Privacy Policy

Writingful is committed to protecting the privacy of visitors to our websites, as well as our members and partners. Writingful has established this Privacy Policy to explain what information we collect through these websites and how it is used.

In this policy, “Writingful” refers to staff, board members, cooperating attorneys, interns, volunteers, and consultants of Writingful, all of whom are bound by law or contract to keep information they receive as part of their work for Writingful confidential.

Writingful does not sell or rent personally identifiable member, customer or employee information under any circumstances, and we do not share information without prior consent except as compelled by law. (See discussion below.)

What Information Do We Collect About you?

For visitors to our website, we may, but generally do not, log standard technical information, such as the numerical Internet protocol (IP) address of the computer you are using; the browser software you use and your operating system; and the Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our site. Circumstances in which we temporarily log standard technical information include conducting site testing, diagnosis of technical problems, and defending against attacks on the site. We sometimes log the date and time users access our site on an anonymous basis. For more information on Writingful’s position on data logging, see the EFF’s Best Practices for Online Service Providers.

In order to access the member functionality of Writingful we use a persistent cookie. We may also use session cookies from time to time. Session cookies expire when you close your browser. You can set your browser to refuse cookies, and use Tor if you wish to keep your IP number and other technical information anonymous.

In addition, Writingful collects and retains information you submit to us. It is up to you whether to submit information to us, and how much information to provide. You may always contact us to request a copy of any information we have on you, as well as to have it deleted or anonymized.

If you choose to become a Writingful member, we ask for your name, email address, city, state/province, postal or zip code, country of residence, and phone number, and invite you to select a password. This information is required as we cannot create a user account without this information. This information will be stored in our backend server (we typically use third-party cloud services).

For online donors and shoppers, we also ask for your credit card number or Paypal login information. We also maintain records of our members’ use of the site and may use this data on an anonymous basis periodically. If you use some of the online financial services offered by Writingful, you are asked to provide personal information, such as a shipping address, necessary to complete your transaction.

We may ask for additional personal information when you provide feedback or comments, or otherwise communicate with us. From time to time, we may ask for personal information on other portions of the site, such as asking you to sign a petition, participate in a contest, or provide other user generated content to us.

How Do We Collect Information?

We collect information from you when you register on our site, place orders, subscribe to our newsletter, fill out a form, connect your external CMS to your account (WordPress, BigCommerce, Shopify, Hootsuite), and when you contact us. We also collect information automatically when you use our site. This data may include usage statistics, IP addresses and information collected through cookies and other tracking technologies.

Legal Basis For Collecting Information

If you are from the European Economic Area, our legal basis for collecting and using personal information described above depends on the type of information collected and the context in which we collect it.

Fundamentally, we collect your data where it is in our legitimate interest while not overriding your data protection interests. Our interests usually include improving, maintaining, providing and enhancing our platform and services, as well as sending you emails, advertising and other activities that help us act on the agreement created when you register your account.

If you create an account with us, and in doing so agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions, we require the personal information to perform our contract with you. We may also have a legal obligation to maintain this information.

What Do We Use Your Information For?

Writingful sees it as its mission to protect privacy, defend freedom, and protect your rights in the digital world. We are your friends.

We use the information we collect from you in the following ways:

• To deliver our website, its content and our service to you
• To provide you with information about our service that you request
• To personalize your experience
• To review technical information to diagnose problems with our server and to administer the Writingful site.
• To deliver customer services
• To deliver our obligations under the terms and conditions you agree to upon registering
• To comply with applicable laws and regulations
• To process your transactions
• To run surveys, contests, or similar activities through this site. Such information will be used for the purposes for which it was collected.
• To send emails regarding your account and any orders that you place or work on, as well as promotional communications relevant to our platform and other related content.
• To advertise and show you personalized ads
• In other ways that are described when you provide us your information

If you invite another person to join Writingful, we will ask for that person’s name and online contact information. We use this information to contact and, if necessary, remind that person that he or she has been invited to join Writingful.

If you provide information for publication, such as writing a review or submitting other editorial content, we will publicly credit you for this work. Writingful lets users opt-out of receiving email messages from us. If you want to stop future communications, opt-out with the link at the bottom of any email received from us.

You may also contact us to request a copy of any personal data we are storing on you. At your request, we will also delete your information if we are able to, or will anonymize it in the event we must retain the data for legal purposes.

