Privacy & Cookies Policy
Effective Date: 31st October 2018. Last Updated 10th June 2021
As a visitor to this website, we take your right to privacy and the protection of your personal information very seriously. This Privacy & Cookies Policy sets out the manner in which NauticalBits* (the “Site”) collects, uses, and stores information shared by you (the “Visitor”) and the circumstances in which the Site may disclose any of that information. The Policy also outlines the Site’s use of Cookies; what information they gather, how it is used, and why cookies sometimes need to be stored.
The policy applies to the Site and all products and services that may be offered by NauticalBits and covers all information shared by a Visitor either directly using NauticalBits or by email. NauticalBits is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. The policy will also describe how you may prevent the use of cookies, however, please note this may impact some of the Sites functionality.
* Note: The NauticalBits network includes the domains NauticalBits.com and NauticalBits.co.uk.
Content:
- What personal information do we collect on the Site?
- What non-personal information do we collect on the Site?
- How do we use the information we collect on the Site?
- How do we protect Visitor information on the Site?
- How long do we retain your data?
- What rights do you have over your data?
- Cookie Information
- Third-Party Links
- Third-Party Disclosure
- Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act
- Policy relating to Email Spam
- Changes to our Privacy and Cookies Policy
- Contact Us
- Policy Revisions
What personal information do we collect on the Site?
In operating the Site we may collect and process the following data about you:
- Information that you provide by filling in forms on the site, such as when you register to join the Site, subscribe to receive information (e.g. a newsletter) or contact us via the ‘Contact Us’ page. Users may be asked for some, depending on the circumstances, of the following; name, email address, mailing address, telephone number.
- Information provided to us when you communicate with us for any other reason.
Personal information will only be collected from you if it is voluntarily submitted by you with consent.
What non-personal information do we collect on the Site?
In operating the Site we may collect and process the following data:
- Details of your visits to the Site and the resources that you may access including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblog statistics and other communication data.
How do we use the information we collect on the Site?
We may use the information we collect from you when you register, subscribe, or use certain other Site features in the following ways:
- To personalise your Visitor experience and to enable the Site to deliver the type of content and product/service offerings in which you are most interested.
- To improve the Site in order to better serve you as the Visitor, based on data and feedback received from you.
- To allow us to improve upon the service offered to the Visitor in responding to your requests.
- To provide you with the information requested from us relating to the Site and its products/services
- To provide you with information, via periodic emails, on other products/services which we feel may be of interest to you provided you have given consent to receive such information.
- To notify you, via periodic emails, regarding developments on the Site or updates/offers relating to products and services available on the Site.
- To allow us, when applicable, to swiftly process any transactions made on the Site.
- We may use your data, with your consent, to allow selected third parties to contact you, by any method to which you have given consent, with information about related products and services.
If you do not want us to use your data for ourselves or third parties please request to withhold your consent when you provide us with your details on either the data collection form or via the Contact Us page.
Once you have registered or subscribed to the Site, if at any time you would like to cancel your registration or unsubscribe from the Site, you can advise us via the Contact Us page or follow the instructions at the bottom of any emails received from us.
How do we protect Visitor information on the Site?
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online including:
- Adopting appropriate data collection and storage procedures to protect against unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure of all information stored on the Site.
- Scanning the Site on a regular basis for security issues in order to make your visit as safe as possible.
- Holding your personal information on a secure network that is only accessible by the administrator(s) of the Site who have special permissions to access the network, and are required to keep the information confidential.
How long do we retain your data?
For users that register on the Site, we store the personal information you provide in your user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (with the exception of their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information. This information is retained until the registered account is closed.
What rights do you have over your data?
If you have an account 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.
Cookie Information
What are Cookies?
As with most websites, NauticalBits (this “Site”) uses cookies, to enhance the Visitor experience when browsing. Cookies are small data files generated by a website and saved by your web browser. Each time a Visitor views the Site, their browser sends a cookie back to the Site server to notify the Site of a Visitor’s previous activity. This helps, for example, remembering Site preferences updated in the previous visit to the Site.
If you require further information on cookies please read the following Wikipedia section.
How do we use Cookies?
We use Cookies, in general, to keep track of your movements within the site, for example;
- To remember that you are logged in and to save your preferences for future visits
- To keep track of advertisements
- To compile aggregate data about Site traffic and Site interactions for analysis. We use the Google Analytics service to assist us in tracking this information on our behalf [learn more below].
