Privacy Policy | TastyCookery

Effective Date: May 30, 2018

This Privacy Policy applies to TastyCookery and associated digital products. Some of the websites developed and owned by TastyCookery may have a policy of their own.

Your personal information is essential to maintaining the work of TastyCookery and associated digital products for a variety of reasons. We rely on it to make our marketing and advertising efforts more conscious and relevant. It also enables us to create and provide content that you read and otherwise enjoy on our site(s).

This is a short list of the chief reasons for collecting and using user information:

To provide you with content that is highly relevant to you; to maintain a better user experience on our site(s)
To render the services you sign up to receive, such as daily newsletters
To perform marketing analysis and, by your permission or when permitted by applicable laws, to communicate with you via email and in other channels
To allow us to run advertisements on our site(s).

Careful consideration is taken to determine the ways to use personal information and to protect your privacy. Below, we will elaborate on the details. Alongside other topics, this policy:

provides information about your rights and our obligations
clarifies the ways in which we gather, store, and use your personal information
explains the methods we use to protect your information and our commitments to do so
covers our commitments to respect your rights and respond to the questions you might ask.

We will be making a continuous effort to clarify the aspects of personal information use for our users.

About this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy elaborates on how we (TastyCookery) gather, store, use, and transfer the personal information of the users of services rendered on tastycookery.com (“our site(s)”) and our related digital products (“our products”).

By personal information is meant any information about a user by which he/she can be personally identified. Personal information can include, but is not limited to, the following:

your name, date of birth, phone number, postal address, email address, mobile number;
debit card details;
information about the device you use to browse the web (such as your IP address – the numerical code that identifies your device and the country, region, and/or city in which your device is located);
insights into your personal situation, as well as your manner of using our site(s), products, and services.

At times, our site(s) and products may include links to third-party services and sites. These services and sites have their own peculiarities of user information gathering and use that are covered by their own privacy policies. If you follow a third-party link and are transferred to a third-party site, make sure you read their privacy policy before you use the site.

About us and the ways to contact us

The information gathered, stored, and used by our site(s) and products is controlled by TastyCookery 207 E Ohio, # 158 Chicago, IL 60611. Consequently, we take the responsibility for deciding upon the reasons and ways in which we store and use personal information. Should you need to contact us, please find the contact information here.

Personal information: what and when we gather and how we use it

Personal information is gathered automatically by our site(s) and products at the point of registration (when you sign up for our services) and during your visits to our site(s) and products. The information gathered is used to provide insights for our content creation, marketing and advertising efforts. It is also used to analyze the behavioral patterns of the visitors of our site(s) and products.

What personal information is gathered when you sign up for an account at TastyCookery

When a user signs up for a TastyCookery account on tastycookery.com the following personal information is gathered:

the user’s name;
the user’s email address;
the user’s IP address;
certain information from the profile in social media (details can be found below) if you used your social media account details to sign up for the services provided on tastycookery.com and by TastyCookery.

When you create an account on tastycookery.com, we create a unique ID number that is associated with you. The ID number helps our system recognize you during your visits to our site(s) and products when you are logged in. Our system will also recognize you if you use the same name and email address to log into your account from a new device (e.g.: switch from your desktop to your mobile, etc.)

Our site(s) and products may also use cookies or an analogous technology that helps to gather additional information during your visits to our site(s) and products. Additional information may include:

your IP address – the numerical code that identifies your device and the country, region, and/or city in which your device is located;
the history of your on-site behavior: which pages and content you have viewed on our site(s) and products, as well as the information about the paths you followed to reach our site(s), e.g. links on other websites, etc.
the information that can help to identify your device, e.g.: unique device ID, advertising ID, and the browsers via which you accessed our content.

There are services that we render that may offer you to provide more detailed information about your interests and preferences; this information is used to improve your user experience. If you order a paid service or item on our site(s) you may be required to provide additional details, e.g.: your address, etc.

Certain categories of personal information are not subject to gathering, including political or religious views, race, health state and conditions, sexual orientation, etc. However, you may choose to provide this information to us of your own volition.

