Policies

Last updated: May 22, 2024

Copyright and All Rights Reserved

All information on this website, including text, images, infographics, audio, and video is copyright ©playoutsideguide.com 2013-2024 and may not be downloaded, reproduced, republished or otherwise copied without written permission from the author of playoutsideguide.com.  Play Outside Guide may change or delete website content at any time without notice and retains all rights to materials on playoutsideguide.com.

Privacy Policy

Play Outside Guide (“us”, “we”, or “our”) operates https://playoutsideguide.com (the “Site”). This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of Personal Information when you use our Site and the choices you have associated with that data.

We are the sole owners of the information collected on this site. We only have access to/collect information that you voluntarily give us via email or other direct contact from you. We will not sell or rent this information to anyone. We will use your information to respond to you regarding the reason you contacted us. We will not share your information with any third party outside of our organization, other than as necessary, e.g. to ship a giveaway prize.

By using the Site, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. We will keep your personal details secure and use the information you provide consistently with applicable privacy and data protection laws and the terms of this Privacy Policy.

Information Collection & Use

While using our Site, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you. Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to your name and email address (“Personal Information”). This information is for internal use only and is not made public or shared with third parties.

We also collect website usage information. We do this using Google Analytics (see Log Data section below) and cookies (see Cookies section below).

Log Data

Like many site operators, we collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit our Site (“Log Data”). This Log Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, the pages of our Site that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, and other statistics.

The information you provide may be used in a number of ways, including, but not limited to the following:

  • see what content is most read so we can write about topics readers are interested in.
  • statistical purposes (number of pageviews, geographic region, demographics) for internal use.
  • provide feedback to sponsors on how much traffic a sponsored blog post received, how long readers spent on a page, and demographics.). We share aggregated demographic information with our partners and advertisers only (for example, 70% of readers are women, 80% of readers are from Canada). We do not share personal information that can identify any individual person, and we do not share subscribers’ contact information.
  • respond to blog comments and/or messages sent via the Contact Us form.

We use Google Analytics, to collect, monitor and analyze the log data.

Communications

We will use your personal information to contact you in the following instances:

  • If you subscribed to our newsletter, we will send you newsletters by email via the Sender email marketing platform. You may opt out at any time, by clicking the Unsubscribe button.
  • To respond to an email or message submitted via the Site’s Contact Us Form.

Disclosure of Information

The Company will not disclose personal information that you provide on its Sites to any third parties except: i) in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy, or ii) to comply with legal requirements such as a law, regulation, warrant, subpoena or court order, and/or iii) if you are reporting an adverse event, in which case the Company may be required to disclose such information to bodies such as, but not limited to, Canadian and/or international regulatory authorities. Please note that any of these disclosures may involve the storage or processing of personal information outside of Canada and may therefore be subject to different privacy laws than those applicable in Canada, including laws that require the disclosure of personal information to governmental authorities under circumstances that are different than those that apply in Canada.

Links

This website contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of any other site that collects personally identifiable information.

Surveys & Contests

From time-to-time our site requests information via surveys or contests. Participation in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary and you may choose whether or not to participate and therefore disclose information. Information requested may include contact information (such as name and shipping address), and demographic information. Contact information will be used to notify the winners and award prizes. Survey information will be used for purposes of monitoring or improving the use and satisfaction of this site.

We DO NOT sell contact information to third parties, and we only share personal information when it is necessary to do so (e.g. provide a brand with your email address or mailing address if you win a prize in a contest on our social media channels/site).  

Retention of Information

We have a system of retention periods in place to ensure that your information is only stored whilst it is required for the relevant purposes or to meet legal requirements. Where your information is no longer required, we will ensure it is disposed of in a secure manner.

Cookies

Like many sites, we use “cookies” to collect information. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them see our Cookie Policy below.

Security

The security of your Personal Information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy is effective as of January 25, 2024 and will remain in effect until a newer version is posted. We reserve the right to update or change our Privacy Policy at any time, so you should check this Privacy Policy periodically. Your continued use of the Site after we post any modifications to the Privacy Policy on this page will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified Privacy Policy.

