Privacy Policy

We take privacy seriously, and have a few principles that we follow.

  • We don’t ask you for personal information unless we truly need it
  • We don’t share your personal information with anyone…ever
  • There are no ads on this site, and NONE of the data is ever sold to other companies for any reason
  • We don’t store personal information on our server unless required for the on-going operation of our site

Handmade By Heather Ruwe (referenced as “we”, “us”, “our” or “I” in this document) operates at https://www.handmadebyheatherruwe.com.  It’s our policy to respect your privacy regarding any information we may collect while operating our websites.  By using our sites, you agree to be held to the details outlined here.

What We Collect
Our site will request an e-mail address and name only for specific operations.  Outlined below are the times when we request your information and why.  We try and limit this only to when it’s absolutely required to achieve the operation or when required by the software and services we use.

  • When you leave a comment, our site requires an e-mail address to be entered. Your name is optional, but is stored if you enter it.
  • When you contact us with a question, we need your e-mail address and name so that we can respond back. 🙂
  • When you subscribe to blog updates, we obviously need your e-mail address to send the blog updates. Your real name is optional.
  • When you create an account, an e-mail address is required as part of the signup process.  When you signup, you will be sent an e-mail to continue the account creation process. Your real name is optional, but is displayed when you comment.
  • When you browse the site, we collect non-personally-identifying information. This includes browser type, language preference, referring site, the date and time of each visitor request, duration and similar information. You can NOT be identified from any of this information, even if you are browsing while logged into the site or leaving a comment.

What We Do With Data
Any time we store or request data, it’s done because it’s required for the site operation.  Without the information, the action you are requesting (leaving a comment, asking a question, etc.), we would not be able to do what you request.

Like most website operators, we collect non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request.  Our purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is to better understand how our visitors use our websites.

NONE of our information, statistics or browsing data is ever sold or traded to other companies or individuals.  We are required to send some information to third parties to complete required services.  See for details below.

Where It’s Stored
The majority of your information is stored on our systems with our hosting provider, CloudWays.  CloudWays does not access any of your information.  This is only available to administrators of this site, which are Heather and Mike.  This includes site comments and contact questions you submit.

Comments are sent to Akismet to check for spam, and they may or may not store this information.  Please contact Akismet if you care.

Analytics tracking data is stored at Google as described in this document.

When you subscribe to receive blog updates via e-mail, your e-mail address and name are sent to MailChimp.  MalChimp will store this information in order to send you the requested updates.  They will not use the e-mail and name for any other purpose.

Cookies
A cookie is information that a website stores on your computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns.  This is how all websites keep track of things as you move from page to page on our site. We use cookies for the following reasons.  We considered all to be required for proper operation of this site.

  • Keep track of you when you login.  You can create an account on our site and use it to store favorites and make quicker comments.  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.
  • Speed up website performance.  We use the third party service CloudFlare to provide images and files to your browser as fast as possible.  They use cookies to provide you with images from the closest server allowing the fastest performance.  They do not retain this data.
  • Analytics data.  Like all websites on the internet, we take advantage of Google Analytics.  This is used to see how people use the site and which pages they view.  The cookies will correlate all of the information and store it with Google.  But all of the cookie information and IP addresses are anonymized, and can no way be used to identify you, even when logged in or leaving a comment.

Visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using our websites.  The drawback is that you will not be able to login, and may see slower performance.

3rd Party Services Used
When you request blog updates to be e-mailed to you, this is handled by a third party service called MailChimp.  They will store your name and e-mail in order to send you the mail.

Analytics data is stored with Google, but does not contain any information that will allow them, or us, to identify you.  This includes e-mail addresses, names and IP addresses.

Comments and other content submitted to Akismet anti-spam service are not saved on our servers unless they were marked as false positives, in which case we store them long enough to use them to improve the service to avoid future false positives.

Sharing
We do not share any data with any ad or information networks.  We only provide the minimum data to the services listed in the previous section that are needed for them to provide us with the requested functionality.

Privacy Policy Changes
Although most changes are likely to be minor, we may change this Privacy Policy from time to time, and in our sole discretion.  We encourage visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy.  Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.

How to Contact Us
If you would like to contact us with any questions, please do so from Contact Me.  If you want a copy of your information, or request to be forgotten according to your local law, also please do so from the contact form at Contact Me.  Note that if you request to be forgotten, most information will be removed.  This may include all comments you have left.  This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.