PRIVACY POLICY

Last Updated: September 4th, 2020

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This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) is intended to describe the data collection practices of BestPetEssentials.com (“we”, “our” or “us”) in relation to the website available at: www.BestPetEssentials.com (together with its subdomains, features, and services available thereon, the “Site”), and in relation to your use or interaction with any content, offer, feature, element or service we provide you with through the Site (the “Services”). The information is presented with the chosen headings and subheadings in an order designed for ease of reading only (and are not to be used for interpretive purposes), and we hope they help you navigate this Privacy Policy.

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We retain the right, at our sole and absolute discretion, to alter this Privacy Policy at any time. In such an event, we will post the altered Privacy Policy on the Site, and the “Last Updated” stated at the shall reflect the date on which the altered version takes effect. Any visit to or use you make of the Site after such date, serves as your consent and acknowledgement of the altered Privacy Policy. In the event that we make meaningful changes, we will take care to notify you more prominently, e.g., posting a notification on the Site seven (7) days before the modifications take effect. In which case, the modifications will be effective seven (7) days after such notification was published.

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The Privacy Policy includes:

1. Terms of Use

2. Information we collect

3. Choice, Consent and alterations

4. How We Use Personal Information.

5. Sharing Your Information with Third Parties

6. Engagement with and Links to Third Party Properties

7. Accuracy and Access; Deletion

8. Choices and Opt-Out

9. Information Security

10. Non-US Users

11. Children’s Privacy

12. Commitment

13. Contact Us

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1. Terms of Use - This privacy policy constitutes an integral part of the Site’s Terms of Use (the “Terms”), a copy of which can be accessed at: Terms of Use. Capitalized terms are defined either in this Privacy Policy or in the Terms of Use.

2. Information we collect - When you access the Site, or use the Services, we reserve the right to collect information about your visit and the way you use the Site and the Services, in any of the following ways:

   1. Information Provided by You. Some of the Services will necessitate submitting certain Personal Information in order that they may operate properly. Your specific and active consent for providing us with Personal Information will be required for some of the features and/or services (e.g. promotional material and forms, newsletters in certain Sites occasionally), whereas other information will be collected upon your agreement to this Privacy Policy, as described below.
      For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, “Personal Information” refers to information used to personally identify an individual, such as a first and last name, phone number, a home or other physical address, an email address or other contact information, that could be used either alone or in combination with other information. In some jurisdictions the IP address that is allocated to your device by your Internet service provider may also constitute Personal Information. In such cases, this information will be handled as personal in terms of all handling and safeguarding aspects. This information, however, will not be used for user identification or personalisation purposes.

      1. Third Party Forms and Services. The Site classifies, compares and evaluates various third-party businesses, commercial entities, and brands (collectively, “Partners”) and their corresponding products and/or services (collectively, “Products”). We may, every once in a while, suggest to you services, offers and Products of our Partners. In the event that you decide to make use of these Products, you will be able to do so by filling out an online form, which will be used, along with your information to facilitate your connection and/or interaction with the relevant Partner (“Lead”). In addition, if you wish to receive further information about a Product or a Partner, or if you wish to complete a transaction with a partner, and do so by clicking on the relevant Partner tab or icon, you will likely be directed to an online form that the partner operates and owns (the “Landing Page”); likewise, you may also be directed to the same Landing Page using other online searches and websites. In both incidents, however, you may be prompted to enter certain information on the Landing Page, including Personal Information such as your name, phone number, and email address (such information will be collectively referred to as “Landing Page Info”). Take into consideration that the Landing Page Info that you enter is collected directly by the Partner who owns the Landing Page, and that the information is kept and used in accordance to a different privacy policy and data collection practices. We highly recommend referring to such privacy policies to fully understand how your Personal Information is collected and used.

      2. Contact Us. You could be required to provide us with certain Personal information, such as your name and email address, if you send us a ‘Contact Us’ (or similar) request, be it by sending an email to an email address displayed on our Site, by submitting an online form that we make available, by using a feedback form or reporting a feature, or by other means. Such information submitted by you, including the content of your request to us, shall be used for processing and addressing your request. It may also be used for our legitimate business purposes described further in sections 4 and 5 of this Privacy Policy.

      3. Blogs, Newsletters, Surveys and Promotions. The Site may include articles, reviews, and a blog forum presenting information about our services, Partners, Products, and the relevant market vertical. You may also be offered the opportunity to subscribe to newsletters and take part in surveys and other promotional activities (some of which may be administered by us, whereas others may be administered by third-party services with which we engage). In each of the aforementioned cases, your engagement (such as taking part in a survey, responding on a blog forum, or subscribing to a newsletter) may necessitate providing certain Personal Information such as your name and email address. In which case, the information you submitted will also be handed directly to such a third party and will be used in accordance with this Privacy Policy as well as such third party’s own privacy policy, and only for the specific purpose for which you provided your information.

