Last updated February 21, 2024. Please save for your records.
Your privacy is important to us. At OptimWise we have a few fundamental principles:
- We don't ask you for personal information unless we truly need it.
- We don't share your personal information with anyone except to operate or develop our services, comply with the law, or protect our rights.
- We don't store personal information unless required for the ongoing operation of our services.
Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy, capitalized terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms & Conditions.
Information We Collect
We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so–for example, to provide our Services, to communicate with you, or to make our Services better. We collect information in three ways: if and when you provide information to us, automatically through operating our Services, and from outside sources. Let’s go over the information that we collect.
Information You Provide to Us
We collect information that you provide to us. The amount and type of information depends on the context and how we use the information. Here are some examples:
- Transaction and Billing Information: If you buy something from us you will provide additional personal and payment information that is required to process the transaction and your payment, such as your name, credit card information, and contact information.
- Credentials: Depending on the Services you use, you may provide us with credentials for your website (like SSH, FTP, and SFTP username and password).
- Communications With Us: You may also provide us information when you respond to surveys or communicate with us about a support question.
Information We Collect Automatically
We also collect some information automatically:
- Log Information: Like most online service providers, we collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information.
- Usage Information: We collect information about your usage of our website. We use this information to get insights on how people use our website, so we can make our website better.
- Location Information: We may determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address. We collect and use this information to, for example, calculate how many people visit our website from certain geographic regions
- Information from Cookies & Other Technologies: A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. We use cookies and other technologies to help us identify and track visitors, usage, and access preferences for our website, as well as track and understand email campaign effectiveness and to deliver targeted ads.
Information We Collect from Other Sources
We may also get information about you from other sources. For example, if you leave a comment by logging into your WordPress.com or social media account, we will receive information from that service (such as your username) via the authorization procedures used by that service. The information we receive depends on which services you authorize and any options that are available.
How And Why We Use Information
Purposes for Using Information
We use information about you as mentioned above and for the purposes listed below:
- To provide our services–for example, to set up and maintain your website, back up and restore your website, or charge you for any of our paid services;
- To further develop and improve our services;
- To monitor and analyze trends and better understand how users interact with our website, which helps us improve our Services and make them easier to use;
- To measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our marketing, and better understand user retention and attrition;
- To monitor and prevent any problems with our services, protect the security of our services, detect and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities, fight spam, and protect the rights and property of OptimWise and others, which may result in us declining a transaction or the use of our services;
- To communicate with you, for example through an email, about offers and promotions we think will be of interest to you, solicit your feedback, or keep you up to date on OptimWise.
Legal Bases for Collecting and Using Information
A note here for those in the European Union about our legal grounds for processing information about you under EU data protection laws, which is that our use of your information is based on the grounds that: (1) The use is necessary in order to fulfill our commitments to you under our Terms & Conditions or other agreements with you or is necessary to administer your account; or (2) The use is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; or (3) The use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or (4) We have a legitimate interest in using your information--for example, to provide and update our services, to improve our services so that we can offer you an even better user experience, to safeguard our services, to communicate with you, to measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our marketing, and better understand user retention and attrition, to monitor and prevent any problems with our services; or (5) You have given us your consent--for example before we place certain cookies on your device and access and analyze them later on.
Sharing Information
How We Share Information
We do not sell our users’ or clients' private personal information. We share information about you in the limited circumstances spelled out below and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy:
- Employees and Independent Contractors: We may disclose information about you to our employees, and individuals who are our independent contractors that need to know the information in order to help us provide our services or to process the information on our behalf.
- Third Party Vendors: We may share information about you with third party vendors who need to know information about you in order to provide their services to us, or to provide their services to you or your site. This group includes vendors that help us provide our services to you (like payment providers that process your credit and debit card information, email delivery services that help us stay in touch with you, your hosting provider, those that assist us with our marketing efforts, and those that help us understand and enhance our services (like analytics providers).
- Legal Requests: We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.
- To Protect Rights, Property, and Others: We may disclose information about you when we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of OptimWise, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if we have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, we may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
- Business Transfers: If OptimWise, or substantially all of its assets, were acquired, or merged with another entity, or in the unlikely event that OptimWise goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. You acknowledge that such transfers may occur, and that any acquirer of OptimWise reserves the right to continue to use your personal information as set forth in this policy.
- With Your Consent: We may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction.
- Aggregated or De-Identified Information: We may share information that has been aggregated or reasonably de-identified, so that the information could not reasonably be used to identify you.
Information Shared Publicly
Information that you choose to make public is disclosed publicly. For example, your Gravatar public profile information may display with your comments. Please keep all of this in mind when deciding what you would like to share.
How Long We Keep Information
We generally discard information about you when (1) it's no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected and (2) there is no legal requirement to keep it.
Security
We provide reasonable administrative, technical, and physical security controls to protect your personal information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. However, despite our efforts, no security controls are completely fail-proof and we cannot ensure or warrant the security of your personal information. Your personal information and data files are stored on our systems and the systems of companies that help us run our business.
We use WePay process payments. Your credit card information runs through WePay and is never stored by OptimWise. No one at OptimWise has access to your credit card information. Here's more about WePay security.
Choices
You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:
- Limit the Information that You Provide: If you have an account with us, you can choose not to provide optional information.
- Opt-Out of Electronic Communications: You may opt out of receiving promotional messages from us. Just follow the instructions in those messages. If you opt out of promotional messages, we may still send you other messages, like those about your account and legal notices.
- Set Your Browser to Reject Cookies: You can choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies before using our website, with the drawback that certain features of our website may not function properly without the aid of cookies.
- Stop Using Website: If you no longer want to use this website or other communications (email, social media, etc.), you can discontinue using them. We may continue to retain your information after discontinuing your use, when that information is reasonably needed to comply with (or demonstrate our compliance with) legal obligations such as law enforcement requests, or reasonably needed for legitimate business interests.
Third Party Content
Our website includes links that will direct you away from our website to third-party websites. By accessing those third-party websites, you will be obligated to comply with their respective privacy policies and we encourage you to read them carefully.
Our website 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.
Third-Party Policies
- We use Flywheel to host this site. Please see their legal policies.
- We use Mailchimp for email marketing. Please see their legal policies.
- We use Google Analytics to collect anonymized website stats. Please see this policy.
- We use WePay to process payments. Please see this policy.
- We use ManageWP to manage WordPress websites. Please see this policy.
Privacy Policy Changes
OptimWise may change its Privacy Policy from time to time, and in OptimWise’s sole discretion. OptimWise encourages visitors to periodically check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will be subject to the updated policy.
If you have any questions about this privacy policy or OptimWise's treatment of your personal information, don’t hesitate to contact OptimWise.
Thanks to Automattic for their Privacy Policy, released under a Creative Commons Sharealike license.