PRIVACY POLICY for www.stevewyborney.com
Updated: August 14, 2023
The Nature of the Blog
This website www.stevewyborney.com is a personal math education blog that primarily features resources and instructional strategies for teachers to use in classrooms. The blog also details my personal journey as an educator and provides links to resources which I deem to be valuable to other educators. The blog also details my own evolving growth process, so the nature of the resources I share and recommend evolves as I grow in my own learning journey as an educator.
Intended Audience
The intended audience of the blog is professional educators. While many of the resources are intended specifically for math educators, there are also materials that are suitable for educators of any subject area.
Why This Privacy Policy
Privacy policies are becoming increasingly required. More importantly, they allow readers to access and understand what personal information is being gathered by specific websites. While the physical location of this blog (address detailed below) is in the United States, there are now many readers who are outside the United States, so this privacy policy is an effort to honor privacy policy standards broadly across many countries. Particularly informative in developing this policy has been my growing understanding of the requirements of GDPR.
What Data Do I Collect
The primary data that is collected through this site is email addresses from readers who directly and voluntarily enter their own email address. Typically, email addresses are provided to me by users who wish to access and be notified about current or future resources from my blog and/or to be notified of upcoming blog posts, resources, communications, or opportunities that are highly related to the nature of the blog. The lawful basis for collecting this information is legitimate interest (namely, to grow this business).
What if Blog Readers Do Not Provide Their Email Address
The blog is available to all readers. Providing an email address is not necessary to viewing the blog. While having an email address from readers is helpful (for example, it allows me to notify readers of updates, corrections, new resources, follow-up instructional strategies or upcoming opportunities), it is not necessary. For readers who do not provide an email address, I have no record of their personal data, specifically their email address.
Accessing Resources from the Blog Without Subscribing
Readers who would like to access materials which are freely available on the blog, but do not wish to join the mailing list, are entirely free to download those materials without subscribing to the blog. Links to the materials are available throughout the blog so readers can freely download materials for use in their classrooms.
Additionally, readers who do not want to subscribe, but instead request materials to be sent directly to them have their requests honored as well as I am able to reasonably do so.
Please note, since I am working in schools all throughout the day, it may be several days before I am able to respond to direct requests for materials, and it is often more efficient to use the direct download links to access the materials.
Blog Readers Who Provide Email Addresses
Blog readers who entrust me with their email addresses so that I can communicate them should know that I keep their email address with utmost respect and in confidence and only use those addresses to notify them of updates, blog posts, corrections, resources, or opportunities (such as classes) that are related to the nature of the blog. I do use third-party software, as described below, to efficiently process email addresses and to send email messages.
Why Do I Collect Email Addresses and What Do I Do With That Data
I collect email addresses so that I can occasionally notify blog readers through email of blog posts, resources, or other updates or opportunities that are related to the nature of the blog. The email addresses which are provided to me are used to directly communicate with the blog subscribers who provided their own email addresses. I do use two services to help me gather, process, categorize, and store email addresses and to send email messages to blog readers. These are detailed in the next paragraphs.
How Do I collect Email Addresses and How Do I Keep Them Safe
I use an email service provider called ConvertKit which allows me to gather, process and store email addresses, and to send email messages to blog subscribers, and to see who has opened the email messages or clicked on links within those messages. ConvertKit’s entire privacy policy is found here and includes the following information:
EU-U.S. AND SWISS-U.S. PRIVACY SHIELD
ConvertKit complies with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss- U.S. Privacy Shield Framework (collectively, “Privacy Shield”), as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of Personal Data transferred from the European Union (“EU”), European Economic Area (“EEA”), and Switzerland to the United States.
ConvertKit has certified to the U.S. Department of Commerce that it adheres to the Privacy Shield Principles, including the Supplemental Principles (collectively, the “Privacy Shield Principles”). We are committed to subjecting all Personal Data received from the EU/EEA and Switzerland to the Privacy Shield Principles. If there is any conflict between the terms in this Privacy Policy and the Privacy Shield Principles, the Privacy Shield Principles shall govern.
