Privacy Policy

Because we believe that you should not be required to provide personal information to participate in the “free knowledge movement”, you may:

• Read or use the Newbie Nirvana site without registering an account.
• Register for an account without providing an email address or real name.

Because we want to understand how the Newbie Nirvana sites are used so we can make them better for you, we do collect some information when you:

• Contribute articles;
• Make purchases or show interest in making a purchase of a product that we have have reviewed or recommended;
• Register an account, or update a contributor’s bio, or provide a testimonial;
• Receive our emails, send us emails, participate in a survey, or provide feedback; or
• Use the Newbie Nirvana site.

We are committed to:

• Describing, in this Privacy Policy, how your information may be used or shared.
• Describing, in this Privacy Policy, parental and guardian procedures for notification of the use of the site by your underage child; and how you may restrict, delete, or review the information collected on them.
• Using reasonable measures to keep your information secure.
• Never selling your information or sharing it with third parties for marketing purposes.
• Only sharing your information in limited circumstances, such as to improve the Newbie Nirvana sites, to comply with the law, or to protect you and others.
• Retaining your data for the shortest possible time that is consistent with maintaining, understanding, and improving the Newbie Nirvana sites, and our obligations under law.

Be aware that:

• Any content you add, or change on a Newbie Nirvana site will be publicly and permanently available.
• If you add or change a comment to a Newbie Nirvana site without logging in, that new or edited comment may be publicly and permanently attributed to the IP address used at the time rather than a username.
• Our community of volunteer contributors and editors and spokespersons is a self-policing group. Certain administrators of the Newbie Nervana site, who are either principals, or are chosen by the principals or by the community, use tools that grant them limited access to nonpublic information about recent contributions, so that they may protect the Newbie Nervana site, its users, and so that they may enforce certain policies.
• This Privacy Policy does not apply to all sites and services run by or for Newbie Nirvana, such as secure sites or services specifically for contributors, which have their own privacy policy.
• This Privacy Policy also does not apply to sites or services run by third parties, not associated with Newbie Nervana, including service providers, vendors, affiliates, or networks; for example, Google, Amazon, Apple, or social networks.
• As part of our commitment to education and research, we occasionally release public information and aggregated or non-personal information to the general public through data sets, data graphs, or info-graphics.
• For the protection of the Newbie Nirvana site principals, contributors, volunteers, vendors, affiliates, and other Newbie Nirvana site users; if you do not agree with this Privacy Policy in full, you may not and must not use the Newbie Nirvana site.

When this policy document uses the terms, “Newbie Nirvana”, “We”, “us”, or in reference, “our”; this refers to the site, NewbieNirvana.com, and its owner(s), and/or principal(s), who operate the Newbie Nirvana sites.

“Newbie Nirvana sites” refer to the primary NewbieNirvana.com site, its restricted contributors’ site, and any projects, including web, mobile, or podcast apps, APIs, and other services; except for ones specifically excluded, herein.

During Registration

Registration for the purposes of comments and general site use does not require an email or real user name.

However, in order for you to participate in special “membership” or “subscription services” offered by Newbie Nirvana, you will be required to provide specific information about yourself.

If you choose to participate in such services, you agree to provide true, accurate and complete information and to refrain from impersonating or falsely representing your affiliation with any person or entity (such information being “Subscriber Data”).

Subscriber Data and certain other information about you is subject to our Privacy Policy. You agree and acknowledge that Subscriber Data from any registration process is used to send you information about Newbie Nirvana and/or its owner(s) and their respective services.

Sensitive information will never be divulged to others without your permission. Some of your personal information from this service may be displayed on the personalized public web pages that you and other subscribers receive from Newbie Nirvana and its owner(s).

You may modify some of your personal information by logging into the service and selecting to edit your “profile”, or “personalize” your page, or by contacting customer support.

Third Parties

Gravatar Services

Newbie Nirvana currently uses a third party service, Gravatar (gravatar.com), to pull and display a universal avatar associated with an email address. You can modify your gravatar associated with the email by visiting and logging into gravatar.com—the same service from which you initially set up your gravatar, if you have one.

If you have no association with Gravatar, or have no image associated with the email you signed up with on this site, then a non-descript placeholder will be used next to your comments and the comments of others who have no gravatar.

