Ask April Porter Privacy Policy

At Ask April Porter we appreciate the trust you place in us when you choose to visit our website and we take that responsibility seriously. This Ask April Porter Privacy Policy (the "Policy") describes how we collect and use information about you when you visit our website, chat or call us on the phone.

In this Policy, "we" and "our" means AP Consulting, LLC, a Missouri limited liability company, d/b/a Ask April Porter, and "you" means any person who visits our website.

We Respect Your Privacy

We always have and always will maintain your privacy to the highest degree possible. Both online and off, we use (and will use) the information you give us solely to fulfill our obligations to you as a customer, and to improve our services to you and other customers and prospective customers. The following privacy policy explains in detail what information we collect, how we use that information, and your options.

What Information We Collect

  • Device and browsing information, including information about your phone, tablet, computer, or device, and online browsing activity (collectively, "automatically collected information"). Automatically collected information may include IP addresses, unique device identifiers, cookie identifiers, device and browser settings and information, and Internet service provider information. Automatically collected information also may include information about when and how you access and use our website, such as the date and time of your use, the websites you visit before coming and after leaving our website, how you navigate and what you search for using our website, the website pages and items you view using our website, and the items you purchase. We use all of this information to help maintain accurate accounts, to provide and to change services, to provide accurate billing and shipping, to answer your inquiries, to market services and products, and to help make our website useful to you.
  • Contact information, such as your name, address, phone number, or email address as you provide it, whether through opening an account or mailing in a product registration card or customer survey.
  • Purchase information, such as the items you purchase, payment method and payment information (such as debit or credit card number and information), billing and shipping address, and contact information (such as for receipts or order and shipping updates).
  • Preference information, such as your contact and marketing preferences.
  • Profile and account information, which may include Contact, Purchase, and Preference information as well as your account password, information about wish list items, items in your online shopping cart or saved for future purchase, survey results, gift card and other information about your profile or account.
  • Demographic information, which may include age or birthdate, gender, ZIP code, and other information about you.
  • Phone Calls or Chats including information about your contact, and information you share with our Customer Service representatives or Consultants when you contact us or we contact you.
  • We offer Message Boards for people to discuss business solutions in general and Ask April Porter Curriculum in particular. Each message board is moderated to ensure relevance, and good taste. Although users must be registered in order to access the message boards, please remember that any information you share on our message board is public information, so use caution in disclosing personal information.

You may always remove your information from our system (See You May Access or Correct Any Information We Collect below).

How We Collect Information

We collect information on our website, during telephone calls and during chats. We acquire this information directly from you when you visit our website, speak with us on the phone or chat with us via message services. We also collect information from third parties. For example, we collect and obtain information about you.

  • Directly from you … such as the days and times you make purchases, interact with Customer Service or Consulting personnel, register for a Ask April Porter account, return a product registration or survey, engage in promotional activities, or sign up for emails or marketing.
  • From third parties, such as service providers, analytics companies, advertising networks, demographic companies, and other third parties that provide us with information about you and the different devices you use online.
  • From social media platforms and networks that you use in connection with our website, or that share or allow you to share information with us. At the present time, these platforms and networks include Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. If you use functionalities, plugins, widgets, or tools from social media platforms or networks in connection with our website (e.g., to log into an account, or to share inspiration, finds, purchases, and other content with your friends and followers on social media), we will collect the information that you share with us, or that those social media platforms or networks share with us. For more information about social media platform and network privacy practices, please review the privacy policies and settings of the specific social media platforms and networks that you use.
  • Using cookies and automatic collection methods. For example, we and third parties we work with may collect information from the computer, tablet, phone, or other device that you use to access our website, or that you use to open an email or click on an advertisement from us. The information we collect in this way generally does not include personal information unless you provide it through our website or you choose to share it with us. We collect this information by means of:
    • cookies (which may be session-based or persistent, and are typically small data files that are stored on your hard drive or in connection with your Internet browser);
    • web beacons or tags (small images embedded into websites or emails that send information about your computer, tablet, phone, or other device when you visit our website, or open an email we send to you); and
    • website application log files (which we create automatically in connection with access to and use of our website).

How We Use Personal Information

We use the information that we collect in order to efficiently conduct our business and to provide you with the best possible products, services, and experiences. Examples of how we use information:

  • To provide you with proper products and services. Examples: fulfilling your orders and processing your payments; maintaining and servicing your account(s).
  • To inform you of changes.  To notify you of changes, such as changes to our services or our Standard Terms of Service or this Privacy notice. 
  • To respond to you appropriately. Examples: to identify you when you place an order, call us, make a request or inquiry, or share a comment or concern.
  • To personalize your experiences with us. Such personalization may include remembering your interests and preferences; customizing the products and services we share with you; tracking and categorizing your activities and interests on our website (including identifying the different devices you use) so as to enrich your experience on our website or in interaction with our customer service personnel.
  • To enhance our ability to communicate with you as much as possible about products or services that are likely to be of interest to you and as little as possible about products or services that are not of interest.  You always have the ability and right to unsubscribe from email marketing at any time by using the link at the bottom of each email we send.
  • To improve our efficiency and effectiveness as a company both online and off.  This means we seek to understand how our customers use our website and how they shop with us. It also means we seek to determine the methods and devices they use to access our website and otherwise communicate with us. We seek to use such knowledge to improve our website's usability.
  • For Ask April Porter Message Boards. We use your User Name and email address when forwarding emails to you from other members through our Message Boards. When such messages are sent, your address is not shared with the sender. You may communicate with others through the Message Boards without disclosing your email address to others on the Message Boards.
  • For legitimate interests.  We Use your information to achieve a legitimate interest and our reasons for using its outweigh any prejudice to your data protection rights. 
  • For our business purposes, such as: to operate and improve upon our business, product offerings and, lawful business activities; to maintain our programs, accounts, and records; for research; to determine your satisfaction with our products and services; to detect and prevent fraud or misuse of our services; and for any other business purpose that is permitted by law.
  • For legal and safety purposes, such as to: defend or protect us, our customers, you, or third parties, from harm or in legal proceedings; protect our rights; protect our security and the security of our customers, employees, and property; respond to court orders, lawsuits, subpoenas, and government requests; address legal and regulatory compliance; and notify you of product recalls or safety issues.

What Information We Share

We do not disclose, sell, or trade personal information about you to or with third parties for their or any other third-party company's marketing or advertising purposes. We do share personal information with third parties for other purposes. For example, we share personal information with:

  • Third parties and service providers that help us market or advertise to you (including co-branded marketing and advertising). 
  • We also, by nature of our relationship with them, share information with third-party companies and services that provide services to us and products directly to you (that you purchase through us. Such sharing is necessary for us to fulfill our business obligations to you and/or for you to fulfill your obligations to us. Examples of this kind of information and the companies we are talking about: the U.S. Postal Service, UPS, FedEx, the bank or credit card company that processes payments you make, and software programs that are necessary to deliver our products and services to you, and so forth.
  • Our professional advisors (e.g. legal, financial, business, risk management or other advisors), bankers and auditors;
  • Social media platforms and networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram that offer functionalities, plugins, widgets, or tools in connection with our website (e.g., to log into an account, or to share inspiration, finds, purchases, and other content with your friends and followers on social media). If you choose to use these functionalities, plugins, widgets, or tools — which are always branded and provided by those platforms and networks and are not branded nor provided by Ask April Porter, certain information may be shared with or collected by those social media companies. For more information about exactly what information we share with or acquire from those platforms or networks, and how those companies use your information, see the applicable companies' privacy policies.
  • Additional third parties such as law enforcement, government entities, courts, or other third parties as required by applicable law, such as for the legal and safety purposes described under the "How We Use Personal Information" Section above, or otherwise to help prevent harm or fraud to us, you, our customers, or other third parties. We also may share personal information with third parties upon your request or with your approval, though we may not be able to accommodate such requests.

Online Advertising and Third Parties We Work With

  • We work with third-party companies for advertising purposes,
    • to track and categorize visitors' activity and interests over time on our website and on third-party websites.

Such tracking … helps us understand our customers' (and likely customers') interests . . . which helps us to serve you (and all our other customers and potential customers) more effectively. It also helps us figure out how to identify where we are most likely to find other people like you who will likely enjoy our products and services.

  • to help us show advertisements across the Internet.
  • We also work with third-party companies to identify the different device(s) our visitors use to access our website. This helps us improve our visitors' experience when using our website.

We share information with these companies, and these companies may collect information (including automatically collected information) when you use our website. We share and they collect by means of the methods described in the "How We Collect Information" section above (see "Using cookies and automatic collection methods").

For information about how you can control the online advertising practices described in this section, please see the "Your Choices and Access Requests" Section immediately below.

Which Countries We Transfer Your Personal Data To

As a global business we cannot limit our processing of an individual’s personal data to the country in which that individual is based. In the course of providing our services, we will likely need to transfer personal data to locations outside the jurisdiction in which you provide it or where you are viewing our website. If you are based in the European Economic Area (EEA), this will mean that your personal data may be transferred to, accessible from, and/or stored at, a destination outside the EEA in which data protection laws may not be as comprehensive as in the EEA.

Regardless of the location of our processing, we will impose the same data protection safeguards that we deploy inside the EEA and implement appropriate measures to ensure that your personal data is protected in accordance with applicable data protection laws. Where a third party service provider processes the personal data of EEA residents on our behalf, we will ensure that appropriate measures are in place to ensure an adequate level of protection for your personal data, usually by including EU standard contractual clauses in our agreements with such third party service providers.

How Long We Keep Your Personal Data

We will retain your personal data for as long as is necessary to fulfill the purpose for which this data was collected and any other permitted linked purpose (for example, in order to comply with regulatory requirements regarding the retention of such data). If your personal data is used for two purposes we will retain it until the purpose with the latest period expires; but we will stop using it for the purpose with a shorter period once that period expires. Our retention periods are also based on our business needs and good practice.