   2. Information We Collect from You. We gather information about how you use the Services and about your engagement with the Site or the Services in the following ways:

      1. Device Information. We collect device information such as, operating system type, language and version, device type and version, and information that can be derived from a user agent, such as screen resolution, or browser type and version, for the purpose of delivering and compatibility, as well as for language, geographic location and time zone.

      2. Interaction and Usage. We collect information about your interaction and use of the Services, such as internal URLs of the Site which you have accessed and your actions in reference to the Services (such as view or click), URLs from which you were directed to our Site and to which the Site redirects you, timing for clicks, date/time stamp of your Site use and page-views. This information is collected in order to operate the Site and improve it over time, providing you with the Services, as well as the ability to synchronise with our Partners and affiliates.

      3. Log Files. We gather information by deploying website tracking technologies, such as pixel tags, within the Site, as well as through server log files. The purpose of this information collection is to track user’s engagement within the Site and particular Services, and analyze trends. The information we collect may include the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses that were allocated to your device by your Internet Service Provider. The information is collected for limited time and for particular purposes only. The first being better understanding of your geographic location (country, region and language), thus providing you with the Services in your own language, relevant to your country of origin. Second, we analyze IP addresses using automated tools and detect those that are fraudulent (“Anti-Fraud Purposes”).

      4. Cookies and Other Technologies. We or third-party service providers may employ “cookies” and other anonymous web tracking technologies (e.g. “web beacons” and “pixel tags”). A cookie is a small file containing a string of characters that is sent to your computer when you visit a website. When you visit the website again, the cookie allows that website to recognize your browser. Cookies are used for storing online preferences of users and other information about your engagement with the Site. You may adjust your browser settings to either refuse all cookies or indicate when a cookie is being sent to your browser. Take into consideration, however, that some services may not function properly without cookies and some of the features included in the Site may become unavailable to you. A pixel tag is a technology commonly used in combination with cookies. It is used when emails are opened or accessed (when applicable), or for the purpose of tracking activity on websites.
         
         Please turn to our Cookie Policy for further information concerning the type of cookies used and for the way we use them and other tracking technologies on our site.

   3. Information Received from Third Parties.  Similar to other Internet based services, our Site and the Services it includes are run and supplied through the collaboration and synchronization with third parties, including, but not limited to, Partners, and affiliates. We may receive information from third parties for the purpose of allowing and facilitating such synchronization, for example, a system generated internal user identifier (not a unique identifier) or generating a summary of actions you perform on the Site (click, view, form submission, purchase or a phone call). The Site enables you to consume the Service on a click-by-call basis. Should you choose to do so, a third-party vendor/s will facilitate both the transmission of the call and the tracking and feedback for success. This third party may then provide us with the phone number from which you called (attaching to it no other information about you). The information is kept for a limited time and in order to resolve referrals and successful calls with our partners. We make no other use other than for this sole purpose, unless you expressly consent to it.

3. Choice, Consent and Alterations. You are using this Site out of your free choice and will and you are not legally bound to supply us with your Personal Information (you hereby acknowledge that you do so freely). By engaging or interacting with services and by any other use of the Site, you agree to this Privacy Policy and to our data collection practices detailed herein. If you have any reservations concerning our Privacy Policy, please do not access or otherwise use the Site or the Services offered.
   Your Personal Information will be required for receiving some of the Services on our Site. It is up to your free choice to decide whether you wish to use such Services or not. You have the full right to withdraw your consent at any time, even after you have agreed to provide us with your Personal Information (for further information about opting out and withdrawing consent, please refer to section 8 below).

4. How We Use Personal Information. On top of the uses we make with the information collected (along with your Personal Information, collectively “Your Information”) detailed elsewhere in this Privacy Policy, we also make use of Your Information as follows:
   To offer you the Site and Services in general, and in order to constantly improve them. We will make use of your information for: (i) administering and making the Site and Services available to you; (ii) constantly developing and improving the Site and the Services; (iii) validating users as human and monitoring fraudulent activity; (iv) tracking and counting purposes of referrals and ads (as expounded on under section 5); (v) authenticating or identifying your access and your use of the Site; and (vi) responding to your enquiries and other types of communication with you.

