Privacy Policy

Thank you for taking the time to read Jacmus’ Privacy Policy.

This policy forms part of a collection of legal documents. This policy outlines the collection and use of information on this website as well as third-party services and applications connected to this website.

You should also check out our statement on the use of Cookies.

Definitions

User, you and your refers to online visitors and registered users who may be an individual or representative of an organization who browse and who may have the opportunity to register as a contributor.

Jacmus refers to this website that is owned and managed by iBlogyou in Australia. iBlogyou is a trading name for Tina Dubinsky Freelance Writer ABN 14 632 643 578.

Website, site and Jacmus refer to www.jacmus.com.

Contributor, registered users and writers refer to users invited to register for the purpose of contributing to the conversation at Jacmus.

Who is Jacmus?

The website address is https://jacmus.com.

Jacmus.com is owned and project managed by iBlogyou, an online marketing and publishing business. You can contact iBlogyou by using the details on our contact page.

Overview

This website began as an idea between a group of friends in 2012. It seeks to explore topics of interest and acts as a platform for writing about social issues.

At Jacmus, we support the human right for Freedom of Speech but also the ethos of Do No Harm.

We also support the right for people to control their privacy on the Internet.

If you want to use this website by giving false information, you can. You can also use technologies that hide your identity. However, if you use either of these methods you may not receive the full experience of what this website has to offer.

Intent

The intent of this website is to provide a platform for voices to speak out on social issues and other topics of interest. These issues include but are not limited to:

  • Science.
  • Society.
  • Philosophy.
  • Environment.
  • Current affairs.
  • Politics.
  • Technology,
  • Business
  • Religion.
  • Culture
  • Justice.
  • Entertainment.
  • Education.

What personal data we collect, why we collect it and who we share it with

Jacmus will never sell your personal data to anyone.

We define personal data and information by reviewing The Privacy Act and GDPR.

Personal data under the GDPR includes identification and identifiable information. Identification means your name, address, email, phone and date of birth. But identifiable information includes random identifiers such as an IP address.

In Australian, under The Privacy Act personal information includes data and opinions about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonably identified.

Contact forms

This website uses web forms to collect information for:

  • Contacting Us.
  • Surveys.
  • Questionnaires.
  • Polls.
  • Email Lists (regular updates, freebies, information of interest and newsletters).

Information is collected through forms for the purpose of providing interaction with our readership. While the site also gathers information for research and analysis.

Jacmus only collects the information you voluntarily input into these forms. The information collected depends on how you contact us, purpose and intent. In some cases, we may use third-party services.

If you contact iBlogyou, we may collect your contact details and any other information you give me. This information may include your name, company and website and a copy of the correspondence you send. We will only use this information for the purposes agreed to as described in the correspondence.

Comments

Making a comment is voluntary. The information you include is given freely. If you leave a comment, you provide me with permission to publish your comment for free. However, you retain ownership of the comment, so you can always contact me at support@jacmus.com to have it removed.

This site uses the Jetpack Commenting system. You can learn more about the privacy information for the commenting system here: https://jetpack.com/support/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.

What Jacmus shares with others

Automattic Inc & Gravatar

When leaving a comment, 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.

Automattic Inc & Akismet Anti-Spam

Jacmus shares information about users who comment on this site with Akismet anti-spam service owned and operated by Automattic.

The information they collect includes the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL, along with other information directly provided by the commenter such as their name, username, email address, and the comment itself.

Please see the Automattic Privacy Policy for more details.

Media

If you are a registered user and 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.

Security logs

This website runs security plugins. They collect information about some users in a text file security log. This information includes:

  • Remote addresses.
  • Hostnames.
  • Request methods.
  • Request URLs.
  • Query string.
  • Http User-Agent.

It does not record names or other personal detail.

The purpose of this information is to:

  • Secure the website.
  • Monitor suspicious activity including post and get requests that have been blocked or forbidden by the firewall plugin.
  • Diagnose whether pages, plugins and third-party services are functioning correctly.

Security logs can only be accessed by a person with access to the FTP login information or web host control. These logs capture information relating to errors, spammers and hacking attempts and are regularly reviewed and purged. 

You may also be interested in reading the section below subtitled: Security of Data.

Cookies

This website uses cookies to improve your user experience.  If you don’t want to use our cookies, then you can turn cookies off or block their use from your web browser. If you do this you may not experience the full functionality of this 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.

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. When you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

To learn more about the use of cookies on this website read our Cookie Statement: https://jacmus.com/cookie-statement/.

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

Analytics

Google Partner

This website uses Google Analytics. Google Analytics is an online programme that collects data about visitors to websites. It doesn’t personally identify users or associate IP addresses with individual people or other data held by Google unless you want it to.

Data Google collects includes:

  • Pages that users visit.
  • Length of time on each page.
  • The geographical location of users.
  • How users access websites (referral, direct, search).
  • Interests of users.
  • Browser and device used to access websites.
  • The traffic flow through a website (other pages visited on this website).
  • External links (which external links you’ve clicked on).
  • And more.

