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Privacy Policy

Press Release Writing Services | Comms Factory

Comms Factory Privacy Policy

 

Last Updated: May 1, 2021

 

Welcome and thank you for your interest in Comms Factory and HB Publications LLC (the “Company”) and our website at www.CommsFactory.net (the “Website”), on which a link to this Privacy Policy (this “Policy”) is displayed.

 

This Policy describes how the Company may collect, use, process, disclose, and safeguard information we obtain through the Website. It also tells you about your rights and choices with respect to your information, and how you can contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

 

This Policy is incorporated into and is subject to the Comms Factory Terms of Use. Capitalized terms used but not defined in this Policy have the meaning given to them in the Comms Factory Terms of Use.

 

  1. Personal Information We Collect

For the purpose of this Policy, “Personal Information” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual. We obtain Personal Information relating to you from various sources described below.

 

Where applicable, we indicate whether and why you must provide us with your Personal Information, as well as the consequences of failing to do so. If you do not provide Personal Information when requested, you may not be able to benefit from all of the features of our Website if that information is necessary to provide you with full access to the Website features or if we are legally required to collect it.

 

  1. Personal Information Provided by You

 

Account Registration. If you register to use the Website, then you must provide us with your name, email address, and a password in order to create an account and user profile. Some types of user registrations also require a physical address or location.  You may also optionally add other information, such as photos of yourself.

 

Making Payments. When you make payments for the purchase of any of our Products or Services, you may need to provide Personal Information to our third-party service providers, such as your credit card number and billing address.

 

User Content. We will collect any information you upload or post to the Website.

 

Communications. We will collect any information which you provide to us through your communications, such as when you communicate with our support staff.

 

  1. Personal Information Collected via Automated Means

In addition to information that you provide to us, we may collect information about you and your use of the Website via automated means, such as cookies, web beacons and similar technologies:

 

Cookies and Similar Technologies. When you use the Website, we may send one or more cookies – small text files containing a string of alphanumeric characters – to your device. We may use both session cookies and persistent cookies to automatically collect certain information. A session cookie disappears after you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains after you close your browser and may be used by your browser on subsequent visits to the Website. When you use the Website, we may also automatically collect certain information from your device by using similar technologies, including “clear gifs” or “web beacons.” Please review your web browser “Help” file to learn the proper way to modify your settings with regard to such automated data collection. Please note that if you delete, or choose not to accept, such technologies from the Website, you may not be able to utilize the features of the Website to their fullest potential.

 

The automatically collected information may include your IP address or other device address or ID, web browser and/or device type, the web pages or sites that you visit just before or just after you use the Website, the pages or other content you view or otherwise interact with on the Website, and the dates and times that you visit, access, or use the Website. We also may use these technologies to collect information regarding your interaction with email messages, such as whether you opened, clicked on, or forwarded a message. This information is gathered from all users.

 

We use this information to assess how many users access or use our Website, how they interact with our Website, which content, products, and features of our Website most interest or are of most value to our users, what types of offers and incentives our customers and their end-customers respond to, and how our Website performs from a technical point of view.

 

Google Analytics. We utilize Google Analytics, which uses cookies and similar technologies to collect and analyze information about use of the Website and report on activities and trends. You can learn about Google’s practices by going to: https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites, and opt out of them by downloading the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, available at: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

 

Third Party Web Beacons and Third Party Buttons. We may also implement third-party content or advertising on the Website that may use clear gifs or other forms of web beacons, which allow the third-party content provider to read and write cookies to your browser in connection with your viewing of the third party content on the Website. Additionally, we may implement third party buttons (such as “like” or “share” buttons) that may allow third parties to collect information about you through such third parties’ browser cookies, even when you do not interact with the button. Information collected through web beacons and buttons is collected directly by these third parties, and the Company does not participate in that data transmission. Information collected by a third party in this manner is subject to that third party’s own data collection, use, and disclosure policies.

 

  1. How We Use Personal Information We Collect

 

We may use Personal Information we collect for the following purposes:

 

Internal and Service-Related Usage. We use your Personal Information to operate, maintain, enhance and provide all features of the Website, to provide products and services and information that you request, to respond to comments and questions and otherwise to provide support to users.

