Lineage Independent Publishing

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Privacy Policy

Summary

This is a plain-language summary (and not a substitute) for the terms below.

  • Lineage Independent Publishing does not sell, rent or swap your Personal Data.
  • Lineage Independent Publishing has not intentionally added cookies to our website. Any cookies you encounter are embedded in the hosting platform, WordPress, to provide a more convenient and personal experience for you.
  • You do have the right to turn off cookies and all tracking technologies at any time.
  • We strive to comply with all requirements set out by the E.U.’s GDPR policy.

Privacy Policy

Created on February 18, 2024

Lineage Independent Publishing cares about the privacy of your data and we’re committed to protecting it. This Privacy Policy (this “Policy”) explains what information we collect about you and why, what we do with that information and how we handle that information. Throughout this policy, when we write “Lineage Independent Publishing,” or “we” or “us,” we’re referring to Lineage Independent Publishing, a Maryland Sole Proprietorship, and our affiliates, online services and mobile applications (collectively, our “Sites”).  This Policy applies to users (individually referred to as “User” or “you”) of Lineage Independent Publishing and our affiliates, services and applications. This Policy constitutes an integral part of our Terms of Service (“Terms”).

This Policy does not cover third parties or their services that we have no control over, such as social media sites (“Independent Platforms”) featured on our Sites. For information about such third parties’ privacy practices, please consult with them directly.

We may update or revise this Policy from time to time. You agree that you will review this Policy periodically. If we make any changes to this Policy, we will change the “Last Updated” date above. You are free to decide whether or not to accept a modified version of this Policy, but accepting this Policy, as modified, is required for you to continue using our Sites. If you do not agree to the terms of this Policy or any modified version of this Policy, you should stop using our Sites

Important information for individuals in the European Union

1. Information we collect

We collect information about you in two main ways when you use our Sites:

  1. You supply it to us or give us permission to obtain it.

When you sign up for or use our products or services, you voluntarily give us certain information. This can include your name, profile photo and information that you supply, location and contact information, comments, likes, email address you used to sign up, some payment information and any other information you provide us. If you’re using our website on your mobile device, you can also choose to provide us with location data. “Personal Information” is any information that can be used to identify, locate or contact you. It also includes other information that may be associated with your name or other identifiers.

You also may give us permission to access your information via Independent Platforms. For example, you may link your Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter account to Lineage Independent Publishing, which allows us to obtain information from those accounts. The information we obtain from those services may depend on your settings or their privacy policies, so be sure to check what those are.

  • We also get technical information when you use our products or services or use websites or apps containing Lineage Independent Publishing features.

Today whenever you use a website, mobile application or other Internet service, certain kinds of information almost always gets created and recorded automatically. The same holds true when you use our products or services. Here are some of the kinds of information we collect:

Log data. When you visit our Sites, we may automatically collect information about your location, computer operating system, Internet Protocol (IP) address, access times, browser type and language and the website you visited before our Sites. While this data is available to us, we access it only to understand metrics about our users in the aggregate.

Cookie and Web beacon data. We also collect information about your usage and activity on our Sites using, among others, cookies and Web beacons technologies. Cookies are small data files that may have unique identifiers and reside, among other places, on your computer or mobile device, in emails we send to you, and on our Web pages. Among other things, cookies help us improve our Sites and your experience. We use cookies to see which areas and features of our Sites are popular and to count visits to our Sites. We may access information contained in cookies placed on your device by a Connection Platform (as defined below) as permitted by the terms of your agreement and privacy settings with such Connection Platform. We may share this information with the Connection Platform for its use as permitted by the terms of your agreement and privacy settings with such Connection Platform. We may also collect information using Web beacons. Web beacons are electronic images that may be used on our Sites or in our emails. We use Web beacons to deliver cookies, count visits, understand usage and campaign effectiveness, and tell whether you open an email and act upon it.


Device information. We may also collect information about the device you’re using to access our Sites, including the type of device, the operating system you’re using, device settings, unique device identifiers and crash data. Whether we collect some or all of this information may depend on the type of device you’re using and its settings. For example, different information is made available to us depending on whether you’re using a Mac or a PC, or a tablet or smartphone. To learn more about what information your device makes available to us, please also check the policies of your device manufacturer or software provider.

We collect this information to, among other things, provide the functionality and improve the quality of our Sites and to personalize your experience with our Services. For example, we may collect your name, email address, postal address, phone number (including your mobile phone number), billing information, survey responses, demographics, account passwords and other information you provide on our Sites. We may collect, store and display the User Content you share on Sites or Independent Platforms.