Third-Party Service Providers

Portions of the Writingful site may be operated by a third-party service provider (“Provider”). Providers may place cookies on your computer in order to store information, such as items placed in your shopping cart, or storing your account login when using the Affiliate Center. Provider logs standard technical information, such as the numerical Internet protocol (IP) address of the computer you are using; the browser software you use and your operating system; the date and time you access our site; and the Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our site.

Our Provider also stores and organizes the personal information collected through this site on our behalf. The information remains under our control, and our agreement with Provider requires the information to be kept confidential and disclosed only to Provider’s employees who require such access in the course of their assigned duties. Provider has, however, not agreed to cooperate with Writingful in seeking a protective order, if necessary, to protect this information from legal process. We will seek to accomplish this in all cases, but this cannot be guaranteed. Writingful may change providers from time to time, and will transfer stored information to the new provider subject to similar restrictions.

Writingful’s search engine functionality is currently operated in house. All search queries may be retained for analysis and will always be accessed on an anonymous basis. Writingful may however change the search engine provider from time to time.

From time to time, Writingful may work with third-party consultants or other service providers who may have access to personally identifiable information. In such cases, we will restrict their use of personally identifiable information in accordance with their assigned tasks and subject to the limitations of this privacy policy.

Writingful’s site provides links to a wide variety of third-party websites. Writingful is not responsible for, and does not have any control over, the privacy practices or the content of such third parties. We encourage users to read the privacy policies of any website visited.

Disclosure of Your Information

While Writingful endeavors to provide the highest level of protection for your information, we may disclose personally identifiable information about you to third parties in limited circumstance, including: (1) with your consent; or (2) when we have a good faith belief it is required by law, such as pursuant to a subpoena or other judicial or administrative order.

If we are required by law to disclose the information that you have submitted, we will attempt to provide you with notice (unless we are prohibited) that a request for your information has been made in order to give you an opportunity to object to the disclosure. We will attempt to provide this notice by email, if you have given us an email address or by postal mail if you have entered a postal address. If you do not challenge the disclosure request, we may be legally required to turn over your information.

In addition, we will independently object to requests for access to information about users of our site that we believe to be improper.

Reviewing, Updating or Removing Your Information

If you have an account with us, you can access personal information we store for you by logging into your account. You may also contact us directly to request a copy of all personal data we have about you.

You may choose to correct, update, or delete the membership information you have submitted to us by sending an email requesting changes to [email protected]. We will delete your information if we are able to, or will anonymize it in the event we must retain some data for legal purposes. However, please understand that deleted information may continue to persist on back-up media.

Furthermore, if we inadvertently collect more personal information than intended, we endeavor to delete the extraneous information.

Terms and Conditions

Please review our Terms and Conditions page which defines the use, disclaimers and limitations of liability governing your use of our website.

Your Consent

By using Writingful’s website, you consent to our privacy policy.

Do Not Track Disclosure

Our website does not monitor for or behave differently if your computer transmits a “do not track” or similar beacon or message.

Children’s Information

Our website is not meant for children under the age of eighteen and we do not intentionally collect any personal information from them. Please contact us if you believe we may have collected a child’s personal information.

Changes to Our Policies

Writingful’s Privacy Policy may change from time to time. However, any revised privacy policy will be consistent with Writingful’s stance on privacy issues. If we make any substantive changes to our policies, we will place notice on writingful.com and post notice of changes on this page.

How Do We Protect Your information?

Writingful employs industry standard security measures to protect the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under our control. Information submitted through the online payment system process is encrypted through a Secured Socket Layer (SSL) connection, which protects the information in transit.

Although we make good faith efforts to store information collected by Writingful in a secure operating environment, we cannot guarantee complete security. Information collected by Writingful will be maintained for a length of time appropriate to our needs. However, we generally do not retain credit card information unless you choose to have us do so.

European General Data Protection Regulation

Writingful updated this privacy policy to provide greater transparency and explain our compliance with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for our European customers. These updates cover:

• How we collect information
• Our legal basis for collecting information
• How we use your information
• The right to access personal information
• The right to be forgotten
• Data portability request fulfillment
• Named our data security lead

If you’d like to request information about personal data we store about you, please contact us.

This Privacy Policy is based extensively on that of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a leading champion of public interests in issues affecting digital rights. Their privacy policy can be viewed by visiting http://www.eff.org/policy/

Your Acceptance of These Terms

By using this Site, you signify your acceptance of this policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use our Site. Your continued use of the Site following the posting of changes to this policy will be deemed your acceptance of those changes.