You can find out more information on how Google processes your data when you use their partners’ sites or apps at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

To opt-out of Google Analytics, you should disable or refuse the cookie, disable JavaScript, or use Google’s opt-out tool.

Jetpack

Jetpack’s WordPress plugin also serves third-party cookies on this website. They help to make your experience on this website run more smoothly. You can learn more about Jetpack’s cookies by visiting: https://jetpack.com/support/cookies/.

Automattic

Automattic is the owner of WordPress.com. This website uses services linked to WordPress.com. Read more about Automattic’s Cookies and Privacy Policy.

Akismet

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service, Akismet. Akismet receives the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL (along with other information directly provided by the commenter such as their name, username, email address, and the comment itself).

You can read more about Automattic’s privacy policy here: https://automattic.com/privacy-notice/.

Social Media Services

As well, this website connects to services from social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus and others. If you choose to “like” or “share” information from this website through these services, you should review the privacy policy of that service.

Advertising

Google Partner

This website is monetized through Google Adsense. The monetization of this website goes towards website costs including infrastructure, purchase of assets and production of content.

Both Google and Jacmus act as independent operators of personal data collected on this page for advertising. Google regularly makes decisions to improve and deliver advertising content to users.

You can read more about how Google collects and uses this information at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

Jacmus will never sell your personal information and you retain full control over your ads experience with Google tools such as those found in your Google account.

If you would like to know how to control Google advertising see: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/2662856.

Web hosting

No personal information is provided to the web host and service provider, SiteGround. While they license the equipment for Jacmus’ use on this website they do not collect or process any of its data.

However, their technicians may from time to time have access to the files and data of this website in order to provide technical server adjustments and maintenance. You can read their privacy policy here: https://www.siteground.com/viewtos/privacy_policy.

Why I collect information about your use

Aside from using this data to improve how this website’s SEO, Jacmus also uses this data to improve your experience of this website.

The purpose of polls, surveys and questionnaires are to create user interaction with this website. The voluntary information you enter may be used to interact with articles and blog posts.

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. Otherwise, they may instead be held in a moderation queue every time you comment.

For users that register on Jacmus, we also store the personal information provided in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username).

The website administrator can also see and edit that information.

If you complete a general survey, questionnaire or poll on this website only the data you entered is retained indefinitely. This website does not retain personal identifiers for surveys, questionnaires or polls unless you provide it.

As a policy, this website does not associate personal data with a general survey, questionnaire or poll results on this website. While you may be asked to log in to Google to register your vote and to ensure our voting process, Jacmus does not collect email addresses with surveys.

If you no longer want your data retained on this website, see the section below with the heading “Access to information about you.”

Access to information about you

If you have an account on this site or 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.

Jacmus will not sell or knowingly give-away your private information to marketers or any other 3rd parties for commercial or personal use.

Government organizations seeking information on registered users including authors, guest bloggers, visitors or commentators may require a warrant to obtain information.

If you want to find out what information Jacmus has in relation to you and your use of this website, please write to me at support@jacmus.com. Jacmus may ask you for your email address, username, IP address and other formal identification to verify and obtain this information.

You can also have personally identifiable information about you removed from this website by contacting me through the above email address.

Where permitted and applicable, I may charge an administration fee for searching, locating and retrieving information, as well as a fee for costs in collating and sending information.

A fee may also be charged for the cost of postage or other materials that provide access to the information, as well as costs associated with using an intermediary (refer to Chapter 12: APP section 12.78). As well, a 30 day turnaround time to verify and retrieve information, may be required.

How to opt-out of data collection

To opt-out of Google Analytics, you should disable or refuse the cookie, disable JavaScript, or use Google’s opt-out tool.

You can also use private browsing, use of a VPN and similar methods to opt-out of other data collection.

Additional information with regards to blocking cookies is available on Jacmus’ cookies-page.

What data breach procedures we have in place

When we becomes aware of a data breach our priority is to:

  • Secure the website and data. Jacmus’ process includes locking down the website from all other users. This gives Jacmus time to assess the impact of the security breach and be confident that the security breach is fixed.
  • Notify relevant authorities and third-party services about the data breach. In Australia, the NDB scheme requires any organization that trades in personal information to notify the Australian Information Commissioner of any breach of “personal information that is likely to result in serious harm to any individual affected.” (Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.) You can read more here: https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy-law/privacy-act/notifiable-data-breaches-scheme.
  • Notify users. Where possible Jacmus will notify registered users via email. Jacmus may also post a notice on this website with a link to this notice on social media services.

Data protection officer contact information

The Data protection officer is T Dubinsky.

For all enquiries regarding the protection of data and cookies please email support@jacmus.com.

Other Notices And Policies

In conjunction with this document, you should also read the pages that govern this and other activities on this website. These pages act as the full set of policies and statements and include:

By continuing to use this website and/or by using this website’s services, you agree to the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy.

Jacmus may update the policies and statements of this website from time to time and without notice to reflect changes to the services and collection of information.

By continuing to use this website after the changes are published, you agree to the revised terms of this Privacy Policy.


First published: May 27, 2018.  Last updated 28 August 2024.