 

Analytics and Improving the Service. We use your Personal Information to understand and analyze the usage trends and preferences of our users, to improve the Website, and to develop new products, services, features, and functionality.

 

Communications. We may use your email address or other Personal Information (i) to contact you for administrative purposes such as customer service, to address intellectual property infringement, privacy violations or defamation issues related to your User Content posted on the Website or (ii) to send communications, including updates on promotions, relating to products and services offered by us and by third parties we work with. Generally, you have the ability to opt-out of receiving any promotional communications as described below under “Your Rights and Choices.”

 

Tailored Content. We may use your Personal Information to: (i) personalize our services, such as remembering your information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you visit the Website; (ii) provide customized advertisements, content, and information.

 

Aggregate Data. We may de-identify and aggregate information to monitor and analyze the effectiveness of Website and third-party marketing activities and to monitor aggregate site usage metrics such as total number of visitors and pages viewed.

 

Legal. We may use your Personal Information to enforce our Terms of Use, to defend our legal rights, to comply with our legal obligations and internal policies.

 

Other Purposes. We also may use your Personal Information as may be described in a notice to you at the time the information is collected, or in any other manner to which you consent.

 

Our Website is marketed exclusively to users and companies located in the United States and Canada. We do not intentionally target users who are citizens of the European Union. If you are located in the European Economic Area, we only process your Personal Information based on a valid legal ground, including when:

  • You have consented to the use of your Personal Information;
  • We need your Personal Information to provide you with service, including for account registration and to respond to your inquiries;
  • We have a legal obligation to use your Personal Information;
  • We or a third party, have a legitimate interest in using your Personal Information. In particular, we have a legitimate interest in using your Personal Information to conduct analytics, and otherwise improve the safety, security, and performance of our Website. We only rely on our or a third party’s legitimate interests to process your Personal Information when these interests are not overridden by your rights and interests.

 

  1. How We Disclose Your Personal Information

Except as described in this Policy or otherwise disclosed to you at the time of the collection, we will not disclose your Personal Information to third parties without your consent. We may disclose information to third parties in the following circumstances:

 

  • Company affiliates and subsidiaries. We may disclose Personal Information about you to our affiliates and subsidiaries.
  • Vendors and Service Providers. We work with third party service providers to provide website or application development, hosting, maintenance, and other services for us. These third parties may have access to or process your Personal Information as part of providing those services for us. We limit the information provided to these service providers to that which is necessary for them to perform their functions, and we require them to agree to maintain the confidentiality of such information.
  • Advertising Partners. We may share your Personal Information with our third party advertising partners to provide ads that we think may interest you. For more information about our advertising and marketing practices and those of the third party advertising partners, please see the Personal Information Collected by Automated Means section above.
  • Other Third Parties. We may also share Personal Information about you with other third parties in the following circumstances:
  • In Aggregated Form. We may make certain automatically-collected, aggregated, or otherwise de-identified information available to third parties for various purposes, including (i) compliance with various reporting obligations; (ii) for business or marketing purposes; or (iii) to assist such parties in understanding our users’ and our Business Customers’ end-customers’ interests, habits, and usage patterns for certain programs, content, services, advertisements, promotions, and/or functionality available through the Website.
  • To Comply with Legal Obligations. We may disclose your information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with state and federal laws (such as U.S. copyright law), in response to a court order, judicial or other government subpoena or warrant, or to otherwise cooperate with law enforcement or other governmental agencies.
  • To Protect and Enforce Our Rights. We also reserve the right to disclose your information that we believe, in good faith, is appropriate or necessary to (i) take precautions against liability, (ii) protect ourselves or others from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful uses or activity, (iii) investigate and defend ourselves against any third-party claims or allegations, (iv) protect the security or integrity of the Website and any facilities or equipment used to make the Website available, or (v) protect our property or other legal rights (including, but not limited to, enforcement of our agreements), or the rights, property, or safety of others.
  • In case of Merger, Sale, or Other Asset Transfer. Information about our users, our Business Customers and their end-users and end-customers, including Personal Information, may be disclosed and otherwise transferred to an acquirer, or successor or assignee as part of any merger, acquisition, debt financing, sale of assets, or similar transaction, as well as in the event of an insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership in which information is transferred to one or more third parties as one of our business assets.
  • With Your Consent. We also may disclose your Personal Information as may be described in a notice to you at the time the information is collected, or in any other manner to which you consent.

