Welcome to Trail Tales. I started blogging in 2017 on WordPress.com as a creative outlet, whilst reaching out for connection within the WordPress community. In 2020 I started to look at blogging more seriously as a platform to write about my adventures in running, hiking and camping. In addition I am fundraising and campaigning for a charity that promotes justice and equality in the UK. This is just the beginning of my blogging journey and I hope that it will grow and develop. The Privacy Policy will develop as I go along too.
Below is a simple summary of my disclaimer and privacy policy:
Partnerships: In order to fulfil my goal of campaigning and fundraising for justice and equality, I partner with a range of charities and support groups and help them reach out to my audience through social media and blog posts. I always disclose these collaborations.
Affiliates, cookies and ads: This blog uses cookies. I’m will eventually work on building my affiliate revenue. This means I will share recommendations of products and services that I use and value. When you purchase them through my link, I earn a little commission at no extra cost to you.
Copyrights: I keep the full copyrights to all my work on this blog and on my social media channels. You can contact me at tielies2000@gmail.com if you want to buy any images or a piece of writing. It is illegal for you to use any of my content without my explicit permission; credit or a backlink doesn’t count.
Full Privacy Policy in compliance with the GDPR:
Complete details of my privacy policy, as per the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Who we are
Trail Tales found at https://trailtales.blog (“Website”) is governed by the following privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”)
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Information You Voluntarily Submit to the Website: We may collect personal information from you such as your name or email address. For example, you may voluntarily submit information to the Website by leaving a comment, subscribing to a newsletter, or submitting a contact form.
Information We Collect from Others: We may receive information about you from other sources. You may link your Facebook, Instagram, and/or Google accounts to your user profile. If you choose to link your Facebook, Instagram, and/or Google accounts to your user profile, we will receive your name, email address and profile picture associated with that account. The Website utilizes the Facebook commenting system, so if you choose to comment on a Website post, your profile picture will appear.
Automatically-Collected Information: We automatically collect certain information about you and the device with which you access the Website. For example, when you use the Website, we will log your IP address, operating system type, browser type, referring website, pages you viewed, and the dates/times when you accessed the Website. We may also collect information about actions you take when using the Website, such as links clicked.
Cookies: We may log information using cookies, which are small data files stored on your browser by the Website. We may use both session cookies, which expire when you close your browser, and persistent cookies, which stay on your browser until deleted, to provide you with a more personalized experience on the Website.
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the 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 profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the 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 our 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 have an account and you log in to this site, 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, 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.
Users may, at any time, prevent the setting of cookies, by the Website, by using a corresponding setting of your internet browser and may thus permanently deny the setting of cookies. Furthermore, already set cookies may be deleted at any time via an Internet browser or other software programs. This is possible in all popular Internet browsers. However, if users deactivate the setting of cookies in your Internet browser, not all functions of our Website may be entirely usable.
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.
How your information may be used
We may use the information collected in the following ways:
To operate and maintain the Website;
To create your account, identify you as a user of the Website, and customize the Website for your account;
To send you promotional information, such as newsletters. Each email promotion will provide information on how to opt-out of future mailings;
To send you administrative communications, such as administrative emails, confirmation emails, technical notices, updates on policies, or security alerts;
To respond to your comments or inquiries;
To provide you with user support;
To track and measure advertising on the Website;
To protect, investigate, and deter against unauthorized or illegal activity.
Who we share your data with
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 profile. 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 this 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 may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
THIRD-PARTY USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
We may share your information with third parties when you explicitly authorize us to share your information.
Additionally, the Website may use third-party service providers to service various aspects of the Website. Each third-party service provider’s use of your personal information is dictated by their respective privacy policies.
The Website currently uses the following third-party service providers:
Jetpack Analytics – this service tracks Website usage and provides information such as referring websites and user actions on the Website. Jetpack Analytics may capture your IP address, but no other personal information is captured by Jetpack Analytics.
Akismet Anti-spam – This site uses Akismet anti-spam. The information collected typically includes the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer and Site URL (along with other information directly provide by the commenter such as their name, username, email address, and the comment itself).
RIGHTS RELATED TO YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
Opt-out – You may opt-out of future email communications by following the unsubscribe links in our emails. You may also notify us at tielies2000@gmail.com to be removed from our mailing list.
Access – You may access the personal information we have about you by submitting a request to tielies2000@gmail.com.
Amend – You may contact us at tielies2000@gmail.com to amend or update your personal information.
Forget – In certain situations, you may request that we erase or forget your personal data. To do so, please submit a request to tielies2000@gmail.com.
Please note that we may need to retain certain information for recordkeeping purposes or to complete transactions, or when required by law.
Your contact information
At any time, please contact us at tielies2000@gmail.com for questions related to this Privacy Policy.