How do I disable Cookies?
You can prevent cookies from being set by manually changing the settings via the Cookie Consent bar which you will find at the bottom right-hand corner of the site.
Unfortunately, it is rare to be able to disable cookies without disabling some of the features that function within the Site. It is, therefore, recommended that you leave on all cookies. It is best to leave them enabled in case they are used to provide a service that you use on the Site.
What Cookies does the Site set?
Cookies will be set on the Site in the following situations:
- If you register on the Site then we will use cookies for the sign-up process and general administration. These cookies will usually be deleted when you log out however in some cases they may remain afterward to remember your site preferences when logged out.
- When you log in so that the Site can remember that you are logged in. This means you do not have to log in every time you visit a new page. These cookies are removed when you log out of the Site to ensure that registered user areas are only available when you are logged in.
- When you register or subscribe to the Site to receive a newsletter or email services, cookies may be used to remember if you are already registered or subscribing, or whether to show certain notifications which might only be valid to specific user types.
- Occasionally the Site may use Visitor surveys or questionnaires to gather information relating to your feedback on the Site. These may use cookies to remember who has already taken part in a survey or to provide you with up-to-date results if the survey is in real-time.
- In some cases, the Site may use cookies provided by a trusted third party. Google Analytics is one such example of this. Cookies may track, for example, how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit so we can evaluate whether or not the content we produce is of interest to you. [Learn more about Google Analytics cookies]. Other third-party examples in which cookies may be set include:
- links to sites of which we are affiliate members
- the use of applications to connect to social media platforms
The use of cookies is common on the majority of websites these days and most Visitors are familiar with their use. If you aren’t sure as to whether you need cookies or not it’s usually safer to leave cookies enabled in case they are used to provide a service that you use on the Site.
The following list details all the cookies used in our website.23
| Cookie | Duration | Description |
|---|---|---|
| __cfduid | 1 month | The cookie is used by cdn services like CloudFlare to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not correspond to any user ID in the web application and does not store any personally identifiable information. |
| _fbp | 3 months | This cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website. |
| _ga | 2 years | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors. |
| _ga_* | 1 year 1 month 4 days | Google Analytics sets this cookie to store and count page views. |
| _ga_7H7D0XZM3B | 2 years | No description |
| cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement | 1 year | The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Advertisement". |
| cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics | 1 year | This cookies is set by GDPR Cookie Consent WordPress Plugin. The cookie is used to remember the user consent for the cookies under the category "Analytics". |
| cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional | 1 year | The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". |
| cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary | 1 year | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". |
| cookielawinfo-checkbox-others | 1 year | No description |
| cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance | 1 year | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". |
| CookieLawInfoConsent | 1 year | CookieYes sets this cookie to record the default button state of the corresponding category and the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie. |
| elementor | never | The website's WordPress theme uses this cookie. It allows the website owner to implement or change the website's content in real-time. |
| fr | 3 months | The cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. |
| rc::a | never | This cookie is set by the Google recaptcha service to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks. |
| rc::c | session | This cookie is set by the Google recaptcha service to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks. |
| sbjs_current | session | Sourcebuster sets this cookie to identify the source of a visit and stores user action information in cookies. This analytical and behavioural cookie is used to enhance the visitor experience on the website. |
| sbjs_current_add | session | Sourcebuster sets this cookie to identify the source of a visit and stores user action information in cookies. This analytical and behavioural cookie is used to enhance the visitor experience on the website. |
| sbjs_first | session | Sourcebuster sets this cookie to identify the source of a visit and stores user action information in cookies. This analytical and behavioural cookie is used to enhance the visitor experience on the website. |
| sbjs_first_add | session | Sourcebuster sets this cookie to identify the source of a visit and stores user action information in cookies. This analytical and behavioural cookie is used to enhance the visitor experience on the website. |
| sbjs_migrations | session | Sourcebuster sets this cookie to identify the source of a visit and stores user action information in cookies. This analytical and behavioural cookie is used to enhance the visitor experience on the website. |
| sbjs_session | 1 hour | Sourcebuster sets this cookie to identify the source of a visit and stores user action information in cookies. This analytical and behavioural cookie is used to enhance the visitor experience on the website. |
| sbjs_udata | session | Sourcebuster sets this cookie to identify the source of a visit and stores user action information in cookies. This analytical and behavioural cookie is used to enhance the visitor experience on the website. |
| woocommerce_recently_viewed | session | WooCommerce sets this cookie to store performed actions on the website. |
| wpEmojiSettingsSupports | session | WordPress sets this cookie when a user interacts with emojis on a WordPress site. It helps determine if the user's browser can display emojis properly. |
Third Party Links
Visitors to the Site may find links to third-party websites. These websites should have their own privacy policies which you should read carefully and be aware that they may change regularly. The Site does not control any of the content or activities on these sites and as a result does not accept any responsibility or liability whatsoever for their privacy policies, information content or links to third parties as we have no control over them. Additionally, when browsing other websites, including those having a link to our Site, you will be subject to their terms and policies. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.
