All you need to know
With enormous thanks to Writers’ HQ, supreme writing commanders, glorious leaders and excellent but tiny overlords, who have verily granted me permission to use their splendid and sweary Privacy Policy.
(I’ve made my own additions and tweaks and took some sweary parts out but left what I would have said anyway.)
Wow has anyone ever read one of these?
We have to have one of these dealios to explain how we comply with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), the DPA (Data Protection Act) and the PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations) because God knows there’s not enough actual interesting things in the world to read, you need to read 1,000 words of legalese nonsense that makes literally not one bit of difference to anyone, ever.
Also we don’t really know what these things are. We’re just two under-heighted writers who thought we’d have a laugh and get other people writing with us.
Short words (written by short people)
The best bit about the GDPR is that all this has to be “concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible” so hold on to your hats, friends, this is going to be the shortest, clearest and best freakin’ privacy policy you ever did see.
So. Here we go…
TL;DR
I’m a tiny business and I don’t have the time or energy to do anything nefarious with your data. I’m not evil or corruptible and think it’s just bad juju to do nefarious things with data. I collect and store the info I need to provide you with the service you buy from me. I might occasionally stalk you via Facebook adverts. That’s really it.
Cookies
Seriously who actually cares? Do you even know what a cookie is or does? Well then. Yes, I use cookies because that’s kinda how the Internet works. If you don’t want my super delicious home-baked chocolate chip scripts, then you need to block cookies on your browser but don’t come crying to me when nothing does what it’s supposed to.
Stalky Visitor Tracking
Look, I’m possibly following you, ok? I use Google Analytics, primarily to stare at the real time stats because they’re cool but also to see what stuff people looking at so I can write more of the stuff you like.
Lisa’s note: I don’t currently (as of May 16, 2022) have a Facebook Pixel set up but it’s possible I add it so this covers that future event.
I may also have the Facebook Pixel installed so that I can sell you stuff. Yes you heard it. We are a business and – shocker – we want you to spend money with us. The Facebook Pixel means that we can see how people interact with our site and with Facebook adverts and then we try to flog you relevant stuff. If you’ve not seen the Facebook Ads analytics dashboard MAN ALIVE it’s stalker central. That shit is a terrifying Black Mirror horror show. If you’re not on Facebook – well bloody done but the pixel is tracking you anyway. )
Don’t know if there’s a specific Facebook Pixel blocking thing but we accidentally discovered that if you use Freedom app to block social media while you’re writing it also blocks the FB pixel. Handy hints!
None of these things store any super personal data about you but probably they nab your IP address, not that we’d know where to look for it or what to do with it. All we see is that a person or many people have interacted with the website in a particular way. You can mess with us by doing something totally unexpected on the website and skewing our stats. Or you could do something way more fun and useful with your time LIKE WRITING.
Data Storage
DATA!! It’s all about the data, baby. A literal fuck-tonne of petabytes whirring around the world and what? What’s it all for? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? What will future historians actually see of us and our slowly collapsing society? So. We store your data in a few different places and use it in a couple of different ways. You ready for this?
Here on this website: If you register with the site to comment, I will store your name and email address. If you buy stuff from me, I’ll store your name, email address, postal address, phone number if you give it to us, and purchase history. Your payment details ARE NOT held on the site. I obviously go to the maximum effort to keep this data secure and only twp people have access to it. Only one of them ever actually looks at it and that’s to solve any technical problems you might have.
I’ll be honest: I do absolutely nothing unsurprising or radical with your info. I might use your purchase history to invite you into courses or programs for stuff you might like. If you’ve done one of our courses, we’ll occasionally ask you if you want to do another course. Does that make us EvilMegaCorp? Idk, it’s fairly standard isn’t it?
ConvertKit – If you’ve signed up for anything or bought anything on our site – newsletter, free course, paid course, membership, merch, anything – your name and email address also wings its way over to ConvertKit, which is the system we use to manage our newsletters and emails. They are GDPR compliant. You can unsubscribe from emails at any time by hitting the unsubscribe button.
Membervault: Some of my courses run on a learning management systems, among them Membervault. When you sign up for a course, your name, email address and the course you want to take is flung over to Membervautl.co where it sits there and lets you access your course. MemberVault states they are GDPR compliant.
Thrivecart Learn: Other courses are on Thrivecart Learn, also a learning management system. Same terms apply as above for MemberVault.
AcuityScheduling: Acuityscheduling.com is where you choose your appointment and pay for your session. The payments go through Stripe or Paypal and Acuity holds NO information on your credit card or other means of payment. (See payment info below.)
Your Payment Details
When you buy stuff, you will either pay through Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. The only payment-based details I hold is how much you’ve spent and whether you paid with one of the four choices above and that is held in a secure space in AcuityScheduling.com, MemberVault, or Thrivecart. I have no bank or card details or anything here. All four options (Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay) state they are GDPR compliant.
IMPORTANT: Subscriptions and such: ALL subscriptions done via Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay are considered contracts to pay through the length of the subscription. Even if you drop out and/or can’t complete the course/training, all subscriptions are to be completed. If you need to drop out for any reason, please email me (lisa (at) lisamw.com and we’ll talk about other arrangements.
Bottom line: if you agree to a payment plan, you are liable for the entire plan whether or not you complete the training. If, for any reason, I am unable to complete the training as your instructor, information on refunds, partial refunds, and other arrangements will be communicated to you via email.
Email Marketing and Newsletter Thingys
If you sign up to my email list, I will send you a newsletter – generally around two a month, but occasionally more if there is more interesting stuff to tell you. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe button in every email. Your name and email address are stored securely in Convertkit.
If you sign up for a course, I’ll send you emails about the course. The frequency of which depends on the course. You can unsubscribe but you’ll miss important stuff about the course.
Convertkit automatically adds tracking things to links so if you click on a link, I KNOW. If you open an email, I KNOW. Again, kinda how these things work, innit?
The most important thing about this is I have neither the time nor inclination to actually look at or do anything with these stats.
Your right to be deleted
If you want to go undercover, just chuck me an email at lisa@lisamw.com and I’ll delete all the info I have on you from my systems while having a passive aggressive huff about what I could have possibly done wrong.
This does not include PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. If you want to delete your PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, or Google Pay accounts you have to do that yourself via PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. I cannot delete your purchase history because the taxman will be terribly upset.
Just so you know, though, you won’t be able to access my courses any longer because I need your email address so I know you’ve paid and that you’re allowed to access it.
Social Media and all that stuff
I use social media, partly to promote courses and other fun stuff but mostly as a vehicle for my burgeoning stand up comedy routines. You are not required to follow my social media accounts unless you want to and then I’d be really happy. But, carry on as you wish.