Disclosures & Policies

The boring legal stuff is important, so here it is:

Disclosure

We’re cats, and that means we love cat products and services. If you’re interested in our reviewing, promoting, or advertising your products for cats, we would love to hear from you.

The FTC requires bloggers to have a disclosure policy, even if we are cats. This is to keep us all safe. Our disclosure policy:

  • This site accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.
  • However, we won’t promote a product or service that isn’t a value to our readers.
  • All reviews will be our own opinions, and we can’t guarantee a positive review. We’re cats, after all, and we don’t like everything we try. We will give our readers an honest assessment of the product or service when we review it.
  • The owner(s) of this site is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this site receives compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers’ own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.
  • We believe in word of mouth marketing standards, including honest opinions. If compensation received influences the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog, the content, advertising space or post will be clearly identified as paid or sponsored content.
  • This site does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.
  • We use “nofollow” links in sponsored posts in accordance with Google policies.
  • We pay for giveaways or contests ourselves, unless otherwise identified.
  • We may include affiliate links to partner businesses that are relevant to our readers. We may not always identify every link as being an affiliate link.

This policy is valid from 06 May 2018

 

 

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 Personally Identifiable Information in accordance with our website.

What personal information do we collect from the people that visit our blog, website or app?

When ordering or registering on our site, as appropriate, you may be asked to enter your email address or other details to help you with your experience.

When do we collect information?

We collect information from you when you register on our site, place an order, subscribe to a newsletter, respond to a survey or enter information on our site.

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.

Contact Forms

Information sent by contact forms is stored for a year for customer service purposes. Any information submitted through a contact form is not used for marketing purposes.

How do we use your information?

We may use the information we collect from you when you register, make a purchase, 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 allow us to better service you in responding to your customer service requests.
  • To administer a contest, promotion, survey or other site feature.
  • To quickly process your transactions.
  • To send periodic emails regarding your order or other products and services.

How do we protect your information?

We do not use vulnerability scanning and/or scanning to PCI standards.

An external PCI compliant payment gateway handles all CC transactions.

We use regular Malware Scanning.

Your personal information is contained behind secured networks and is only accessible by a limited number of persons who have special access rights to such systems, and are required to keep the information confidential. In addition, all sensitive/credit information you supply is encrypted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology.

We implement a variety of security measures when a user places an order enters, submits, or accesses their information to maintain the safety of your personal information.

All transactions are processed through a gateway provider and are not stored or processed on our servers.

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. For instance, we use cookies to help us remember and process the items in your shopping cart. They 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 to:

  • Help remember and process the items in the shopping cart.
  • Keep track of advertisements.
  • Compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interactions in order to offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may also use trusted third-party services that track this information on our behalf.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, 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.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

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 browser is a little different, look at your browser’s Help Menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookies.

If users disable cookies in their browser:

If you turn cookies off it may turn off some of the features of the site.

Embedded Content from Other Web Sites

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 tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Third-party disclosure

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your Personally Identifiable Information 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.

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

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.

We use Google AdSense Advertising on our website.

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 have implemented the following:

We, along with third-party vendors such as Google 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.

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 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. 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.

California Online Privacy Protection Act

CalOPPA is the first state law in the nation to require commercial websites and online services to post a privacy policy. The law’s reach stretches well beyond California to require any person or company in the United States (and conceivably the world) that operates websites collecting Personally Identifiable Information from California consumers to post a conspicuous privacy policy on its website stating exactly the information being collected and those individuals or companies with whom it is being shared. – See more at: http://consumercal.org/california-online-privacy-protection-act-caloppa/#sthash.0FdRbT51.dpuf

According to CalOPPA, we agree to the following:
Users can visit our site anonymously.
Once this privacy policy is created, we will add a link to it on our home page or as a minimum, on the first significant page after entering our website.
Our Privacy Policy link includes the word ‘Privacy’ and can easily be found on the page specified above.

You will be notified of any Privacy Policy changes:
• On our Privacy Policy Page
Can change your personal information:
• By emailing us

How does our site handle Do Not Track signals?

We honor Do Not Track signals and Do Not Track, plant cookies, or use advertising when a Do Not Track (DNT) browser mechanism is in place.

Does our site allow third-party behavioral tracking?

It’s also important to note that we do not allow third-party behavioral tracking

COPPA (Children Online Privacy Protection Act)

When it comes to the collection of personal information from children under the age of 13 years old, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) puts parents in control. The Federal Trade Commission, United States’ consumer protection agency, enforces the COPPA Rule, which spells out what operators of websites and online services must do to protect children’s privacy and safety online.

We do not specifically market to children under the age of 13 years old.

Fair Information Practices

The Fair Information Practices Principles form the backbone of privacy law in the United States and the concepts they include have played a significant role in the development of data protection laws around the globe. Understanding the Fair Information Practice Principles and how they should be implemented is critical to comply with the various privacy laws that protect personal information.

In order to be in line with Fair Information Practices we will take the following responsive action, should a data breach occur:
We will notify you via email
• Within 7 business days

We also agree to the Individual Redress Principle which requires that individuals have the right to legally pursue enforceable rights against data collectors and processors who fail to adhere to the law. This principle requires not only that individuals have enforceable rights against data users, but also that individuals have recourse to courts or government agencies to investigate and/or prosecute non-compliance by data processors.

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

To be in accordance with CANSPAM, 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 email us at
• Follow the instructions at the bottom of each email.
and we will promptly remove you from ALL correspondence.

Contacting Us

If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy, you may contact us using the information below.

Home


PO Box 32869
Orlando, FL 32869
US

This privacy policy is subject to change without notice and was last updated on May 17, 2018.

Commenting Policy

We love all of our friends who comment on our site! You’re a cherished part of our extended family. We’re also big believers in respectful conversation being civil to each other. Some of the topics we cover can make people feel passionate, defensive, or judgmental.

As much as we believe every one of you deserves to have your own opinion, it is imperative that you remain civil while discussing it on Cats Going Places. We moderate our comments on our web site as well on social media properties like Facebook.

We reserve the right to delete or edit any comment that seems to us to be:

  • judgmental
  • rude
  • attacking
  • self-promotional
  • revealing someone else’s personal information

You can still disagree with us at Cats Going Places. We love hearing opposing views! Just be respectful and constructive.

Everyone’s journey with their feline companions is different, and we’re all here to learn something new from those experiences. We look forward to hearing what you think and how life with cats has shaped those views.

Pet Business Commenting Policies

We love pet businesses who contribute to the conversation, but our comments section is NOT a place to promote your business. If you want to promote your business here, please contact us about sponsorship or a product review. We would love to talk to you about joining the handpicked list of businesses we endorse!

Please don’t put hyperlinks to your business in your comment. It won’t benefit your web site’s SEO (our blog software automatically makes any hyperlink in the no-follow), it makes you more likely to be trapped in our spam folders, and it’s just plain unsightly.

You can enter your business web site in the comment’s URL field, but you also need to use your business name when you do so. URLs to businesses displaying keywords instead of a person or site’s name will be deleted, and your comment may be, too.

If your business places an advertorial with us, you are welcome to respond to reader comments to your sponsored post.

Sponsored Post Commenting Policies

Sponsored posts are content from a business we have selected to partner with. Out of respect to the vendor who compensates us for that post, we reserve the right to edit or delete comments that are not in the best interest of that sponsor. It’s totally all right that you disagree with our opinion about the product, but be respectful and remember that sponsors help keep the site up and running.