Privacy & Cookie Policy

Last Updated: 22 August 2022

Who we are

At Explore With Wonder, accessible from https://explorewithwonder.com, one of our main priorities is the privacy of our visitors. This Privacy Policy document contains types of information that is collected and recorded by Explore With Wonder and how we use it.

If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us by email at kseniakhor@gmail.com.

Affiliate Disclosure

Some links on this website are affiliate links, meaning that I will possibly make a small commission if you click on the link or make a purchase using the link. If you make a purchase, you’ll pay the same price whether you use the affiliate link or go directly to the vendor’s website without using an affiliate link. I only recommend products and services that I know and love. When you use an affiliate link, you help support this website and content creation. Thank you for your support.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

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.

We used the Akismet plugin to detect spam. It stores data of spammers within its database to use against spam.

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

To assist with sending you requested information, we use the Contact Form 7 plugin to collect and store your email address. Contact Form 7 outlines their use of your personal data and anonymized data here. The information is also stored in the database on our hosting server for backup and later reference purposes. We use the Flamingo plugin to safely manage this data. You may opt out of the collection of your data by unsubscribing (we will remove your data) and contacting Contact Form 7 using the instructions on their privacy page.

Log Files

Explore With Wonder follows a standard procedure of using log files. These files log visitors when they visit websites. All hosting companies do this and a part of hosting services’ analytics. The information collected by log files include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date and time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks. These are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. The purpose of the information is for analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users’ movement on the website, and gathering demographic information.

Cookies and Web Beacons

What are Cookies?

Like any other website, Explore With Wonder uses ‘cookies’. Cookies are small text files that are used to store small pieces of information. They are stored on your device when the website is loaded on your browser. These cookies help us make the website function properly, make it more secure, provide better user experience, and understand how the website performs and to analyse what works and where it needs improvement.

How do we use Cookies?

As most of the online services, our website uses first-party and third-party cookies for several purposes. First-party cookies are mostly necessary for the website to function the right way, and they do not collect any of your personally identifiable data.

The third-party cookies used on our website are mainly for understanding how the website performs, how you interact with our website, keeping our services secure, providing advertisements that are relevant to you, and all in all providing you with a better and improved user experience and help speed up your future interactions with our website.

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

What types of cookies do we use?

Essential: Some cookies are essential for you to be able to experience the full functionality of our site. They allow us to maintain user sessions and prevent any security threats. They do not collect or store any personally identifiable information. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will then not work.

Statistics: These cookies store information like the number of visitors to the website, the number of unique visitors, which pages of the website have been visited, the source of the visit, etc. These data help us understand and analyze how well the website performs and where it needs improvement. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance. Without these cookies, certain functionality may become unavailable.

Marketing: Our website displays advertisements. These cookies are used to personalise the advertisements that we show to you so that they are meaningful to you. These cookies also help us keep track of the efficiency of these ad campaigns, as well as the volume of visitors. They track details about visitors such as the number of unique visitors, number of times particular ads have been displayed, the number of clicks the ads have received, and are also used to measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns by building up user profiles. These are set by trusted third party networks, and are generally persistent in nature.

The information stored in these cookies may also be used by the third-party ad providers to show you ads on other websites on the browser as well.

Functional: These are the cookies that help certain non-essential functionalities on our website. These functionalities include embedding content like videos or sharing content of the website on social media platforms.

Preferences: These cookies help us store your settings and browsing preferences like language preferences so that you have a better and efficient experience on future visits to the website.

How can I control the cookie preferences ?

Should you decide to change your preferences later through your browsing session, you can click on the “Privacy & Cookie Policy” tab on your screen. This will display the consent notice again enabling you to change your preferences or withdraw your consent entirely.

In addition to this, different browsers provide different methods to block and delete cookies used by websites. You can change the settings of your browser to block/delete the cookies. To find out more about how to manage and delete cookies, visit wikipedia.org, www.allaboutcookies.org.

Embedded content from other websites

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

Analytics

We use Google Analytics to record information about the pages a user has seen, for example the URL of the page, time of day, device used, etc. The information that we collect anonymized and sent to Google Analytics for analysis.

Google Analytics mainly uses first-party cookies to report on visitor interactions on this website. Users may disable cookies or delete any individual cookie.

In addition, Google Analytics supports an optional browser add-on that – once installed and enabled – disables measurement by Google Analytics for any site a user visits. Note that this add-on only disables Google Analytics measurement.

Google Analytics also collects Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to provide and protect the security of the service, and to give website owners a sense of which country, state, or city in the world their users come from (also known as “IP geolocation”).

See this page for Google Analytics security and usage of data.

Who we share your data with

Persons or entities with whom you consent to have your Personal Data shared. We will never sell, rent, or lease your Personal Data to a third party.

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.

We will retain your Personal Data for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy unless a longer retention period is required or allowed by law.

What rights you have over your data

If you 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.

Most advertising networks offer you a way to opt out of Interest Based Advertising. If you would like to find out more information, please visit www.aboutads.info/choices or www.youronlinechoices.com.

Where we send your data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. Third parties have access to your data as noted within this agreement.

Online Privacy Policy Only

This Privacy Policy applies only to our online activities and is valid for visitors to our website with regards to the information that they shared and/or collect in Explore With Wonder. This policy is not applicable to any information collected offline or via channels other than this website.

Protection of Personal Data

We use reasonable and appropriate physical, electronic, and administrative safeguards to protect personal data from loss, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction, taking into account the nature of the Personal Data and risks involved in processing that information.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

Explore With Wonder may change this Privacy Policy at any time. The most recent version of the Privacy Policy is indicated by the “Last Updated” date at the top of the Privacy Policy. All changes are effective immediately upon posting. Please review this Privacy Policy frequently to stay updated on changes that may affect you. Your continued use of this website signifies your continuing consent to be bound by this Privacy Policy.

Consent

By using our website, you hereby consent to our Privacy Policy.