Ruth LovettSmith, found at https://www.ruthlovettsmith.com (“Website”), is governed by the following Privacy Policy.

By using this site or/and our services, you consent to the Processing of your Personal Data as described in this Privacy Policy.

We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it. The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to inform you what personally identifiable information we may collect and how it may be used. This statement only applies to this Website.

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. In addition, you are able to create a user profile, which allows you to create a username and password. We will store the username, but your password will not be visible in our records.

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.

Automatically-Collected Information: Like many other Web sites, https://www.ruthlovettsmith.com makes use of log files. The information inside the log files includes Internet protocol ( IP ) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider ( ISP ), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track users movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses, and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable.

Cookies and Web Beacons: https://www.ruthlovettsmith.com uses cookies. These are small data files that are stored on your browser by the Website. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping baskets, and provide anonymised tracking data to third party applications like Google Analytics. Google analytics is a site which allows me to see how well my website is performing in terms of audience. It tells me things like how many people have visited my site, how many of those people are coming back, and where they are in the world. All of this information helps me to continue to create content that is relevant to the people reading it.

DoubleClick DART Cookie: Some of our advertising partners may use cookies and web beacons on our site. Our advertising partners include but are not limited to:

Google Adsense
Amazon
ShareASale
Blue Host
Ivory Mix
Creative Market
SEMRush
ConvertKit
TailWind
Ultimate Bundles

Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on https://www.ruthlovettsmith.com.
Google’s use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to our users based on your visit to https://www.ruthlovettsmith.com and other sites on the Internet.
Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy at the following URL – http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html

Display Ads: We may use third-party advertising companies to serve content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use cookies, as noted above.

Retargeting Ads: From time to time, the Website may engage in remarketing efforts with third-party companies, such as Google, Facebook, or Instagram, in order to market the Website. These companies use cookies to serve ads based on someone’s past visits to the Website.

Affiliate Program Participation: The Website may engage in affiliate marketing, which is done by embedding tracking links into the Website. If you click on a link for an affiliate partnership, a cookie will be placed on your browser to track any sales for purposes of commissions. We are 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.

These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to create the advertisements and links that appear on https://www.ruthlovettsmith.com. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies ( such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons ) may also be used by the third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and / or to personalize the advertising content that you see.

https://www.ruthlovettsmith.com has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers. You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. https://www.ruthlovettsmith.com privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites.

As a rule, cookies will make your browsing experience better. However, you may prefer to disable cookies on this site and on others. The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browsers’ respective websites.

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 send you downloadable files and purchase information for purchases made through our online store;
  • 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.

What We Share With Others

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:

Google Analytics – this service tracks Website usage and provides information such as referring websites and user actions on the Website. Google Analytics may capture your IP address, but no other personal information is captured by Google Analytics.

CovertKit – this service is used for delivery of email updates and newsletters. We store your name and email address for purposes of delivering such communications.

Akismet – this service is used to help filter out spam comments on our website. Should you choose to comment on this website, Akismet may capture your IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL. To learn more about Akismet and their privacy policy, click on Akismet Privacy Policy.

WordPress WooCommerce – this service is used to run our online shop. We collect information about you during the checkout process on our store.

We share information with third parties who help us provide our website, orders, and store services to you; for example —

PAYMENTS

We accept payments through Stripe. When processing payments, some of your data may be passed to Stripe, including information required to process or support the payment, such as the purchase total and billing information.

Please see the Stripe Privacy Policy for more details.

At this time, your personal information is not shared with any other third-party applications. This list may be amended from time to time in the Website’s sole discretion.

Except when required by law, we will not sell, distribute, or reveal your email addresses or other personal information without your consent.

What We Collect and Store

While you visit our site, we’ll track:

  • Products you’ve viewed: we’ll use this to, for example, show you products you’ve recently viewed
  • Location, IP address and browser type: we’ll use this for purposes like estimating taxes and shipping
  • Shipping address: we’ll ask you to enter this so we can, for instance, estimate shipping before you place an order, and send you the order!

We’ll also use cookies to keep track of cart contents while you’re browsing our site.

When you purchase from us, we’ll ask you to provide information including your name, billing address, shipping address, email address, phone number, credit card/payment details and optional account information like username and password. We’ll use this information for purposes, such as, to:

  • Send you information about your account and order
  • Respond to your requests, including refunds and complaints
  • Process payments and prevent fraud
  • Set up your account for our store
  • Comply with any legal obligations we have, such as calculating taxes
  • Improve our store offerings
  • Send you marketing messages, if you choose to receive them

If you create an account, we will store your name, address, email and phone number, which will be used to populate the checkout for future orders.

