SommWine's Privacy Policies, Terms of Use + Data Collection
Last Revision: Sept 11, 2023
We at SommWine (“we,” “us,” or “our”) have created this privacy policy (this “Privacy Policy”) because we know that you care about how information you provide to us is used and shared. This Privacy Policy applies to our information collection and use practices in connection with: (i) our websites, including, www.sommwine.com without limitation, (the “Websites” the “Website”); and (ii) the information you provide to us offline, including, without limitation, via phone, email, and mailchimp.
How we use your information is dependent on the service you purchase from us. See below.
Please read these terms of use carefully before using this website.
The following Terms of Use govern and apply to your use of or reliance upon this website maintained by www.sommwine.com (the “Website” or “Websites”)
This Privacy Policy applies to visitors to the Websites, who view only publicly-available content (“Visitors”), and users who register with us (“Registered Users”) and wish to purchase a product or service through one of our Websites.
By visiting any of our Websites, Visitors are agreeing to the terms of this Privacy Policy and the accompanying Terms of Use.
By registering with us and purchasing a product or service through one of our Websites, each Registered User is agreeing to the terms of this Privacy Policy, and the accompanying Terms of Use and Terms and Conditions.
By providing us information offline, you are also agreeing to the terms of this Privacy Policy.
Capitalized terms not defined in this Privacy Policy shall have the meaning set forth in our Terms of Use and the Terms and Conditions of Purchase.
Your access or use of the Website indicates that you have read, understand and agree to be bound by these Terms of Use and any other applicable laws, statutes, and/or regulations. We may change these Terms and Conditions at any time without notice, effective upon its posting to the Website. Your continued use of the Website will be considered your acceptance to the revised Terms and Conditions.
Table of Contents
Clickable links
The Information We Collect/ or Receive; the Purpose of Collection and Use on this Website
1. Privacy and Data Protection of WSET courses
For WSET courses, personal data (names, date of birth and email addresses) will be shared between SommWine and WSET to facilitate ordering examinations and to file past exam grades. Any data that SommWine and WSET stores will be for the students’ benefit as students may contact WSET offices regarding information about past examination results.
We follow EU guidelines for General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for the collection of Data for WSET courses which means we will need:
· your permission to collect and store your data (it’s on the registration form we send you after payment)
· to provide extra security for storing your data
· to report any data breaches to you at the time of the occurrence.
2. Privacy and Data Protection for Virtual Wine Tastings
For Virtual Wine Tastings within British Columbia personal names, email addresses and phone numbers will be shared with the delivery drivers and Marquis Wine Cellars to facilitate the delivery of wines. The delivery service will contact you to arrange a time for drop off. For more information about deliveries in your area see #20 and #21 in the Terms of Use page.
The Information We Collect/ or Receive; the Purpose of Collection and Use on this Website
3. Account and Account Use
If your use of the Website requires an account identifying you as a user of the Website (an “Account”):
- you are solely responsible for your Account and the maintenance, confidentiality and security of your Account and all passwords related to your Account, and any and all activities that occur under your Account, including all activities of any persons who gain access to your Account with or without your permission;
- you agree to immediately notify us of any unauthorized use of your Account, any service provided through your Account or any service provided through it, and you agree to provide assistance to us, as requested to stop or remedy any breach of security related to your Account, and
- you agree to provide true, current, accurate and complete customer information as requested by us from time to time and you agree to promptly notify us of any changes to this information as requested to keep such information held by us current, complete and accurate.
4. Contact Information
When you sign up to receive any of our newsletters, respond to a survey, register for a class, purchase any product or service, or sign up to become our affiliate partner, you may be required to provide us with certain information about yourself, such as your name, address, e-mail address, address, social media information, phone number, PayPaln address (only if you sign up to become our affiliate partner) and SSN#/Tax ID# (only if you sign up to become our affiliate partner) (the “Contact Information”). The Contact Information is used to provide the requested product or service or information and to contact you for purposes of direct marketing of our current and future products and services.
