use your personal information in accordance with their own respective privacy policies.

The use of anonymous data

It is possible that anonymous data collected by the Website may be used when working with or may be provided to third parties. Used alone, this anonymous data will never identify an individual alone, nor will it do so when combined with data from other parties. Some examples of this anonymous data and its uses are the provision of user information for reports relating the Website's analytics or information collected from cookies for advertising or affiliate marketing campaigns.

The use of cookies on this website

As mentioned above, cookies are used on this website to track and monitor the Website's users, and as part of affiliate marketing campaigns and for display advertising. Read more about these below.

At any time, users have the ability to prevent the setting of cookies by the Website. To do this you must go to the relevant settings in your internet browser and disable the use of cookies. It is also possible to remove already set cookies via the settings of your internet browser or in the settings of other online software programs. However, if you do disable the setting of cookies in your internet browser, it is possible that not all functions of the Website will perform 

When you sign up to the asthebirdfliesblog.com newsletter...

The principal way personal information is collected about you is when you sign up to receive the asthebirdfliesblog.com newsletter. When you do so you will be asked to submit your email address. When you provide this email address it is stored on a database associated to this Website. It is not managed or accessible by a third-party. Only those with administrative access to the Website have access to this database. We do not collect any other personal information when you subscribe to the newsletter. We also do not share your email address with any other third-party. Ever. 

Your rights related to your personal information

You have a number of rights related to your personal information and how it is used and/or collected. Here's what you need to know and how you can exercise these rights on the Website.

The right to opt-out: You always have the right to opt-out of future email communications by following the unsubscribe links in our emails. Alternatively, you can always email hello@asthebirdfliesblog.com to request being removed from the newsletter subscription list.

The right to access: You may request to access all the personal information collected about you by submitting a request to hello@asthebirdfliesblog.com

The right to amend: If you'd like to update or amend any personal information the Website has collected about you, you can email hello@asthebirdfliesblog.com.

The right to be forgotten: In certain situations, you may request that we erase or forget your personal data. To do so, please submit a request to hello@asthebirdfliesblog.com

Please note that we may need to retain certain information when required by law.


ADVERTISING & AFFILIATES

The Website provides revenue through both display advertising and affiliate programs. These campaigns run at no extra cost to you, nor should they negatively impact your experience of the Website, but if you have concerns or questions please get in touch at any time: bird@asthebirdfliesblog.

Advertising on the Website

Display Advertising

The Website uses Mediavine to manage all third-party advertising on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use cookies. Mediavine may collect IP addresses and location to serve personalized ads.  If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.

Mediavine Programmatic Advertising

The Website uses Mediavine to manage all third-party advertising on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website. The cookie may collect information relating to your use of the Website, information about your device such as the device’s IP address and browser type, demographic data and, if you arrived at the Website via a link from a third-party site, the URL of the linking page.

First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The “help” feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/.

Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site.

The Website may collect IP addresses and location information to serve personalized ads and pass it to Mediavine. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp. You may also visit http://optout.aboutads.info/#/ and http://optout.networkadvertising.org/# to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at http://www.aboutads.info/appchoices to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.

Mediavine partners with the following data processors:

  1. Pubmatic. You may find Pubmatic’s privacy policy through this link. The data collected on the Website may be transferred to Pubmatic and its demand partners for interest-based advertising. Statistical information and other non-cookie technologies (such as eTags and web or browser cache) may be used by third parties on this Website. Browser settings that block cookies may have no effect on these technologies, but you may clear your cache to delete such trackers. Data collected from a particular browser or device may be used with another computer or device that is linked to the browser or device on which such data was collected.
  2. Criteo. You may find Criteo’s privacy policy through this link. The data collected on the Website may be transferred to Criteo and its demand partners for interest-based advertising. Criteo may collect, access, and use non-identifying data to improve the Criteo Technology and other Criteo products, programs, and/or services. This non-identifying data may include on-site user behavior and user/page content data, URLs, statistics, or internal search queries. The non-identifying data are collected through the ad call and stored with a Criteo cookie for a maximum period of 13 months.
  3. Pulsepoint. You may find Pulsepoint’s privacy policy through this link.
  4. LiveRamp. You may find LiveRamp’s privacy policy through this link. When you use the Website, we share information that we may collect from you, such as your email (in hashed, de-identified form), IP address or information about your browser or operating system, with LiveRamp Inc, and its group companies (‘LiveRamp’). LiveRamp may use a cookie on your browser and match your shared information to their on- and offline marketing databases and those of its advertising partners to create a link between your browser and information in those other databases. This link may be shared by our partners globally for the purpose of enabling interest-based content or advertising throughout your online experience (e.g. cross device, web, email, in-app, etc.) by third parties unaffiliated with our website. These third parties may in turn link further demographic or interest-based information to your browser. To opt out of LiveRamp’s targeted advertising, please go here: https://liveramp.com/opt_out/
  5. RhythmOne. You may view RhythmOne’s privacy policy through this link. RhythmOne uses cookies and similar tracking technologies (such as mobile device identifiers and digital fingerprinting) to provide its services. RhythmOne may use aggregated information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other Websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please visit the following webpage: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.
  6. District M. You may find District M’s privacy policy through this link.
  7. YieldMo. You may find YieldMo’s privacy policy through this link. If you want to opt out of receiving interest based ads from Yieldmo or exercise your right under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) to opt-out of the sale of your personal information, you may do so through this link.
  8. The Rubicon Project. You may find Rubicon’s privacy policy through this link. If you want to opt out of receiving interest based ads from Rubicon or exercise your right under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) to opt-out of the sale of your personal information, you may do so through this link. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page.
  9. Amazon Publisher Services. You may find Amazon Publisher Services’ privacy policy through this link.
  10. AppNexus. You may find the AppNexus privacy policy through this link.
  11. OpenX. You may find OpenX’s privacy policy through this link.
  12. Verizon Media formerly known as Oath. You may find Verizon Media’s privacy policy through this link. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page to opt-out of the use of cookies for interest-based advertising.
  13. TripleLift. You may find TripleLift’s privacy policy through this link. To opt out of receiving interest-based advertising (including retargeting) from TripleLift’s services through the use of cookies in your current browser and for more information on what it means to opt-out, please go to www.triplelift.com/consumer-opt-out.
  14. Index Exchange. You may find Index Exchange’s privacy policy through this link. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page to opt-out of the use of cookies for interest-based advertising.
  15. Sovrn. You may find Sovrn’s privacy policy through this link.
  16. GumGum. You may find GumGum’s privacy policy through this link. GumGum may (i) use place and use cookies on end users’ browsers or use web beacons to collect information about end users who visit such Publisher Websites and (ii) link such collected end user information to other end user information provided by third parties in order to deliver targeted Advertisements to such end users.
  17. Digital Remedy. You may find Digital Remedy’s privacy policy through this link.
  18. MediaGrid. You may find MediaGrid’s privacy policy through this link. MediaGrid may collect and store information about end-user interactions with this website through cookies, advertising IDS, pixels and server-to-server connections. MediaGrid was receive the following information: the page an End-User has requested and the referring/exit pages; Timestamp information (i.e., the date and time the End-User has visited the page); IP address; mobile device identifier; device model; device operating system; browser type; carrier; gender; age; geolocation (including GPS coordinates); clickstream data; cookie information; first-party identifiers’; and hashed email addresses; demographic and inferred interest information; and post-conversion data (from both online and offline behaviour). Some of this data is gathered from this website and others is gathered from advertisers. MediaGrid uses this data to provide its services. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page to opt-out of the use of cookies for interest-based advertising or review their privacy policy for more information.
  19. RevContent – You may find RevContent’s privacy policy through this link. RevContent may collect information about your browser or device, including browser type, IP Address, device type, user agent string, and operating system. RevContent also collects information about the websites you visit through their services, such as date and time of access and specific pages accessed and the content and ads you click on. You may opt-out of any personalization track by opting-out of RevContent’s data collection.
  20. Centro, Inc. – You may find Centro’s privacy policy through this link. You may find opt-out information for Centro’s services through the privacy policy link.
  21. 33Across, Inc. – You may find 33Across’s privacy policy through this link. To opt-out of personalized advertising, please visit https://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1.
  22. Conversant. LLC – You may find Conversant’s privacy policy through this link. Conversant uses information that does not directly identify you, such as information about your browser type, time and date of visit, your browsing or transaction activity, the subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over, and a unique identifier (such as a cookie string, or a unique advertising identifier provided by your mobile device) during your visits to this and other websites and apps in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. Conversant may use technologies such as cookies and other tracking technologies to collect this information. To learn more about interest-based advertising, or to opt-out, you can visit www.youronlinechoices.eu or https://www.networkadvertising.org/.


Content Marketing and Advertorial Content

On rare occasions the Website will publish content that is produced for profit, i.e. as part of a content marketing campaign orchestrated by a third-party client. When such content is published, there will be full disclosure about the campaign. Likewise, any social media amplification of the content will also be marked as #ad, #sponsored or #gifted, where relevant. 

When participating in advertorial content, the Website endeavours to only partner with brands and companies they consider truly relevant and potentially useful to users.

Affiliate program participation on the Website

The Website participates in a number of affiliate marketing programs. In a nutshell, affiliate marketing means that when you click a link on the Website and this takes you to another site where you make a purchase for a product or service, the Website may earn a small commission. This is done through tracking links that are embedded in the Website. If you click on a link that is connected to an affiliate program the Website participates in, a cookie will be placed on your browser to track any possible sales.

There is never any additional cost to you (the commission usually comes out of the third-party company's profits) and I often aim to find you the best deals possible. 

A list of third-party affiliate programs running on the Website:

Amazon Services LLC Associates Program: The Website is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and links to Amazon.com.  As part of this Amazon Associates program, the Website will post customized links, provided by Amazon, to track the referrals to their website. This program utilizes cookies to track visits for the purposes of assigning commission on these sales.

Skimlinks: The Website is a participant in a number of Skimlinks affiliate programs. You can find all the relevant privacy and GDPR policies relating to Skimlinks here.

Awin: The Website is a participant in a number of Awin affiliate programs. You can find more information about Awin's privacy policies here.

GetYourGuide: The Website is a participant in the GetYourGuide affiliate program. You can find GetYourGuide's privacy policy here.

This list will be updated regularly but it is possible that additional third-party affiliate programs will be running on this Website before they have been added to this list.