You are also encouraged to enter our contests organized at our Sites or on Independent Platforms. By participating in such contests, you agree and understand that we may collect your information provided therein by you for the purpose of participation.

Additionally, you can opt in to provide us with your social media contacts, your location or biographical or professional information.

We may also obtain information from other sources, such as third-party websites, applications and services through which you connect with our Sites and combine that with information we collect on our Sites (each a “Connection Platform”).

If you use a Connection Platform to register at our Sites, you will be asked for specific authorization to access certain information provided at your Connection Platform profile, including information about you and your social contacts. By allowing us to access your Connection Platform account, you understand that we may obtain certain information from your Connection Platform account, including your name and email address.

For certain Services on our Sites, credit or debit card account information may be required, as described further in the section “Payment card information” below.

Teens and minors. We do not target persons under the age of 18, and we do not knowingly collect information from persons under the age of 18. If you learn that a minor child under the age of 18 has provided us with personal information without his or her legal guardian’s consent, please contact us.

2. How we use the information we collect

We use personal information collected through our Sites for the purposes described in this Policy or disclosed to you on our Sites or otherwise in connection with our Services. For example, we may use your information to provide you with Services, transact a purchase through our Sites, inform you about current promotions, enable the option to pay your membership fee through our Sites should you choose to join, operate and improve our Sites and Services, better understand you and your preferences to enhance, personalize and customize your experience and enjoyment using our Sites and Services, process and deliver contest entries and rewards, display relevant advertising, respond to your comments and questions and provide customer service, send you information relating to our Services, including technical notices, updates, security alerts, and support and administrative messages, communicate with you about contests, offers, promotions, rewards, upcoming events and other news about Services offered by Lineage Independent Publishing, our subsidiaries, affiliates and select partners, and link or combine it with other personal information we get from third parties to help understand your needs and provide you with better service, authenticate your credit or debit card account information, and protect, investigate and deter against fraudulent, unauthorized or illegal activity.

3. Cookies and online tracking

A cookie is a small data file written to your hard drive that contains information about your visit to a Web page. As is common practice with almost all websites, our Sites use cookies to improve your experience by remembering your preferences and enable other cookie-based features (e.g., analytics), either for a single visit (through a “session cookie”) or for multiple repeat visits (using a “persistent cookie”).

Session cookies exist only for as long as your browser remains open. Once you exit your browser, they disappear. Persistent cookies, in contrast, last from visit to visit; they remain on your hard drive after you exit your browser. The cookies used on the Sites include those that are strictly necessary for access and navigation, cookies that track usage (performance cookies), remember your choices (functionality cookies) and cookies that provide you with targeted content or advertising (described more below under “Interest-based Advertising”). Your browser may tell you how to be notified when you receive certain types of cookies or how to restrict or disable certain types of cookies.

In special cases, we also use cookies provided by trusted third parties such as  Google Analytics. Third party analytics are used to track and measure usage of our Sites so that we can continue to produce engaging content.

We may use the information we obtain from your use of our cookies for the following purposes:

  1. to recognize your computer when you visit the Sites;
  2. to track you as you navigate the Sites and to enable the use of any e-commerce facilities;
  3. to improve the Sites’ usability;
  4. to analyze the use of the Sites;
  5. to administer the Sites; and
  6. to personalize the Sites for you, including possible use of targeted advertisements that may be of particular interest to you both on and off the Sites.

Managing cookies

When you first access our Sites, you may receive a message advising you that cookies and similar technologies are in use. By clicking “accept,” closing the message or continuing to browse the site, you signify that you understand and agree to the use of these technologies, as described in this Cookie Policy.

You may withdraw consent at any time. Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies. You can also remove cookies from your browser settings. Be aware that some Web pages may not function properly if the cookies are turned off, or you may have to provide the same information each time you visit those pages.

Interest-based advertising

We may collect information about your online activities for use in providing you with advertising about products and services tailored to your individual interests. This section of our Privacy and Cookie Notice provides details and explains how to exercise your choices.