Signing into your TastyCookery account with social media details

If you choose to sign in to our site(s) or products with your Facebook account details, you allow Facebook to provide us with your email address and some other aspects of your profile on Facebook that you have made public in your Facebook settings. These aspects only include your name, first and last, age range, a link to your profile on Facebook and your profile photo. We do not receive access to updates on your profile on Facebook. If you choose to sign in to our site(s) or products with your Google login details, you allow Google to provide us with the aspects of your profile in Google that you have made public in your Google settings. These aspects include your name, first and last, age range, your email address and whether or not it has been validated, a link to your profile in Google and your profile photo, if you have one in place.

The above-mentioned social media details will be used to create and/or fill in your account at TastyCookery. If you decide to remove TastyCookery from the Apps and Settings section of your Facebook settings or Google settings, your social media details will no longer be available to us. However, the information that we initially received when you used your Facebook or Google details to set up an account at TastyCookery or to log into it will still be in our database.

Using our site(s) and products

The TastyCookery site(s) and products gather and use the information about the content you have browsed to offer you more relevant content on site, via emails and push notifications.

How personal information is gathered

We gather your personal information at several stages of your user lifecycle, e.g.: when you:

sign up to create an account on tastycookery.com;
make a donation to TastyCookery;
purchase a paid account, additional account functions/features or any other products/services;
take part in our surveys and competitions;
sign up to receive our content emails;
sign up for marketing communications;
access our site(s), through cookies and related technology; and
contact us via email, on social media, including mentioning us in your posts, or by telephone.

Our reasons for using personal information

We use the personal information gathered via our site(s) and products for a variety of purposes, some of which are listed below:

To render the services you sign up to receive, such as email newsletters. Personal information is also used for essential internal administration purposes, e.g.: accounting and records at TastyCookery, and to inform you about all the changes that our services may undergo.
By your permission or in compliance with applicable laws, to send you marketing communications via email and in other channels.
To personalize the services rendered to you, e.g.: to enable signing in and to recognize you when you sign in from different devices, to remember your settings, to serve you relevant personalized advertisements, and to measure how effective they are, as well as to adjust our marketing communications to your preferences by analyzing what you view on our site(s) and products.
To perform marketing analysis, e.g.: we study what you have browsed on our site(s), what items and services you have purchased to attain in-depth insight into your preferences and interests and to tailor our marketing to your preferences and interests in order to achieve greater relevance.
To provide better marketing communications, we rely on a cookie-like technology to check whether you have opened a marketing email or followed the link contained in the email.
To sell space on our site(s) and products to advertisers. Digital advertising lays a financial foundation for our ability to provide you with high quality content and services.
To carry out statistical evaluations, e.g.: to analyze the performance of our site(s) and products in order to attain insight into how you and other visitors use our site(s) and products.
To respond to your questions, requests, and complaints; to address and resolve issues reported by users.
To prevent fraudulent activity and provide security; to ensure that our site(s) and products are safe and secure.
To ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

Legal authority for using personal information

Personal information is only used by TastyCookery in accordance with the law. The legal authority is determined on the basis of the purposes for personal information gathering and use. Regardless of the individual case, the legal authority for using personal information will be one of the following:

Consent: Express consent provided by our users, e.g.: to receive marketing emails from us. Your consent can be withdrawn at any moment. E.g.: to withdraw your consent to receive marketing emails, click on the “unsubscribe” link that is present at the bottom of every email. You can also withdraw your consent to receive marketing emails in your subscription manager on our site(s), when you are signed into your TastyCookery account.
Our legitimate interests: We need to get an understanding of our users, to promote our services, and to maintain our site(s) and products effectively in order to create and publish high quality content and to render our services. E.g.: it is in our legitimate interest to analyze the content that has been viewed by users on our site(s) and products in order to understand the ways in which our site(s) and products are used. We also rely on our legitimate interests to perform marketing analysis in order to select the products and services are of relevance to our users.
Fulfillment of a contract with users (or taking steps preceding the formation of a contract with users): E.g.: you have signed up for free email newsletters at TastyCookery, and we need to use your name and email address to render the service of delivering those email newsletters to you. Or if you have purchased a product or service from us and we need to use your payment details and contact information to process your order and deliver the product or render the service you have purchased.

Law compliance: There are cases in which we may have a legal duty to keep or use your personal information.

Personal information that we receive from third parties

When you create an account at TastyCookery and/or sign up to receive our services, we may combine the personal information you provide us with additional information that we receive from trusted third parties. Additional information can include the region you are based in; it enables us to tailor the content served to you to your geographical location. We may also receive information from partners whose advertisements we can use in some of our marketing communications. We use this additional information to make sure that we only send you relevant marketing communications.

