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Privacy Policy

A Virtual Vegan found at https://avirtualvegan.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 about 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 You Voluntarily Submit to the Website: We may collect personal information from you such as your name or email address. For example, you may voluntarily submit information to the Website by leaving a comment, subscribing to a newsletter, or submitting a contact form. In addition, you are able to create a user profile in order to save your favourite recipes, which allows you to submit your email address and create a password. We will store the email address, but your password will not be visible in our records.

Automatically-Collected Information: We automatically collect certain information about you and the device with which you access the Website. For example, when you use the Website, we 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.

Cookies: We may log information using cookies, 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.

HOW YOUR INFORMATION MAY BE USED

We may use the information collected in the following ways:

  • To operate and maintain the Website;
  • To identify you as a user of the Website, and customize the Website for you;
  • To create your account, identify you as a user of the Website, and customize the Website for your account; 
  • 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.
  • To improve my products and services.
  • To run a promotion, contest, survey or other Site feature

THIRD-PARTY USE OF PERSONAL 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. Data will be retained by Google Analytics for a total of 26 months after which time it will be deleted.

You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking by clicking this button:
[gadwp_useroptout html_tag="button"]Google Analytics Opt-out[/gadwp_useroptout]

AWeber – 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 Aweber’s privacy policy for further information.

Wordfence - this service is used to keep the Website secure. It is powered by a constantly updated Threat Defense Feed, and helps stop the Website from getting hacked.  Constant scanning leverages the same proprietary feed, alerting us quickly in the event the site is compromised. The Live Traffic view gives us real-time visibility into traffic and hack attempts on the website.

Cloudflare - this service is used for website security and caching. Any personal information obtained by Cloudflare is not shared with any third parties.

Slickstream - Used to personalize your website experience and recommend recipes you may like. Slickstream also allows you to save your favourite recipes. Favourites are saved in your browser temporarily by default, but if you input your email address when prompted, your favorites will then save and sync across all of your devices (phone, desktop, tablet etc) so that you can access them anywhere and at any time. Please refer to Slickstream'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.

ANONYMOUS DATA

From time to time, we may use anonymous data, which does not identify you alone, or when combined with data from other parties. This type of anonymous data may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses. Examples of this anonymous data may include analytics or information collected from cookies.

PUBLICLY VISIBLE INFORMATION

If you leave a comment on the website, certain information may be publicly visible. At your option, you may add an avatar and a link to your website.Your email address will never be available publicly.

Users may see your name, avatar and website information.

COOKIES

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, by using a corresponding setting of your internet browser and may thus permanently deny the setting of cookies. 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.

ADVERTISING

Mediavine Programmatic 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 first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website. The cookie may collect information relating to your use of the Website, information about your device such as the device’s IP address and browser type, demographic data and, if you arrived at the Website via a link from a third-party site, the URL of the linking page.

First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The "help" feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/.

Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site.

The Website may collect IP addresses and location information to serve personalized ads and pass it to Mediavine. 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. You may also visit http://optout.aboutads.info/#/ and http://optout.networkadvertising.org/# to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at http://www.aboutads.info/appchoices to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.

Mediavine partners with the following data processors:

  1. Pubmatic. You may find Pubmatic’s privacy policy through this link. The data collected on the Website may be transferred to Pubmatic and its demand partners for interest-based advertising. Statistical information and other non-cookie technologies (such as eTags and web or browser cache) may be used by third parties on this Website. Browser settings that block cookies may have no effect on these technologies, but you may clear your cache to delete such trackers. Data collected from a particular browser or device may be used with another computer or device that is linked to the browser or device on which such data was collected.
  2. Criteo. You may find Criteo’s privacy policy through this link. The data collected on the Website may be transferred to Criteo and its demand partners for interest-based advertising. Criteo may collect, access, and use non-identifying data to improve the Criteo Technology and other Criteo products, programs, and/or services. This non-identifying data may include on-site user behavior and user/page content data, URLs, statistics, or internal search queries. The non-identifying data are collected through the ad call and stored with a Criteo cookie for a maximum period of 13 months.
  3. Pulsepoint. You may find Pulsepoint’s privacy policy through this link.
  4. LiveRamp. You may find LiveRamp’s privacy policy through this link. When you use the Website, we share information that we may collect from you, such as your email (in hashed, de-identified form), IP address or information about your browser or operating system, with LiveRamp Inc, and its group companies (‘LiveRamp’). LiveRamp may use a cookie on your browser and match your shared information to their on- and offline marketing databases and those of its advertising partners to create a link between your browser and information in those other databases. This link may be shared by our partners globally for the purpose of enabling interest-based content or advertising throughout your online experience (e.g. cross device, web, email, in-app, etc.) by third parties unaffiliated with our website. These third parties may in turn link further demographic or interest-based information to your browser. To opt out of LiveRamp’s targeted advertising, please go here: https://liveramp.com/opt_out/
  5. RhythmOne. You may view RhythmOne’s privacy policy through this link. RhythmOne uses cookies and similar tracking technologies (such as mobile device identifiers and digital fingerprinting) to provide its services. RhythmOne may use aggregated information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other Websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please visit the following webpage: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.
  6. District M. You may find District M’s privacy policy through this link.
  7. YieldMo. You may find YieldMo’s privacy policy through this link. If you want to opt out of receiving interest based ads from Yieldmo or exercise your right under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) to opt-out of the sale of your personal information, you may do so through this link.
  8. The Rubicon Project. You may find Rubicon’s privacy policy through this link. If you want to opt out of receiving interest based ads from Rubicon or exercise your right under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) to opt-out of the sale of your personal information, you may do so through this link. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page.
  9. Amazon Publisher Services. You may find Amazon Publisher Services’ privacy policy through this link.
  10. AppNexus. You may find the AppNexus privacy policy through this link.
  11. OpenX. You may find OpenX’s privacy policy through this link.
  12. Verizon Media formerly known as Oath. You may find Verizon Media’s privacy policy through this link. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page to opt-out of the use of cookies for interest-based advertising.
  13. TripleLift. You may find TripleLift’s privacy policy through this link. To opt out of receiving interest-based advertising (including retargeting) from TripleLift’s services through the use of cookies in your current browser and for more information on what it means to opt-out, please go to www.triplelift.com/consumer-opt-out.
  14. Index Exchange. You may find Index Exchange’s privacy policy through this link. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page to opt-out of the use of cookies for interest-based advertising.
  15. Sovrn. You may find Sovrn’s privacy policy through this link.
  16. GumGum. You may find GumGum’s privacy policy through this link. GumGum may (i) use place and use cookies on end users’ browsers or use web beacons to collect information about end users who visit such Publisher Websites and (ii) link such collected end user information to other end user information provided by third parties in order to deliver targeted Advertisements to such end users.
  17. Digital Remedy. You may find Digital Remedy’s privacy policy through this link.
  18. MediaGrid. You may find MediaGrid’s privacy policy through this link. MediaGrid may collect and store information about end-user interactions with this website through cookies, advertising IDS, pixels and server-to-server connections. MediaGrid was receive the following information: the page an End-User has requested and the referring/exit pages; Timestamp information (i.e., the date and time the End-User has visited the page); IP address; mobile device identifier; device model; device operating system; browser type; carrier; gender; age; geolocation (including GPS coordinates); clickstream data; cookie information; first-party identifiers'; and hashed email addresses; demographic and inferred interest information; and post-conversion data (from both online and offline behaviour). Some of this data is gathered from this website and others is gathered from advertisers. MediaGrid uses this data to provide its services. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page to opt-out of the use of cookies for interest-based advertising or review their privacy policy for more information.
  19. RevContent - You may find RevContent’s privacy policy through this link. RevContent may collect information about your browser or device, including browser type, IP Address, device type, user agent string, and operating system. RevContent also collects information about the websites you visit through their services, such as date and time of access and specific pages accessed and the content and ads you click on. You may opt-out of any personalization track by opting-out of RevContent’s data collection.
  20. Centro, Inc. - You may find Centro’s privacy policy through this link. You may find opt-out information for Centro’s services through the privacy policy link.
  21. 33Across, Inc. - You may find 33Across’s privacy policy through this link. To opt-out of personalized advertising, please visit https://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1.
  22. Conversant. LLC - You may find Conversant’s privacy policy through this link. Conversant uses information that does not directly identify you, such as information about your browser type, time and date of visit, your browsing or transaction activity, the subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over, and a unique identifier (such as a cookie string, or a unique advertising identifier provided by your mobile device) during your visits to this and other websites and apps in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. Conversant may use technologies such as cookies and other tracking technologies to collect this information. To learn more about interest-based advertising, or to opt-out, you can visit www.youronlinechoices.eu or https://www.networkadvertising.org/.

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 for an affiliate partnership, a cookie will be placed on your browser to track any sales for purposes of commissions.

A Virtual Vegan is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and links to Amazon.com.  As part of this Amazon Associates program, the Website will post customized links, provided by Amazon, to track the referrals to their website. This program utilizes cookies to track visits for the purposes of assigning commission on these sales.

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

Opt-out – You may opt-out of future email communications by following the unsubscribe links in our emails. You may also notify us at [email protected] to be removed from our mailing list.