You may see certain ads on other websites or in your emails based on your visits to our Sites and third-party sites because we participate in advertising networks administered by third-party vendors, such as Google AdWords. Ad networks allow us to target our messaging to users considering demographic data, users’ inferred interests and browsing context. These networks track your online activities over time by collecting information through automated means, including through the use of cookies, web server logs and web beacons. The networks use this information to show you advertisements that are tailored to your individual interests, to track your browser across multiple websites, and to build a profile of your web browsing. The information our ad network vendors collect includes information about your visits to websites that participate in the vendors’ advertising networks, such as the pages or advertisements you view and the actions you take on the websites. This data collection takes place both on our Sites and on third-party websites that participate in the ad networks. This process also helps us track the effectiveness of our marketing efforts.

Some of our advertising and content partners that may access and use cookies and other data through our Sites are set out below with information about their privacy and opt-out practices. (You can also delete and/or block specific cookies from your browser, as explained above.) Those partner sites include:

Google (“Google”): allows us to monitor how visitors use our sites and also allows us to serve personalized ads that use personal information such as, but not limited to, geolocation, in order to serve the user relevant ads. For more information on their privacy practices and their use of cookies, please see here. To opt out, see here.
Amazon (“Amazon”): allows us to serve users personalized ads that use personal data based on browsing behavior on our Sites. For more information on their privacy practices and their use of cookies, please see here. To opt out, see here.
Facebook (“Facebook”): allows us to serve users personalized ads that uses personal data based on browsing behavior on our Sites. For more information on their privacy practices and their use of cookies, please see here and here.

4. Information you share socially

Our Sites may allow you to connect and share your actions, comments, content and information publicly or with friends. Our Sites may also allow you to connect with us on, share on and use Independent Platforms including those on which Lineage Independent Publishing is present.

Please be mindful of your personal privacy needs and the privacy needs of others as you choose whom to connect with and what to share and make public. We cannot control the privacy or security of information you choose to make public or share with others. Lineage Independent Publishing also does not control the privacy practices of Connection Platforms or Independent Platforms. Please contact those sites and services directly if you want to learn about their privacy practices.

Social media

Our websites may enable you to interact with us and others via social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram.  While we respect each social media platform’s privacy policies, we may collect Personal Information about you and your followers or contacts if you choose to use these tools. For example, our Sites may also offer you the ability to interact with plug-ins from these platforms, in order to allow you to follow us or share your experiences with your online social network.

Social media platforms collect persistent identifiers through your browser or mobile operating system. If you have previously provided personally identifiable information to these platforms, the platform operators may recognize you here. Your use of social network plugins is subject to each social media site’s privacy policy. If you engage with our content on or through third-party social media sites, you may allow us to have access to certain information associated with your social media account (e.g., name, user name, email address, profile picture) to deliver the content or as part of the operation of the plug-in or application. For more information, please read the privacy policies posted by the social media platforms that you use.

As noted above, we may also display interest-based ads to you when you are using social media platforms. These platforms allow us to personalize the ads that we display to you. We do not share any of your Personal Information with these platforms, although we may convert your email address into a unique number that can be matched by the platform with its user to allow delivery of the advertising. Although we do not provide any personal information to these platforms, they may gain insights about individuals who respond to the ads we serve.

5. Information we share

We may share the information you provide with companies that are important to the operation of our Sites and Services.

We may share your Personal Information with third party partners that provide services to you through our websites, but only to the extent you have a relationship with such partner or you authorize the sharing. For example, you may be able to sign up for programs that allow you to interact with authors or review their books or to follow them (through our Sites or otherwise), and we may share your information with the authors (or others) as needed to fulfill your request and or to buttress that interaction; while we may contact you about your interaction, we won’t share your contact information with the authors.

We may share your credit or debit card account information with third parties as described in the section called “Payment card information” below. We share personal information with third parties that perform services on our behalf. For example, when you make a purchase, we may share information about you and your transaction with other companies for the purpose of processing your transaction, and we may retain outside companies to manage databases of customer information to provide advertising services and to distribute email offerings.

Unless you have opted out, we may also share certain information such as your email address with Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter and other third parties so that we can serve targeted ads and content to you and others with similar interests on such third parties’ respective sites (see above for information on how to opt out). These third parties use the data as a service provider to use to help us target our ads to you and others. This is called custom audiences and matching.

Our Sites may feature blogs, forums, discussion groups and comments. Please be aware that the information you post (including personally identifiable information) in connection with these activities may be made publicly available. In addition, some of our Sites provide for user registration including a user profile. In such case, the following information may automatically be available to all other users of such Site: your display name, your photo (if uploaded), and how long you’ve been a registered user. In addition, if you’ve included any optional information in your profile, this information may also be available to all other users.

