PRIVACY POLICY

Your privacy is important to us!

Last updated November 22, 2019 

Thank you for choosing to be part of our community at Tips4Gamers, Inc. (“Company”, “we”, “us”, or “our”). We are committed to protecting your personal information and your right to privacy. If you have any questions or concerns about our policy, or our practices with regards to your personal information, please contact us here.

When you visit our website, https://www.tips4gamers.com, and use our services, you trust us with your personal information. We take your privacy very seriously. In this privacy policy, we seek to explain to you in the clearest way possible what information we collect, how we use it and what rights you have in relation to it. We hope you take some time to read through it carefully, as it is important. If there are any terms in this privacy policy that you do not agree with, please discontinue use of our Sites and our services.

This privacy policy applies to all information collected through our website (such as https://www.tips4gamers.com), and/or any related services, sales, marketing, or events (we refer to them collectively in this privacy policy as the “Services“). 

Please read this privacy policy carefully as it will help you make informed decisions about sharing your personal information with us.

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?

2. S2MEMBER; DIGITAL MEMBERSHIPS; DIGITAL PRODUCTS; SECURITY/PRIVACY

3. HOW DO WE USE YOUR INFORMATION?

4. WILL YOUR INFORMATION BE SHARED WITH ANYONE?

5. DO WE USE COOKIES AND OTHER TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES?

6. WHAT IS OUR STANCE ON THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES?

7. HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION?

8. HOW DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION SAFE?

9. CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

10. WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS?

11. CONTROLS FOR DO-NOT-TRACK FEATURES

12. AKISMET

13. EMBEDDED CONTENT FROM OTHER WEBSITES

14. MEDIA

15. COMMENTS

16. DO CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS HAVE SPECIFIC PRIVACY RIGHTS?

17. DO WE MAKE UPDATES TO THIS POLICY?

18. HOW CAN YOU CONTACT US ABOUT THIS POLICY?

 

1. WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?

Personal information you disclose to us

In Short:We collect personal information that you provide to us such as name, address, contact information, passwords and security data, and payment information.

We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when registering at the Services expressing an interest in obtaining information about us or our products and services when participating in activities on the Services (such as posting messages in our online forums or entering competitions, contests or giveaways) or otherwise contacting us.

The personal information that we collect depends on the context of your interactions with us and the Services, the choices you make and the products and features you use. The personal information we collect can include the following:

Publicly Available Personal Information. We collect first name, maiden name, last name, nickname, social media, email addresses, and other similar data.

Personal Information Provided by You. We collect data collected from surveys and other similar data.

Credentials. We collect passwords, password hints, and similar security information used for authentication and account access.

All personal information that you provide to us must be true, complete and accurate, and you must notify us of any changes to such personal information.

Information automatically collected

In Short:Some information – such as IP address and/or browser and device characteristics – is collected automatically when you visit our Services.

We automatically collect certain information when you visit, use or navigate the Services. This information does not reveal your specific identity (like your name or contact information) but may include device and usage information, such as your IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, device name, country, location, information about how and when you use our Services and other technical information. This information is primarily needed to maintain the security and operation of our Services, and for our internal analytics and reporting purposes.

Like many businesses, we also collect information through cookies and similar technologies. You can find out more about this in our Cookies Policy: https://www.tipsforgamers.com/tips4gamers-inc-cookie-policy/. 

Online Identifiers. We collect cookie identifiers, or others such as the ones used for analytics and marketing, tools and protocols, such as IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, and other similar data.

Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information. Tips4Gamers, Inc. discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only to those of its employees, contractors, and affiliated organizations that (i) need to know that information in order to process it on Tips4Gamers, Inc.’s behalf or to provide services available at Tips4Gamers, Inc.’s website, and (ii) that have agreed not to disclose it to others. Some of those employees, contractors and affiliated organizations may be located outside of your home country; by using Tips4Gamers, Inc.’s website, you consent to the transfer of such information to them. Tips4Gamers, Inc. will not rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone. Other than to its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations, as described above, Tips4Gamers, Inc. discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only in response to a subpoena, court order or other governmental request, or when Tips4Gamers, Inc. believes in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Tips4Gamers, Inc., third parties or the public at large.

If you are a registered user of https://www.tips4gamers.com and have supplied your email address, Tips4Gamers, Inc. may occasionally send you an email to tell you about new features, solicit your feedback, or just keep you up to date with what’s going on with Tips4Gamers, Inc. and our products. We primarily use our blog to communicate this type of information, so we expect to keep this type of email to a minimum. If you send us a request (for example via a support email or via one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish it in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users. Tips4Gamers, Inc. takes all measures reasonably necessary to protect against the unauthorized access, use, alteration or destruction of potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information.

