Cookies, affiliate marketing disclosures, privacy policies… oh my! These are just some of the nitty-gritty things that need to be included on a website. They aren’t super interesting, and they may not make a lot of sense. But as a visitor on this site, it’s important and necessary for these things to be disclosed to you. Take a look at all of the lovely information included below!
What are “Cookies?”
Cookies are simple text files that are collected and stored in your computer or mobile device based on your online interactions. Huh? Basically, websites use “cookies” to collect anonymous information from your online interactions to help improve your experience on that site and beyond. Ever wonder why you search for something online, and then all of a sudden your social media is flooded with similar advertisements? Thank (or blame) cookies! That is one way they operate. In a sense, they track what you do and what you seem to be interested in to hopefully provide you with a better experience with that website and with the rest of your online experience.
As most of the online services out there, our website uses first-party and third-party cookies for several purposes. First-party cookies are mostly necessary for the website to function the right way, and they do not collect any of your personal information.
The third-party cookies used on our website are mainly for understanding how the website performs, how you interact with our website, keeping our services secure, providing advertisements that are relevant to you, and all in all providing you with a better and improved user experience and help speed up your future interactions with our website. As the website owner, I can see this analytic information to see where my site is doing well and where I need to make improvements.
Cookies are responsible for storing your login information for various sites, like your email, your social media, and other places where you’ve logged in. For example, your email (Gmail, for example) remembers your user name because of a “cookie!” If you log in to a shopping account, your info is again, remembered because of a cookie. And on and on and on. They are little text files collected and stored in your computer to hopefully make your life easier.
However, it can seem a little invasive. I get it! Cookies collect anonymous information, but regardless, it’s still information about what you and what you are doing. If you want to restrict or block the cookies that are set by our website, you can choose your cookie preferences using the Privacy and Cookie Policy consent notice that appears at the bottom of the screen. You can change your cookie preferences later with the Manage Consent tab on the bottom of the home page. Or, you can change your overall cookie preferences (this website and beyond) through your personal browser settings. You can also visit www.internetcookies.org, which contains more information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers and devices. You will find general information about cookies and details on how to delete cookies from your device.
I recommend clearing your cache and cookie history from your browser once in a while. Too many cookies may cause your device to function poorly, like making load times longer and causing sites to operate slowly. (Think about eating real cookies… how would you feel after eating a whole box of cookies? Slow, tired, and blah… so give your device a cleanse once in a while and clear those cookies!) It may be annoying to have to redo your login information, but it will help your device function more smoothly.
What types of cookies do websites usually use? (Including this one!)
Necessary cookies: Some cookies are essential for you to be able to experience the full functionality of the site. They allow the site to maintain user sessions and prevent any security threats. They do not collect or store any personal information. For example, these cookies allow you to log in to your account and add products to your basket, and checkout securely. Necessary cookies allow sites to offer you the best possible experience when accessing and navigating through the website and when using its features.
Functional cookies: These are the cookies that help certain non-essential functionalities on a website. These functionalities include embedding content like videos or sharing content of the website on social media platforms.
Performance/Analytic cookies: Analytical cookies are similar to performance cookies. They enable the site and third-party services to collect interaction data for statistical purposes on how visitors use the website, which pages of a website are visited most often, or if they get error messages on web pages. These cookies monitor only the performance of the site as the user interacts with it. These cookies do not contain personal information, such as names and email addresses, and are used to help improve your user experience of the website. These cookies store information like the number of visitors to the website, which pages of the website have been visited, the source of the visit, etc.
These data help us (the website owner) understand and analyze how well the website performs and where it needs improvement. Website owners can use these cookies to gather statistical data on how their website is performing to make improvements. Some examples of performance cookies are cookies that count page visits, idle time by a user on a page, bounce rates, and load speeds.
Advertisement/Marketing cookies: Some websites display advertisements, so marketing cookies are used to personalize the advertisements that are shown to you so that they are meaningful to you. These cookies also help us (websites like ours, Google, etc) to keep track of the efficiency of these ad campaigns.
Preference/Other cookies: These cookies help us store your settings and browsing preferences like language preferences so that you have a better and efficient experience on future visits to the website.
Want to manage your cookie consent…?
Short descriptions of cookies used for this website can also be found using the Privacy and Cookie Policy notice that appears on the bottom of the home page upon your first visit, or by clicking on the Manage Consent tab that is located at the bottom of the screen.
Our site does not “sell” your personal information for a profit. The only way we make money from our site is with earned commission from affiliate marketing (Affiliate Marketing Disclosure stated below), Google Adsense (advertisements displayed throughout the website), and using our site as a platform for freelance writing. Cookies collect anonymous information about your online interactions to provide an enhanced and custom experience for you, like advertisements, for example. We use Google Adsense on our site, and the ads displayed are probably customized to you as an online user with the use of cookies. In compliance with the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) regulations, you can choose to manage your consent using the Privacy and Cookie Policy notice that appears on the bottom of the screen. Click on the CCPA Notice: Do not sell my personal information link and choose to “Opt-Out.” Again, we do not sell your information, but our site must have the option. If you’ve already clicked “Accept,” but would like to revisit this consent notice and edit your overall cookie consent, click on the Manage Consent tab located at the bottom of the screen. Thanks!
Affiliate Marketing Disclosure
At the beginning of each post, you will see the following affiliate marketing disclosure statement…
“This post may contain affiliate links and I can earn a small commission when you use the link. There is no cost to you! Thank you!“
If you are wanting to know a little more of what that means, I’ll explain here. Affiliate marketing is when certain words or phrases within bodies of text are linked. That means when you click on the link, it will bring you to a new page, most likely of a purchasable item. Sometimes the links will bring you to another website, but again, oftentimes those links will bring you to a site or page where you can buy something. When you (the reader) purchase an item through the link, I earn a small commission from that purchase. It’s a common and easy way for site owners like myself to earn a passive income, even though it’s probably a super small commission. There is absolutely no cost to you for using the link.
I hope that helps to clarify affiliate marketing a little bit!
WordPress Privacy Policy
This website address is: https://ourlovelylittlelife.com
Because this website uses the WordPress hosting platform, information about the WordPress Privacy Policy is stated below. Some of these may or may not relate to https://ourlovelylittlelife.com. Our website does not currently have comments enabled and we do not require any type of login information to use our site. We are currently working on a subscriber submission form to receive weekly updates and blog posts, which will require personal sign-up information. The WordPress Privacy Policy is stated to inform you, as a website visitor, of your experience when visiting WordPress hosting websites, such as this one. Thank you for reading!
Comments:
When visitors leave comments on a WordPress 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 anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your Gravatar profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media:
If you upload images to a 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.
Cookies:
If you leave a comment on a WordPress 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.
If you visit a login page, 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 to a WordPress site, 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.
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 tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Who We Share Your Data With:
If you request a password reset (for sites requiring a login username and password), your IP address will be included in the reset email.
How Long We Retain Your Data:
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize 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 profiles. 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 a WordPress 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 (when comments are enabled) are checked through an automated third-party spam detection service.