We use the information about the content users have browsed on our site(s) and products and the ways in which they have interacted with this content to divide all of our users into smaller groups by interests and preferences in order to improve the relevance of our online advertising efforts. We can also add to these groups the information we have received from third parties. Please refer to “Cookies and related technology” Section for more information on how we use cookies.

Using personal information of minors

None of our site(s) and products is aimed directly at individuals under the age of 13. We do not knowingly gather personal information about children under the age of 13. Some of our services may have a higher age restriction and this will be shown at the point of registration.

Personal information security

Appropriate controls, both organizational and technical, have been put in place to ensure your personal information security, to protect it against damage, destruction, loss, unauthorized access, viewing, and processing.

Who we share your personal information with

Depending on where you are based, your personal information may be shared with a branch of TastyCookery.

We do not share your personal information with any third parties or individuals that do not have a direct connection to us, except in case of any of the following circumstances:

Your personal information may be shared with third parties that render services, such as facilitating online payments and other forms of payment processing, including credit card transactions and preventing fraud, on our behalf.
Your personal information may be shared with our advertiser partners in the manner elaborated upon in the Online Advertising section below.
Your personal information may be revealed at the request of any law enforcement agency, regulator, court, or government authority and other organizations in order to fulfill a legal or regulatory obligation, or else to protect our or anyone else’s rights.
Your personal information may be revealed to an organization to which we transfer or which buys all or substantially all of our business and assets. Should the transfer or sale occur, reasonable efforts will be applied on our part to ensure that the organization that receives your personal information from us uses it without violations to our Privacy Policy.

To make sure that the rendering of services by any other organization on our behalf is carried out in a manner that ensures the security of your personal information and the compliance with all the applicable information privacy laws, strict restrictions will be placed upon the organization in the contract. We may carry out independent audit of the organizations that render services on our behalf to check whether they meet the contract and industry standards.

Unless you give your permission to share your personal information, it will not be shared with anyone else for their own marketing purposes.

On some of our pages, third-party social plug-ins are used (e.g.: “Facebook Recommend” function, Pinterest “Pin It” button, Google+ function, etc.). These third parties may gather and use the personal information that you provide during your visits to our site(s) and products. When you are reading content or browsing our site(s) and products, the information you provide may be collected by these third parties and linked to your account on their website. We encourage you to read their privacy policies to learn more about how they use personal information.

International transfers of information

We may transfer, store, and/or process the personal information we gather in any country or location in which one or more of our companies or service providers have facilities or are located. These countries or locations may not have the same information security standards as your home country does; however, we will grant proper protection of personal information transferred by us in compliance with this Privacy Policy.

Personal information storage duration

Your personal information will only be stored for the duration of time we need it, depending on the purposes we are using this information for, all of which are made clear in this Privacy Policy. E.g.: your personal information may be used to respond to your queries about one of our products or services; we will keep it afterwards for as long as you keep using the product or service. Your personal information may also be used for the purposes of accounting, e.g., in case you purchase an item or a service from us. As soon as we stop needing your information, we will remove the personally identifiable details from it to make it anonymous or delete it altogether. If you withdraw the permission to process your personal information that you have previously granted us, and we have no other legitimate grounds to process it further, we will permanently delete your personal information. On the other hand, in the event of your unsubscription from marketing communications, we will still keep your email address in our database to make sure we do not send you further marketing communications.

How we may get in touch with you

Service communications

We may occasionally send you service communications, e.g.: to remind you about the pending expiration date of your subscription to a service or to thank you for providing feedback.

Marketing communications and content newsletters

Provided that you have granted your permission, we may email relevant offers and updates from TastyCookery and our partners to you.

TastyCookery offers a variety of email newsletters and content emails. We encourage you to manage your subscription via your subscription manager when you are logged in to your TastyCookery account.

At any time, you can also choose not to receive any of these emails. You can discontinue the emails by using the “unsubscribe” link in any of TastyCookery emails or in your subscription manager when you are logged in to your TastyCookery account.

Research and surveys

We may occasionally ask you to complete a survey or contact you for other market research purposes.

Query response and complaint resolution

If you have sent a complaint or a query to us, we will contact you to give a response to your query or to address the complaint you have placed.

