Privacy Policy

Timothy Alexander d/b/a Alexander Online Sales (hereafter referred to as “Alexander Online Sales” or “Website Operator”) operates MyChesCo and may operate other websites. It is Alexander Online Sales’ policy to respect your privacy regarding any information we may collect while operating our websites and is committed to maintaining robust privacy protections for its users.  Our Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) is designed to help you understand how we collect, use and safeguard the information you provide to us and to assist you in making informed decisions when using our Service.

For purposes of this Agreement, “Service” refers to the Website Operator’s service which can be accessed via our website at https://www.mychesco.com, which are provided for your personal enjoyment and entertainment. The terms “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to the Website Operator. “You” refers to you, as a user of Service. By accepting our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service (found at https://www.mychesco.com/terms-of-service/), you consent to our collection, storage, use and disclosure of your personal information as described in this Privacy Policy.

I. INFORMATION WE COLLECT

1. Information collected via Technology

Like most website operators, Alexander Online Sales collects non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. Alexander Online Sales’ purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is to better understand how Alexander Online Sales’ visitors use its website. From time to time, Alexander Online Sales may release non-personally-identifying information in the aggregate, e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of its website.

Alexander Online Sales also collects potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses for logged in users and for users leaving comments on MyChesCo blogs or forum. Alexander Online Sales only discloses logged in user and commenter IP addresses under the same circumstances that it uses and discloses personally-identifying information as described below, except that commenter IP addresses and email addresses are visible and disclosed to the administrators and moderators of the site.

2. Information you provide us interacting with the website

Certain visitors to Alexander Online Sales’ websites choose to interact with Alexander Online Sales in ways that require us to gather personally-identifying information. The amount and type of information that Alexander Online Sales gathers will depend on the nature of the interaction. For example, we ask visitors who sign up at MyChesCo to provide a username and email address. Nevertheless, in each case, Alexander Online Sales collects such information only insofar as is necessary or appropriate to fulfill the purpose of the visitor’s interaction with Alexander Online Sales. Website Operator does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below. And visitors can always refuse to supply personally-identifying information, with the caveat that it may prevent them from engaging in certain website-related activities.

3. Information collected through a social media platform

If you access or log-in to the Website through a social media platform or connect a Service to a social media platform, the information we collect may also include your user ID and/or username associated with that social media platform, any information or content you have permitted the social media service to share with us, such as your profile picture, email address or friends lists, and any information you have made public in connection with that social media service. When you access the MyChesCo Website and Services through a social media platform or when you connect the MyChesCo Service to a social media platform, you are authorizing Alexander Online Sales to collect, store, and use such information and content in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

II. HOW WE USE AND SHARE INFORMATION

We use the information we collect from and about you for these additional purposes:

  • To allow service providers to assist us in providing and managing the Website and Services.
  • To allow social sharing functionality.
  • To provide co-branded services and features.
  • To deliver relevant advertisements.
  • To contact you.
  • To share with other Alexander Online Sales owned Websites, Services, and Businesses.
  • To protect the rights of Alexander Online Sales and others.
  • To complete a merger or sale of assets.

Personal Information: Except as otherwise stated in this Privacy Policy, we do not sell, trade, rent or otherwise share for marketing purposes your Personal Information with third parties without your consent. We do share Personal Information with vendors who are performing services for the Website Operator, such as the servers for our email communications who are provided access to user’s email address for purposes of sending emails from us.  Those vendors use your Personal Information only at our direction and in accordance with our Privacy Policy. In general, the Personal Information you provide to us is used to help us communicate with you.  For example, we use Personal Information to contact users in response to questions, solicit feedback from users, provide technical support, and inform users about promotional offers.

Non-Personal Information: In general, we use Non-Personal Information to help us improve the Service and customize the user experience.  We also aggregate Non-Personal Information in order to track trends and analyze use patterns on the Site.  This Privacy Policy does not limit in any way our use or disclosure of Non-Personal Information and we reserve the right to use and disclose such Non-Personal Information to our partners, advertisers and other third parties at our discretion.

