The Privacy Policy below was updated on August 12th, 2024 and went into effect on that date.
Your privacy is critically important to us. Virtual Sherpa, has a few fundamental principles:
We are thoughtful about the personal information we ask you to provide and the personal information that we collect about you through the operation of our services.
We store personal information for only as long as we have a reason to keep it.
We aim to make it as simple as possible for you to control what information on your website is shared publicly (or kept private), indexed by search engines, and permanently deleted.
We help protect you from overreaching government demands for your personal information.
We aim for full transparency on how we gather, use, and share your personal information.
Below is our Privacy Policy, which incorporates and clarifies these principles.
This Privacy Policy applies to information that we collect about you when you use:
https://virtualsherpa.com/ Our mobile applications (including the WordPress mobile app for Android and iOS);
Our other products and services that are available on or through our websites (including WordPress, Crazy Egg, and PayPal)
Other users’ websites that use our Services, while you are logged in to your account with us.
Throughout this Privacy Policy, we’ll refer to our website, mobile applications and other products and services collectively as “Services.” And if you’d like to learn more about which Virtual Sherpa company is the controller of information about you, take a look at the section below on Controllers and Responsible Companies.
Please note that this Privacy Policy does not apply to any of our products or services that have a separate privacy policy.
Below we explain how we collect, use, and share information about you, along with the choices that you have with respect to that information.
Information We Collect
We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so–for example, to provide our Services,
to communicate with you, or to make our Services better.
We collect information in three ways: if and when you provide information to us, automatically through operating our Services, and from outside sources. Let’s go over the information that we collect.
Information You Provide to Us
It’s probably no surprise that we collect information that you provide to us. The amount and type of information depends on the context and how we use the information. Here are some examples:
Basic Account Information: We ask for basic information from you in order to set up your account. For example, we require individuals who sign up for a WordPress.com account to provide a username and email address–and that’s it. You may provide us with more information–like your name–but we don’t require that information to create a WordPress.com account.
Public Profile Information: If you have an account with us, we collect the information that you provide for your public profile. For example, if you have a WordPress.com account, your username is part of that public profile, along with any other information you put into your public profile, such as a photo or an “About Me” description. Your public profile information is just that–public–so please keep that in mind when deciding what information, you would like to include.
Transaction and Billing Information: If you buy something from us–a subscription to a WordPress.com plan, a premium theme, or a custom domain, for example–you will provide additional personal and payment information that is required to process the transaction and your payment, such as your name, credit card information, and contact information.
Content Information: Depending on the Services you use, you may also provide us with information about you.
Communications with Us (Hi There!): You may also provide us information when you respond to surveys, communicate with our salespeople or customer service personnel about a support question, or post a question about your in our public forums.
Information We Collect Automatically
We also collect some information automatically:
Log Information: Like most online service providers, we collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information. We collect log information when you use our Services–for example when
you create or make changes to your website on WordPress.com.
Usage Information: We collect information about your usage of our Services. For example, we collect information about the actions that site administrators and users perform on a site using our WordPress.com or Jetpack services–in other words, who did what, when and to what thing on a site. We also collect information about what happens when you use our Services (e.g., page views, support document searches at en.support.wordpress.com, features enabled for your website, interactions with our customer service people and other parts of our Services) along with information
about your device (e.g., screen size, name of cellular network, and mobile device manufacturer). We use this information to, for example, provide our Services to you, as well as get insights on how people use our Services, so we can make our Services better.
Location Information: We may determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address. We collect and use this information to, for example, calculate how many people visit our Services from certain geographic regions. We may also collect information about your precise location via our mobile apps (when, for example, you post a photograph with location information) if you allow us to do so through your mobile device operating system’s permissions.
Stored Information: We may access information stored on your mobile device via WhatsApp
Interactions with Other Users’ Sites: We collect some information about your interactions with other users’ sites while you are logged in to your account with us, such as your “Likes” and the fact that you commented on a particular post, so that we can, for example, recommend posts we think may interest you. As another example, for Intense Debate users, we collect information about the comments you make while logged in to your account, and use that information to, for example, tally up statistics about your comments (check them out in your dashboard!) and provide the information about your comments in your Intense Debate public profile.