Cookies and related technology

We may gather personal information during your visits to our site(s) and products in an automated manner by using cookies or an analogous technology. Cookies are simple files that can be added to your device in order to allow us to remember you and recognize you when you revisit our site(s) and products.

By themselves, cookies do not provide any personal information, unless you decide to provide this information to us of your own volition, e.g.: by registering on our site(s). Once that personal information is provided, a link between this information and the information stored in the cookie is created. The cookie then creates a unique numerical ID for your device or Web browser. This ID will allow us to recognize you during different visits to our site(s) and establish a connection between your personal information and the manner in which you browse our site(s) or use the content posted on our site(s).

Cookies and related technology (Local Shared Objects, HTML5, cache cookies, web beacons, or clear gifs, etc.) are used to get insight into how you use our site(s) and products and to improve your user experience, the content and offers that we post on our site(s) to make them more relevant to your interests, and to show you the adverts you might find interesting. E.g.: we may rely on cookies to personalize your user experience (to let our services address to you by your name, etc.), to securely save your password, to keep your shopping cart contents, or to adjust the content, offers, and adverts to your interests.

Paid Products and Services

On our site(s), you may find offers to purchase paid products or services.

Order acceptance

If you purchase a product or service but do not receive a response from us that confirms that we have accepted your order, please contact us before you place a repeat order. You can find the contact information here.

Order refusal

Despite our eagerness to accept every valid order, we reserve the right not to complete and to refuse any order for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to, the following:

if we find a pricing error and/or find fault with any other information about the product or service
if we do not receive sufficient or valid billing, payment, or shipment information
if we have grounds to suspect that the payment information we received for an order is from a stolen payment card or is fraudulent in any other way
if we have discontinued the product or service ordered or if the product/ service is unavailable for any other reason
if an order is related to a payment dispute we had to deal with previously.

Order cancellation

Any product or service may become discontinued or otherwise unavailable, in which case, we reserve the right to:

cancel the order and refund the amount paid for the product or service, if the product or service is not subscription-based,
replace the product or service ordered with a similar product or service, if the product or service is subscription-based,
refund the amount paid for the product or service pro rata.

Resale restrictions

For the reasons of intellectual property right protection, any form of resale of the products or services purchased from TastyCookery is strictly prohibited. We reserve the right to refuse any order if we believe that it has been made with the purpose of reselling.

Purchase terms and fees

By ordering a product or service from tastycookery.com, you give your consent to pay all fees and charges to your account in a due and timely manner as envisaged by the fees, charges and billing terms in effect. You also give your consent to pay the taxes that apply to the purchase of your order. You assure that you will provide us with valid payment information necessary to process your orders. By providing us with the necessary payment information, you agree that:

we are authorized to issue immediate invoice to your Account for all fees and charges payable in association with your order,
we are authorized to share your payment information and other details necessary for the completion of the transaction via a third-party payment processor,
aforementioned authorizations will require no additional notice or consent.

Should you change your payment information, you agree to notify us of the changes immediately.

We reserve the right to change or update the product/service prices and/or billing methods at any time. Regardless of the reason, if we are not able to charge the payment to your payment card, or if your payment is returned, we reserve the right to terminate or temporarily suspend your access for the products or services that were not successfully paid for.

Automatic order renewal

If the product or service you purchased is subscription-based, i.e.: if it is automatically renewed, you will receive a corresponding notification during the order renewal process. The terms of automatic order renewal and cancellation that are incorporated into the order process are also hereby included into this policy.

Refunds

All fees are non-refundable, except for the cases elaborated upon in the “Order cancellation” Section.

Discounts, Promo Codes and Premium Offers

At our own decision, we may introduce discounts and promotional codes (Promo Codes). Users may redeem the discounts and Promo Codes in their accounts. We may create additional features and benefits that will be regulated by specific terms established on a per Promo Code basis. Promo Codes are also subject to a list of general regulations listed below:

A Promo Code may only be used once per user.
A Promo Code must be used in compliance with law, for the intended purpose and audience.
A Promo Code may not be shared, sold, duplicated, or otherwise transferred. It may not be posted on a publicly accessible forum or otherwise made available to the public, unless we give permission to do so.
We may disable a Promo Code at any time and for any reason, without any obligation on our part.
A Promo Code may only be used in accordance with the specific terms that are especially set forth for such Promo Code.
A Promo Code may not be redeemed for cash.
A Promo Code may have an expiration date; it may expire before you use it.

