Privacy Policy

Who we are

This is a space and astronomy news website called Universe Today, published by Fraser Cain

Website address: https://www.universetoday.com.

Mailing address: #3400-333 Hunt Road, Courtenay, BC, V9N 3R6 Canada

Phone: 250-650-5096

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Membership Login

If you create an account on the website to become a member or make a comment, the website will collect your username, and email address. It will also store cookies as noted below. None of these data are used for any other purpose, apart from allowing you to log in as a member, make comments, and perform administrative tasks like resetting your password.

Email Newsletter

We maintain a weekly email newsletter using Mailchimp. If you subscribe to this newsletter, we store your email address and name only for the purpose of sending you the newsletter. You can unsubscribe any time. Mailchimp provides me with information on who is actually reading the newsletter, so if you aren’t reading it, I won’t send it to you any more.

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.

Advertisements on the website are provided by Google, which will use cookies to serve ads based on a user’s prior visit to this website or other websites. This enables Google and its partners to serve ads based on your visit to this site and/or other sites on the Internet. You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting your Google Ads Settings. You can opt out of all ads by going here.

This site uses Google Analytics to track overall website usage. This stores no personally identifying information, and is in no way associated with the members on the website. You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing this browser plugin.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, advertisements, 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 tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

Who we share your data with

We don’t share your data with any one else.

Our email newsletter is stored and managed through Mailchimp. If you subscribe to that, the information is stored separately with Mailchimp, and no data is shared with our website.

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.

Your contact information

If you have any privacy concerns, please email us at [email protected]

Additional information

How we protect your data

This website doesn’t store any personal information beyond the username and email address you signed up with. Passwords are protected by WordPress using an encrypted hashing algorithm.

What data breach procedures we have in place

If there is a data breach, we will inform you by email within 72 hours and provide recommendations.

What third parties we receive data from

This website receives no data from external third parties.