Privacy Statement
Effective January 1, 2019Your privacy is very important to Blackstone Audio, Inc. (referred to herein as “Blackstone,” “we” and “our”). Blackstone is committed to maintaining and using your information responsibly. Accordingly, Blackstone has developed this Privacy Statement in order for you to understand how Blackstone collects, uses, communicates, discloses and otherwise processes your personal information. This Privacy Statement describes how we manage the personal information that we collect at www.blackstonepublishing.com (the “Site”) and does not apply to information that Blackstone may collect from you through other means. This Privacy Statement covers your use of the Site, whether you simply access and browse the Site, enter information into the Site, and/or use any services or other features offered through the Site. The foregoing activities are collectively referred to as your “use of the Site” (or a similar phrase).
PLEASE READ this Privacy Statement before you use the Site. Your use of the Site signifies to us that you have read and understand all of the terms of this Privacy Statement.
This Privacy Statement explains:- What personal information we collect about you from your use of the Site, why we collect it, who we share it with, and how long we keep it;
- How we use your personal information;
- How we protect your personal information; and
- Your legal rights related to the personal information we collect about you, including how to access and update your personal information.
- Please note that some of the provisions in this statement will only apply to you if you are based in the European Economic Area (“EEA”).
- What Information We Collect About You
- Children’s Privacy
- How And Why We Use Your Information
- Cookies And Other Information Processing Technologies
- Who We Share Information With, And Why
- Transfer And Storage Of Your Information
- Securing Your Information
- Your Rights With Respect To Your Personal Information
- How Long We Retain Your Information
- Third Party Links On This Site
- Additional Information
Personal Information You Provide Voluntarily
Certain parts and functionality of our Site may ask you to provide information voluntarily. Blackstone collects and maintains personal information you provide to us when you:
- subscribe to Blackstone’s newsletter through the Site; or
- otherwise send us information through the Site.
The information we ask you to provide through the Site may include your name, e-mail address, and phone number, and other information you provide to us when you communicate with us through the Site.
You are never under any obligation to provide us your personal information
If you choose not to provide us your personal information, you can still browse the Site; however, you will not be able to use certain other services offered through the Site. Any personal information that we ask you to provide, and the reasons why we ask you to provide it, will be clear to you at the point we ask you to provide the information. In general, unless otherwise stated, the information you will be asked to provide is needed to provide you with the requested services and content through the Site.
When you visit and interact with the Site, we automatically collect and store certain information from your computer or device. In some countries, including those in the European Economic Area (“EEA”), and under certain laws, some of this automatically-collected information may be considered personal information. Automatically-collected information as described in this section allows us to better understand the visitors to our Site, where they come from, and what content on the Site is of interest to them. We use this information for our internal analytics purposes, to diagnose problems with our servers, and to improve the quality, performance and functionality of the Site and its relevance to our visitors.
The information we automatically collect when you visit the Site informs us about the device(s) you use to access the Site, as well as your usage of the Site, and may include: the internet protocol (“IP”) address from your computer or device, unique device identifiers, broad geolocation data (country or city level), the registered domain or home server you use, the date and time you access the Site, the type of device or computer, the web browser type and language, the type of operating system your computer uses, the website address you navigated to the site from, search terms, search results, and similar information regarding the interaction between the Site and your computer, such as pages visited and links clicked.
We use “cookies” and other website tracking technologies, such as “pixel tags”, to gather clickstream data and information about how visitors navigate the Site. More information about our use of tracking technologies on the Site is described in the section “Cookies And Other Information Processing Technologies”, below, and in greater detail in our Cookie Notice.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Our Site may provide features that allow you to register, sign-in to, “like”, “follow”, or otherwise interact with Blackstone via third party social media services, including, but not limited to, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and SoundCloud, among others. These features may enable integration and/or access to your social media accounts. We do not control these social media services or your profiles on these services, and we do not establish privacy settings or rules for how your personal information on these services will be used. If you choose to sign-in to or submit information through any of these social media services, your personal information will be subject to the applicable social media service’s terms and conditions and your current privacy settings on such social media service. By accessing any social media service, you will be assuming the risk that the personal information you provide on that service may be viewed and/or used by third parties for any purpose.