Information from Cookies & Other Technologies: A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Pixel tags (also called web beacons) are small blocks of code placed on websites and emails. Virtual Sherpa uses cookies and other technologies like pixel tags to help us identify and track visitors, usage, and access preferences for our Services, as well as track and understand email campaign effectiveness and to deliver targeted ads. For more information about our use of cookies and other technologies for tracking, including how you can control the use of cookies.
Information We Collect from Other Sources
We may also get information about you from other sources. For example, if you create or log into your WordPress.com account through another service (like Google) or if you connect your website or account to a social media service (like Facebook), we will receive information from that service (such as your username, basic profile information, and friends list) via the authorization procedures used by that service. The information we receive depends on which services you authorize and any options that are available.
How and Why, We Use Information
Purposes for Using Information
We use information about you as mentioned above and for the purposes listed below:
To further develop and improve our Services–for example by adding new features that we think our users will enjoy or will help them to create and manage their websites more efficiently;
To monitor and analyze trends and better understand how users interact with our Services, which helps us improve our Services and make them easier to use;
To measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our advertising, and better understand user retention and attrition–for example, we may analyze how many individuals purchased a plan after receiving a marketing message or the features used by those who continue to use our Services after a certain length of time;
To monitor and prevent any problems with our Services, protect the security of our Services, detect and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities, fight spam, and protect the rights and property of Virtual Sherpa and others, which may result in us declining a transaction or the use of our Services;
To communicate with you, for example through an email, about offers and promotions offered by Virtual Sherpa and others we think will be of interest to you, solicit your feedback, or keep you up to date on Virtual Sherpa and our services; and
To personalize your experience using our Services, provide content recommendations, target our marketing messages to groups of our users and serve relevant advertisements.
Legal Bases for Collecting and Using Information
A note here for those in the European Union about our legal grounds for processing information about you under EU data protection laws, which is that our use of your information is based on the grounds that:
(1) The use is necessary in order to fulfill our commitments to you under our Terms of Service or other agreements with you or is necessary to administer your account–for example, in order to enable access to our website on your device or charge you for a paid service; or
(2) The use is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; or
(3) The use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or
(4) We have a legitimate interest in using your information–for example, to provide and update our Services, to improve our Services so that we can offer you an even better user experience, to safeguard our Services, to communicate with you, to measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our advertising, and better understand user retention and attrition, to monitor and prevent any problems with our Services, and to personalize your experience; or
(5) You have given us your consent–for example before we place certain cookies on your device and access and analyze them later on, as described in our Cookie Policy.
Sharing Information
How We Share Information
We do not sell our users’ private personal information.
We share information about you in the limited circumstances spelled out below and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy:
Employees and Independent Contractors: We may disclose information about you to our employees and individuals who are our independent contractors that need to know the information in order to help us provide our Services or to process the information on our behalf. We require our employees, and independent contractors to follow this Privacy Policy for personal information that we share with them.
Third Party Vendors: We may share information about you with third party vendors who need to know information about you in order to provide their services to us, or to provide their services to you.
To Protect Rights, Property, and Others: We may disclose information about you when we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Virtual Sherpa, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if we have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, we may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
Business Transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, or in the unlikely event that Virtual Sherpa goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would likely be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. If any of these events were to happen, this Privacy Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use your information, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
With Your Consent: We may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction. For example, we may share your information with third parties with which you authorize us to do so, such as attorneys assisting you in sourcing funds or filing an application.
Aggregated or De-Identified Information: We may share information that has been aggregated or reasonably de-identified, so that the information could not reasonably be used to identify you. For instance, we may publish aggregate statistics about the use of our Services, and we may share a hashed version of your email address to facilitate customized ad campaigns.
Published Support Requests: And if you send us a request (for example, via a support email or one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish that request in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users.
How Long We Keep Information
We generally discard information about you when we no longer need the information for the purposes for which we collect and use it–which are described in the section above on How and Why We Use Information–and we are not legally required to continue to keep it.