Google Analytics and Similar Services

We use search engine specialty tools in order to analyze our traffic volume and patterns, in order to better our site and to make it available and known to a wider audience. Some of these tools provide very broad geographic location data. While some of the tools do collect IP data, and provide some analysis based on geolocation, they do not provide any other identifying marks. These sites have their own privacy policies, which you should read.

Amazon, iTunes, eBay, and other Affiliate Service Providers

While Newbie Nirvana provides a generally free of charge educational service to the general public, we do look for books and items that would appeal to and might enhance the growth and knowledge of our audience, which are specific to their interests. In some cases we will earn a commission when an event is triggered—usually a purchase. What we pass to these sites is actually information about Newbie Nirvana, not about you.

However we may receive some information from such “marketing partners” in the form of commission and/or link reports. For purchases, the info might include name and address, or an order number and item description. Each company has their own privacy policy, which you should read while on their site.

Potential Disclosure

Although privacy issues are very important to us, given the current regulatory and technical environment you should not have an expectation of privacy in a membership application or subscriber data. By way of example (without limiting the foregoing), we may be forced to disclose information to the government or third parties under certain circumstances; or third parties may unlawfully intercept your private communications. We cannot ensure that all private communications or information associated with your membership application or subscriber data will remain private.

We realize that children under 13 years of age, could very well want to learn from this site. While there may be some restricted areas or pages, generally the site will be open to a general audience. Although we do not collect the age of any site user, if your child wishes to join in order to comment, or engage in any activity where they may identify themselves, we ask that you submit our parental permission form, available in our parental-interface channel, identifying your child, so that we are aware and can help control access to any restricted areas and to prevent collection and/or transmission of identifiable data.

If we are not made aware, then it’s possible that an underage child would go unnoticed. It’s in their best interest if you are working with us to make their experience here a safe and happy one. We welcome a relationship with you.

Children Participating in Discussions

We will not knowingly pull and display a gravatar for a child who is under 13. (See “Gravatar Services” in the Third Parties section.) We will take all precautions to use an unidentifiable placeholder in lieu of an identifiable avatar.

We do collect IP addresses, and hold them for general analysis, at least temporarily, but will delete this information, if we are made aware of a child user of the site, who is under 13 years old.

Parental Review and Permissions

As a parent or guardian you have the right to review, delete, or request deletion, or refuse to permit any further collection of data from your child.

You may report this through our parental-interface channel; and we will comply. A list of potential operators, who provide services to this site, who may also collect information—ranging from IP address to geolocation data—are listed here, and on the parental-interface channel, where you will be given the means to contact our liason.

We use IP addresses and cookies to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement, gather broad demographic information, and credit affiliates with sales commissions.

We use this information to evaluate and locate appropriate resources, provide you with high quality service, prevent fraud, and—with your consent—inform you of products, services, or resources offered by third parties. We may also use this information to confirm your identity when you inquire about your accounts. We may ask for information from our visitors at certain locations on our web site. This is considered consensual information and subject to the conditions of this privacy policy.

Normal Web Site Usage

During a normal visit to our site, no personally identifiable information about you is collected, other than IP address, which is part of the internet handshake that makes the web work.

All public information on Newbie Nirvana sites is free to browse at your leisure without the need for you to provide us with any personal information. Your visit does however generate a session log.

Session Logs: What they are and how we use them.

When you visit any web site, the server housing the pages automatically generates a “session log.” The logs are used by the owners/administrators of the sites to track the pages you visit or request. The data we gather is the Internet Protocol (IP) address from which you came (which by the way, contains no personal information), the web site that referred you, the pages you visited and the date and time of those visits.

IP addresses, when studied, may indicate a city or town near or through which your internet connection is served. IP addresses are a critical part of the functioning of the web, and are exchanged automatically in the handshakes through which web connections are made.

We may use session logs to help us determine how people travel through our site. In this way, we can structure our pages so that the information most frequently visited is easier to find. By tracking page visits, we can also determine if the information we are providing is being used. Session logs are also useful in tracking abuse.

Cookies: What they are and how we use them.

Another method of tracking web site visitors is through the use of “Cookies.” Cookies are small bits of data that also help web site owners and web servers identify you and remember you when you return. By doing this, the web site owner and web server can provide you with information that is most valuable to you, based on your last visit.