2. S2MEMBER; DIGITAL MEMBERSHIPS; DIGITAL PRODUCTS; SECURITY/PRIVACY:

s2Member® is a membership software that allows you to register, sign in, and make purchases through our site. s2Member® nor our server stores any billing or credit card information. At the time of purchase, the billing and payment information is sent securely to the payment gateway (e.g., Stripe) using modern encryption technologies (SSL). s2Member® retains no records of the information that was sent to the payment gateway for billing purposes (with one special exception: when logging is enabled; see below). Instead, s2Member listens for messages from the payment gateway so that if a recurring payment (or a one-time payment) fails, s2Member can use the success/failure notification to determine what to do (to grant access, deny access, or revoke existing access). All of that is handled by s2Member automatically behind the scenes, between s2Member and the payment gateway.

What personal information does s2Member collect? The only personal member information that s2Member will store inside WordPress’ database are the member’s First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Username, IP Address used during registration, Payment Gateway used (e.g., PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.Net, etc.), Subscriber ID, and/or Transaction Number from the payment gateway, and your acceptance of our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Refund Policy (again, excluding any billing address or specific payment details).

One Special Exception: s2Member Logging. s2Member® log files do contain personally identifiable information and even credit card numbers, expiration dates, CVV codes, API credentials, and more. s2Member® does their best to XXXX those out, but the purpose of log files is to gather information for the purpose of debugging the software and/or our site. Our Site/s2Member has been tested for making purchases before our site went live just as s2Member recommends. Therefore, the logging mode is turned off. If, however, we do have to turn on debugging mode, all of your information will be secure and never shared. The logging information is sent to a separate and secure file that stores the logging information.

Unique Security Encryption Key. Our website takes advantage of a “Unique Security Encryption Key” (running in combination with the s2Member® software application and WordPress®, a PHP framework). This Unique Security Encryption Key works to further protect all User/Member accounts from being accessed or abused by hackers. This website’s Unique Security Encryption Key, allows it to operate with a unique instance of the s2Member® software application (i.e. slightly different from other sites on the web, possibly using s2Member® as well). As a consumer, this protects you! Sites like ours, using a Unique Security Encryption Key with s2Member®, along with randomly generated Salt Keys, and other WordPress® security standards, greatly reduces the risk of someone stealing and/or sharing your personal information. Security Encryption Keys are also used in some data storage routines, and extensively in Cookie-based authentication, to further safeguard your information during server-based sessions.

Brute Force Login Protection. In cryptography, a Brute Force Attack is a strategy that can, in theory, be used against any encrypted data, by an attacker who is unable to take advantage of any other weakness. One example of a Brute Force Attack occurs when multiple/repeated logins are strategically attempted with various username/password combinations until a correct guess is made. This website takes an important step to further protect your account from being hacked, by implementing what’s known as “Brute Force Login Protection”; made possible by the s2Member® software application. s2Member® thwarts this behavior by monitoring failed login attempts that occur within a short period of time. When/if s2Member® detects an IP address (i.e. a remote User), who is consistently failing to enter a valid username/password, a temporary ban is created; preventing additional attempts from taking place for several minutes (or even hours), as configured by the site owner.

Unique IP Access Restrictions. As with any website granting account access through a username/password combination, it is possible for one User to signup, and then share their username with someone else; a User can even post it online for the whole world to see. This is known as “link sharing” (aka: “username sharing”). This website takes an important step toward preventing this bad behavior; both for consumer safety and for the safety of the site itself; along with associated products/services made available. The s2Member® software application assists in this regard. With s2Member®, a single username, access link, and/or entry point, is only valid for a certain number of unique IP addresses, as configured by the site owner. When/if an upper limit is reached, s2Member® will assume there’s been a security breach. At that time, s2Member® will ban (i.e. prevent access) to a specific URL, and/or to an entire account associated with a particular username.

One-Way Password Encryption. Our website stores passwords with a One-way Encrypted Hash, using only a “hashed” version of your password for future comparison. This means that your plain text password is not stored anywhere, and therefore cannot be stolen and/or shared through this website. Only an encrypted “hash” is known, with no way to decode the actual value of the password itself (e.g. a One-way Encrypted Hash). This One-way Encrypted Hash allows the site to verify a cryptographic hash algorithm, and if the hash value generated from your entry (during an attempt to log in) matches the One-way Encrypted Hash stored in the password database, you are permitted access. The One-way Encrypted Hash value is created by applying a hash function (using cryptographic methodologies) to a string consisting of the submitted password, and another value known as a Salt. The Salt is unique to this site, and it prevents attackers from easily building a list of One-way Encrypted Hash values for common passwords.