We may also disclose Personal Information where permitted by law, such as for payment processing, as needed to affect the sale or transfer of business assets, to enforce our rights, including Terms of Service, protect our property, or protect the rights, property or safety of others, or as needed support external auditing, compliance and corporate governance functions.  We will also always disclose Personal Information when required to do so by law, such as in response to a subpoena, including to law enforcement agencies and courts in the United States and other countries where we operate.

6. Payment card information

In the future, we may require your credit or debit card account information to provide you with certain goods or services through our Sites. By submitting your credit or debit card account information through our Sites, you expressly consent to the sharing of your information with third-party payment processors, and you further agree to the following terms.

When you use a credit or debit card to make a payment through our Sites, we provide your credit or debit card account information (including card number and expiration date, but excluding the CVV number) to our third-party payment service providers, such as Stripe or PayPal, in order to process your payments.

When you initially provide your credit or debit card account information through our Sites in order to use such Services, we provide your credit or debit card account information to our third-party payment service providers. We do not store any credit or debit card information ourselves. However, these third parties may store your credit or debit card account information in accordance with their privacy policies that you should familiarize yourself with. For information about the security of your credit or debit card account information, see the Section called “Security of your personal information” below.

7. Security of your personal information

Lineage Independent Publishing takes measures to safeguard your data, and we take reasonable steps to help secure and protect your personal information. Our website uses https, which means that anything sent between your device and our servers will be encrypted. Our SSL certificate is kept up to date at all times and lets you know that the pages you visit on our website are provided by us. When your credit or debit card account information is being transmitted to our Sites or through our Sites, it will be protected by encryption technology, such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

Lineage Independent Publishing does not itself store your credit or debit card account information, and we do not have direct control over or responsibility for your credit or debit card account information. Our contracts with third parties that receive your credit or debit card account information require them to keep it secure and confidential.

Nonetheless, we cannot guarantee that transmissions of your credit or debit card account information or personal information will always be secure or that unauthorized third parties will never be able to defeat the security measures taken by Lineage Independent Publishing or our third-party service providers.

WE ASSUME NO LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION DUE TO ERRORS IN TRANSMISSION, UNAUTHORIZED THIRD-PARTY ACCESS OR OTHER CAUSES BEYOND OUR CONTROL.

You play an important role in keeping your personal information secure and you should not share your user name, password or other security information for your account with anyone. If we receive instructions using your user name and password, we will consider that you have authorized the instructions.

8. Your information choices

You may opt out of receiving promotional emails from Lineage Independent Publishing by following the instructions in those emails. If you opt out, we may still send you non-promotional emails, such as emails about your account.

Most mobile devices allow you to turn off location services. For more information about how to do this, please contact your mobile service carrier or your device manufacturer. If you choose to turn off location services, this could affect certain features or Services of our Sites.

Privacy & GDPR

At Lineage Independent Publishing, we value and respect the personal information our users choose to share with us. Any sensitive data you share with us, including your name, address and contact information, will be kept safe and will be used only to provide the best possible service to you. We will never sell or otherwise trade your personal data with any other organizations. We support the spirit and letter of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) enacted by the European Union.

Do Not Track

Do Not Track (or DNT) is a preference you can set in your browser to let the sites you visit know that you don’t want them collecting certain info about you. For additional details, including how to turn on Do Not Track, visit donottrack.us.

You can also obtain more information about interest-based advertising, and how to opt out of receiving interest-based ads from participating third-party providers and ad networks, through the following:

For users in the U.S.:

http://www.networkadvertising.org/optout_nonppii.asp (Network Advertising Initiative)

http://www.aboutads.info/choices (Digital Advertising Alliance)

For users in the EU:

http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/ (European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance)

For users in Canada:

http://youradchoices.ca/choices/ (Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada)

Opting out of participating providers and ad networks does not opt you out of being served advertising. If you opt out, we will not send you targeted ads based on behavioral information we or our partners have obtained about you, but you may continue to receive generic or contextual ads on our Sites.

To successfully opt out, you must have cookies enabled in your Web browser. Please see your browser’s instructions for information on cookies and how to enable them. Your opt-out only applies to the Web browser you use so you must opt out of each Web browser on each device that you use. Once you opt out, if you delete your browser’s saved cookies, you may need to opt out again.

9. Contact

For questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, please contact us by email at [email protected] or by postal mail at:

Lineage Independent Publishing
2540 Sophia Chase Drive
Marriottsville, MD 21104

Important information for individuals in the European Union 

Important Information for EEA Residents

Lineage Independent Publishing is providing this supplemental privacy notice to give individuals in the European Economic Area (EEA) the additional information required by the EU General Data Protection Regulation. These provisions, together with the statements in the QDT Privacy Notice, explain our practices with regard to EEA personal data.

