Why This Page Exists
Every time you land on a page here, leave a comment about a tricky alcove, or hand over an email address to get the newsletter, you’re trusting Hearth Diaries with a small piece of information about yourself. This page explains what happens to that information, who else can see it, how long it’s kept, and what you can do if you’d rather it went away.
It’s written to be read, not skimmed past. Nothing here is buried.
Your Agreement To These Terms
By visiting Hearth Diaries, browsing posts, subscribing, or using any feature of the site, you’re agreeing to the practices described on this page. If any part of this doesn’t sit right with you, the honest answer is that you shouldn’t use the site. There’s no fine print underneath this saying otherwise.
This policy applies only to information collected on this website. It doesn’t cover anything you share offline or on other sites, including ones you reach through a link here.
Readers Under The Age Of 13
Hearth Diaries writes about apartment layouts, rental-safe decorating, and furniture measurements. It isn’t built for children, isn’t aimed at children, and isn’t intended for anyone under 13 years old.
No information is knowingly collected from children under 13. If you’re a parent or guardian and you believe your child has submitted personal information through this site, get in touch using the contact address at the bottom of this page. Once the report is confirmed, that information gets deleted from the site’s records promptly.
Server Logs
Like nearly every website on the internet, Hearth Diaries keeps standard server log files. This happens automatically as part of how web hosting works.
Log files record things like your IP address, browser type and version, internet service provider, operating system, the date and time of your visit, the pages you looked at, and the page that referred you. None of it is linked to anything personally identifying. It’s used to understand traffic patterns, diagnose problems with the site, and track broad usage trends.
The Information Collected Here
Two kinds of information get collected on this site.
Information you give directly. This is anything you type in and submit yourself:
- Your name and email address, when you subscribe to the newsletter or leave a comment
- Your email address and message content, when you use a contact form
- Your website URL, if you choose to include one with a comment
- A mailing address or phone number, only if you volunteer one for a giveaway or a prize shipment
- Payment details, if a paid product or service is ever offered here. Those details would be handled by a third-party payment processor and would never be stored on this site’s servers.
Information collected automatically. This is gathered by the site and its tools as you browse:
- IP address
- Browser type, version, and language settings
- Operating system and device type
- Internet service provider
- Referring and exit pages
- Date and time stamps for each page view
- Approximate geographic location, at the country or region level
Where That Information Comes From
Information reaches Hearth Diaries through a handful of ordinary routes. You might fill in the newsletter signup form, post a comment on an article, send a message through the contact page, or complete a purchase if one is available. Alongside that, server log files, cookies, and Google Analytics collect technical data quietly in the background as you move through the site.
What The Information Is Used For
Collected information gets put toward the following purposes, and nothing beyond them:
- Running the site and keeping it working properly
- Improving articles, layout, and site speed based on what readers actually read
- Answering questions and responding to messages and comments
- Sending newsletters, updates, and new post notifications to people who asked for them
- Tailoring content and recommendations so the site is more useful to you
- Understanding which decorating topics readers care most about
- Spotting and preventing fraud, spam, and abuse of the site
Your information isn’t sold. It isn’t rented. It isn’t traded to data brokers.
About The Cookies On This Site
Cookies are small text files that a website places on your device so it can recognize you the next time you show up. They’re what let a site remember that you’ve already dismissed a popup, or keep you logged in between visits.
Hearth Diaries uses cookies to remember reader preferences, keep comment fields filled in so you don’t have to retype your name, measure how the site is being used, and support the analytics described below.
You’re in control of this. Every major browser lets you block cookies, delete existing ones, or get a warning before any new cookie is set. Look under settings or preferences in your browser, or check the browser’s own help documentation for step-by-step instructions. Turning cookies off may mean parts of the site behave oddly or stop remembering you between visits.
Pixels, Beacons, And Tags
Alongside cookies, this site and its third-party partners may use web beacons, tracking pixels, and tags. These are tiny, invisible files embedded in a page or an email that report back when the page loads or the email is opened.
They’re used to count visits, measure how well an article or a newsletter performed, and, in the case of advertising partners, to help understand which ads have been shown. They don’t collect your name or your email address and they can’t access files on your device.
Analytics Through Google
Hearth Diaries uses Google Analytics to understand site traffic. Google Analytics collects data such as pages viewed, time spent on the site, device and browser information, and general geographic location. The reports are aggregated, meaning they describe groups of visitors rather than individuals.
Google processes this data under its own terms. You can read how Google handles it at https://policies.google.com/privacy, and you can stop Google Analytics from collecting your data entirely by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
How Long Information Is Kept
Comments and their associated metadata are kept indefinitely. That way follow-up replies can be recognized and approved automatically instead of sitting in a moderation queue every time.
Newsletter subscriber details are kept for as long as you stay subscribed. Unsubscribe and your details are removed from the active mailing list, though a suppression record may be retained so the system knows not to contact you again.
Contact form messages are kept for as long as they’re useful for answering your question and keeping a record of the exchange. Analytics data is retained according to the settings in place with the analytics provider. You can ask for your personal data to be erased at any time using the address below.
Comments And Social Media
When you leave a comment on Hearth Diaries, the comment text, the name and email address you supplied, your IP address, and your browser user agent string are all collected. This helps with spam detection. Your comment, your name, and your website link if you added one become publicly visible on the site. Your email address does not.
An anonymized string created from your email address may be sent to the Gravatar service to check whether you have a profile image. Gravatar’s privacy policy covers what happens with it.
If you follow, tag, message, or interact with Hearth Diaries on social media platforms, those interactions are governed by the privacy policy of the platform in question rather than this one. What you post publicly there is public.
