Privacy Policy
Credit: Unistellar
SmartTelescopeReviews.com is committed to ensuring that your personal information is protected. This privacy policy sets out how we use and protect any information that you give to us when you use this website.
SmartTelescopeReviews.com is a reviews blog, not a multi-national corporation. Most of the data that is collected on this site is automatic or done in the background. The only time we gather your personal data (name or email address) is when you manually enter it onto the site somewhere. We do not take data from anywhere without permission. The only reason this site takes any data is to help us provide and improve this site.
We only use the data you give us freely and we are not trying to get any information from you that doesn’t help us serve you better. We want to reassure you that we will not use your data incorrectly or sell it to a third party.
Our website (like most websites) will store cookies in your browser. Cookies are not only used to enhance user experience; they will also allow us to earn commissions through our affiliate partners.
When we recommend a product and you click the link and make a purchase, sometimes (not always) we are rewarded with a small commission. These transactions will NEVER cost you an extra cent, and in some cases, you actually receive a discount for using our links. Cookies are what make this possible, so by allowing our website to use cookies, you’re helping to keep this site running. Without cookies, we wouldn’t make any commissions and therefore wouldn’t be able to offer so much amazing content for free.
Last updated: 2 November 2023
Who we are
Our website address is SmartTelescopeReviews.com. This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information we receive from users of this website.
It sets out:
What rights you have over your data
What we collect
We may collect the following information:
– Personal data such as name and Email address (only with consent).
– Usage data
– Analytics tracking & cookies data (anonymous data that we use to see how many people visit our site).
Communications/Contact forms
We value people’s feedback and contact, so please use our contact form to get in touch with us. Your message will be received as an email and you will then be contacted by someone on the team, depending on what your enquiry is about. We will not use your details for anything other than what is related to you contacting us and will not send more emails unless our email conversation continues. We use a plugin to embed our contact form, which tells us the email you entered so that we can reply.
We do not store any personally identifiable information other than contact details that a user of this Website has supplied when completing a contact form on this Website.
Analytics
We use Google Analytics to track the visitors on this site so that we know how many people we have visiting our blog.
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.
What we do with it
We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:
– Internal record keeping.
– We may use the information to improve our products and services.
From time to time we may use your information to contact you via email in the form of a newsletter. You can change your preferences at any time by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link in the footer of emails. You can also unsubscribe by emailing us directly.
We may periodically send promotional emails about new products, special offers or other information which we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided. ONLY when you have opted in to receive these emails.
From time to time, we may also use your information to contact you for market research purposes
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, it 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 do you have over your data
If you have submitted your email 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, we may ask you to verify your identity and request before actioning this. 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.
Who we might share your data with
The personal information that we collect when you use out site is confidential and we do not sell it to any third-parties. However, we may share your information with third parties that perform services for us or on our behalf, including data analysis (Google Analytics), comment auto-spam detection (Akismet) and email delivery (MailChimp).
Data analysis
Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. Google uses the data collected (such as your computer’s IP address, geographic location, browser type, browser version and pages of our site that you visit, the time and date of your visit, time spent on these pages, etc.) to track and monitor the use of our service. This data is shared with other Google services. Google may use the collected data to contextualize and personalize its own advertising.
You can opt out of making your activity on this website available to Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. The add-on prevents Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, and dc.js) from sharing information with Google Analytics about visits and activity.
For more information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit the Google Privacy & Terms web page: https://policies.google.com/privacy
Comment auto-spam detection
When you leave a comment on this site, it may be checked through an automated spam detection service called Askimet. You can find its privacy policy here: https://akismet.com/tos/
Email delivery
We use a third-party service provider called MailChimp to send marketing emails. You can find its privacy policy here: https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/
The only other instance where we may share data is if we are required to by the law.
Security
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure but remember that no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
Cookies
“Cookies” are files with small amounts of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your computer’s hard drive.
Like many sites, we use cookies to collect information. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our site.
This site uses Google Analytics, which collects data by placing a cookie on a user’s browser when they visit a website, thereby providing insights such as how many users a website has, where they are from, and which pages they click on.
This site also uses cookies to allow us to earn commissions through our affiliate partners. For more information see our disclosure policy.
Some of our advertising partners may use cookies on this site e.g. Amazon, ShareASale, Anwin, AstroShop, and HighPoint Scientific. These third-party ad servers use technology in their respective advertisements or links that appear on SmartTelescopeReviews.com and which are sent directly to your browser. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies (such as cookies, JavaScript, etc.) may also be used by our site’s third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and or to personalize the advertising content that you see on the site. TravGear.com has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.
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.
Links to other websites and social media
Where we provide links to other websites or embedded content (e.g. videos, images, etc.) from other websites, we do so for information purposes unless otherwise indicated. The other websites are outside our control and are not covered by this privacy notice. If you access other websites using the links provided, the operators of these websites may collect information from you which will be used by them in accordance with their privacy notice, which may differ from ours.
On some pages of our website, third parties that provide content, applications or plug-ins may track your use of content, applications and plug-ins or customise content, applications and plug-ins for you. For example, when you share an article using a social media sharing button on our website (e.g. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram), the social network that has created the button will record that you have done so.
Contact us
If you have any questions about this privacy policy, please contact us at admin@SmartTelescopeReviews.xom
Changes to this privacy policy
We may need to update this notice from time to time. You can see when it was last updated by checking the date at the top of this page. Where there are significant changes to the way we use your personal information we will alert you to this change. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with the current notice.
Consent
By using our website, you hereby consent to our privacy policy and agree to its terms.