Our Site is not directed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly (i) collect any personal information from children under 16; (ii) permit submission of personal information by anyone under age 16; or (iii) contact children under age 16 for marketing purposes. If we learn that we have received information from a child under age 16, we will use that information only to respond to directly to that child (or a parent or legal guardian of that child) to inform him or her that he or she cannot use the Site, and we will then delete that information from our files. If you are under age 16, you should not use this Site and you should not send us personal information about yourself. If you believe we might have information from or about a child under age 16, please contact us.
Legal Basis for Processing Your Information
Our legal basis for collecting and using information from you will depend on the information concerned and the specific context in which we collect it.
We use the information that you disclose to us and automatically-collected information for the reasons described in this Statement. But generally, we will only collect personal information from you (i) where we need the personal information to perform a request for you, (ii) where the processing is in our legitimate interests, such as monitoring and improving the Site, and not overridden by your data protection interests or fundamental rights and freedoms, or (iii) where we have your consent to do so. In some cases, we may also have a legal obligation to collect personal information from you or may otherwise need the personal information to protect your vital interests or those of another person. Additional details about how we use the information we collect are described below:
- To perform requests for you: Generally, we use the information you voluntarily provide to us in order to perform the services that you have requested of us (including to process newsletter subscriptions), respond to your inquiries and support our customer relationship with you, and in any other way we describe when you provide the information. We may use your personal information to notify you about changes to our Site, products, or services, and/or this Privacy Statement and our other Site terms and policies.
- To improve Site performance and user experience: We use the information you voluntarily provide to us, as well as automatically-collected information, to customize and tailor your experience using the Site. We also use the information collected through the Site to analyze trends and statistics, as well as to update and improve our Site and the services that we provide.
- To comply with our legal obligations: In certain situations we may use the information you voluntarily provide to us, as well as automatically-collected information, to help prevent fraudulent activity, as well as for preventing, investigating and detecting crime, fraud, or anti-social behavior, including working with law enforcement agencies. We also may use this information to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, including under applicable data protection laws.
- For marketing purposes: If you request to be put on our newsletter, or otherwise provide your consent to receive marketing messages from us, we may use the information you voluntarily provide to us, as well as automatically-collected information, to send you announcements and other materials from time-to-time. More information about our marketing and advertising practices through the Site is described under the “Cookies And Other Information Processing Technologies” section, below, as well as in our Cookie Notice.
Cookies. We use cookies to make this Site perform properly and provide a better and more relevant browsing experience to our Site visitors. A cookie is a small text file that is placed on a computer or other device, and is used to identify the user or device, and to collect information. Cookies are typically assigned to one of four categories, depending on their function and intended purpose: strictly necessary cookies, analytical or performance cookies, functional cookies, and targeting and advertising cookies for marketing purposes. You can learn more about the use of cookies on this site through our Cookie Notice.
Marketing and Advertising. As described in our Cookie Notice, Blackstone may use, or allow third parties to place, pixels, or transparent GIF files, to help manage online advertising for the Site. These technologies are provided by Blackstone’s advertising partners, to enable them to recognize a unique cookie on your Web browser, which in turn enables Blackstone to learn which advertisements bring users to the Site. We use this information to make our Site and services more interesting and useful to you. These advertising partners are not allowed to use information collected from the pixels for any reason except on our behalf, and they are required to keep that information confidential.
Analytics and Security. For analytical and security purposes we also use other tracking technologies on the Site such as server and application logs, which may record information such as internet domain and host names, IP addresses, browser software and operating system types, clickstream patterns, and dates and times that the Site is accessed.
Newsletter: As described above, if you request to be put on our newsletter, we will use the information that you give us to send you announcements and other materials from time to time. Each e-mail you receive from us will give you the option to unsubscribe from our newsletter. If you no longer wish to receive email communications from us, please click on the “unsubscribe” link provided in each email. Alternatively, you may email Blackstone at privacy@blackstonepublishing.com. Please be sure to include in such email your full name, email address and specify what type of information you do not want to receive. If you request that we not contact you for marketing purposes (either by using the opt-out mechanism or contacting us), there may be occasions where we still contact you for non-marketing purposes relating to your other use of the Site.
