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Privacy Policy

Greetings! Thank you for stopping by to review the privacy policy for HerminaBoyle.com (last updated 9/9/20).

Prior to setting fingers to the keyboard for this statement, I had a heart to heart chat with Master Bederad, the overseer of the Moorlite religious order from Son of Prophecy. See, he’d been guarding certain truths about the king’s lineage for over a quarter century. If any man knew how to protect information, it was Bederad! So, I went monk. No small feat, considering the Moorlites live in a fictitious monastery-like hedeshal in a fantasy kingdom.

His advice wasn’t fiction though. He counseled me just as he might any pilgrim seeking truth: ‘Speak plainly.’ Meaning ‘just stick to the facts’. So here we go! just the facts, with the occasional nod to cloistered wisdom.

General Info

I value your privacy. I won’t use any information you give me in any way other than how it was intended. Websites do store some data. Most of the information I store is information you give me freely. (More on that below and what you can do if at any point you don’t like what information is stored).

Site security

Because Master Bederad understood the threats the Moorlites might encounter, he set up a stone wall 15 feet high and an oak gate with a guard to protect his community’s solitude. Effective. Simple. I felt secure there (and quite at home)!

You should feel equally secure visiting my site (even if I don’t have a 15 foot brick and mortar wall around my house). My website is protected by SSL (Secure Socket Layer), a type of encryption which ensures that everything sent to or from my server is encrypted. I use Word Fence software to maintain security to the best of my ability.

Comments

The Moorlites have a saying: “All that is given should be given for the good of others,” which is a great guiding principle for posting a comment. Unfortunately, spam – unsolicited junk comments sent by bots – is not for ‘the good’ of your experience when it’s sent to my website.

I use anti-spam Clean Talk to filter comments and reduce spam on my site. To protect my site from spam, your information is compared with a list of known spam senders by Clean Talk. Clean Talk only stores your information for a few days to give me time to contest its decision as to whether you are a spammer or not.

Your comments on this site’s posts are always welcome! The information collected includes your name, email address, IP address (the address of your computer) and the content of your comment. All WordPress sites have the option to use globally recognized avatars in the comments area and will send the above information to Gravitar.

If at any time, you wish to have your comments removed, please e-mail me and I will remove them.

Newsleters

When you subscribe, I collect your name, IP address and email address so that I can send you updates about what is going on in my world. Your email address may be gathered from the subscription form or by checking to be added to the list from a comment form.

My newsletters send a message back to my website when they are opened. I have the ability to store statistics about whether or not you’ve opened the newsletter. All of this information helps me better design the content of future newsletters.

If you choose to be removed from this list you can click the unsubscribe button at the bottom of the newsletter at any time.

Contact forms

Contact forms on this site allow you to send me messages. My contact form requests your name, email address, and the subject and message you wish me to send. The information is checked for spam and transmitted to me via email. It is not stored on my website. During that transmission, the data will be sent through normal email channels.

Cookies

On holy days, the Moorlite bakers whip up a simple, wholesome cookie of oats, honey and dried fruit, but these aren’t the ones my website uses.

A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your hard disk by a Web page server. Cookies can not be used to run programs or deliver viruses to you computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you and can only be read by a Web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. For example, if you personalize a web page, or navigate within a site, a cookie helps the site to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of delivering relevant content, eases site navigation and so on. When you return to the website, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the site’s features that you customized. If you visit our login page, 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.

If you leave a comment on my 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.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Many Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can modify your browser settings to decline cookies if you prefer.

If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of this or other Web sites you visit.

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.

Website Activity Tracking

My hosting company provides me with basic data on those who access my site. The data stored in this way is not traceable back to any individual and is deliberately generalized. It provides me with information related to the country of origin of site visitors, what browser they are using, and how long they stayed on the site.

In addition, Google and other search engines track website visitors. This is something that happens whenever you use the internet. The information these search engines store is not traceable to one individual and so is very generic in nature. I do not store this info, but may occasionally look at it so that I can see what people are searching for when they come to my site. This helps me provide more relative content.

If you do not want to be tracked, please consider using a private browser window.

Changes to this statement

Bederad informs the brothers at the hedeshal when changes are happening that could impact their schedules.

Visitors to this privacy policy will be informed of changes as well. I will update this policy from time to time to insure you have the most recent statements on information usage and security on this site.

How long I retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so I can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

I 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 left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data I hold about you, including any data you have provided. You can also request that I erase any personal data I hold about you. This does not include any data I am obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Note to International users

This site is owned and hosted in the Unites States. By providing your information to the site, you are consenting to the transfer of your information to the United States for processing and maintenance in accordance with this privacy notice.

My contact information

All the content of this site, herminaboyle.com, is owned by Hermina Boyle unless otherwise noted. For further inquiries, please use the form on my ‘Contact’ page.