In the event we undergo a business transaction such as a merger, acquisition by another Website Operator, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, your Personal Information may be among the assets transferred.  You acknowledge and consent that such transfers may occur and are permitted by this Privacy Policy and that any acquirer of our assets may continue to process your Personal Information as set forth in this Privacy Policy.  If our information practices change at any time in the future, we will post the policy changes to the Site so that you may opt out of the new information practices.  We suggest that you check the Site periodically if you are concerned about how your information is used.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. Contact forms

If you use the website’s contact form to communicate with us, we may keep contact form information for up to a year for customer service purposes, but we do not use the information submitted for marketing purposes.

4. Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

For a complete description of our use of cookies and similar technologies, please see our cookie policy below.

5. Embedded content from other websites

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.

6. Analytics

We and our partners use cookies and similar technologies to collect information about your use of the website to help create reports and statistics on the performance of the website. Analytics cookies such as Google Analytics collect information such as your IP address, device type and operating system, referring URLs, location and pages visited. If you don’t want Google Analytics to be used in your browser, you can install the ‘Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-On’, provided by Google.

For a complete description of our use of cookies and similar technologies, please see our cookie policy below.

7. MyChesCo profile

A. Profile Data

When you register for the site, you may be asked to provide certain personal data for display on your profile. The “Name” field is required as well as public, and user profiles are visible to any site visitor. Other profile information may be required or optional, as configured by the site administrator.

User information provided during account registration can be modified or removed on the Profile > Edit panel. In most cases, users also have control over who is able to view a particular piece of profile content, limiting visibility on a field-by-field basis to friends, logged-in users, or administrators only. Site administrators can read and edit all profile data for all users.

B. Activity

This site records certain user actions, in the form of “activity” data. Activity includes updates and comments posted directly to activity streams, as well as descriptions of other actions performed while using the site, such as new friendships, newly joined groups, and profile updates.

The content of activity items obey the same privacy rules as the contexts in which the activity items are created. For example, activity updates created in a user’s profile is publicly visible, while activity items generated in a private group are visible only to members of that group. Site administrators can view all activity items, regardless of context.

Activity items may be deleted at any time by users who created them. Site administrators can edit all activity items.

C. Cookies

We use a cookie to show success and failure messages to logged-in users, in response to certain actions, like joining a group. These cookies contain no personal data, and are deleted immediately after the next page load.

We use cookies on group, member, and activity directories to keep track of a user’s browsing preferences. These preferences include the last-selected values of the sort and filter dropdowns, as well as pagination information. These cookies contain no personal data, and are deleted after 24 hours.

When a logged-in user creates a new group, we use a number of cookies to keep track of the group creation process. These cookies contain no personal data, and are deleted either upon the successful creation of the group or after 24 hours.

8. Anti-spam

We collect information about visitors who comment on Sites that use Akismet anti-spam service. The information collect 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).

III. HOW WE PROTECT INFORMATION

We implement security measures designed to protect your information from unauthorized access.  Your account is protected by your account password and we urge you to take steps to keep your personal information safe by not disclosing your password and by logging out of your account after each use.  We further protect your information from potential security breaches by implementing certain technological security measures such as firewalls.  However, these measures do not guarantee that your information will not be accessed, disclosed, altered or destroyed by breach of such firewalls and security software.  By using our Service, you acknowledge that you understand and agree to assume these risks.

IV. COOKIE POLICY

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. Alexander Online Sales uses cookies to help Alexander Online Sales identify and track visitors, their usage of Alexander Online Sales websites, and their website access preferences. Alexander Online Sales visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using Alexander Online Sales’ websites, with the drawback that certain features of Alexander Online Sales’ websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.

1. How do we use cookies?

We use cookies in a range of ways to improve your experience on our site, including

  • Keeping you signed in
  • Understanding how you use our site
  • Showing you articles and content that is relevant to you
  • Showing you MyChesCo products and services that are relevant to you
  • Working with partners to deliver to you relevant advertising
  • Ultimately, this allows us to publish the articles and content that you read on our sites and apps.

