Privacy policy

Last Updated: Tuesday, September 5, 2023


This Privacy Policy describes how crochethugsbycathy.com (the “Site” or “we”) collects, uses, and discloses your Personal Information when you visit or make a purchase from the Site.

Contact

After reviewing this policy, if you have additional questions, want more information about our privacy practices, or would like to make a complaint, please contact us by e-mail at crochethugsbycathy@gmail.com or by mail using the details provided below:

2465 Hamilton Road, Brights Grove ON N0N 1C0, Canada

Collecting Personal Information

When you visit the Site, we collect certain information about your device, your interaction with the Site, and the information necessary to process your purchases. We may also collect additional information if you contact us for customer support. In this Privacy Policy, we refer to any information about an identifiable individual (including the information below) as “Personal Information”. See the list below for more information about what Personal Information we collect and why.

  • Device information
    • Purpose of collection: to load the Site accurately for you, and to perform analytics on Site usage to optimize our Site.
    • Source of collection: Collected automatically when you access our Site using cookies, log files, web beacons, tags, or pixels such as Google Analytics and Facebook.
    • Disclosure for a business purpose: shared with our processor Shopify or other vendors.
    • Personal Information collected: version of web browser, IP address, time zone, cookie information, what sites or products you view, search terms, how you interact with the Site, email, and first/last name.
  • Order information
    • Purpose of collection: to provide products or services to you to fulfill our contract, to process your payment information, arrange for shipping, and provide you with invoices and/or order confirmations, communicate with you, screen our orders for potential risk or fraud, and when in line with the preferences you have shared with us, provide you with information or advertising relating to our products or services.
    • Source of collection: collected from you.
    • Disclosure for a business purpose: shared with our processor Shopify, Google, HyperSKU, and Shopify Inbox for live chat, and Product Reviews for Shopify.
    • Personal Information collected: name, billing address, shipping address, payment information (including credit card numbers, PayPal info, Shop Pay info, and Apple Pay info), email address, and phone number.
  • Customer support information
    • Purpose of collection: to allow us to respond to your requests, to allow you to contact us, and to send you updates on your interaction with customer support.
    • Source of collection: collected from you.
    • Disclosure for a business purpose: Shopify and Shopify Inbox.
    • Personal Information collected: Email address, first/last name, and, in some cases, phone number.
    • Purpose of collection: to provide customer support.
    • Source of collection: collected from you
    • Disclosure for a business purpose: Gmail and Shopify Inbox
    • Personal Information collected: including but not limited to email address, name, phone number

Minors

The Site is not intended for individuals under the age allowed to use online services in your area (In Canada, the age is 13). We do not intentionally collect Personal Information from children. If you are the parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with Personal Information, please contact us at the address above to request deletion.

Sharing Personal Information

We share your Personal Information with service providers to help us provide our services and fulfill our contracts with you, as described above. For example:

  • We use Shopify to power our online store. You can read more about how Shopify uses your Personal Information here: https://www.shopify.com/legal/privacy.
  • We may share your Personal Information to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to respond to a subpoena, search warrant, or other lawful request for information we receive, or to otherwise protect our rights.
  • We may use Google services to connect with you, such as contacting us. You can read Google's Privacy Policy here: https://policies.google.com/privacy

Behavioural Advertising

As described above, we use your Personal Information to provide you with targeted advertisements or marketing communications we believe may be of interest to you. For example:

  • We use Google Analytics to help us understand how our customers use the Site. You can read more about how Google uses your Personal Information here: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/. You can also opt out of Google Analytics here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
  • We share information about your use of the Site, your purchases, and your interaction with our ads on other websites with our advertising partners. We collect and share some of this information directly with our advertising partners, and in some cases through the use of cookies or other similar technologies (which you may consent to, depending on your location).

For more information about how targeted advertising works, you can visit the Network Advertising Initiative’s (“NAI”) educational page at https://www.networkadvertising.org/understanding-online-advertising/how-does-it-work.

You can opt out of targeted advertising by:

FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=ads

GOOGLE - https://www.google.com/settings/ads/anonymous

Additionally, you can opt out of some of these services by visiting the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out portal at: https://optout.aboutads.info/.

Using Personal Information

We use your personal information to provide our services to you, which include: offering products for sale, processing payments, shipping and fulfillment of your order, and keeping you up to date on new products, services, and offers.

Retention

When you place an order through the Site, we will retain your Personal Information for our records unless and until you ask us to erase this information. For more information on your right of erasure, please see the ‘Your rights’ section below.

Automatic decision-making

If you are a resident of the EEA, you have the right to object to processing based solely on automated decision-making (which includes profiling), when that decision-making has a legal effect on you or otherwise significantly affects you.

We DO NOT engage in fully automated decision-making that has a legal or otherwise significant effect using customer data.

Our processor Shopify uses limited automated decision-making to prevent fraud that does not have a legal or otherwise significant effect on you.

Services that include elements of automated decision-making include:

  • Temporary blacklist of IP addresses associated with repeated failed transactions. This blacklist persists for a small number of hours.
  • Temporary blacklist of credit cards associated with blacklisted IP addresses. This blacklist persists for a small number of days. 