We use Google AdSense Advertising on our website. Google, as a third-party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on our site. Google’s use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to our users based on previous visits to our site and other sites on the Internet. Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google Ad and Content Network privacy policy. 1
Google’s advertising requirements can be summed up by Google’s Advertising Principles. They are put in place to provide a positive experience for users.
The Site uses Google Analytics, which uses cookies, to compile data relating to the use of services on the Site. These cookies do not track your personal information. Google Analytics is one of the most used analytics service on the web for helping site administrators to understand how the site is used and to find ways in which improvements may be made to enhance the Visitor experience.
We have currently implemented the following tools in Google Analytics:
- Google Display Network Impression Reporting
- Demographic and Interests Reporting
You may opt-out of allowing this data collection by using the Google Analytics Opt-Out browser add-on specific to your browser.
The Site includes banner advertisements and links, to sites of which we are affiliate members, in order to provide you with information about their products. It is therefore important to us to analyse how many of the Visitors to our site are actually following these links and as such we use cookies to track this data. For you, the Visitor, this means that we can ensure suitable and appropriate links are included on the Site that will be of interest and value to you.
NauticalBits is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, amazon.it, amazon.es or amazon.de. Amazon may serve content and advertisements, collect information directly from you, and place or recognize cookies on your browser.
The Site uses social media applications to allow you to connect with your social network in a number of ways. For these to work the following social media sites including; Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram, will set cookies on the Site which may be used to enhance your profile on their site or contribute to the data they hold for various purposes outlined in their respective privacy policies.
Third-Party Disclosure
We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personal information.
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act
The content of the Site is not targeted to attract anyone under the age of 13 and given the importance of protecting the privacy of the children, the Site will never collect or hold data from those we know are under the age of 13.
Policy relating to Email Spam
NauticalBits has a zero-tolerance policy toward Spam.
Electronic Spamming is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited and indiscriminate messages (Spam), more often than not for commercial gain.
NauticalBits will only send marketing emails to Visitors who have given their express consent to receive them when registering or subscribing to the Site. In the unlikely event that you receive any message from NauticalBits that may be considered to be spam, please contact the Site Administration using the contact methods below and we will investigate the matter. Alternatively use the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of the email received.
The Sites messaging systems automatically scan all incoming email and contact form messages, to filter out any messages that appear to be spam. Occasionally this may mean that your legitimate messages will be filtered out by the Site’s systems. If you think this has happened to a message you have sent to us, please advise by the alternate method below.
Changes to our Privacy and Cookie Policy
The contents of this Privacy & Cookies Policy may be revised at any time, at the Site’s discretion. We conduct regular reviews of this Privacy & Cookies Policy and any revisions will be referenced on this page. You acknowledge and agree that it is your responsibility to periodically review the Privacy & Cookies Policy of the Site and by continuing to access the Site after any changes become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised Privacy & Cookies Policy. This Privacy & Cookies Policy is effective from 31st October 2018.
Contact Us
If you have any questions regarding this Privacy & Cookies Policy or regarding information we may hold about you please contact us:
- via email
- via Contact Us page
Policy Revisions:
Revision3: 27th June 2024 – Revised List of Cookies
Revision2: 10th June 2021 – Added List of Cookies
Revision1: 20th August 2019 – Additional ‘set cookies’ information re Affiliate Program (removed 27th June 2024)
Original Version: 31st October 2018