Other organizations also collect user information on our site through cookies, tags and pixels. Tags and pixels, also known as web beacons, are similar to cookies but are collected through embedded images.

Using cookies and other technology allows other organizations to help us to analyze how our site is being used, measure the number of visitors to the site, and display advertising. To accomplish these goals, MyChesCo utilizes cookies, tags, pixels, and other web beacons to communicate information about you to others. If you are a California or US resident, you may elect to opt-out of all sales of personal information through these cookies, tags, pixels, and web beacons by setting your browser to refuse cookies or set to “incognito” before using our website.

Cookies that are used by the MyChesCo are referred to as “first-party cookies” and those that are used by our partners are “third-party cookies”. Because of how cookies work, our website cannot access third-party cookies; nor can other organizations access the data in the cookies we use on our website. There are more details about both types of cookies in the following sections.

2. What types of cookies do we use?

We use four types of cookies:

  • Essential – cookies that are essential to provide you with services you have requested. For example, these include the cookies that make it possible for you to stay logged into your MyChesCo account and make comments. If you set your browser to block these cookies, then these functions and services will not work for you. In particular, we won’t be able to save your preferences about cookies.
  • Performance – cookies which measure how often you visit our sites and how you use them. We use this information to get a better sense of how our users engage with our articles and content and to improve our site and apps so that users have a better experience. For example, we collect information about which of our pages are most frequently visited, and by which types of users. We also use third-party cookies to help with performance. For example, the Google Analytics cookie gives us information such as your journey between pages and whether you have downloaded anything (details of how to opt-out of it are below).
  • Functionality – cookies that are used to recognize you and remember your preferences or settings when you return to our site so that we can provide you with a more personalized experience.
  • Advertising – cookies that are used to collect information about your visit to our site, including the content you have viewed, the links you have followed and information about your browser, device and your IP address. We have set out more details on this below.

3. How do we use cookies for advertising?

Cookies are a key part of how we deliver advertising on our sites. Among other uses, they allow us to show more relevant advertising to people who visit mychesco.com by showing you adverts that are based on your browsing patterns and the way you have interacted with our sites and apps. We can then show you adverts which we believe may interest you.

From MyChesCo’s launch in 2017, our platform has been funded, in part, by advertising. Our editorial content is not influenced by the advertising we display and our writers are free to challenge the activities of companies and organizations that advertise and sponsor content that appears in Alexander Online Sales websites and publications.

As you browse our site, some of the cookies and similar technology we place on your device are for advertising, so we can understand what sorts of pages you read and are interested in. We can then display advertising on your browser based on these interests. For instance, if you have been reading a lot of food and drink articles, you may be shown more adverts for food and drink from others.

We are a partner in the Google Ads that may use cookies, pixels and similar technology to collect information about what you have viewed and how you have used our site and our app. They will make assumptions about your interests and preferences and add you to groups based on those assumptions, in order to show you advertising. For example, if you look at a page in our travel section you might be added to a group for people interested in vacationing abroad, and then we might show you adverts for vacationing abroad.

The advertising techniques we use do not collect personal data such as your name, email address, postal address or phone number. We sometimes use information such as your IP address and browser type and also sometimes share some limited aspects of this with others for advertising purposes. Under California law, this collected data can be considered “personal information.” Please consult the MyChesCo’s California Consumer Privacy Act Notice below for more information about your California Privacy Rights.

We may also share and receive online data collected through cookies and similar technology with our advertising partners. This means that when you are on another website, you may be shown advertising based on your browsing patterns on our sites. We may also show you advertising on our sites based on your browsing patterns on other sites that we have obtained from our advertising partners.

Online retargeting is another form of online advertising that allows us and some of our advertising partners to show you advertising based on your browsing patterns and interactions with other sites. The use of cookies may mean that when you are on another site, you may be shown advertising based on what you have looked at on our sites. For example, if you have visited the website of an online clothes shop, you may start seeing adverts from that same shopping site displaying special offers or showing you the products you were browsing. This allows companies to advertise to you if you leave their website without making a purchase.