If you land on one of our pages through an affiliate partner link and provide us Contact Information (e.g., to request information, purchase a product or service), we may share your name and e-mail address to such affiliate partner to let him/her know that you were referred and in case(s)he has offered you any bonuses or rewards for following their referral link. We have no control over how affiliate partners may use your information after it has been received and we are not responsible for fulfilling any bonuses that such affiliate partners may have offered you; where applicable, please check such affiliate partners’ privacy policies and terms of use for more information on how they may use your personal information.5. Order Information
When you place an Order, you must provide us with certain information about the products and services you are seeking to purchase. Such information is collectively called the “Order Information.” The Order Information is used to fulfill your Order.
6. Billing Information
When you wish to purchase a product or service, you will be required to provide certain information in addition to the Personal Information and Order Information noted above. Such information may include a debit card number, credit card number, expiration date, billing address, activation codes, and similar information. Such information is collectively called the “Billing Information.” Billing Information is collected and processed by our third-party payment processor operating as our agent (see, Onward Transfers to Third Parties). We do not directly obtain or process any Billing Information.
7. Other Information
In addition to the information noted above, we may collect additional information (collectively, the “Other Information”). Such Other Information may include:
a. From You. Additional information about yourself that you voluntarily provide to us (e.g., via a survey), such as household income range, gender, product and service preferences, and other information that does not identify you personally.
b. From Your Activity. Information that we automatically collect when you use the Websites, including, without limitation:
- IP addresses, which may consist of a static or dynamic IP address and will sometimes point to a specific identifiable computer or device; browser type and language; referring and exit pages and URLs; date and time; amount of time spent on particular pages; what sections of the Websites you visit; and similar data; and
- Information about your device, including the type of device; universally unique ID (“UUID”); advertising identifier (“IDFA”); MAC address; operating system and version (e.g., iOS, Android or Windows); carrier and country location; hardware and processor information (e.g., storage, chip speed, camera resolution, NFC enabled); network type (WiFi, 3G, 4G, LTE); and similar data.
c. From Cookies. Information that we collect using “cookie” technology. Cookies are small packets of data that a website stores on your computer’s or mobile device’s hard drive so that your computer will “remember” information about your visit. We may use both session cookies (which expire once you close your web browser) and persistent cookies (which stay on your computer until you delete them) to help us collect Other Information and to enhance your experience using the Websites. If you do not want us to place a cookie on your hard drive, you may be able to turn that feature off on your computer or mobile device. Please consult your Internet browser’s documentation for information on how to do this and how to delete persistent cookies. However, if you decide not to accept cookies from us, the Websites may not function properly. For more on our cookie policies see here.
d. Third-Party Analytics. We use third-party analytics services (such as Google Analytics) to evaluate your use of the Websites, compile reports on activity, collect demographic data, analyze performance metrics, and collect and evaluate other information relating to the Websites and mobile and Internet usage. These third parties use cookies and other technologies to help analyze and provide us the data. By accessing and using the Websites, you consent to the processing of data about you by these analytics providers in the manner and for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. Please be advised that if you opt out of any service, you may not be able to use the full functionality of the Websites.
Below is a list of analytics providers that we use; however, such list may be subject to change based on how we wish to understand the user experience and we will endeavor to update it diligently. You may use the accompanying links to learn more about such providers and, if available, how to opt-out from their analytics collection.
For Google Analytics, please visit: https://www.google.com/analytics
For MonsterInsights, please visit: https://www.monsterinsights.com/privacy-policy/
8. Data Protection Plan
We take a number of steps to protect your data, but no security is guaranteed.
We take precautions to protect your information. When you submit sensitive information via the Site, your information is protected both online and offline. Wherever we collect sensitive information, that information is encrypted and transmitted to us by secure servers. We have included common indications of such secured features when appropriate. While we use encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your information offline. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, billing or customer service) are granted access to personally identifiable information. The computers/servers in which we store personally identifiable information are kept in a secure environment.
9. Privacy Policy for ecourses
This Privacy Policy applies to visitors to the Websites, who view only publicly-available content (“Visitors”), and users who register with us (“Registered Users”) and wish to purchase a product or service through one of our Websites.
By visiting any of our Websites, Visitors are agreeing to the terms of this Privacy Policy and the accompanying Terms of Use.
By registering with us and purchasing a product or service through one of our Websites, each Registered User is agreeing to the terms of this Privacy Policy, the accompanying Terms of Use.
By providing us information offline, you are also agreeing to the terms of this Privacy Policy.
Capitalized terms not defined in this Privacy Policy shall have the meaning set forth in our Terms of Use and the Terms and Conditions of Purchase.