Important Cookie Facts:

Only the information that you provide, or the choices you make while visiting a web site, can be stored in a cookie. For example, the site cannot determine your name or email address unless you choose to enter it into a pre-existing input box.

• Allowing a Web site to create a cookie does not give that site or any other site access to the rest of your computer.
• Cookies cannot roam around inside your computer and collect personal information.
• Only the site that created the cookie can read it.
  • There are two types of cookies
  • The first type, a session cookie, only stays in your computer until you quit your browser. Examples of this are session log in cookies for members and shopping cart cookies. Some sources recommend to quit your browser before going from a member site that uses session type cookes to another unrelated site. Quitting the browser would delete all temporary, or session-type cookies. Newbie Nirvana may use session cookies for restricted logins; and these session cookies may also have a short expiration period, for your further protection.
  • The other type, called a persistent cookie, can have an indefinite shelf life or have a predetermined expiration date built in. These types of cookies are primarily used to remember you for a specified period of time. Newbie Nirvana sites may use persistent cookies, in order to access restricted pages; or we may set a referrer cookie; we might also use a cookie to personalize the page that is displayed to you.
• The cookie is a virtual convenience widget that sits on your computer and remembers some data, so as to prevent so many round trips to the server, which would slow you down, and make interactivity a slow, boring process.
• Besides cookies, there is “local storage” which may contain more data than a cookie. Local storage is controlled similarly on the browser.

How to Prevent Cookies

If you are concerned about being identified or about having your web browsing traced through the use of a cookie, you can prevent them from being deposited in your computer. You can also set some browsers to warn you whenever a cookie is being deposited.

Remember though that the majority of web sites use cookies, and that blocking all cookies will prevent some online services from working. An e-commerce or shopping site, for example, likely uses cookies in their shopping process. Banks and online payment systems, as well as member sites, all depend on cookies and/or local storage to help secure the private areas. Also, setting your browser to warn you can also become quite annoying.

Preventing cookies at Newbie Nirvana sites could prevent you from accessing services and restricted areas, including our Newbie Nirvana shops; but general surfing should be available with or without cookies.

Detecting Your Operating System, Browser, Plug-ins, Speed, and Display Settings

Reputable sites that collect sensitive personal and especially financial information, such as credit card and checking account information, pass such data through what is called a “Secure Socket Layer” or SSL. A secure socket uses encryption technology that helps safeguard your personal information against misuse by unauthorized individuals.

All such account information collected for payment processing is either passed through SSL from our secure payment gateway to the payment gateway of your online payment method provider; or is collected directly by a third party provider, through their SSL, without going through our servers. A site’s long address will always begin with https://, if it is secured via SSL.

Currently Newbie Nirvana has a separate domain appointed for secure log-in of writers, editors, team members, and for other activities that require encryption. This may change in the future.

Downloading files refers to the act of choosing to receive a file or program from a web site. Examples are a web browser, a sound file, movie file, a screensaver, a PDF document, a Java, or a JavaScript application. Downloadable files may be executables– meaning that once they are downloaded, clicking on them launches or installs a program or deposits files on your computer. When you purposely download a file from a web site, most browsers have a mechanism, whereby you are given the choice of where you would like to save the file. Unless you explicitly trust the site delivering the downloadable, it is a good idea to save the file to disk before opening or activating it.

We may use downloadable files to deliver things like lists, brochures, ebooks, ads, and rich media. If information on Newbie Nirvana sites requires a particular piece of software to view it, we will provide a link for you to acquire that software. We will not require you to download an uncommon piece of software or program to view our information. If you are unsure, you should inquire through the contact-us pages, before using, downloading, or opening something about which you have questions.

Be assured of that we will never share your name, address, email, or related information with a non Newbie Nirvana site. We will also never send you unsolicited, non-affiliated, third party email, based on your interaction with this site.

Of course you may have provided your email address to Newbie Nirvana in some other situation in which case you may receive email from us, stemming from that interaction.

Personal information such as name, mailing address, email address, and/or your phone number may be collected, depending on your subscription, to respond to your requests for future contact. There are obvious areas within our site where collecting personal information is unavoidable. For instance, when you request a quote or enter a contest, or become an affiliated “member”.