Increasingly, our readers fund us directly. But to grow that number of supporters we are reliant on marketing, and we still rely in part on advertising to fund our articles and content. Therefore, cookies provide vital services to the MyChesCo without sacrificing our independence or values.

V. ADS POLICY

Ads appearing on any of our websites may be delivered to users by advertising partners, who may set cookies. These cookies allow the ad server to recognize your computer each time they send you an online advertisement to compile information about you or others who use your computer. This information allows ad networks to, among other things, deliver targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you. This Privacy Policy covers the use of cookies by Alexander Online Sales and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.

VI. EMAIL POLICY

Alexander Online Sales is committed to complying with all U.S. privacy laws, such as the CAN-SPAM Act, and all other applicable privacy laws, such as Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation, and it is our intention that our email communications be pursuant to such laws.

With the noted exceptions outlined herein, Alexander Online Sales does not allow any third-party company to use your email address for commercial purposes without your expressed permission. We will send you newsletter communications, partner sponsorship messages, account alerts, and any other emails you have requested to receive. If you would like to opt-out of any specific newsletters or mailings, please log in to your profile to change your settings.

VII. CHILDREN UNDER 13

MyChesCo is not intended for children under 13 years of age. No one under age 13 may provide any information to or on MyChesCo. Alexander Online Sales does not knowingly target advertising to, or collect information from, children under the age of 13. If you are under 13, do not use or provide any information on the Website or on or through any of its features, register on the MyChesCo, use any of the interactive or public comment features, or otherwise provide any information about yourself to us, including your name, telephone number, email address or any screen name or user name you may use. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at admin@mychesco.com.

VIII. DATA RETENTION

Your personal information is retained for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy.

IX. YOUR RIGHTS REGARDING THE USE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

You have the right at any time to prevent us from contacting you for marketing purposes.  When we send a promotional communication to a user, the user can opt out of further promotional communications by following the unsubscribe instructions provided in each promotional e-mail.  Registered users can also indicate that they do not wish to receive marketing communications from us in the “Your Profile” section of the Site.  Please note that notwithstanding the promotional preferences you indicate by either unsubscribing or opting out in the Settings section of the Site, we may continue to send you administrative emails including, for example, periodic updates to our Privacy Policy.

X.  LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

As part of the Service, we may provide links to or compatibility with other websites or applications.  However, we are not responsible for the privacy practices employed by those websites or the information or content they contain.  This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by us through the Site and the Service.  Therefore, this Privacy Policy does not apply to your use of a third-party website accessed by selecting a link on our Site or via our Service.  To the extent that you access or use the Service through or on another website or application, then the privacy policy of that other website or application will apply to your access or use of that site or application.  We encourage our users to read the privacy statements of other websites before proceeding to use them.

XI.  CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

The Website Operator reserves the right to change this policy and our Terms of Service at any time.  We will notify you of significant changes to our Privacy Policy by sending a notice to the primary email address specified in your account or by placing a prominent notice on our site.  Significant changes will go into effect 30 days following such notification.  Non-material changes or clarifications will take effect immediately. You should periodically check the Site and this privacy page for updates.

XII. CONTACT US

If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy or the practices of this Site, please contact us by sending an email to admin@mychesco.com.

XIII. California Consumer Privacy Act Notice

Please note, the MyChesCo website or online service is not directed toward California residents, but we acknowledge that we may potentially collect personal information from California residents who choose to visit the MyChesCo website or use our online services. Therefore, this California Consumer Privacy Act Notice Section provides information for California residents in connection with the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”).

Under the CCPA, and for purposes of this Section, “Personal Information” generally means information that identifies, relates to, or describes a particular California resident and includes the categories listed below. This Section 8 provides details about the categories of Personal Information of California residents that we have collected, disclosed, or “sold” during the last 12 months, as well as rights California residents have under California law.

1. What information does MyChesCo have about you?

Depending on the Services you use, below are some examples of information we may have, how we have collected it, and how we might use and share it. To learn more about what data MyChesCo may have, you can consult our overall Privacy Policy above.