Access – You may access the personal information we have about you by submitting a request to [email protected]

Amend – You may contact us at [email protected] 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 [email protected]

Please note that we may need to retain certain information for record-keeping 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.

CHILDREN'S INFORMATION

The Website does not knowingly collect any personally identifiable information from children under the age of 16. If a parent or guardian believes that the Website has personally identifiable information of a child under the age of 16 in its database, please contact us immediately at [email protected] and we will use our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.

COPYRIGHT & TRADEMARK

Unless otherwise specified, all materials appearing on this site, including the text, site design, logos, graphics, icons, and images, as well as the selection, assembly and arrangement thereof, are the sole property of Melanie McDonald and A Virtual Vegan, Copyright © 2015, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. You may use the content of this site only for the purpose of reading the information on this site, for your own education, for shopping on this site or for placing an order through this site and for no other purpose. No materials from this site may be copied, reproduced, modified, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any form or by any means without our prior written permission. All rights not expressly granted herein are reserved. Any unauthorized use of the materials appearing on this site may violate copyright, trademark and other applicable laws and could result in criminal or civil penalties.

My images are protected by Pixsy who work to resolve cases of unauthorized image use. PIXSY can and will request royalties for commercial, institutional and certain organizational uses of images and will take legal action on my behalf if a resolution cannot be met.

I do not allow republication of my post or recipe text without consent. If my recipes are copied and pasted then republished onto other websites, it can negatively affect how A Virtual Vegan gets displayed in search results, which just isn't fair to me. Plus, there are copyright issues too. If you have a question about a recipe, please feel free to email me on [email protected]

You are welcome to share a photograph with credit to me and a link to this website, however using a photograph without credit and no link, or re-publishing the recipe in its entirety is strictly forbidden. Many, many hours of work go into creating each of my recipes and I ask that you respect that.  By making simple substitutions you do not make it an original recipe, so please refrain from adapting the recipes without properly linking back to my original recipe.

NO ADVICE GIVEN

The beneficial low and no-cost advice shared on our site has been provided for general educational purposes only and for no other purpose and has not been evaluated by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA). Nothing we provide for you here is intended to replace any form of competent professional advice. If you are in need of professional advice, including medical, nutrition, mental health, legal, accounting or tax advice, or any other form of professional advice, then you should seek out a competent professional in that area who can ensure you are provided help that is specific to your particular situation and circumstances.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION

Nutritional information is calculated for each recipe using online calculators. I cannot guarantee the breakdown is accurate and the figures given are designed to be a guide only. Variations may occur for various reasons and we make no representation or warranty of the accuracy of this information.

SPONSORED WORK

This Site may engage in sponsored campaigns with various influencer networks, brands, and agencies. All sponsored content is duly disclosed in accordance with the FTC’s requirements. From time to time, these sponsored campaigns utilize tracking pixels which may contain cookies to collect data regarding usage and audience. This information is collected by the sponsoring company to track the results of the campaign. No personally identifiable information collected by the Site is used in conjunction with these tracking pixels.

Even though we may receive compensation for our posts, advertisements or other content, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on any blog, guest post or in any form of comments on our website are purely our 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.

HEADINGS

The headings for sections herein are for convenience only and shall not affect the meaning of the provisions of this privacy policy.

ADDITIONAL RIGHTS OF EEA (EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA) RESIDENTS

If you are a resident of a country in the EEA, you have the rights, among others, to:

(i) access your personal data

(ii) ensure the accuracy of your personal data

(iii) the right to have us delete your personal data

(iv) the right to restrict further processing of your personal data, and

(v) the right to complain to a supervisory authority in your country of residence in the event that data is misused

If you believe that our processing of your personal information infringes data protection laws, you have a legal right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority responsible for data protection. You may do so in the EU member state of your residence, your place of work or the place of the alleged infringement.

You may exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal data by written notice to us addressed to the following:

EU PRIVACY COMPLAINTS/INFORMATION
A VIRTUAL VEGAN
PO BOX 99900 UE 786 036 RPO
COLWOOD CORNERS COLWOOD BC
V9B 0P8 CANADA

THE CALIFORNIA CONSUMER PRIVACY ACT 

California Consumer Privacy Act (hereafter, “CCPA”) is a California privacy law that will be effective as of January 1, 2020.

Under CCPA, California consumers have several added rights and privileges that serves to protect their personal information being used in a way that the consumer does not agree with. This notice is in place to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) of 2018) that goes into effect as of January 1, 2020. 

The consumer has the right to request and know what categories of information, what personal information we collect, how we collect it, and for what purpose. 

CONSUMER’S RIGHT TO DEMAND DISCLOSURE

You have the right to demand that we disclose what categories of information we have or are collecting on you, and what personal information we have collected or are collecting on you. 

