Privacy Policy
This privacy policy has been compiled to better serve those who are concerned with how their ‘Personally Identifiable Information’ (PII) is being used online. PII, as described in US privacy law and information security, is information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate a single person, or to identify an individual in context. Please read our privacy policy carefully to get a clear understanding of how we collect, use, protect, or otherwise handle your PII in accordance with our website.
Who we are
We are
Finding Common Ground Mediation and Law Services™. Our website address is: https://findingcommonground.com.
Personal information that we collect from site visitors
We collect information from you when you subscribe to a newsletter, fill out a form or enter information on our site, register with our site, or provide us with feedback on our products or services. You may be asked for your name, email address and/or other details to help you with your experience.
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, Exchangeable Image File (EXIF) data is maintained. You should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Uploaded images are typically publicly accessible. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
How we use your information
We may use the information we collect from you when you register, sign up for our newsletter, respond to a survey or marketing communication, surf the website, or use certain other site features in the following ways:
- To improve our website to better serve you.
- To send periodic emails regarding your order or other products and services.
- To follow up with you after correspondence (live chat, email or phone inquiries).
- To help with spam detection.
Do we use ‘cookies’?
Yes. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the site’s or service provider’s systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information.
Cookies are also used to help us understand your preferences based on previous or current site activity, which enables us to provide you with improved services. We also use cookies to help us compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future.
We use cookies for the following purposes:
- Authentication – we use cookies to identify you when you visit our website and as you navigate our website;
- Status – we use cookies [to help us to determine if you are logged into our website;
- Personalization – we use cookies to store information about your preferences and to personalize the website for you;
- Advertising – we use cookies [to help us to display advertisements that will be relevant to you; and
- Analysis – we use cookies to help us to analyze the use and performance of our website and services;
We use Google Analytics to analyze the use of our website. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website. Google’s privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/
You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You do this through your browser settings. Since each browser is a little different, look at your browser’s Help Menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookie settings.
If you turn cookies off, some website features will be disabled and this website may not function properly.
Third-party disclosure
We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your PII unless we provide users with advance notice. This does not include website hosting partners and other parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or serving our users, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release information when it’s release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others’ rights, property or safety.
However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.
Embedded content from other websites
Posts or pages 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 tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Third-party links
Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third-party products or services on our website. These third-party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.
Google’s advertising requirements can be summed up by Google’s Advertising Principles. They are put in place to provide a positive experience for users: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/1316548?hl=en
Google, as a third-party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on our site. Google’s use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to our users based on previous visits to our site and other sites on the Internet. Users may opt-out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google Ad and Content Network privacy policy.
We, along with third-party vendors such as Google may use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookies) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) or other third-party identifiers together to compile data regarding user interactions with ad impressions and other ad service functions as they relate to our website.
Opting out: Users can set preferences for how Google advertises to you using the Google Ad Settings page. Alternatively, you can opt out by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative Opt Out page or by using the Google Analytics Opt Out Browser add on.
California Online Privacy Protection Act
We are in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act). We do not collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products, and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older.
CAN SPAM Act
The CAN-SPAM Act is a law that sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have emails stopped from being sent to them, and spells out tough penalties for violations.
We collect your email address in order to:
- Send information, respond to inquiries, and/or other requests or questions
- Market to our mailing list or continue to send emails to our clients after the original transaction has occurred.
- To be in accordance with CAN-SPAM, we agree to the following:
- Not use false or misleading subjects or email addresses.
- Identify the message as an advertisement in some reasonable way.
- Include the physical address of our business or site headquarters.
- Monitor third-party email marketing services for compliance, if one is used.
- Honor opt-out/unsubscribe requests quickly.
- Allow users to unsubscribe by using the link at the bottom of each email.
If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, you can follow the instructions at the bottom of each email and we will promptly remove you from ALL correspondence.
How do we protect your information?
We do not use vulnerability scanning and/or scanning to PCI standards. We only provide articles and information. We never ask for credit card numbers. We use regular Malware Scanning. We do use a SSL certificate for communications between your browser and our webserver.
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 website, 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.
Contacting Us
If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy, you may contact us using the information below.
Finding Common Ground Mediation and Law Services™
1520 E. Covell Suite B5 – 449
Davis, CA 95616
United States
gillian@findingcommonground.com
Last edited on 20221206