Information you provide to us, for example:

  • Contact information and account registration details, such as your email address to send you messages about your favorite reality shows.
  • Identification and demographics, such as gender, and education, so we may potentially personalize your experience.
  • Transactional data, such as the tickets you have purchased with us, so that we can ensure you have the appropriate entitlements.
  • User-generated content, such as photos or videos that you upload, so that you can participate in a competition.
  • Research and feedback, such as your comments, so that we can improve our services.

Information we collect automatically, for example:

  • Device information and identifiers, such as your IP address or browser type, so we can ensure our website is optimized to your viewing needs.
  • Connection and usage data, such as the fact that you opened one of our emails, so that we serve you more relevant content.
  • Geolocation, such as your city to ensure we serve our live content in the right time zone.

Information we obtain from third parties, for example:

  • Information from public and commercial services, such as your shopping preferences to better tailor advertising to you.
  • Social media information, such as your social media login data if you choose to sign into one of our services that way.

2. How does MyChesCo use your personal information?

Depending on the Services you use, below are some examples of how we might use it. To learn more about how we use data MyChesCo you can consult the overall Privacy Policy above. We may use information in order to:

  • Provide the MyChesCo Services, for example, if you have trouble accessing a feature on a website, we can offer you support. We may also use the fact that you had trouble to work to improve that feature or create new ones.
  • Send you marketing communications, for example, we may send you information about a sweepstakes.
  • Market and Advertise for third parties, for example, we may take the fact that you enjoy articles about “Food and Dining” and use that fact to serve you relevant or related advertisements.
  • Protect our users, Services, and properties, for example, we may detect an unauthorized attempt to log in to an account.

3. How does MyChesCo share your personal information?

Depending on the Services you use, below are some examples of how we might share your personal information. To learn more, please consult our overall Privacy Policy above.

  • Related Companies. For example, we may want to understand audience overlap with The Daily Local News.
  • Advertisers, Advertising Networks, and Other Third Parties. For example, we may collect a device ID along with the content you have viewed and conclude you may enjoy scary movies. We may then pass your device ID along to an advertising network in order to serve you advertisements about scary movies.
  • Partners. For example, you may ask us to share your information with an event website in order to book tickets for a local event.
  • Social Networks. For example, you may click ‘share’ to have a news story from a MyChesCo property appear on your social media account. When you do this some information about you will be passed to the platform.
  • Service Providers. For example, we may use a vendor to collect data about a user’s ‘journey’—what webpage they start on, what pages they view and for how long–to optimize our website.
  • Search Engines. For example, if you post a picture of a drawing you made on our website, that drawing may then be available via search engines since the website is publicly available.
  • Law Enforcement. For example, we may work with law enforcement if we detect potential fraud on one of our digital platforms.

4. How does MyChesCo sell your personal information?

The California Consumer Privacy Act defines a ‘sale’ in a way that may include allowing a third party to receive certain information to add to a profile about your device, browser, or you. This profiling powers interest-based advertising on the MyChesCo site and services and allows us to keep many of our sites and services at low or no cost.

5. Can you make a request and delete your data?

To make a request for deletion, please click here. You will need to provide your name and email address, along with other details about your request. You will then receive verification instructions by email. For certain requests, you will be asked to authenticate to your account as part of the verification process, if you have an account/profile with us. But you do not need to have an account/profile to submit a request. In some circumstances, we may need additional information from you to verify your identity or proceed with your request.

You can use an authorized agent to submit a request for your Personal Information. When submitting a request online, your authorized agent should select the “Other” option on the form and, in the field provided, include your name, your email address, and whether or not you have an account/profile with us. In addition to verifying your identity, as described above, we also will need to verify your authorized agent’s ability to act on your behalf (e.g., by receiving a copy of your signed permission). Once verification is complete, we may communicate directly with you for privacy and security reasons. Please note that, in some instances, we may decline to honor your request, where, for example, we are unable to verify your identity or an exception to this right applies.

Last Updated: This Privacy Policy was last updated on 18-Jan-2021.