Privacy is an important concern for internet users and is something that Web of Stories Limited ('WoS') takes very seriously. What follows is an explanation of WoS's policy for protecting users' personal information.
This is the privacy notice for webofstories.com, our related mobile applications, tools and comment and discussion facilities ('the Site').
The data controller is Web of Stories Limited.
WoS relies on a number of legal bases to collect, use, and share your information, including:
- as needed to provide its services, such as when it uses your information to fulfil your order, to settle disputes, or to provide customer support;
- when you have provided your affirmative consent, which you may revoke at any time, such as by signing up for our mailing list;
- if necessary to comply with a legal obligation or court order or in connection with a legal claim, such as retaining information about your purchases if required by tax law; and
- as necessary for the purpose of WoS legitimate interests provided those legitimate interests are not overridden by your rights or interests.
Registration on this site where requested is optional and voluntary. Browsing and viewing some material on the Site does not require any personal information to be submitted from users.
Some aspects of the service available on the Site require the use of cookies, and the supply of information such as name, email, speciality, funder, institution, qualification and phone number. This is necessary for security reasons and to be able to provide our services. Users may submit further personal information (e.g., details of research and areas of interest) in order to take advantage of present and future personalization facilities on this site.
When you visit the Site we may collect information about your online browsing behaviour and any equipment or software you have used to access our site including your IP address, device identifiers and the type of browser you use.
In accordance with European Union guidelines, registrants may decline to provide the information requested. They should be advised, however, that WoS may be unable to deliver its services unless at least the information necessary to enable fulfilment of the service, security and identification purposes is provided.
In order to offer the best possible service to users, WoS tracks the patterns of usage of pages on the Site. This enables us to identify the most popular material and services.
WoS uses the Google AdWords remarketing service to advertise on third party websites (including Google) to those who have previously visited our site. This service uses cookies to enable third party vendors, including Google, to show our ads on sites across the internet. You can opt out of Google's use of cookies by visiting Google's Ads Settings.
WoS collects your email address when you register to receive e-mail alerts. We use this to send you the relevant e-mail alert that you have requested with the described frequency.
WoS collects the following information when you register with the site; name, address, organisation, country and e-mail address. We use this to contact you to confirm registration, to identify you and provide our services, administration and to resolve issues through our help desk.
WoS collects the following information when you register to make comments on the site; name, address, organisation, country and e-mail address. We use this to enable you to post comments on the Site, contact you to confirm registration, to identify you and provide our services, administration, to resolve issues through our help desk and investigatory purposes should the need arise.
WoS collects and may use your personal information to (a) contact you in response to any communication received from you, (b) award you a prize if you have won one through the Site.
WoS will use your personal information to review it in order to ensure it does not keep it any longer than is legally permitted.
WoS does not seek to collect or knowingly store any personal information about persons under the age of 16. Anyone aged under 16 who wishes to provide personal information to us must first obtain their parent or guardians consent.
User information will only be shared with third parties as necessary to complete a contract or to provide services you have requested or authorised or with the explicit consent of the user.
If the user has explicitly opted to receive special offer and product information emails from WoS partners, then WoS may from time to time email the user on behalf of these partner companies. However, these companies will not be given the user's details without that user's explicit consent.
Statistical anonymised demographic information about WoS usage may be supplied to advertisers. WoS may target online advertising to users on the basis of this demographic information, or on the basis of their past behaviour on the site, but information about an individual user will not be passed on to an advertiser without the user's express consent.
Unless we are required or permitted by law to keep information for a longer period WoS will only keep your personal information for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes for having that data as explained in the consent you granted or in our privacy policy or until you request us to delete it. However even if we delete your personal data it may remain on back-up systems or in our archive for security and to enable us to fulfil our legal, regulatory and tax obligations.
WoS takes the security of your personal information very seriously and stores and processes your personal information in accordance with applicable law. From time to time we may transfer and store personal information that we have collected outside the EU as some of our service providers are outside the EU (including without limitation USA). However when we appoint anyone to provide a service to us we take care to ensure they comply with applicable EU law and this Privacy Notice and have appropriate security procedures in place and are aware of the obligations that come with holding personal information.
All communications from WoS will include clear instructions on how to tell us that you wish to cease receiving further communications (unsubscribe).
You also have the right to ask us to (a) rectify inaccurate or incomplete personal information, (b) delete your personal data from WoS's systems, (c) limit the way in which WoS can use your personal data, (d) move, copy or transfer your personal information and (e) object to our use of your personal information.
To exercise any of these rights, make enquiries or make a complaint about our use of your personal data please contact WoS by e-mail at info@webofstories.com or write to us at Chief Operating Officer, Web of Stories Limited, Middlesex House, 34-42 Cleveland Street, London W1T 4LB, United Kingdom.
A cookie is a small file sent by web servers to web browsers and stored on your computer or mobile device, if you agree to this request. Cookies usually contain a unique identifier and some anonymous information and will be unique to your web browser. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.
WoS uses cookies to improve user experience, as well as to provide certain information to WoS to help us improve the product in the future.
WoS uses cookies for four main functions:
- To remember you and your preferences;
- Track user movements;
- Measure page usage; and
- Target content or advertising.
Persistent cookies remain on your device until a set expiry date or until you delete them, for example: information about you and your preferences; session cookies expire when you close the web browser, for example: information about pages you visited on the site.
You may be sent cookies by other websites that you interact with when you use our site such as social media sites. WoS also uses third party products that set cookies, for example: Google Analytics, which helps us monitor site usage and therefore improve user experience, and Google Adwords which uses cookies to enable our ads to be shown across the Internet to those who have previously visited our site.
Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser settings to notify you when a cookie is sent, and then you can then choose to accept or decline the cookie. However, this may mean that any preferences you set on the site will be lost or you will not be able to use the auto login or remember me facility at login.
You can opt out of Google's use of cookies by visiting Google's Ads Settings.
WoS reserves the right to disclose users' personal information if required to do so by law, or in the good faith and belief that such action is reasonably necessary to comply with legal process, respond to claims, or protect the rights, property or safety of WoS employees or members.
If you have any questions or concerns about your privacy and WoS please contact info@webofstories.com or write to us at Chief Operating Officer, Web of Stories Limited, Middlesex House, 34-42 Cleveland Street, London W1T 4LB, United Kingdom. If you are not satisfied with any complaint you may make about how your personal information is handled then you may be able to refer your matter to the Information Commissioner's office https://ico.org.uk
WoS may from time to time make changes to this Privacy Notice to reflect changes in how we treat your personal information, to comply with legislation, improve the site or to institute good practice. WoS will inform you of these changes by posting them to this page. It is your responsibility as a user to makes sure that you are aware of changes posted on this page by checking for any changes on a regular basis.