We may occasionally run promotional campaigns, e.g.: offer free products or services with your purchase, in association with certain products and services. All offers made in association with these promotional campaigns may become unavailable due to exhausted supply or be discontinued at our discretion, i.e.: at any time and without prior notice.

Third-Party Payment Processors

We use third-party payment processors for all payments. When you pay for your purchase, you provide your personal information needed to perform the transaction directly to the third-party payment processor. In such case, its privacy policy and security practices will apply to your personal information. We strongly encourage you to review that privacy policy before providing your personal information.

Online advertising

The advertising process that takes place on our site(s) and products is based on cookies and related technology.

On our site(s) and products, we use personalized online advertising, which enables us to deliver more relevant advertisements to the visitors of tastycookery.com. The advertisements you are shown are personalized based on your online behavior and the ways of interaction with our site(s) and products.

The entertaining content published on our site(s) and products is not in any way connected to or influenced by the advertisements displayed or the organizations and companies that advertise.

During your visits to our site(s) or products, we place advertising cookies on your device, alongside with regular cookies and related technology, in order to understand and remember what sort of content you are interested in viewing. Upon receiving this insight, we will be able to match the advertising we display on your browser to your interests.

For the purposes of personalizing online advertising, the information such as your name, email and postal address, or phone number is not gathered or used.

The information we gather in the above-stated manner may be shared with advertising partners, i.e.: the browsing patterns you displayed on tastycookery.com may be used to show you relevant advertising on other websites. Similarly, we on tastycookery.com may show you advertising based on the information about your browsing patterns that we received from our advertising partners.

Another form of online advertising that we and some of our advertising partners rely on to make the advertising you see more relevant based on your browsing patterns is online retargeting. E.g.: having visited an online clothes store and browsed certain clothing items, you may start seeing advertisements from the same online store or with the specific items you have been browsing.

Our advertisements on our site(s) and products and third-party sites

We promote our products and services with the help of online advertising as well, i.e.: you may see our products and services advertised on our and third-party sites, and in social media channels.

Personal information held by us and your rights

Should you have any questions concerning the following rights with regard to your personal information, we encourage you to contact us:

To request a copy of the personal information we keep about you or to make sure that we keep correct personal information about you, please reach us via our Customer Care. Requests for personal information copies or personal information correction are processed within one month. In case of a complicated request or several requests, it may take more time, of which we will notify you specifically. A copy of your personal information is provided to you free of charge; any other rights in regard to your personal information can also be exercised free of charge. However, if your request has no legal ground, is excessive, or if you make numerous repetitive requests, a reasonable fee may be charged.
You can withdraw the consent to use your personal information that you have previously given us at any time.
Where appropriate, you have a right to claim a copy of your personal information in a machine-readable format.
You can also exercise your right to request complete erasure of your personal information or restriction of the ways it is used. However, for specific legal reasons, we may not be able to satisfy your request, of which we will notify you specifically, enclosing a detailed explanation, in response to your request. Where appropriate, you can also exercise your right to restrict processing of your personal information for specific purposes.

Please address any of the requests listed above to our Customer Care.

Please note also that, for reasons of information protection, we may request additional information from you in order to confirm your identity.

Privacy rights for California residents

Under California Civil Code Section 1798.83, residents of California who have a business relationship with TastyCookery for personal, family, or household purposes can request the information we share with third parties for their marketing purposes. Please send your requests to us via Customer Care. This type of request can be made once per each calendar year at most. In response to your request, we will send a list of personal information categories that we shared with third parties for their marketing purposes in the previous calendar year, the list of third parties and their addresses to your email address. Please note that California Civil Code Section 1798.83 does not cover all personal information shared in the manned described above.

Inquiries about the manner of personal information usage

If you wish to request information on or if you are concerned about the ways in which we use your personal information, please contact us at via our Customer Care.

Please note that it may take up to 30 days to respond to your requests.

If you have a question that does not concern your personal information, please choose a convenient way to contact us here.

This Privacy Policy may be updated or changed. If we decide to do so, we will publish the updated or changed version of this Privacy Policy here. If the changes we introduce are considerable, we may notify our registered users of them via email. As the law will require, we will ask you to give additional permission or to opt out of the new ways in which we may use your personal information.