5. Sharing Your Information with Third Parties.
   We do not share your Personal Information with Third Parties, with the exception of the following situations:

   1. Security Platforms and Data Storage (“Data Platforms”). We may store and reserve Your Information on third party storage and cloud services. The meaning of this is that we may send or share your information with third party organisations which are located anywhere in the world, including the US, in order to store such information on our behalf, or for any other processing need. Such organisations include Amazon Web Services (whose privacy policy can be found at: https://aws.amazon.com/privacy/), Xplenty (whose privacy policy can be found at: https://www.xplenty.com/privacy/), and others Data Platforms that are complied with Privacy Shield certification(for further information regarding this certification, please go here). These Data Platforms could be situated anywhere in the world. We utilise Data Platforms that follow strict data security and privacy protection policies, and that strictly comply with applicable data protection laws. Their actual activities and practices are eventually governed by their own privacy policies, rather than ours.

   2. Social Media Platforms. Non-identified information may be shared with social media platforms (such as Linkedin, Facebook etc.) for operation and marketing purposes. This information could be combined with your Personal Information already in possession of such social media platforms, which collect Your Information independently from us and to whom you gave your independent and separate consent. All such actions, including any Personal Information that may originate in them, are governed by the specific social media’s own privacy policy and is in no way controlled or known to us.

   3. Other Third Parties. Your information may be sent or shared with various third parties that assist us with our business operations (e.g. email or phone administration providers and customer service operators). They help us operate and improve our Site and Services and help us better understand how our users use them. These third parties are likely to have their own privacy policies to which they adhere, and our requirement is to have them made available whenever their services are provided. We advise you to access such privacy policies when these services are extended to you directly. You should also take into consideration that these third parties could be based (and their servers located) anywhere in the world.

   4. Enforcement. We may decide to send or share your Personal Information with any third party if we are convinced that divulging such information could be of help or reasonably necessary to: (i) enforce our Terms of Use, including investigation of potential violation thereof; (ii) comply with any applicable law, legal process, regulation or governmental request; (iii) prevent, detect or address fraud or security issue; and/or (iv) protect against damage to the property, safety, or rights of BestPetEssentials, our affiliated organisations, our users, yourself, and/or the public.

   5. Partners and Products. In cases where you choose and are interested in receiving additional information concerning one service or another, you may be requested to submit an online form (“Online Form”). In such a case, we may share or send your Online Form information with/to the Partner about whose Product or about whom you wanted to receive further information, or with which you have expressed an interest in completing a transaction (the “Corresponding Partner” and “Corresponding Product” respectively). We will do so for the purpose of having such Corresponding Partner contact you back directly with the information you have requested. Either way, you acknowledge that: (i) Partners may contact you directly using the Online Form information that you entered; (i) we have no control over the way a Partner chooses to contact you, or the topic under discussion of such contact; (iii) each Partner is obliged to supply its own privacy policy and therefore, is not necessarily bound by this Privacy Policy; and (iv) Partners could be based (and their servers located) anywhere in the world.

   6. Merger, Sale or Bankruptcy. In the event that BestPetEssentials or one of our affiliated organisations is acquired by, or merged with, a third-party organization, or puts up for sale all or part of our/its assets, we may (and hereby retain the right to) allocate or transfer the Personal Information and other information we have received or collected. In such case, the acquiring entity will be required to post its data protection practices and maintain all of your rights based on the jurisdiction of your residency.
      We may decide to share or send some non-Personal Information with/to certain types of third parties (as follows) and in the event of the following circumstances

   7. Third parties that we engage with or that we host or that provide us with features and services we offer to you, also collect data from the Site and visitors’ interaction with the features and content on our behalf, for the delivery of their respective services. This is relevant where we employ third party technology, feature or service, or where we give such third parties access to our technology or Site for certain purposes, as detailed in the Privacy Policy or in the Site. We may utilize analytics tools, including Tableau and Google Analytics. These tools assist us in better understanding users’ behaviour using our Site and Services, including by tracking click/touch, page content, scrolls and keystroke activities, and movements. The privacy practices of these tools are in accordance to their own respective policies and they may utilize their own cookies in order to provide their services. For further information about cookies, please visit our Cookie Policy. Click here for more information on Google cookies. Click here to opt out of Google Analytics.

6. Engagement with and Links to Third Party Properties. On the Site you may find links to third party websites (for example, those of Partners), content, and other online resources (collectively, “Third-Party Properties”). When you click through to such Third-Party Properties, the associated data, along with any Personal Information you entered on such Third-Party Properties, will be supplied to the Third Party (although BestPetEssentials and its affiliated organizations may have agreements with such third parties, in accordance with which, such Personal Information and data are shared or sent back with/to us). We bear no responsibility for the privacy and data collection practices of such third parties, or for such Third-Party Properties and Products. We strongly recommend you to read the terms and conditions and privacy policies of each Third-Party Property that you interact with or choose to use.