In an effort for full compliance, we are disclosing the categories of information we are generally collecting on and/or about consumers. 

As a consumer, you are free to request disclosure of your information at no extra charge to you if you make such requests no more than twice (2) during a 12-month period. 

General Information We Collect

We generally collect personal information, as listed under CCPA, in the form of NAME, EMAIL ADDRESS, GOOGLE ANALYTICS, IP ADDRESS, 

We collect the information on consumer stated above through, OPT-IN FORMS, GOOGLE ANALYTICS, FACEBOOK PIXEL, EMAIL, NEWSLETTER. 

You have the right to request disclosure of your collected personal information from us by contacting us at Jere’ Cassidy @One Hot Oven, [email protected], 

CONSUMER’S RIGHT TO REQUEST DELETION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

Under CCPA, a consumer has the right to contact the business that collected personal information on consumer and request deletion of that information. 

There are certain limited circumstances when the business does not have comply and delete the information.

  • To provide and complete the transaction for which purpose the information was collected in the first place (example: selling and delivering goods and services);
  • In compliance with a legal obligation;
  • To carry out and be compliant with another legal requirement;
  • To keep it for internal use that is reasonable to the consumer.

CONSUMER’S RIGHT TO DEMAND DISCLOSURE IN CASE OF SALE 

As a consumer, you have the right to request full disclosure if the business sells or transfers your personal information for a business purpose. You have the right to know what information specifically has been sold or transferred, to whom, and for what business purpose.  

We DO NOT SELL INFORMATION personal information we collect from consumers. 

However, in the event we do so within the next 12 months, you will be given the option to opt-out of that if you don’t wish for your personal information to be sold.  

The consumer has the right to request that we disclose what category of information we sold, the specific pieces of information we sold, to whom we sold it, and for what business purpose.

CONSUMER’S RIGHT TO REQUEST BUSINESS NOT SELL INFORMATION

Under CCPA, the consumer has the right to request that a business that collects personal information on consumers does not sell that information to anyone.

You have the right to opt out and can do this by emailing us at [[email protected]]. Therefore, you can be sure that your personal information and in general data collected on you will never be sold. 

BUSINESS WILL NOT DISCRIMINATE AGAINST CONSUMER 

If you choose to exercise your right and request that we never sell your information, in accordance to CCPA, we will not and cannot discriminate against you for choosing to exercise your right. 

You will have access to the same services, at the same prices as everyone else. The quality and conditions of products and services you receive will be the same as everyone else, regardless if exercised your CCPA right to forbid selling your information.

SECURING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Under CCPA, a business that collects or receives personal information about the consumer must implement and maintain reasonable security procedures and practices. 

If a business experiences a data breach, then it will be held liable if it did not implement and maintain reasonable security procedures and practices. 

We DO our due diligence, and maintain reasonable security procedures and practices to make sure that the consumer data and private information we collected is safe and secure. 

Here are the security practices we have in place to protect consumer data:

  • All the systems containing the consumer information (such as the email service provider) are password protected. 
    • The passwords are considered very strong and are not easy to figure out.
  • Only 2 people know the password. 
  • To make our Email Service Provider database even more secure, we change the password every 3 months. 
  • Our computers are protected from third-party access by having an additional password layer before they can start working on the computer. 
  • An endpoint firewall is active and there is a real time malware scanner. 
  • Aside from what’s stated above, we take reasonable precautions on a daily basis to protect consumers and their information from unauthorized use, modification, destruction, and disclosure. 

CONTACT US

If you wish to exercise your rights under CCPA and make requests for disclosure, deletion or disclosure about sale of information, you can contact us directly and make such requests. You can also contact us at anytime if you’re not happy about the way we’re handling your data.

We will respond as quickly as reasonably possible. Please have in mind that we don’t have to comply with requests if you make them more than twice during a 12-month period.

You may exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal data by written notice to us addressed to the following:

CCPA REQUESTS
A VIRTUAL VEGAN
PO BOX 99900 UE 786 036 RPO
COLWOOD CORNERS COLWOOD BC
V9B 0P8 CANADA

YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THESE TERMS

By using this Site, you signify your acceptance of this privacy policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use our Site. Your continued use of the Site following the posting of changes to this policy will be deemed your acceptance of those changes.

CONTACT INFORMATION

For questions related to this Privacy Policy contact [[email protected]] or write to:

You may exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal data by written notice to us addressed to the following:

A VIRTUAL VEGAN 
PO BOX 99900 UE 786 036 RPO
COLWOOD CORNERS COLWOOD BC
V9B 0P8 CANADA

Last updated: June 2nd, 2020.