Typically, for general use, surfing, and reading, such information is not required; and neither is login required.

Some information may be required to fulfill your request. Required information is always noted next to the input box.

Other information we might collect is optional. We use that to help us better understand you, and better define how we market our services or design our communications.

The term “opting in” is Web terminology for voluntarily electing to receive additional information from the owner of a web site. Opting out is the act of telling the owner of the site that you no longer wish to receive their updates. Simply visiting a Web site does NOT constitute opting in to receive additional information.

The majority of Web sites will provide a means for you to indicate your desire to receive additional information from them. Generally this opportunity will present itself as an additional check box when you visit a Web site and request more information or fill out a survey; or a registration box or child-window, where you are asked for your name and email, most often, and sometimes your phone number, in trade for a subscription to a newsletter, a request for more information– which may come as a series of emails, or sometimes a phone call.

At any given time within the Newbie Nirvana sites, there are multiple opportunities to elect to receive updates or further information from us. This opting in process is generally associated with areas like quotes, requests for more information, signup for classes, workshops, or services, etc. At those points of contact, we will provide a means for you to receive other information from Newbie Nirvana or an affiliated third party.

Depending on your location within the site, you may also find a subscription box to register for a “mini e-course” or to get on our update list, or some other type of subscription as described in the form. Such internal opt-in lists are never sold or traded, as your privacy and trust in Newbie Nirvana is valued.

The opt-in process with Newbie Nirvana is simple. You either select a check box or complete a form that indicates to us you would like to receive information. You can always opt-out at anytime and this process helps ensure that you will not receive unsolicited material from us here at Newbie Nirvana.

Newbie Nirvana may set up membership subscriptions. In that case any Member-Subscribers of Newbie Nirvana are permanently opt-in, until they are unsubscribed from membership services. This is so that members can get all updates.

An outside link refers to any link that takes you to a site not controlled by Newbie Nirvana sites. Some of the resources that we share with you, are offered in conjunction with other online companies or persons.

As part of a promotional agreement, we may provide links to that partner’s web site.

We will provide links to the external websites of Newbie Nirvana contributing authors.

If you have a concern about the external site’s practices, you should carefully read their Privacy Policy before submitting any personal information.

Newbie Nirvana and its owner(s) reserve the right to share information collected from our web site with law enforcement agencies who are in the process of conducting lawful investigations.

We will never knowingly collect information from children under 13 years of age. If we discover that any personally identifiable information collected is from a person under 13 years of age, that information will be deleted from our database.

If you believe that your child, under 13 years of age, as purposely, or unknowingly been entered into our database, please use the contact-us page, and provide complete information, including your information for a followup.

When we refer to “non-affiliated” third parties we mean organizations outside of Newbie Nirvana sites with whom we have no association. For example, many of our promotions and services are made possible by marketing partnerships and alliances with companies whose customers have like interests as those customers who visit our web site. Companies we work with directly are considered “affiliated” third parties with which we exchange some data, as described in more detail in previous sections. Finally, some companies who provide data handling or other services on our site, may collect their own data, through their own cookies or through your own activity.

We will never use your personal information to contact you outside the context in which it was provided.

We will never knowingly collect data from persons under 13 years of age nor automatically assume you wish to be contacted via email.

The cornerstone of every relationship is built on trust. When you visit our web site, it is the beginning of a relationship, as far as we are concerned. We want you to feel comfortable while you’re conducting your research and utilizing our services. We want you to feel confident that the information we collect, and that you choose to share, will be treated with care.

We want you to come back.

The first step in helping you to achieve that level of comfort and confidence is by explaining exactly what type of information we collect and why we collect it. It is our sincere hope that by being forthright in this communication of our Privacy Policy that the relationship we establish is a long-lasting one.

By using Newbie Nirvana sites and services, you signify your agreement to this Privacy Policy. If you do not consent, or are not of sound mind, please do not use the site or Newbie Nirvana services.

© Copyright 2016 Newbie Nirvana. All rights reserved. All text, images, graphics, animation, videos, music, sounds and other materials on this site are subject to the copyrights and other intellectual property rights of Newbie Nirvana and its owner(s), its licensors, and or individual owners. These materials may not be copied for commercial use or distribution, nor may these materials be modified or re-posted to other sites, without expressed, written permission.