Your Choices and Access Requests

We strive to offer you with choices about how we use and share your personal information. Your choices include:

  • Online Advertising. We strive to work only with third-party advertisers that pursue best-practices like those detailed on the referenced websites.
  • Third-party vendors, including Google, may show ads for askaprilporter.com on websites across the internet. Some of these ads may be served based on information collected from askaprilporter.com websites through the use of cookies. The Network Advertising Initiative ("NAI") is a cooperative of online marketing and analytics companies which provides information regarding Internet advertising and marketing companies. The NAI website provides an opt-out tool which allows consumers to opt-out of the advertising delivered by NAI member companies. The NAI opt-out tool is located at http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.
  • Social Media Platforms and Networks. We encourage you to review your privacy options and settings with the social media platforms and networks you use. They explain the choices you have about sharing information from those platforms and networks with us.
  • Email Choices. You can opt out of marketing or advertising emails from Ask April Porter by utilizing the "unsubscribe" link or mechanism made available in every marketing or advertising email you receive from us. If you would like to be added to OR removed from any or ALL our email lists, please visit askaprilporter.com. You may also send an email to team@askaprilporter.com with a request to unsubscribe you from one or all lists. For service or transactional emails, please contact Customer Service via email at team@askaprilporter.com. Please note that, even if you unsubscribe from all marketing-oriented emails, if you have an outstanding order or some other business dealings with our company, we reserve the right to contact you via email or phone concerning those matters.
  • Telephone Calls. You may opt out of receiving marketing or advertising calls by contacting Customer Service via email at team@askaprilporter.com.
  • Access Requests.  If you have registered for an online account with us, we allow you to access and update certain personal information that you have provided to us by logging into your online account and using the features and functionalities available there. You may also make a request for access to personal information by sending an email or writing to us at the address specified below. We are not able to grant all access requests, and in order to protect your privacy, we will seek to confirm your identity before we grant access to your information, or before we make any corrections or deletions.  Under certain circumstances and in accordance with EU or other applicable data protection laws, you may have the right to require us to:
    • provide you with further details on the use we make of your information
    • provide you with a copy of information that we hold about you;
    • update any inaccuracies in the personal data we hold;
    • delete any personal data that we no longer have a lawful ground to use;
    • where processing is based on consent, to withdraw your consent so that we stop that particular processing;
    • object to any processing based on the legitimate interests ground unless our reasons for undertaking that processing outweigh any prejudice to your data protection rights; and
    • restrict how we use your information while a complaint is being investigated.

We Use Your Reviews

When you post a review of one of our products on our site, make a comment about Ask April Porter on our Message Boards, or submit a testimonial and/or photo, you grant us permission to use your words--either in original form or edited for clarity only--in our promotional materials, web content, and other publications. No personally identifying information will be attached to these to keep your privacy safe. We may include your name and last initial (e.g. Susan M or M Family) as well as the city or town you are from so others will know that it is real customer feedback. In any case, if you are concerned, we might inappropriately identify your location, please contact us. As noted immediately below, we are deeply concerned about your security.

We are Committed to Protecting Your Information

We are committed to protecting your information from those who would seek to do you harm. As such, we secure our website with the industry standard for protecting web communications (currently TLS technology). Because of the encryption, your transactions on this site, financial and otherwise, are safe and protected. We maintain compliance with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) security standards, which assures you of significant additional protections related to any transaction involving a credit card.  Furthermore, our employees and maintenance personnel use IDs and passwords to further protect access to your information.

General Data Protection Regulation

If you are in the European Union (EU), you have specific rights under the General Data Protection Regulation. If you choose to provide us with information, you may ask us at any time to delete the information, with which we will comply in a reasonably timely manner if we have not independently chosen to delete the same information prior to your request. In either case, you will be advised accordingly.

You may request a copy of any computer file compiling your information, to the extent we have collected it, and such file will be provided to you in a commercially reasonable period, if it has not been previously deleted, as noted above.

You may ask us not to process your data, or to share it with any entities that would do so. Please note, however, that there is no known sharing of any data by our company with third parties, and outside of the unlikely possibility of subpoena, other court order, or legally compliant government investigation, no desire to do so.

If you have consented to the processing of your personal data, you may withdraw that consent at any time – though please note, any data processing that occurred prior to such withdrawal would remain legal in retrospect.

The information that is asked from you is intended only to fulfill the requirements to form a contract, and no additional information gathering or processing will be required than must be for that purpose.

If you believe that our company has failed to adhere to your rights under the GDPR, you are entitled to file a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority.

Our company does not, to the extent that the term can be reasonably understood, engage in large-scale data collection or processing, and so does not have an appointed specialist Data Protection Officer or employ any representative physically located in the EU and designated as the point of contact for the EU government on these matters.

How to Contact Us

You may contact us at any time if you want to correct the information we maintain about you or to request that we no longer contact you. Ways to contact us include:

  1. Email team@askaprilporter.com
  2. Visit askaprilporter.com

Please contact us with any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy.

 

Updates to This Policy

We may make changes to this Policy, and may apply any changes to information previously collected, as permitted by law. When we make material changes to this Policy, we will notify you by posting the updated Policy on our website, and we will update the effective date at the end of this Policy.

Please review this Privacy Policy periodically. Changes to this Privacy Policy will be effective when they are posted to this page.

Effective date

This policy is effective 12/26/2020.