If we make any material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you either through the email address you have provided us, or by placing a prominent notice on our website.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us.

Cookie Policy

What are cookies and how are they used?

Cookies are small text files that are downloaded onto your computer when you visit a particular web site. Cookies are used to help us improve your experience when using our websites – for example, storing your preferred language setting for the next time you visit. You can disable cookies by turning them off in your browser; however, some areas of the Sites may not function properly if you do so.

The information collected from cookies enables us to:

  • Tailor our websites to your personal needs.
  • Remember the notifications that you have been shown, so that you are not shown them again
    Make improvements and updates to our websites based on the way you want to use them.

We generally do not use cookies to identify you personally.

What kinds of cookies do we use?

We use the following categories of cookies:

Category 1: Necessary cookies

Necessary cookies enable you to use our websites and all their features, such as enabling access to secure areas of the website. Without these cookies you may not be able to use all the features of our websites.

Category 2: Performance cookies

Performance cookies collect information about how you use our websites so we can improve them for you in future. For example, they collect information on which pages you visit most often and any error messages you may get. The information collected by these cookies is anonymous. They do not collect any information that can identify you personally. We are using Google Analytics to monitor our website performances and check visitor activities to adapt our content based on their expectations

Category 3: Functionality cookies

Functionality cookies enable us to provide you with a more personalized experience. They help us to remember data, such as your username and language preference, to save you having to enter them again the next time you visit. The information these cookies collect is anonymous. They cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.

Category 4: Targeting/advertising cookies

We and our service providers may use advertising cookies to deliver ads that we believe are relevant to you and your interests. For example, we may use targeting or advertising cookies to customize the advertising and content you receive on our websites, to limit the number of times you see the same ad on our websites and to help measure the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns.

Sender: Sender is our email marketing provider. We use it to send newsletters and use cookies to monitor our email marketing activities (which blog post links were opened).

Facebook Pixel: we use Facebook pixel tracking to measure social media campaign efficiency related to the Facebook platform.

Ads: we use advertising cookies (including but not limited to Avantlink, Amazon, and Google AdSense) to collect data about your activities when you visit our websites, the website of entities who serve our ads (advertisers), or the website and online services where we display ads. These cookies will be used to provide relevant Ads about our services and are intended to improve the customer experience across our website. No personally identifiable information is stored in any of the platforms mentioned above. For example, I am shown how many times a blog post was viewed, and if the website traffic is from Facebook/Pinterest/organic search etc. and country etc., but cannot see any personal information from website visitors.

Category 5: social media cookies

Our website uses third-party cookies from social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn to enable in-depth campaign reporting and to track social network users when they visit our websites, by using a tagging mechanism provided by those social networks. These cookies can also be used for marketing purposes. Any data collected with these tags will be used in accordance with the Play Outside Guide privacy policy and with the social network’s privacy policies. Play Outside Guide will not collect or store any personally identifiable information from the user.

Details of how you can opt out of accepting these cookies are found in the following links:

How can you manage your cookies settings?

To ensure you get the best possible experience when visiting our websites, we recommend that you accept cookies. However, you can opt-out of each cookie category (except strictly necessary cookies) by clicking on the cookie settings button.

Affiliate & Sponsorship Disclosure Policy

This blog uses affiliate links through which I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Some of the affiliate marketing programs Karen Ung  / Play Outside Guide work with include Amazon, Avantlink, Pepperjam, and Shopify.

What is an Affiliate Link?

Affiliate links use special tracking codes to determine where website traffic came from and pay referring sites a small commission. There is no change in the price you are charged whether you visit the site directly or via my website. Sometimes, however, I may have a special discount code for you, in which case you would pay less than the listed price.

Sponsored Blog Posts

In some instances, I have received free products or services for review purposes, or have received cash compensation for my blog post. These relationships will be disclosed in the blog post.

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