Your rights

Please contact us at crochethugsbycathy@gmail.com if you want your data erased.

Cookies

A cookie is a small amount of information that’s downloaded to your computer or device when you visit our Site. We use several different cookies, including functional, performance, advertising, and social media or content cookies. Cookies make your browsing experience better by allowing the website to remember your actions and preferences (such as login and region selection). This means you don’t have to re-enter this information each time you return to the site or browse from one page to another. Cookies also provide information on how people use the website, for instance, whether it’s their first time visiting or if they are frequent visitors.

We use the following cookies to optimize your experience on our Site and to provide our services.

[Source: https://www.shopify.com/legal/cookies]

Cookies Necessary for the Functioning of the Store

Name

Function

Duration

_ab

Used in connection with admin access.

2y

_secure_session_id

Used to track a user's session through the multi-step checkout process and keep their order, payment, and shipping details connected.

24h

_shopify_country

For shops where pricing currency/country is set from GeoIP, that cookie stores the country we've detected. This cookie helps avoid doing GeoIP lookups after the first request.

session

_shopify_m

Used for managing customer privacy settings.

1y

_shopify_tm

Used for managing customer privacy settings.

30min

_shopify_tw

Used for managing customer privacy settings.

2w

_storefront_u

Used to facilitate updating customer account information.

1min

_tracking_consent

Used to store a user's preferences if a merchant has set up privacy rules in the visitor's region.

1y

_cmp_a

Used for managing customer privacy settings.

1d

c

Used in connection with checkout.

1y

cart

Used in connection with shopping cart.

2w

cart_currency

Set after a checkout is completed to ensure that new carts are in the same currency as the last checkout.

2w

cart_sig

A hash of the contents of a cart. This is used to verify the integrity of the cart and to ensure the performance of some cart operations.

2w

cart_ts

Used in connection with checkout.

2w

cart_ver

Used in connection with shopping cart.

2w

checkout

Used in connection with checkout.

4w

checkout_token

Used in connection with checkout.

1y

dynamic_checkout_shown_on_cart

Used in connection with checkout.

30min

hide_shopify_pay_for_checkout

Used in connection with checkout.

session

keep_alive

Used in connection with buyer localization.

2w

master_device_id

Used in connection with merchant login.

2y

previous_step

Used in connection with checkout.

1y

remember_me

Used in connection with checkout.

1y

secure_customer_sig

Used to identify a user after they sign into a shop as a customer so they do not need to log in again.

1y

shopify_pay

Used in connection with checkout.

1y

shopify_pay_redirect

Used in connection with checkout.

1 hour, 3w or 1y depending on value

source_name

Used in combination with mobile apps to provide custom checkout behaviour, when viewing a store from within a compatible mobile app.

session

storefront_digest

Stores a digest of the storefront password, allowing merchants to preview their storefront while it's password protected.

2y

tracked_start_checkout

Used in connection with checkout.

1y

checkout_session_lookup

Used in connection with checkout.

3w

Reporting and Analytics

Name

Function

_landing_page

Tracks landing pages.

_orig_referrer

Tracks landing pages.

_s

Shopify analytics.

_session_id

Shopify analytics

_shopify_s

Shopify analytics.

_shopify_sa_t

Shopify analytics relating to marketing & referrals.

_shopify_uniq

Shopify analytics.

_shopify_y

Shopify analytics.

_y

Shopify analytics.

*_assignment

Shopify analytics

ab_test_*

Shopify analytics.

cart_sig

Shopify analytics.

ki_r

Shopify analytics.

ki_t

Shopify analytics.

The length of time that a cookie remains on your computer or mobile device depends on whether it is a “persistent” or “session” cookie. Session cookies last until you stop browsing and persistent cookies last until they expire or are deleted. Most of the cookies we use are persistent and will expire between 30 minutes and two years from the date they are downloaded to your device.

You can control and manage cookies in various ways. Please keep in mind that removing or blocking cookies can negatively impact your user experience and parts of our website may no longer be fully accessible.

Most browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can choose whether or not to accept cookies through your browser controls, often found in your browser’s “Tools”, “Settings”, or “Preferences” menu. More information on how to modify your browser settings or how to block, manage, or filter cookies can be found in your browser’s help file or through such sites as: www.allaboutcookies.org.

Additionally, please note that blocking cookies may not completely prevent how we share information with third parties such as our advertising partners. To exercise your rights or opt out of certain uses of your information by these parties, please follow the instructions in the “Behavioural Advertising” section above.

Do Not Track

Please note that because there is no consistent industry understanding of how to respond to “Do Not Track” signals, we do not alter our data collection and usage practices when we detect such a signal from your browser.

Changes

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect, for example, changes to our practices or for other operational, legal, or regulatory reasons.

Complaints

As noted above, if you would like to make a complaint, please contact us by e-mail or by mail using the details provided under “Contact” above.

If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, you have the right to lodge your complaint with the relevant data protection authority. You can contact your local data protection authority, or our supervisory authority here: https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/