 

  1. Your Rights and Choices

 

Account Information. You may, of course, decline to share certain Personal Information with us, in which case we may not be able to provide to you some of the features and functionality of the Website. You may update, correct, or delete your profile information and preferences at any time by accessing your account settings page on the Website, or by contacting us at privacy@commsfactory.net. Please note that while any changes you make will be reflected in active user databases instantly or within a reasonable period of time, we may retain all information you submit for backups, archiving, prevention of fraud and abuse, analytics, satisfaction of legal obligations, or where we otherwise reasonably believe that we have a legitimate reason to do so, to the extent permitted under applicable law.

 

Opt-Out. If you receive commercial email from us, you may unsubscribe at any time by following the instructions contained within the email. You may also opt-out from receiving commercial email from us, and any other promotional communications that we may send to you from time to time, by sending your request to us by email to privacy@commsfactory.net or by writing to us at the address given at the end of this Policy. We may allow you to view and modify settings relating to the nature and frequency of promotional communications that you receive from us in user account functionality on the Website.

 

Please be aware that if you opt-out of receiving commercial emails from us or otherwise modify the nature or frequency of promotional communications you receive from us, it may take up to ten business days for us to process your request, and you may receive promotional communications from us that you have opted-out from during that period, unless we are required by applicable law to process your request within a shorter period of time. Additionally, even after you opt-out from receiving commercial messages from us, if you are a registered user you may continue to receive administrative messages from us regarding your use of the Website.

 

Privacy Settings. Although we may allow you to adjust your privacy settings to limit access to certain Personal Information, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. To the fullest extent permitted under applicable law, we are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures on the Website. Additionally, we cannot control the actions of others with whom you may choose to share your information. Furthermore, even after information posted on the Website is removed, caching and archiving services may have saved that information, and others, including third parties, may have copied or stored the information available on the Website. To the fullest extent permitted under applicable law, we cannot and do not guarantee that information you post on or transmit to the Website will not be viewed by unauthorized persons.

 

Do Not Track. Some web browsers incorporate a “Do Not Track” feature. Because there is not yet an accepted standard for how to respond to Do Not Track signals, our website does not currently respond to such signals.

 

Other Rights. If you are located in or are a citizen of the European Economic Area, you may have the following additional rights:

  • Request access to and receive information about the Personal Information we maintain about you, to update and correct inaccuracies in your Personal Information, to restrict or to object to the processing of your Personal Information, to have the information anonymized or deleted, as appropriate, or to exercise your right to data portability to easily transfer your Personal Information to another company. In addition, you may also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, including in your country of residence, place of work or where an incident took place.
  • Withdraw any consent you previously provided to us regarding the processing of your Personal Information, at any time and free of charge. We will apply your preferences going forward and this will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before your consent withdrawal.

 

Those rights may be limited in some circumstances by local law requirements. You may exercise these rights in accordance with the “How to Contact Us” section below.

 

  1. Third-Party Services

This Privacy Policy applies only to the processing of your Personal Information by the Company. The Website may contain features or links to websites and services provided by third parties. The policies and procedures described in this Privacy Policy do not apply to Third Party Sites. Any information you provide on third-party sites or services is provided directly to the operators of such services and is subject to those operators’ policies, if any, governing privacy and security, even if accessed through the Website. We are not responsible for the content or privacy and security practices and policies of third-party sites or services to which links or access are provided through the Website. We encourage you to learn about third parties’ privacy and security policies directly from those sites before providing them with any information.

