Privacy Policy

A Couple of Sips found at https://www.acoupleofsips.com (“Website”) is governed by the following privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”).

We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it. The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to inform you what personally identifiable information we may collect and how it may be used. This statement only applies to this Website.

What Information Do We Collect and How is it Used?

Information Voluntarily Submitted to the Website by readers: We may collect personal information from you such as your name or email address if you submit them personally. You may voluntarily submit information to the Website by leaving a comment, subscribing to a newsletter, or submitting a contact form. This is the ONLY way we collect information. We do not search for these details. It is done voluntarily by you, our readers.

Automatically-Collected Information: We automatically collect certain information about you and the device with which you access the Website. When you use the Website, for instance, our site will log your IP address, operating system type, browser type, referring website, pages you viewed, and the dates/times when you accessed the Website. We may also collect information about actions you take when using the Website, such as links clicked. Your information has been made ANONYMOUS and only is viewed on aggregate basis.

If there is a data breach, which is very unlikely because we encrypt your data and protect our Website, we will inform you within 72 hours of the breach.

Cookies: Cookies are used on the website, which are small data files stored on your browser by the Website. We may use both session cookies, which expire when you close your browser, and persistent cookies, which stay on your browser until deleted, to provide you with a more personalized experience on the Website. You are notified of the use of cookies as soon as you arrive on the site.

The Website uses cookies to store visitors’ preferences, record user-specific information on what pages users access or visit, ensure that visitors are not repeatedly sent the same banner ads, customize Website content based on visitors’ browser type or other information that the visitor sends. Cookies may also be used by third-party services, such as Google Analytics, as described herein.

Users may, at any time, prevent the setting of cookies, by the Website, on the cookie notice, when the user opens the Website. Furthermore, already set cookies may be deleted at any time via an Internet browser or other software programs. This is possible in all popular Internet browsers. However, if users deactivate the setting of cookies in your Internet browser, not all functions of our Website may be entirely usable.

How your information may be used:

• To operate and maintain the Website;
• To send you promotional information, such as newsletters. Each email promotion will provide information on how to opt-out of future mailings;
• To send you administrative communications, such as administrative emails, confirmation emails, technical notices, updates on policies, or security alerts;
• To respond to your comments or inquiries;
• To provide you with user support;
• To track and measure advertising on the Website;
• To protect, investigate, and deter against unauthorized or illegal activity.

Third-Party Use of Information

We may share your information with third parties when you explicitly authorize us to share your information.

Additionally, the Website may use third-party service providers to service various aspects of the Website. Each third-party service provider’s use of your personal information is dictated by their respective privacy policies.

The Website currently uses the following third-party service providers:

Google Analytics

This service tracks Website usage and provides information such as referring websites and user actions on the Website. Google Analytics may capture your IP address, but no other personal information is captured by Google Analytics.

BirdSend

This service is used for delivery of email updates and newsletters. We store your name and email address for purposes of delivering such communications.  Please refer to BirdSend’s privacy policy for further information.

At this time, your personal information is not shared with any other third-party applications. This list may be amended from time to time in the Website’s sole discretion.

Except when required by law, we will not sell, distribute, or reveal your email addresses or other personal information without your consent; however, we may disclose or transfer personal information collected through the Website to third parties who acquire all or a portion of our business, which may be the result of a merger, consolidation, or purchase of all or a portion of our assets, or in connection with any bankruptcy or reorganization proceeding brought by or against us.

BigScoots

This service hosts and stores the Website and all information we collect, which is mentioned above. Please refer to BigScoots’ privacy policy for further information.

Publicly Visible Information

If you leave a comment on the Website, certain information like your name may be publicly visible. Your email address will never be available publicly.

Advertising

The Website uses Mediavine to manage all third-party advertising on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use cookies.
Mediavine may collect IP addresses and location to serve personalized ads. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.

Affiliate Program Participation

The Website may engage in affiliate marketing, which is done by embedding tracking links into the Website. If you click on a link to an affiliate partnership, a cookie will be placed on your browser to track any sales for purposes of commissions.

Newsletters

On the Website, you may subscribe to our newsletter, which may be used for advertising purposes. All newsletters sent may contain tracking pixels. The pixel is embedded in emails and allows an analysis of the success of online marketing campaigns.

Because of these tracking pixels, we may see if and when you open an email and which links within the email you click. Also, this allows the Website to adapt the content of future newsletters to the interests of the user. This behavior will not be passed on to third parties.

Rights Related to Your Personal Information

A Couple of Sips abides by GDPR regulations, so if you wish to download your information, you can do it by contacting us with your request.  If you wish to remove other information (e.g. comments) and you’re an EU resident, please get in touch with us.  We are happy to amend/remove your information/comments/email from the mailing list if you contact us.  We do not retain secondary copies of commenters/reader contact information without permission.  Similarly, we do not resell or share your contact information with third parties. Once you opt-out of the mailing list, you are permanently removed.

Opt-out

You may opt-out of future email communications by following the unsubscribe links in our emails. You may also notify us at hello (at) acoupleofsips.com to be removed from our mailing list.

Access

You may access the personal information we have about you by submitting a request to hello (at) acoupleofsips.com.

Amend

You may contact us at hello (at) acoupleofsips.com to amend or update your personal information.

Forget

In certain situations, you may request that we erase or forget your personal data. To do so, please submit a request to hello (at) acoupleofsips.com.

Please note that we may need to retain certain information for recordkeeping purposes or to complete transactions, or when required by law.

Sensitive Personal Information

At no time should you submit sensitive personal information to the Website. This includes your social security number, information regarding race or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, health information, criminal background, or trade union memberships. If you elect to submit such information to us, it will be subject to this Privacy Policy.