  1. Information about Lineage Independent Publishing

Lineage Independent Publishing is a Sole Proprietorship registered in Maryland with this mailing address:

Lineage Independent Publishing

2540 Sophia Chase Drive
Marriottsville, MD 21104
Attn: EEA Representative

Our email address is: [email protected].

  • The Purposes and Legal Basis for Processing, including Legitimate Interests

The Lineage Independent Publishing Privacy Notice explains the reasons why we process your Personal Information. We process Personal Information only when we have a legal basis for the processing, such as:

  • To provide the products, services or information that you request,
  • For closely related purposes, such as payment processing and financial account management, contract management, website administration, business continuity and disaster recovery, security and fraud prevention, corporate governance, reporting and legal compliance, and
  • With your consent (or provided you have not objected, as may be appropriate under applicable law), such to provide you with marketing communications.

We may also process your Personal Information for the purposes of our legitimate interests, provided that such processing shall not outweigh your rights and freedoms. In particular, we may process your Personal Information as needed to:

  • Protect you, us or others from threats (such as security threats or fraud) piracy or cheating,
  • Comply with the laws that are applicable to us around the world,
  • Enable or administer our business, such as for quality control, consolidated reporting, and customer service,
  • De-identify it to create anonymized and/or aggregated datasets,
  • Manage corporate transactions, such as mergers or acquisitions, and
  • Understand and improve our business or customer relationships generally.

We may disclose your Personal Information to related companies and to third parties as described in the Privacy Notice. However, we do not share your Personal Information with third parties for them to market their products or services to you without having obtained your prior opt-in consent. If you give consent for such sharing, you may revoke it at any time.

We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 18 without consent of the parent or guardian.

  • Automated Decision-Making and Profiling

We may use profiling and analytics to understand our customers and readers of our publications and to find potential influencers.  For example, we may analyze whether certain types of books appeal to younger readers, to mobile users or to women. We will not make automated decisions about you that may significantly affect you unless (1) the decision is necessary as part of a contract that we have with you, (2) we have your explicit consent or (3) we are required by law to use the technology.

  • When You are Required to Provide Personal Information to Lineage Independent Publishing

In most cases, you are not required by law to provide any Personal Information to Lineage Independent Publishing  You are required to provide certain Personal Information if you want to enter a contest, sweepstakes or giveaway or if you want to receive communications or purchase products directly from us. Our data collection forms indicate which data elements are required. If you do not provide these data elements, we cannot do that particular kind of business with you.

  • Your Rights

As noted in the Privacy Notice, you always have the right to object to our marketing communications.  To opt out of emails, simply respond to any e-mail we send, stating “unsubscribe” in the subject line. To revoke permissions that you may have given to send text messages, text STOP in response to any message.

Lineage Independent Publishing also respects the rights of EEA residents to access, correct and request erasure or restriction of their personal information as required by law. This means:

You generally have a right to know whether or not we maintain your Personal Information. If we do have your Personal Information, we will provide you with a copy (subject to the rights of others). If your Personal Information is incorrect or incomplete, you have the right to ask us to update it. In some cases, you may have the right to receive Personal Information that you provided to us back in a machine-readable format.
You have the right to object to our processing of your Personal Information.
You may also ask us to delete or restrict your Personal Information.

To exercise these rights, please contact us via email to [email protected] or write us at the address above, and a member of our Privacy Team will assist you. Please understand that we may need to verify your identity before we can process your request.

If you believe that we have processed your Personal Information in violation of applicable law, you may file a complaint with the appropriate supervisory authority at Lineage Independent Publishing.

  • International Transfers

Lineage Independent Publishing is based in the United States. As noted in the Privacy Notice, your Personal Information may be stored or processed in the United States and other countries which may not have equivalent privacy or data protection laws. By using our website you consent to these transfers.

  • Data Retention

We will retain your Personal Information for as long as the information is needed for the purposes set forth in Section 2 above and for any additional period that may be required or permitted by law. You may request that we delete your Personal Information by contacting us via email at [email protected].

Unless we are required by law to retain your information, we will delete it within 30 days of receiving your request.

Please contact us if you have any questions or comments about our privacy practices or this Privacy Notice. You can always reach us via email to [email protected]. You can also reach us via mail to the addresses given above.