10. California Users
California law requires us to let you know how we respond to web browser Do Not Track (DNT) signals. At this time, we do not have a DNT signal policy. Until further privacy regulations and guidelines are published, we will adhere to this policy.
Cookie Policy
11. What are cookies?
This site uses cookies, which are tiny files that are downloaded to your computer to track your usage and improve your experience. They are stored on your computer so that the web server can remember certain pieces of information about you. This information is used by the web server during the same or another visit to the website.
This page describes what information the cookies gather, how we use it and why we sometimes need to store these cookies. We will also share how you can prevent these cookies from being stored. This may, however result in certain elements of the sites functionality not working smoothly.
For more general information on cookies see the Wikipedia article on HTTP Cookies.
12. Disabling Cookies
If you’d like to disable unnecessary cookies, you may do so in the bottom banner of the website which asks you to accept our cookies. However, users are advised that if they wish to deny the use and saving of ALL cookies from this website on to their computers hard drive – they should take necessary steps within their web browsers security settings to block all cookies from this website and its external serving vendors.
How? Open a new browser, and in the top right hand corner there should be a settings icon where you can change cookie behaviour. In Firefox, the ‘settings’ is a hamburger bar (4 horizontal lines) in the top right corner. You may disable cookies or block cookies there.
13. How We Use Cookies
We use cookies for a variety of reasons detailed below. Unfortunately in most cases there are no industry standard options for disabling cookies without completely disabling some of the functionality and features they add to this site. It is recommended that you leave on all cookies if you are not sure whether you need them or not in case they are used to provide a service that you use.
The Cookies We Set
Email newsletters related cookies
This site offers newsletter or email subscription services and cookies may be used to remember if you are already registered and whether to show certain notifications which might only be valid to subscribed/unsubscribed users.
Orders processing related cookies
This site offers e-commerce or payment facilities and some cookies are essential to ensure that your order is remembered between pages so that we can process it properly.
Forms related cookies
When you submit data to through a form such as those found on contact pages or comment forms cookies may be set to remember your user details for future correspondence
Third Party Cookies
In some special cases we also use cookies provided by trusted third parties. The following section details which third party cookies you might encounter through this site.
This site uses Google Analytics which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solution on the web for helping us to understand how you use the site and ways that we can improve your experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit so we can continue to produce engaging content.
For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics page
Third party analytics are used to track and measure usage of this site so that we can continue to produce engaging content. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site or pages you visit which helps us to understand how we can improve the site for you.
From time to time we test new features and make subtle changes to the way that the site is delivered. When we are still testing new features these cookies may be used to ensure that you receive a consistent experience whilst on the site whilst ensuring we understand which optimisations our users appreciate the most.
As we sell products it’s important for us to understand statistics about how many of the visitors to our site actually make a purchase and as such this is the kind of data that these cookies will track. This is important to you as it means that we can accurately make business predictions that allow us to monitor our advertising and product costs to ensure the best possible price.
Several partners advertise on our behalf and affiliate tracking cookies simply allow us to see if our customers have come to the site through one of our partner sites so that we can credit them appropriately and where applicable allow our affiliate partners to provide any bonus that they may provide you for making a purchase.
We also use social media buttons and/or plugins on this site that allow you to connect with your social network in various ways. For these to work the following social media sites including; Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook will set cookies through our 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.
More Information
Hopefully that has clarified things for you and as was previously mentioned if there is something that you aren’t sure whether you need or not it’s usually safer to leave cookies enabled in case it does interact with one of the features you use on our site. Joanne, the owner of this website did hire a developer to add the cookie popup and asked that it be GDPR compliant and for users to be able to turn off unneccesary cookies.
This Cookies Policy was created with the help of a Cookies Policy Template Generator from https://www.cookiepolicygenerator.com/
However if you are still looking for more information then you can contact us through info@sommwine.com.
14. Complaint Process
If you feel that your information on this site has been mishandled, you are able to make a complaint. In the EU, complaints are made to the European Data Protection Board found here https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en. In Canada, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) encourages you to first try to address your concerns directly with the organization holding your personal information. (That means contacting joanne@sommwine.com). Many times you can resolve privacy issues with businesses or federal institutions through direct communication. To read more about this and file a complaint, go to https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/report-a-concern/file-a-formal-privacy-complaint/