To learn more about the Privacy Shield program, visit https://www.privacyshield.gov, and to view our certification, visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/list.
Lawful Basis for Collecting Email Addresses
To be clear, the Lawful Basis for collecting email addresses is legitimate interest (namely, to grow this business).
What Data Can I Access Through an Email Service Provider
Through the use of an email service provider I can see how many and which subscribers open email messages or click on links within those messages. This is particularly useful since email service providers typically charge blog owners such as myself a fee based on the number of subscribers. In general, the more subscribers, the greater the fee I pay to communicate with my contact list about new resources that I’m making available to them.
By accessing information about email addresses that are not opening messages, I can periodically unsubscribe those readers who are either not receiving or are not reading the email messages. Particularly in the field of education, where educators move from one school district to another and leave behind unused email addresses, it helps to be able to know which email addresses are either not receiving or are not opening email messages so that I can reasonably assume that those email addresses are no longer active and can periodically unsubscribe the email addresses which reasonably appear to no longer be active.
What if Subscribers Wish to Opt Out and No Longer Receive Email Messages
Blog subscribers may opt out at any point by unsubscribing from the mailing list. The option to opt out of the list is always available to anyone who has subscribed. If anyone on the mailing list unsubscribes they will no longer receive email messages. Every email message I send through ConvertKit includes an unsubscribe link with it so readers readily have access to this option. Alternatively, subscribers can contact me directly at steve@stevewyborney.com and I can personally unsubscribe them from the mailing list.
Other Tools Used on the Blog
- I use also use a tool called LeadPages to offer readers the opportunity to voluntarily subscribe to the blog by providing their email addresses. LeadPages entire privacy policy is found here. LeadPages tools can be seen on my website in some of the optin boxes and graphics that allow readers to voluntarily enter their email addresses. I use Leadpages for 2 reasons. First, its form builder allows me to construct more visually appealing forms which allow readers to subscribe to the blog. Second, LeadPages has the capacity to deliver more instructional materials to readers. While I can give free materials to blog readers though ConvertKit optin forms, the LeadPages optin forms allow me to freely give away greater file sizes and therefore more instructional materials to readers.
- I also use a tool call Ezoic, which appears on the blog in the form of advertisements. The specific Privacy Policy for Ezoic can be found here.
Analytics
To determine how the website and the pages on the website are performing, I use google analytics.
Blog Comments
Readers are welcome and encouraged to leave comments on the blog. Readers also have the ability to interact with each other by responding to one another’s comments. When visitors leave comments on the site, the comment and the provided name is shown on the site. This allows me to respond to comments and to answer any questions that readers post in the comment form.
Spam Filtering
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. Comments that appear to be spam are not approved and will not appear in the comments section.
Cookies
If you leave a comment on the 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.
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.
Third-Party Links
The website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, advertisements, and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third-parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit. To be helpful, the other websites (Tools) that I use are listed above along with access to their privacy policies.
Newsletter Sponsorships
We engage others to serve newsletter advertisements and perform related services across the web and in mobile applications. You can learn more about interest-based ads, or opt out of having your web browsing information used for behavioral advertising purposes by companies that participate in the Digital Advertising Alliance, by visiting www.aboutads.info/choices.
Opting Out of Targeted Advertising, Sharing, and Sales
We process personal information to understand and improve your experience with our Services and to serve you targeted advertisements. Some of these activities may be considered “sales” or “sharing” of your personal information or “targeted advertising” under certain privacy laws. To opt out of preference-based advertising, use the form linked below. Note, this will not stop you from seeing sponsorships or advertisements in our newsletters, but those ads will be selected randomly rather than based on your known preferences.
Contact Details
Blog URL: www.stevewyborney.com
Email Address: steve@stevewyborney.com
Postal address: P.O. Box 281, Ontario, Oregon 97914
It is very important that the information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. Please let us know if at any time your personal information changes by emailing us at steve@stevewyborney.com
Changes to the Privacy Policy
We may review and update this Privacy Policy from time to time according to our sole discretion and will notify blog subscribers of such changes. Additionally, the updated Privacy Policy will be posted here.
Privacy Policy Updated: Updated: August 14, 2023