May 26, 2018

Privacy Policy

Last Updated: May 26, 2018

This policy outlines what information Hope, Faith & Books collects and stores, why that information is collected, security or your information, options for opting out, etc. As this site has many followers from the European Union, I want to be GDPR compliant (plus its is not a bad thing for all my other followers as well.)

Hope, Faith & Books is run by Brittani Rukstela. If you want to learn more about me please visit my About Me page. Should you need to contact me, please use the email hopefaithbooks@gmail.com.

If you are looking for information regarding other policies such as my review policy and book/photo related disclaimers, please see my Review Policy page. Thank you.

Your privacy is important to me. I can only collect information from you when you consent to it. Such as when you sign up for email notifications, put links in link-ups, comment, etc. Your information is never shared with third parties or for marketing purposes without your consent.

This site was automatically moved to HTTPS by Google a while ago for added security!

Consent:

The legal basis I use for collecting data is consent. Anything involving your data on this site involves giving your consent for it to be used. 

Cookies: 

This site uses cookies from Google. Things such as your IP address, usernames, email, URL, etc. may be collected. To see Googles full detailed explanation of how cookies are used and collected, learn more here. But long story short, Google and therefore this blog, being a google service collect cookies for a number of reasons. Cookies stored in your browser help to make this site run smoothly for you, in ways such as, remembering your language, region, and information previously used on this site so you don't have to put it in every single time you visit. Cookies also help me collect information through Google Analytics. This just helps me to see the number of visitors to my site, where my traffic comes from, which posts get the most views, referring sites, etc. This is anonymous (as in I can't see say "Susan from the US visited your StS post from a Twitter Link" through analytics). Cookies also help in detecting and preventing spam! 

To view and edit your cookie settings, visit your browsers Settings menu and click on Privacy & Security. Every browser should have easily accessible privacy and security menus & settings.

Comments: 

When you visit this site, you always have the option to leave comments on posts you enjoy. When you leave a comment on this site, most of you do it through your google account, as it is the easiest option with Blogger. Your comment has the picture from your google account, the name on your google account and your name links to either your blogger profile or your google plus profile. This is the easiest and most used option on this site. However, in the drop down menu on the comments, you also have the option of commenting with other logins. You also do have the option to comment anonymously if you so choose to. This slightly increases the chance your comment might get caught in the spam filter, but it will be freed so long as it is indeed a legitimate comment (not the obvious spam you see). You should be able to delete your own comments if you so choose, but if you need me to do it, please email me and I will get all your comments removed. As of right now, google does not include a box to checkmark to confirm your consent to comment, so right now, by clicking the publish button for your comment, you are giving consent. I have no control over whether Google will at some point institute a box to confirm commenting.

As part of running a book blog, I use other services to help in running certain aspects of the site, such as link-ups, giveaways & follow subscriptions. I will explain how I use these services in conjunction with this site. These sites have their own privacy policies which are linked below:

• Inlinkz
• Mister Linky
• Feedburner
• Bloglovin
• Rafflecopter

Inlinkz/Mister Linky:

As I run challenges and events throughout the year, I provide link-ups for those participating to add their posts/sites to. These link-ups have you provide name (such as Brittani @ Hope, Faith & Books), email, and URL. These are collected solely for use in the challenges or events of which you sign up for. By submitting your information through the link-up, you are giving consent. I have all my link-ups set up where you should be able to delete your own submissions, but if for some reason you cannot, please email me and I will remove it for you. Inlinkz and Mister Linky also provide their privacy policy links directly within every widget for your convenience. 

Feedburner:

Feedburner is the subscription service provided by Google that will give you an email subscription of my daily posts. This really relies on consent so there's no excuse. You fill out your email, then check a box in a pop up window confirming your not a bot, a link is then sent to your email and you then have to click the link for the subscription to begin. If at any point you stop enjoying my content, you are given a unsubscribe button on the bottom of each email. Just click unsubscribe and no more emails and your information is removed. I did all of this step by step with my own site so I could be able to tell you how it works. If at any point you cannot get it to work, email me and I can remove you from the subscription list manually.

Rafflecopter:

I use rafflecopter occasionally for giveaways on this site. If you choose to enter a giveaway run by rafflecopter on this site, the only entry in which I need any information is your initial main entry which is a no strings attached entry. All it does is enter you name and email address into the drawing. There will always be additional extra entries, but they are entirely up to you if you chose to do them and provide any other information with them. If you wish to have entries removed, please don't hesitate to email me and I can remove any entries and their corresponding information. All rafflecopter forms and the information in them will be deleted after winners have responded to email.

• In addition to giveaways, if you are the winner of one, you will be asked for your mailing address in order to send your prize to you. Your address will be kept on file until you either let me know you have received your prize or 3 months has passed (as this is the general consensus as to a fair amount of time to consider delays or mailing issues). Whichever comes first. 

Bloglovin:

This is by far the easiest. With Bloglovin you give your consent simply by clicking follow or unfollow. If you follow me, Bloglovin will send you updates when I post. If you choose you do not want to follow anymore, simply click the unfollow button and you will no longer receive updates through Bloglovin. This particular follow option may be removed by myself, the site owner at some point for certain reasons pertaining to Bloglovin itself. If this happens, I will have the entire sites feed removed from Bloglovin in which all followers would be removed as well, as you follow the site feed, not just me.

Contact Form/Emails:

The form on my contact me page is linked directly to my email. If you fill out the form, it comes straight to me in the form of an email and is not saved in some spreadsheet somewhere. I go through and delete emails every 3 months (I'm not super overloaded on them). If your email pertains to review requests, pending book reviews, guest posts, etc. Your emails will be kept until those are posted and sent to you for your records.

Data Breach:

If there should ever be a data breach, I will do my best to let those affected know within 72 hours.

Thank you for taking the time to read my privacy policy and to learn how your data is used on this site!