7. Access and Accuracy; Deletion. Excluding the specific purposes and usage detailed in this Privacy Policy, we do not maintain the information in a way that allows us to personally identify you. Consequently, any request to access, edit or delete Your Information can be processed providing that you submitted such information or utilized a Service that involves collection of Personal Information. In order to place such a request to review, edit or delete your Personal Information that may be stored by us, please contact us at: privacy@BestPetEssentials.com. Such requests will be processed within 30 business days.

8. Choices and Opt-Out. Any Personal Information you provide us with is done out of your free choice for the uses detailed in this Privacy Policy. You may decide at any point to exercise your Personal Information rights with respect to your jurisdiction of residency. For example (where relevant and applicable):

   1. Cookies and Tracking Technologies. You may adjust your browser settings to block and/or refuse from the Site or third-party services (for more details please see Section 2.b.iv herein).

   2. Request to review, update or remove your Personal Information from our servers (for more information please see section 7).

   3. California Privacy Rights. According to the California Civil Code Section 1798.83 our customers, who are California residents, are allowed to request specific information pertaining to our disclosure of Personal Information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an email to privacy@BestPetEssentials.com.

   4. EU Data Subject Rights. The Personal Information collected as detailed in this Privacy Policy is treated and handled in accordance with the GDPR. Being an EU based user, you may:

      1. Access the Personal Information we retain. You will be asked to provide us with certain credentials so as to verify that you are indeed who you claim to be. If you locate  inaccuracies in your Personal Information, or that it is not complete or updated, then please supply us with the necessary information to correct it.

      2. If you wish to withdraw your consent to the processing of your Personal Information, please contact us. Exercising this right shall not affect the legality of processing that is based on your consent prior to its withdrawal.

      3. Request to restrict access or delete your Personal Information. If you exercise one (or more) of these aforementioned rights, in compliance with the provisions under the law, you may request to be notified when third parties that hold your Personal Information, in compliance with this Privacy Policy, will act accordingly.

      4. You may object to the processing of your Personal Information for direct marketing purposes, in the event that such Personal Information was used for such purposes.

      5. You have a right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority.

   5. Canada. If you are a resident of Canada, you are allowed to request specific information pertaining to our disclosure of Personal Information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes, where applicable. To make such a request, please send an email to privacy@BestPetEssentials.com.
      If you have any further questions concerning your Personal Information, please do not hesitate to contact our privacy compliance team at: privacy@BestPetEssentials.com.

9. Information Security. Our respective third-party services and/or affiliate organization and ourselves deploy data security systems and procedures to secure the information that is transmitted, stored and processed on the Site, our  systems and computer servers. For example, we use SSL for the Site encryption and we occasionally review our information and data collection practices to ensure constant monitoring, particularly for information at transport. We utilize third party processing and serving services that employ various information security certifications and standards (at rest and transmission). In addition, we filter and monitor access to data, when it comes to our company personnel. You should always take into consideration that whereas such procedures and systems indeed reduce the risk of security breaches, they do not however and cannot provide absolute security, as the concept of perfect security does not exist when it comes to the world-wide web. Consequently, we cannot assure you that our Site and servers are immune to unauthorized access to the information stored therein, or to other information security risks. If you have any further questions about the security on the Site, please contact us at: privacy@BestPetEssentials.com.

10. Non-US Users. Your Information (including Personal Information) might be transferred outside the country where it was collected or where you reside (for example, to the United States), including to a country where the privacy practices may be less rigorous than in your country of residence. In such cases, however, we make certain that we place all contractual safeguards (for example, verification of Privacy Shield Certification) to adequately secure the processing of Your Information when shared between or among our third-party vendors. By supplying us with your Personal Information and by using our Services, you explicitly consent to the use of such Information in compliance with this Privacy Policy and allow your information to be transferred to another country (including for example, the United States).

11. Children’s Privacy. The Services we offer and the Site in general are not intended to attract children under the age of 16. As such, we do not aim at collecting Personal Information from anyone we know to be under 16. If we become aware that we have collected Personal Information from a child under 16, we will make use of commercially reasonable efforts to delete that information as soon as possible. If you feel that we may have collected such information, please contact us at: info@BestPetEssentials.com.

12. Commitment. Protecting your privacy online is an ongoing challenge and we invest great efforts in order to verify that our Site is in full compliance with the requirements and safest practices according to all jurisdictions in which the Site operates.

13. Contact Us. We took care that this Privacy Policy is simple and easy to understand. If, however, you still have further inquiries, you are welcome to contact us at: info@BestPetEssentials.com

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