Information Regarding Minors

The Website does not knowingly collect any personally identifiable information from children or adolescents under the age of 18.

If a parent or guardian believes that the Website has personally identifiable information of a child under the age of 18 in its database, please contact us immediately at hello (at) acoupleofsips.com and we will use our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.

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Privacy Notice for California Residents

This Privacy Notice for California Residents supplements the Privacy Policy information above and applies solely to all visitors, users, and others who reside in the State of California (“consumers” or “you”). We adopt this Notice to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA).  Any terms defined in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this Notice.

Information We Collect

Our Websites collect information that identifies, relates to, describes, references is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or device (“personal information”). In particular, our Websites have collected the following categories of personal information from its consumers within the last twelve (12) months:

Category	Collected
A. Identifiers.	NO
B. Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)).	NO
C. Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law.	NO
D. Commercial information.	NO
E. Biometric information.	NO
F. Internet or other similar network activity.	YES
G. Geolocation data.	NO
H. Sensory data.	NO
I. Professional or employment-related information.	NO
J. Non-public education information (per the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. Section 1232g, 34 C.F.R. Part 99)).	NO
K. Inferences drawn from other personal information.	NO

Personal information does not include:

• Publicly available information from government records.
• Deidentified or aggregated consumer information.
• Information excluded from the CCPA’s scope, like:
  • health or medical information covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) or clinical trial data;
  • personal information covered by certain sector-specific privacy laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FRCA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) or California Financial Information Privacy Act (FIPA), and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994.

Our Website obtains the categories of personal information listed above from the following categories of sources:

• Directly from you. For example, from forms you complete.
• Indirectly from you. For example, from observing your actions on our Websites.
• From third-party business partners such as social media sites, ad networks, and analytics providers.

Use of Personal Information

We may use or disclose the personal information we collect for one or more of the following business purposes:

• To fulfill or meet the reason you provided the information. For example, if you share your name and contact information to send us an email, ask about our recipes, or sign up for our mailing list, we will use that personal information to respond to your inquiry.
• To provide, support, personalize, and develop our Websites, products, and services.
• To provide you with support and to respond to your inquiries, including to investigate and address your concerns and monitor and improve our responses.
• To personalize your Website experience and to deliver content and product and service offerings relevant to your interests, including targeted offers and ads through our Websites, third-party sites, and via email or text message (with your consent, where required by law).
• To help maintain the safety, security, and integrity of our Websites, products and services, databases and other technology assets, and business.
• For testing, research, analysis, and product development, including to develop and improve our Websites, products, and services.
• To respond to law enforcement requests and as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.
• As described to you when collecting your personal information or as otherwise set forth in the CCPA.

Our Website will not collect additional categories of personal information or use the personal information we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you notice.

Sharing Personal Information

Our Website may disclose your personal information to a third party for a business purpose. When we disclose personal information for a business purpose, we enter a contract that describes the purpose and requires the recipient to both keep that personal information confidential and not use it for any purpose except performing the contract.

We share your personal information with the following categories of third parties:

• Service providers.
• Data aggregators.

Sales of Personal Information

In the preceding twelve (12) months, we have not sold personal information.

Your Rights and Choices

The CCPA provides consumers (California residents) with specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes your CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.

Access to Specific Information and Data Portability Rights

You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request (see Exercising Access, Data Portability, and Deletion Rights), we will disclose to you:

• The categories of personal information we collected about you.
• The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
• Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal information.
• The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information.
• The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (also called a data portability request).
• If we sold or disclosed your personal information for a business purpose, two separate lists disclosing:
  • sales, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient purchased; and
  • disclosures for a business purpose, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient obtained.

Deletion Request Rights

You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request (see Exercising Access, Data Portability, and Deletion Rights), we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.

We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service provider(s) to:

1. Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
2. Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
3. Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
4. Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
5. Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 ).
6. Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information’s deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research’s achievement, if you previously provided informed consent.
7. Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
8. Comply with a legal obligation.
9. Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

Exercising Access, Data Portability, and Deletion Rights

To exercise the access, data portability, and deletion rights described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us by email at hello (at) acoupleofsips.com.

Only you, or a person registered with the California Secretary of State that you authorize to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child.

You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. The verifiable consumer request must:

• Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative.
• Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you.

Making a verifiable consumer request does not require you to create an account with us.

We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.

Response Timing and Format

We endeavor to respond to a verifiable consumer request within forty-five (45) days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing.

If you have an account with us, we will deliver our written response to that account. If you do not have an account with us, we will deliver our written response by mail or electronically, at your option.

Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding the verifiable consumer request’s receipt. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

Non-Discrimination

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:

• Deny you goods or services.
• Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
• Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
• Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.

However, we may offer you certain financial incentives permitted by the CCPA that can result in different prices, rates, or quality levels. Any CCPA-permitted financial incentive we offer will reasonably relate to your personal information’s value and contain written terms that describe the program’s material aspects. Participation in a financial incentive program requires your prior opt in consent, which you may revoke at any time.

Other California Privacy Rights

California’s “Shine the Light” law (Civil Code Section § 1798.83) permits users of our Websites that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an email to hello (at) acoupleofsips.com.

Contact Information

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please get in touch.

Why did we Write this Very Long Privacy Policy?

Because we do believe in transparency, so you have the right to know we store your given information and how this information is used.

We not only comply with the GDPR (in Europe), but we also comply with the FTC ruling (not that we need to, given the fact A Couple of Sips isn’t based in the USA), but since many of our readers are based in the States, we think it’s important to give them the security they’re used to.

We agree with the Blog With Integrity pledge.

Privacy Policy last updated April 19th, 2020

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