WHO WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION WITH AND WHY
We may disclose aggregated non-personal information about our Site visitors. This is information that does not identify you or any individual.
We may disclose personal information that we collect or that you provide, as described in this Privacy Statement, with the following types of third parties:
Service Providers
In certain instances we may disclose personal information you provide to us in connection with subscribing to our newsletter or otherwise using the services available through the Site to third party processors or to other third-party service providers who help with our business operations (such as mailing lists and third-party site analytics providers). Our third-party service providers are not authorized to use your information in any way other than in accordance with our instructions, and they are required to keep the information confidential. We cannot guarantee, however, that once disclosed, other parties will not gain access to this information. Blackstone will not be liable for any damages that may result from the misuse of your personal information by these companies. Blackstone does not sell personal information to third parties for advertising, marketing, or promotional purposes, and does not otherwise disclose personal information to third parties except as described in this Privacy Statement.
Blackstone may sell, assign, delegate or otherwise transfer your personal information and automatically-collected information to any successor in interest or to any purchaser of all or substantially all of the assets or stock of Blackstone, its affiliated entities and divisions or any entity with which it merges. In this event, we will use reasonable efforts to notify you when personal information and automatically-collected information is transferred to a third party, as well as to notify you about choices you may have regarding your information (this notification may be made via email to you or by posting a prominent notice on the Site). We will inform any purchaser or successor in interest that it may only use your personal information received from Blackstone and collected through this Site for the purposes described in this Statement. But any personal information and automatically-collected information you provide after the transfer will likely be subject to a new privacy policy, and you should review that policy.
We may also disclose information that we maintain, without your consent and without additional notice to you, when required to do so by law, or where we have a good faith belief that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect our rights or a third party’s rights, for example, in response to a court order, a subpoena, a request by a law enforcement agency or to respond to claims that any content violates the rights of any third party. We also reserve the right to disclose the information to any third party to prevent, investigate, detect or prosecute criminal offenses or attacks on the technical integrity of our Site or our network; and to protect the rights, property and safety of our firm, the users of our Site and the public; and to defend against legal claims, or take action regarding illegal activities or violations of this Privacy Statement or our other Site terms and conditions.
Your use of the Site may involve your personal information being transferred to, and processed in, countries other than the country in which you reside. These countries may have data protection laws that are different to the laws of your country (and, in some cases, may not be as protective).
Specifically, we are headquartered in the United States, and our Site is hosted by Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) in the United States. This means that if you use our Site and if we collect your personal information through the means described in this Statement, your personal information will be processed by us and AWS in the United States, which (in the absence of an adequacy decision from the EU Commission or similar body from another country or territory) may not have the same level of data protection as in your country. However, we have taken appropriate safeguards to require that your personal information will remain protected in accordance with this Privacy Statement.
SECURING YOUR INFORMATION
We use commercially reasonable efforts to maintain the security, integrity, and privacy of any personal information you choose to give us and of automatically-collected information. We have security technology and procedures in place to try to ensure that all information stored on our database is secured against unauthorized access and use. For example, Blackstone uses firewalls and other security measures on this Site. You should not send us financial information or other sensitive information via email, and you should not attempt to place orders with us through this Site or via email, as this is not secure. In the event of an unauthorized use of your credit card, you should contact your card issuer immediately.
Although we will strive to take appropriate measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that personal information or automatically-collected information that we collect will never be disclosed in a manner inconsistent with this Privacy Statement. Inadvertent disclosures may occur, and unauthorized third parties may circumvent the security measures we have taken and access your information. No data storage system or transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, and, as a result, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information or automatically-collected information. Any transmission of information is at your own risk.
Information that you voluntarily make available for viewing by third parties online - for example in connection with postings, reviews, discussion forums or other community or social networking areas of our Site - can be seen, collected and used by others besides us. We are not responsible for any unauthorized third-party use of such information, and we are not responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of such information. We cannot control how users store, transfer, or use information gathered from our Site, so you should ensure that you do not post sensitive information to public areas of the Site.
YOUR RIGHTS WITH RESPECT TO YOUR INFORMATION
If you are a resident in certain territories (such as, but not limited to, the European Economic Area), subject to applicable local law, you have the following data protection rights:
- If you wish to access, correct, update, or request deletion of your personal information, you can do so at any time as described in the “Updating & Correcting Personal Information” heading below.
