Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes how FloridaSmart & Partner Websites (“FLORIDASMART Sites”,”we”, “us”, “our”) collect and use the personally identifiable information you provide on our Websites (FLORIDASMART Sites).  It also describes the choices available to you regarding our use of your personally identifiable information and how you can access and update that information. 

Other than as described in this Policy, we will not give any information about you to others without your express permission.

Who we are

FloridaSmart is an Online Media Company providing information and content based in the state of Florida.

Our website address is: https://www.floridasmart.com.

FloridaSmart.com (FLORIDASMART) and Partner Websites are accessible worldwide to anyone with access to the Internet.

Information Collection and Use

We collect and use information based on the various contacts you have with us. 

Information we collect digitally through our website and partner sites

We use information gathered about you from Site statistics (for example, your IP address) to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer our websites, and to identify location information. We also gather broad demographic information from this data to help us improve our websites and make your browsing and purchasing experience more enjoyable. This is not linked to any personally identifiable information, except as necessary to prevent fraud or abuse on our system.

Google Analytics

We use a tool called “Google Analytics” to collect information about use of Our Sites, such as how often users visit the Sites, what pages they visit when they do so, and what other sites they used prior to coming to the Site.  Google Analytics collects only the IP address assigned to you on the date you visit Site, rather than your name or other identifying information.

Google Analytics plants a permanent cookie on your web browser to identify you as a unique user the next time you visit the Site.  This cookie cannot be used by anyone but Google, Inc.  The information generated by the cookie will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States.

We use the information received from Google Analytics only to improve services on the Site.  We do not combine the information collected through the use of Google Analytics with personally identifiable information.

Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to this Site is restricted by the Google Privacy Policy.  You can prevent Google Analytics from recognizing you on return visits to this Site by disabling the Google Analytics cookie on your browser.

Information you provide to us directly including personal information

We use forms in which you give us contact information (including your name, address, telephone number, and email address) so you can place orders, request information and support, and make product suggestions, submit content including photos, articles and links, participate in forum or add comments to articles or blogs. We receive and store any information you enter on these forms or give us in any other way, including through email, telephone, or other communications with our customer service department. If you contact us for support, we will keep an internal record of what support was given.

We use your information to contact you regarding functionality changes to our products, websites, new services, news and updates, and special offers we think you’ll find valuable. If you would rather not receive this information, please see the “Opt Out” section below on how to change your preferences.

We may also use your information to present a co-branded offer with our partners or affiliates. If we collect information from you in connection with a co-branded offer, it will be clear at the point of collection who is collecting the information and whose privacy statement applies.

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.

Security of Information

We have security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of the information under our control.  When you enter sensitive information (such as a credit card number) on our order forms, we encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL).

We follow generally accepted standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it.  No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however.  Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Sending Emails

We use emails to communicate with you, to confirm your placed orders, and to send information that you have requested. We also provide email links, as on our “Contact Us” page, to allow you to contact us directly. We strive to promptly reply to your messages.

The information you send to us may be stored and used to improve the Site and our products and services, or it may be reviewed and discarded.

Opt Out

You may opt out of receiving emails we generate that includes news, updates, services, offers and more, at any time. Note that by opting out, you may still receive emails regarding your account. If you have submitted content, you may still receive emails regarding your content. 

Third Party Service Providers

We may at times provide information about you to third parties to provide various services on our behalf, such as processing credit card payments, serving advertisements, conducting contests or surveys, performing analyses of our products or customer demographics, shipping of goods or services, and customer relationship management. We will only share information about you that is necessary for the third party to provide the requested service. These companies are prohibited from retaining, sharing, storing or using your personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes.

In the event that we use third party advertising companies to serve ads on our behalf, these companies may employ cookies and action tags (also known as single pixel GIF or web beacons) to measure advertising effectiveness. Any information that these third parties collect via cookies and action tags is completely anonymous. If you would like more information about this practice and your choices, click here.

Contests/Surveys

From time-to-time, we may provide you with the opportunity to participate in contests or surveys. If you choose to participate, we may request certain personally identifiable information from you. Participation in these contests or surveys is completely voluntary and you therefore have a choice whether or not to disclose the requested information. The requested information typically includes contact information (such as name and address), and demographic information (such as zip code and age level – note that you must be 18 or above to enter). We use this information to notify contest winners and award prizes, to monitor site traffic, and to personalize the Site.

We may use a third party service provider to conduct these surveys or contests. When we do, that company will be prohibited from using our users’ personally identifiable information for any other purpose. We will not share the personally identifiable information you provide through a contest or survey with other third parties unless we give you prior notice and choice.

Supplementation of Information

In order to provide certain services to you, we may on occasion supplement the personally identifiable information you submit to us with information from third party sources (e.g., information from our strategic partners, service providers, or the United States Postal Service).  We do this to enhance our ability to serve you, to tailor our products and services to you, and to offer you opportunities to purchase products or services that we believe may be of interest to you.

Targeted Advertisements

FLORIDASMART may display targeted offers to our customers based on the products currently owned by the customer.  These offers will display as varying product banners.  There is no personal or geolocation information collected within these product banners to build a profile about your activities or that is shared with third party advertising companies.

Cookies

We use cookies to keep track of your shopping cart and receipts. We use cookies to identify you so you don’t need to log in each time you visit our Site. The cookies are linked to your customer number, which is associated with the information in your account.

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.

 

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.

FLORIDASMART Sites also contains links to other websites. Unfortunately, FLORIDASMART has no control and is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such sites.

Facebook and Other Social Media

If you connect our services to your Facebook account or other Social Media account, we may automatically collect certain information, such as your name, picture, and email address. We will use all information available through Facebook or other Social Sites in accordance with their policies and the preferences you selected on those accounts.

 

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where your data is sent

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

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What Happens to my Personally Identifiable Information if I Terminate my Account?

When your FLORIDASMART account is cancelled (either voluntarily or involuntarily) all of your personally identifiable information is placed in “deactivated” status on our relevant FLORIDASMART databases. However, deactivation of your account does not mean your personally identifiable information has been deleted from our database entirely. We will retain and use your personally identifiable information as necessary in order to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, or enforce our agreements.

Compliance with Laws and Law Enforcement

We cooperate with government and law enforcement officials and private parties to enforce and comply with the law. We will disclose any information about you to government or law enforcement officials or private parties as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate to respond to claims and legal process (including without limitation subpoenas), to protect our property and rights or the property and rights of a third party, to protect the safety of the public or any person, or to prevent or stop activity we consider to be illegal or unethical. We will also share your information to the extent necessary to comply with ICANN’s rules, regulations and policies.

To the extent we are legally permitted to do so, we will take reasonable steps to notify you in the event that we are required to provide your personal information to third parties as part of legal process.

Changes in Our Practices

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. If we decide to change our Privacy Policy, we will post those changes to this Privacy Policy and any other places we deem appropriate, so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.

Please check this page periodically to view any changes to this policy. By continuing to use this Site, you accept the current Privacy Policy.