We have put security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse, or alteration of all information under our control. All orders are processed via a secure server (SSL) and credit card details will never be emailed. We use s2Member’s security measures to verify daily that our Site is secure so that your registration, logins, and payments are secure. We are also Security-Verified and regularly monitored by McAfee for malware, malicious links, and phishing-free.

We do not retain or store any credit card information or billing information on our servers or at our place of business. All credit card and billing information that is used to purchase Digital Products and/or Digital Memberships from https://www.tips4gamers.com is processed and stored by Stripe.com on their secure servers.

We use secure payment forms and are connected and verified by Stripe using SSL encryption. If the payment service provider provides the payment form, it is protected by SSL encryption through the payment service web site. If the payment form is hosted on the local server, the domain where the payment form is located must have SSL support and a secure URL (https) is required in order for the browser the payment form is on to connect to Stripe. If you are off-line for whatever reason on a payment form, the credit card information you entered will still be secure and the payment will not go through as well as your account creation.

Customer information such as first and last name, email, and username will be saved when orders are processed through. After orders are processed through, you will have an account with us as this is the only way you can access the content. Make sure you use a VALID email when making a purchase because you will receive a password link to finish setting up your account. When a payment service is used to process orders, credit card numbers, expiration dates, and security codes are NOT saved through us.

Read more on Stripe’s security measures for your credit card information, encryption, and more: https://stripe.com/docs/security/stripe. Here is Stripe’s Privacy Policy: https://stripe.com/privacy.

We use s2Member, and as with any membership system, s2Member stops simultaneous logins for each member and only allows a certain amount of IP’s being logged into one account. Your IP is secure.

3. HOW DO WE USE YOUR INFORMATION?

In Short: We process your information for purposes based on legitimate business interests, the fulfillment of our contract with you, compliance with our legal obligations, and/or your consent.

We use personal information collected via our Services for a variety of business purposes described below. We process your personal information for these purposes in reliance on our legitimate business interests, in order to enter into or perform a contract with you, with your consent, and/or for compliance with our legal obligations. We indicate the specific processing grounds we rely on next to each purpose listed below.

We use the information we collect or receive:

• To protect our Services. We may use your information as part of our efforts to keep our Services safe and secure (for example, for fraud monitoring and prevention).
• To enable user-to-user communications. We may use your information in order to enable user-to-user communications with each user’s consent.
• To enforce our terms, conditions and policies for Business Purposes, Legal Reasons and Contractual.
• To respond to legal requests and prevent harm. If we receive a subpoena or other legal request, we may need to inspect the data we hold to determine how to respond.
• To manage user accounts. We may use your information for the purposes of managing our account and keeping it in working order.                           
• To respond to user inquiries/offer support to users.  We may use your information to respond to your inquiries and solve any potential issues you might have with the use of our Services.

4. WILL YOUR INFORMATION BE SHARED WITH ANYONE?

In Short:We only share information with your consent, to comply with laws, to provide you with services, to protect your rights, or to fulfill business obligations.

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

• Consent: We may process your data if you have given us specific consent to use your personal information for a specific purpose.
• Legitimate Interests: We may process your data when it is reasonably necessary to achieve our legitimate business interests.
• Performance of a Contract: Where we have entered into a contract with you, we may process your personal information to fulfill the terms of our contract.
• Legal Obligations: We may disclose your information where we are legally required to do so in order to comply with applicable law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process, such as in response to a court order or a subpoena (including in response to public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements).
• Vital Interests: We may disclose your information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violations of our policies, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person and illegal activities, or as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.

More specifically, we may need to process your data or share your personal information in the following situations:

• Vendors, Consultants, and Other Third-Party Service Providers. We may share your data with third-party vendors, service providers, contractors or agents who perform services for us or on our behalf and require access to such information to do that work. Examples include payment processing, data analysis, email delivery, hosting services, customer service, and marketing efforts. We may allow selected third parties to use tracking technology on the Services, which will enable them to collect data about how you interact with the Services over time. This information may be used to, among other things, analyze and track data, determine the popularity of certain content and better understand online activity. Unless described in this Policy, we do not share, sell, rent or trade any of your information with third parties for their promotional purposes.  
• Business Transfers. We may share or transfer your information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company.

Third-Party Advertisers. We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit the Services. These companies may use information about your visits to our Website(s) and other websites that are contained in web cookies and other tracking technologies in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. For information about and to opt-out of interest-based ads from many ad networks, go to:

• U.S.: www.aboutads.info Internet Advertising Bureau
• Canada: www.youradchoices.ca
• European Union: www.youronlinechoices.eu/

12. Source: Akismet

We collect information about visitors who comment on Sites that use our Akismet anti-spam service. The information we collect depends on how the User sets up Akismet for the Site, but typically 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).

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

14. MEDIA

If 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.

15. 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.

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.

OR our Contact us page.

How can you review, update, or delete the data we collect from you?