We generally store information about you for as long as we need the information for the purposes for which we collect and use it, and we are not legally required to continue to keep it. For example, we will store order information for tax and accounting purposes. This includes your name, email address and billing and shipping addresses.

ANONYMOUS DATA

From time to time, we may use anonymous data, which does not identify you alone, or when combined with data from other parties. This type of anonymous data may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses. Examples of this anonymous data may include analytics or information collected from cookies.

PUBLICLY VISIBLE INFORMATION

If you create a user profile on the Website or leave a comment or review, certain information may be publicly visible. To create a user profile, you must choose a username and password and input your email address for profile confirmation. Your email address will never be available publicly. At your option, you may also add an avatar, a profile description, and a link to your website. You may also choose to link your Facebook, Instagram, and Google Account. Users may see your username, avatar, profile description and website information.

NEWSLETTERS

On the Website, you may subscribe to our newsletter, which may be used for advertising purposes. All newsletters sent may contain tracking pixels. The pixel is embedded in emails and allows an analysis of the success of online marketing campaigns. Because of these tracking pixels, we may see if and when you open an email and which links within the email you click. Also, this allows the Website to adapt the content of future newsletters to the interests of the user. This behavior will not be passed on to third parties.

Who on Our Team Has Access

Members of our team have access to the information you provide us. For example, both Administrators and Shop Managers can access:

  • Order information like what was purchased, when it was purchased and where it should be sent, and
  • Customer information like your name, email address, and billing and shipping information.

Our team members have access to this information to help fulfill orders, process refunds and support you.

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.

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 ruth@ruthlovettsmith.com to be removed from our mailing list.

Access – You may access the personal information we have about you by submitting a request to ruth@ruthlovettsmith.com.

Amend – You may contact us at ruth@ruthlovettsmith.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 ruth@ruthlovettsmith.com.

Please note that we may need to retain certain information for record keeping purposes or to complete transactions, or when required by law.

How We Secure Your Data

We do our best to keep your Personal Data safe.  We use safe protocols for communication and transferring data (such as HTTPS). We use anonymising and pseudonymising where suitable. We monitor our systems for possible vulnerabilities and attacks.

Even though we try our best we can not guarantee the security of information. However, we promise to notify suitable authorities of data breaches. We will also notify you if there is a threat to your rights or interests. We will do everything we reasonably can to prevent security breaches and to assist authorities should any breaches occur.

If you have an account with us, note that you have to keep your username and password secret.

Sensitive Personal Information

At no time should you submit sensitive personal information to the Website. This includes your social security number, information regarding race or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, health information, criminal background, or trade union memberships. If you elect to submit such information to us, it will be subject to this Privacy Policy.

Children Under the Age of 13

The Website does not knowingly collect any personally identifiable information from children under the age of 13. If a parent or guardian believes that the Website has personally identifiable information of a child under the age of 13 in its database, please contact us immediately at ruth@ruthlovettsmith.com and we will use our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.

Visitors’ GDPR Rights

If you are within the European Union, you are entitled to certain information and have certain rights under the General Data Protection Regulation.

Those rights include:

  • We will retain the any information you choose to provide to us until the earlier of: (a) you asking us to delete the information, (b) our decision to cease using our existing data providers, or (c) the Company decides that the value in retaining the data is outweighed by the costs of retaining it.
  • You have the right to request access to your data that the Company stores and the rights to either rectify or erase your personal data.
  • You have the right to seek restrictions on the processing of your data.
  • You have the right to object to the processing of your data and the right to the portability of your data.
  • To the extent that you provided consent to the Company’s processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based upon consent that occurred prior to your withdrawal of consent.
  • You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority that has jurisdiction over issues related to the General Data Protection Regulation.

We require only the information that is reasonably required to enter into a contract with you. We will not require you to provide consent for any unnecessary processing as a condition of entering into a contract with us.

Other Policies

You can click on the following links to see our other policies: Cookie Policy, FTC Disclosure, Terms of Service/Use/Purchase.

If you require any more information or have any questions about our privacy policy, please feel free to contact us by email by clicking on Contact Ruth LovettSmith.

We reserve the right to make changes to this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 5/29/2023.