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.

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 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:
Google Analytics Opt-out

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.

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

Display Ads

We may use third-party advertising companies to serve content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use cookies, as noted above.

Retargeting Ads

From time to time, the Website may engage in remarketing efforts with third-party companies, such as Google, Facebook, or Instagram, in order to market the Website. These companies use cookies to serve ads based on someone’s past visits to the Website.

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 mel@avirtualvegan.com to be removed from our mailing list.

Access – You may access the personal information we have about you by submitting a request to mel@avirtualvegan.com.

Amend – You may contact us at mel@avirtualvegan.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 mel@avirtualvegan.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.

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 mel@avirtualvegan.com 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 mel@avirtualvegan.com.

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

A Virtual Vegan is sometimes compensated to provide opinions on products, services, websites and various other topics. 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 that blogger’s 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.

CONTESTS & GIVEAWAYS

• Contents and giveaways on the Website are hosted by Gleam. See their website for details of their privacy policy.
• No purchase(s) necessary to win.
• Giveaways are for U.S. & Canada residents only (unless stated otherwise).
• Entrants must be 18 years of age or older to enter.
• Winners are chosen at random using Gleam’s software.
• Winners will be notified by email shortly after the giveaway ends. We are not responsible if a winner’s email inbox settings mark or categorize our notification email as junk, spam or the like.
• Winners will have 48 hours to claim the prize or another winner may be chosen at our discretion.
• We are not responsible for lost or damaged items. Replacement items will not be provided.
• We may, at our discretion, make public the first name and last initial of our giveaway winners. All other contact information will remain private.
• Since all of our giveaways are for cash, goods and/or services valued at less than US$600, we don’t and won’t be sending any winner a form 1099-misc for US income tax purposes, and a winner’s tax considerations and any tax or tax-related obligations are entirely their own.
• We reserve the right to end, extend, or change a giveaway for any reason and without prior notice.
• We reserve the right to consider any entrant ineligible who has been a winner in one of our giveaways in the last 12 months.
• In any of our giveaways of products from certain companies, we reserve the right to limit the pool of eligible entrants to those persons who are not wholesale members, affiliates, contractors or employees of those companies.
• Odds of winning in one of our giveaways depend on number of entrants.
• Void where prohibited by law.

HEADINGS

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

YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THESE TERMS

By using this Site, you signify your acceptance of this 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

At any time, please contact us at mel@avirtualvegan.com for questions related to this Privacy Policy.

Last updated: May 4, 2018.