Privacy Policy

Last Updated: 21 October 2024

1. Overview

Welcome to “Bethany Lynne Makes,” an independently run hobby website dedicated to documenting my journey sewing and knitting clothing, sharing and educating about techniques, and selling digital patterns I create (more about me here).

Sewing is all about fun and creativity, and we do want you to enjoy your time on this site, however online privacy is a very serious matter and we want you to know what personal information is collected and how it is used.

This Privacy Policy outlines how we collect, use, disclose, and protect your personal information when you visit our website.

2. Information We Collect

  1. Information You Provide: When you visit our website, you may voluntarily provide us with personal information, such as your name, website, and email address when leaving comments or using our contact form.
  2. Automatically Collected Information: We may collect certain information automatically when you visit our website, such as your IP address, browser type, device information, and browsing patterns. This information is collected using cookies and similar technologies listed below.
  3. Payment Processing: If you use a credit or debit card to purchase products from our site, your name on the credit card, the credit card number, expiration date and billing address will be encrypted as it passes over the Internet. “Bethany Lynne Makes” does not keep your credit card information for online credit-card transactions, as this information is passed through one of our approved payment processing vendors (Your choice of Stripe, PayPal, Venmo, WooCommerce Payments, Apple Pay, or Google Pay during checkout).

3. How We Use Your Information

We may use your personal information for the following purposes:

  1. To Provide Services: We may use your information to respond to your inquiries, comments, or requests submitted through our contact form.
  2. To Deliver Purchased Products: Names and email addresses and other information (billing address for example) which is collected from customers at the time of a sale or account creation are used in order to complete the purchase or to create an account. We do not share any of this information with third parties.
  3. To Improve Our Website: We analyze aggregated, non-identifiable data to understand user behavior and preferences, allowing us to enhance our content and user experience.
  4. Advertising: We use Journey by Mediavine to display advertisements on our website. Journey by Mediavine may collect and use information about your visits to this and other websites to provide relevant ads. You can learn more about Mediavine’s privacy practices by visiting their Privacy Policy.
  5. Affiliate Links: We may use affiliate links to products or services. Clicking on these links and purchasing products on partner websites may result in us earning a commission (at no extra cost to you). Affiliate programs may collect information to track referrals.

4. Third-Party Services

  1. Journey by Mediavine: Our website uses Mediavine for advertising. Please review their Privacy Policy for information on how they handle your data.
  2. Google Analytics: We use Google Analytics to analyze user behavior and gather insights into how visitors use our website. Google Analytics may collect information such as your IP address, browser type, device information, and interactions with our site. This anonymized information helps us improve our content and user experience. You can learn more about how Google Analytics collects and processes data in Google’s Privacy Policy. (Google’s own privacy policy prevents any data in Google Analytics reports from being personally identifiable).
  3. Affiliate Programs: Clicking on affiliate links on “Bethany Lynne Makes” may lead you to third-party websites. We adhere to and are compliant with all the policies of these 3rd party websites and their affiliate programs.

5. Comments and User-Generated Content

  • Interactive features (such as leaving comments) on our website are available only to individuals who are above the age of 13
  • Only registered users can leave comments

When you leave comments on our website, please be aware that the information you provide, including your name and email address, may be publicly visible to other users. We encourage you to avoid sharing sensitive personal information in your 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. After approval of your comment, your profile picture may be visible to the public in the context of your comment.

6. Security

We take reasonable measures to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, disclosure, or alteration. However, please be aware that no method of data transmission over the internet is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of information transmitted to us.

7. Your Choices and Rights to Your Data

You can manage cookies by adjusting your browser settings. You can also opt-out of personalized ads through Google Ad Settings.

If you have left comments on this site, 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.

8. 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.

9. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices or for other operational, legal, or regulatory reasons. We will post the revised policy on this page, and the date of the last update will be indicated at the top.

10. Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us using the information provided on our Contact page.

Mediavine Programmatic Advertising (Ver 1.1)

The Website works with Mediavine to manage third-party interest-based advertising appearing on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website.

First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The “help” feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at All About Cookies.

Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site. In the event you opt-out, you will still see non-personalized advertisements on the Website.

The Website collects the following data using a cookie when serving personalized ads:

  • IP Address
  • Operating System type
  • Operating System version
  • Device Type
  • Language of the website
  • Web browser type
  • Email (in hashed form)

Mediavine Partners (companies listed below with whom Mediavine shares data) may also use this data to link to other end user information the partner has independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements. Mediavine Partners may also separately collect data about end users from other sources, such as advertising IDs or pixels, and link that data to data collected from Mediavine publishers in order to provide interest-based advertising across your online experience, including devices, browsers and apps. This data includes usage data, cookie information, device information, information about interactions between users and advertisements and websites, geolocation data, traffic data, and information about a visitor’s referral source to a particular website. Mediavine Partners may also create unique IDs to create audience segments, which are used to provide targeted advertising.

If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit National Advertising Initiative opt out page. You may also visit Digital Advertising Alliance website and Network Advertising Initiative website to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at Digital Advertising Alliance’s AppChoices app to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.

For specific information about Mediavine Partners, the data each collects and their data collection and privacy policies, please visit Mediavine Partners.

By using “Bethany Lynne Makes”, you consent to the terms of this Privacy Policy.