 

  1. Children’s Privacy

We recognize the importance of protecting the privacy of young children. Our Website is not directed to children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 13 without obtaining parental consent. If you are under 13 years of age, please do not use or access the Website at any time or in any manner. If we learn that Personal Information has been collected on the Service from persons under 13 years of age and without verifiable parental consent, then we will take the appropriate steps to delete this information. If you are a parent or guardian and discover that your child under 13 years of age has obtained an account on the Website, then you may alert us at privacy@commsfactory.net and request that we delete that child’s Personal Information from our system.

 

  1. Data Security

We use certain physical, managerial, and technical safeguards that are designed to appropriately protect Personal Information against accidental or unlawful destruction, accidental loss, unauthorized alteration, unauthorized disclosure or access, misuse, and any other unlawful form of processing of the Personal Information in our possession. WE CANNOT, HOWEVER, ENSURE OR WARRANT THE SECURITY OF ANY INFORMATION YOU TRANSMIT TO US OR STORE ON THE SERVICE, AND YOU DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK. WE ALSO CANNOT GUARANTEE THAT SUCH INFORMATION MAY NOT BE ACCESSED, DISCLOSED, ALTERED, OR DESTROYED BY BREACH OF ANY OF OUR PHYSICAL, TECHNICAL, OR MANAGERIAL SAFEGUARDS. The foregoing is subject to requirements under applicable law to ensure or warrant information security.

 

If we learn of a security systems breach, then we may attempt to notify you electronically so that you can take appropriate protective steps. We may post a notice through the Website if a security breach occurs. Depending on where you live, you may have a legal right to receive notice of a security breach in writing. To receive a free written notice of a security breach you should notify us at privacy@commsfactory.net

 

  1. Data Retention

We take measures to delete your Personal Information or keep it in a form that does not permit identifying you when this information is no longer necessary for the purposes for which we process it, unless we are required by law to keep this information for a longer period. When determining the retention period, we take into account various criteria, such as the type of products and services requested by or provided to you, the nature and length of our relationship with you, possible re-enrollment with our products or services, the impact on the services we provide to you if we delete some information from or about you, mandatory retention periods provided by law and the statute of limitations.

 

  1. Data Transfers

The Website is hosted in the United States and is intended only for visitors located within the United States and Canada. Users outside the United States and Canada are not eligible to use our Website. If you are located outside of the United States or Canada or a citizen of a country other than the United States or Canada, please do not upload or enter any personal information to our Website.

 

If you choose to use the Website from the European Union or other regions of the world with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from U.S. law, then please note that you are transferring your Personal Information outside of those regions to the United States for storage and processing. Also, we may transfer your data from the U.S. to other countries or regions in connection with storage and processing of data, fulfilling your requests, and operating the Website. By providing any information, including Personal Information, on or to the Website, you consent to such transfer, storage, and processing.

 

When we transfer Personal Information outside of the European Economic Area, we will comply with applicable EU data protection laws when legally required to do so. We may transfer your Personal Information to countries which provide an adequate level of protection under EU law, we may use contractual protections for the transfer of Personal Information, or rely on other legal transfer mechanisms or derogations. You may contact us as specified below to obtain a copy of the safeguards we use to transfer Personal Information outside of the European Economic Area.

 

  1. Changes and Updates to this Policy

Please revisit this page periodically to stay aware of any changes to this Policy, which we reserve the right to update from time to time. If we modify the Policy, we will make it available through the Website, and indicate the date of the latest revision. In the event that the modifications materially alter your rights or obligations hereunder, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you of the change. For example, we may send a message to your email address, if we have one on file, or generate a pop-up or similar notification when you access the Website for the first time after such material changes are made. Your continued use of the Website after the revised Policy has become effective indicates that you have read, understood and agreed to the current version of the Policy.

 

  1. How to Contact Us

HB Publications LLC is the entity responsible for the processing of your Personal Information as described in this Policy. If you have any questions or comments about this Policy, your Personal Information, our use and disclosure practices, or your consent choices, please contact us by email at privacy@commsfactory.net or write to us at:

 

HB Publications LLC

1568 South Green Road, Unit 21661

Cleveland, Ohio 44121