The Newsletter
Hearth Diaries sends an email newsletter with new posts, small-space decorating ideas, and occasional product finds. It goes only to people who signed up for it, and email addresses collected for the newsletter aren’t shared or sold.
Every email sent complies with the CAN-SPAM Act. Messages carry a truthful subject line, identify who they’re from, include a valid physical postal address, and contain a working unsubscribe link in the footer. Commercial or promotional content is labeled as such.
Stepping Away From Communications
Unsubscribing is meant to be simple. Click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email from Hearth Diaries and you’re removed from the list. Removals are processed promptly, though an email or two already in the queue may still reach you.
You can also email the address at the bottom of this page and ask to be taken off the list, or ask that your personal information be deleted altogether. Either request is fine and neither needs a reason attached.
Affiliate Links And Commissions
Hearth Diaries takes part in affiliate advertising programs, including the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. This means that when a post recommends a sofa that fits through a 32-inch door or a lamp for a room with one overhead fixture, the link may be an affiliate link. If you buy something through it, this site may earn a small commission.
The price you pay is exactly the same either way. Commissions never come out of your pocket, and they never change which products get recommended. Affiliate relationships are disclosed clearly in any post that contains them.
Affiliate programs may use cookies to track that a visitor arrived from this site so a commission can be credited correctly.
Advertising Partners
Hearth Diaries may work with third-party advertising partners now or at some point in the future. Those partners may use cookies, web beacons, pixels, and similar technologies to collect information about your visits here and to other websites, and to deliver advertising based on your interests.
This site has no access to and no control over the cookies used by third-party advertisers. Their data practices are governed by their own privacy policies rather than this one.
If you’d prefer not to see interest-based advertising, you can opt out through the National Advertising Initiative at https://optout.networkadvertising.org or through the Digital Advertising Alliance at https://optout.aboutads.info. Opting out doesn’t remove ads. It only makes the ones you see less targeted.
Content Embedded From Other Sites
Articles on Hearth Diaries sometimes include embedded material such as videos, images, social media posts, or content pulled in from other websites. Embedded content behaves exactly as if you had visited that other website directly.
That means the outside site may collect data about you, set its own cookies, run its own third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with the embedded item. This applies whether or not you have an account and are logged in to that site.
Links That Take You Elsewhere
You’ll find links throughout this site to retailers, manufacturers, other blogs, and reference sources. Once you click through, you’re on someone else’s property, and this privacy policy no longer applies.
Hearth Diaries has no control over the content or privacy practices of any external site. Reading the privacy policy of any site you visit is worth the two minutes it takes.
When Information Gets Shared
Personal information may be shared in a small number of specific situations:
- With service providers. Email platforms, hosting companies, analytics providers, and comment spam filters need access to certain data to do the jobs they’re hired for. They’re permitted to use it only for those jobs.
- For legal reasons. Information may be disclosed where required by law, court order, subpoena, or a valid government request, or where disclosure is needed to protect the rights, property, or safety of the site, its readers, or the public.
- In a business transfer. If Hearth Diaries is ever sold, merged, or transferred to new ownership, reader information may be part of the assets that change hands. Any new owner would remain bound by the commitments made here.
Keeping Your Information Safe
Reasonable, industry-standard measures are in place to protect the information collected on this site. That includes secure hosting, encrypted connections over HTTPS, restricted access to stored data, and software that gets kept up to date.
No system connected to the internet is completely secure, and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise. While every reasonable step is taken to protect your information, absolute security can’t be guaranteed for any data transmitted online.
Your Rights If You’re In The European Economic Area
If you’re located in the EEA or the United Kingdom, the General Data Protection Regulation gives you a specific set of rights over your personal data:
- Access. You can request a copy of the personal data held about you.
- Rectification. You can ask for inaccurate or incomplete information to be corrected.
- Erasure. You can ask for your personal data to be deleted.
- Restriction. You can ask that processing of your data be limited rather than stopped entirely.
- Objection. You can object to your data being processed, including for direct marketing.
- Portability. You can request your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, and have it transferred to another organization.
- Withdrawal of consent. Where processing relies on your consent, you can take that consent back at any time. It won’t affect anything already done lawfully beforehand.
- Complaint. You can lodge a complaint with your national data protection supervisory authority if you think your rights have been breached.
Send any of these requests to the email address below. You’ll get a response within one month. There’s no charge for exercising these rights.
Your Rights If You Live In California
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, California residents have the following rights:
- The right to know. You can request disclosure of the categories of personal information collected about you, where it came from, why it was collected, and which categories of third parties it was shared with.
- The right to delete. You can request deletion of personal information collected from you, subject to certain legal exceptions.
- The right to opt out of sale. You can direct that your personal information not be sold. Hearth Diaries does not sell personal information, so there’s nothing to opt out of, but the right stands and any change to that practice would be announced on this page first. Requests can be submitted under the heading “Do Not Sell My Personal Information.”
- The right to non-discrimination. Exercising any of these rights won’t get you worse service, different pricing, or restricted access to the site.
Requests can be made through the contact address below and will be answered within one month of receipt.
Changes To This Page
This policy will be revised from time to time as the site grows, as new tools are added, or as privacy law changes. Updates are posted directly on this page and the effective date at the bottom is revised to match.
Continuing to use Hearth Diaries after an update means you accept the revised policy. Checking back periodically is your responsibility, since individual notice of changes won’t be sent out.
Getting In Touch
Questions about this policy, requests to access or delete your data, opt-out requests, or concerns raised by a parent or guardian can all be sent to:
Messages about privacy are answered directly, and data requests are handled within one month.