For example, we keep the web server logs that record information about a visitor to one of Virtual Sherpa ’s websites, such as the visitor’s IP address, browser type, and operating system, for approximately 30 days. We retain the logs for this period of time in order to, among other things, analyze traffic to Virtual Sherpa’ websites and investigate issues if something goes wrong on one of our websites.
Security
While no online service is 100% secure, we work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so, such as monitoring our Services for potential vulnerabilities and attacks.
To enhance the security of your account, we encourage you to enable our advanced security settings, to Two Step Authentication.
Choices
You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:
Limit the Information that You Provide: If you have an account with us, you can choose not to provide the optional account information, profile information, and transaction and billing information. Please keep in mind that if you do not provide this information, certain features of our Services–for example, paid, premium themes–may not be accessible.
Limit Access to Information on Your Mobile Device: Your mobile device operating system should provide you with the ability to discontinue our ability to collect stored information or location information via our mobile apps. If you do so, you may not be able to use certain features like WhatsApp to chat with us.
Opt-Out of Electronic Communications: You may opt out of receiving promotional messages from us. Just follow the instructions in those messages. If you opt out of promotional messages, we may still send you other messages, like those about your account and legal notices.
Set Your Browser to Reject Cookies: At this time, Virtual Sherpa does not respond to “do not track” signals across all of our Services. However, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies before using Virtual Sherpa’s websites, with the drawback that certain features of Virtual Sherpa’ websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.
Close Your Account: While we’d be very sad to see you go, if you no longer want to use our Services, you can close your account with us. Please keep in mind that we may continue to retain your information after closing your account, as described in How Long We Keep Information above–for example when that information is reasonably needed to comply with (or demonstrate our compliance with) legal obligations such as law enforcement requests, or reasonably needed for our legitimate business interests.
Your Rights
If you are located in certain countries, including those that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (AKA the “GDPR”), data protection laws give you rights with respect to your personal data, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the rights to:
Request access to your personal data;
Request correction or deletion of your personal data;
Object to our use and processing of your personal data;
Request that we limit our use and processing of your personal data; and
Request portability of your personal data.
EU individuals also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority if we don’t respond to any of your requests.
How to Reach Us
If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact us about any of the rights mentioned in the Your Rights section above, please contact us at management@virtualsherpa.com
Other Things You Should Know (Keep Reading!)
Transferring Information
Because Virtual Sherpa Services are offered worldwide, the information about you that we process when you use the Services in the EU may be used, stored, and/or accessed by individuals operating outside the European Economic Area (EEA) who work for us, other members of our group of companies, or third-party data processors. This is required for the purposes listed in the How and Why We Use Information section above. When providing information about you to entities outside the EEA, we will take appropriate measures to ensure that the recipient protects your personal information adequately in accordance with this Privacy Policy as required by applicable law. These measures include:
In the case of US-based entities, entering into European Commission approved standard contractual arrangements with them, or ensuring they have signed up to the EU-US Privacy Shield; or
In the case of entities based in other countries outside the EEA, entering into European Commission approved standard contractual arrangements with them.
You can ask us for more information about the steps we take to protect your personal information when transferring it from the EU.
Ads and Analytics Services Provided by Others
Ads appearing on any of our Services may be delivered by advertising networks. Other parties may also provide analytics services via our Services. These ad networks and analytics providers may set tracking technologies (like cookies) to collect information about your use of our Services and across other websites and online services. These technologies allow these third parties to recognize your device to compile information about you or others who use your device. This information allows us and other companies to, among other things, analyze and track usage, determine the popularity of certain content, and deliver advertisements that may be more targeted to your interests. Please note this Privacy Policy only covers the collection of information by Virtual Sherpa and does not cover the collection of information by any third-party advertisers or analytics providers.
Privacy Policy Changes
Although most changes are likely to be minor, Virtual Sherpa may change its Privacy Policy from time to time. Virtual Sherpa encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the changelog below, and, in some cases, we may provide additional notice (such as adding a statement to our homepage). Your further use of the Services after a change to our Privacy Policy will be subject to the updated policy.