- In addition, you can object to processing of your personal information, ask us to restrict processing of your personal information, or request portability of your personal information. You can exercise these rights by contacting us at privacy@blackstonepublishing.com.
- You have the right to opt-out of marketing communications we send you at any time. You can exercise this right at any time as described in the “Advertising and Marketing” section above, or by contacting us at privacy@blackstonepublishing.com.
- If we collect and process your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent. You can exercise these rights by contacting us at privacy@blackstonepublishing.com.
- If you are a resident of the European Economic Area, you have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority. (Contact details for data protection authorities in the European Economic Area are available here.)
California Civil Code § 1798.83 permits Site users who are California residents to request certain information regarding Blackstone’s disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an email to privacy@blackstonepublishing.com or write to us at the address set forth below.
Site visitors may update or correct the personal information that they have provided to Blackstone by sending an email to privacy@blackstonepublishing.com. Please note that some services offered through the Site may not function properly if we remove any or all of your personal information. If you want to ask us to delete your information from our database, please contact us at privacy@blackstonepublishing.com. Please be aware, however, that if you update, modify or delete any information collected through our Site, we may retain residual information about you in backup and/or archival copies of our database. Further, we may retain your information to comply with our retention practices described below. Finally, note that we may not accommodate a request to change or delete your information from our database if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.
We respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws. Before responding to your request, we may ask you to verify your identity and/or provide further details about your request.
We provide the ability to opt out of marketing communications and to change or modify your personal information, regardless of your residency, as described in the sections above.
HOW LONG WE RETAIN YOUR INFORMATION
We will retain your personal information until you ask us to remove it from our databases, but otherwise for only as long as we need it to carry-out the purposes for which we collect and use it. Please note that it may be impossible to remove some information, such as information that may reside in backup files. We may also retain automatically-collected information even after you request that we remove your information from our database, for use in the aggregate and to analyze and improve our Site. Further, even after you request that we remove your information from our databases, we may retain personal information and automatically-collected information to comply with applicable laws, rules, regulations, or guidelines; to prevent fraudulent activity; to protect ourselves against liability; to resolve disputes; and to permit us to pursue available remedies and limit any damages that we may sustain.
When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete it or anonymize it, or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
THIRD PARTY LINKS ON THIS SITE
Our Site may contain links to websites operated by third parties that are not under our control or supervision. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these websites. These websites may have their own cookies, privacy policies and customer service policies, or no policies at all. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of the other websites to see how your personal information will be handled on the third-party sites before providing them with your personal information or continuing to use the third-party websites and services. We are not, and shall not be deemed to be, responsible or liable for the privacy practices of such third parties, and your use of such websites is at your own risk.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONEffective Date and Modifications
This Statement is effective as of the date listed at the top of this page. Please note that we may modify this Privacy Statement at any time, at our sole discretion, by posting the modified Statement on our Site. You can determine if this Privacy Statement has been revised since your last visit to the Site by referring to the effective date. Blackstone will also provide notification of significant changes to this Privacy Statement through a link on the home page of the Site. In addition, if changes are significant and if you have voluntarily provided us with personal information through the Site, we will also notify you of such changes via the email address you have provided to us. You are responsible for providing us an up-to-date and active email address, and for periodically reviewing this Privacy Statement to check for any changes. The modifications will be effective upon posting, unless some other date is specified. All personal information held by us will be governed by the most recent Privacy Statement posted on the Site. We will keep prior versions in an archive for your review upon your request.
If any part of this Privacy Statement is determined to be invalid, illegal, or unenforceable, pursuant to applicable law, then the invalid, illegal, or unenforceable provision will be deemed superseded by a valid, legal, and enforceable provision that most closely matches the intent of the original provision, and the remainder of this Privacy Statement shall continue in full force and effect.
If you have questions regarding this Privacy Statement, you may contact us at Blackstone Publishing, Attention: Privacy, 31 Mistletoe Road, Ashland, Oregon 97520; email: privacy@blackstonepublishing.com; Phone: 1-800-729-2665