Privacy and cookie policy

This privacy policy describes how your personal information is collected, used, and shared when you visit steadydrinker.com (the “Site”).

Personal information the Site collects

When you visit the Site, it automatically collects certain information about your device, including information about your web browser, IP address, time zone, and some of the cookies that are installed on your device.

Additionally, as you browse the Site, it collects information about the individual web pages that you view, what websites or search terms referred you to the Site, and information about how you interact with the Site. The Site refers to this automatically-collected information as “Device Information.”

The Site collects Device Information using the following technologies:

“Cookies” are data files that are placed on your device or computer and often include an anonymous unique identifier. For more information about cookies, and how to disable cookies, visit allaboutcookies.org.

“Log files” track actions occurring on the Site, and collect data including your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, referring/exit pages, and date/time stamps.

“Web beacons,” “tags,” and “pixels” are electronic files used to record information about how you browse the Site.

Additionally when sign up to our newsletter I collect your name and email address. You can ask us to delete this information at any time by choosing the ‘unsubscribe’ option in the emails I send or by contacting tom [at] steadydrinker.com.

When we talk about “Personal Information” in this Privacy Policy, we are talking both about Device Information and your name and email address.

How I use your personal information

I use the Personal Information I collect to contact you by email. I use the Device Information that I collect to help me screen for potential risk and fraud (in particular, your IP address), and more generally to improve and optimise our Site (for example, by generating analytics about how people browse and interact with the Site, and to assess the success of our marketing and advertising campaigns).

Sharing your Personal (Device) Information

I don’t share your name and email address with anyone else. I share your Device Information with third parties to help us use your Personal Information, as described above. For example, I use Google Analytics to help me understand how people use the Site – you can read more about how Google uses your Personal Information here. You can also opt-out of Google Analytics here.

I may also share your Personal Information to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to respond to a subpoena, search warrant or other lawful request for information I receive, or to otherwise protect my rights.

Do not track

Please note that the Site may not alter my Site’s data collection and use practices when I see a Do Not Track signal from your browser.

Your rights

If you are a European resident, you have the right to access personal information I hold about you and to ask that your personal information be corrected, updated, or deleted. If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us through the contact information below.

Additionally, if you are a European resident I note that I are processing your information in order to fulfil contracts I might have with you (for example if you make an order through the Site), or otherwise to pursue our legitimate business interests listed above. Additionally, please note that your information will be transferred outside of Europe, including to Canada and the United States.

Data retention

When you place an order through the Site, I will maintain your Order Information for my records unless and until you ask me to delete this information.

About the cookies the Site uses

As is common practice with almost all websites, this site uses cookies. These small files that are downloaded to your computer, to improve your browsing experience.

This page describes what information they gather, how the Site uses them and why the Site sometimes needs to store these cookies. It will also show how you can prevent these cookies from being stored. However, this may downgrade or ‘break’ certain elements of the site’s functionality.

First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The “help” feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/.

How the Site uses cookies

The Site uses cookies for a variety of reasons detailed below. Unfortunately in most cases there are no industry-standard options for disabling cookies without completely disabling the functionality and features they add to this site. It’s best to leave all cookies “on” if you’re not sure whether you need them or not in case they are used to provide a service that you use.

Disabling cookies

You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser (see your browser Help for how to do this). Be aware that disabling cookies will affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Disabling cookies will usually result in also disabling certain functionality and features of the this site.

The cookies the Site sets

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.

Third-party cookies

In some special cases the Site also uses 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. It helps us to understand how you use the site and ways that I 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 I can continue to produce engaging content.

The Google AdSense service I occasionally use to serve advertising uses a DoubleClick cookie to serve more relevant ads across the web and limit the number of times that a given ad is shown to you.

I 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 social media site 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.

Hotjar cookies

I use Hotjar to better understand users’ needs and to optimize this service and experience. Hotjar is a technology service that helps me better understand my users experience (e.g. how much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don’t like, etc.) and this enables me to build and maintain our service with user feedback. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on users’ behavior and devices (in particular device’s IP address (captured and stored only in anonymized form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), preferred language used to display our website). Hotjar stores this information in a pseudonymized user profile. Neither Hotjar nor I will ever use this information to identify individual users or to match it with further data on an individual user. For further details, please see Hotjar’s privacy policy by clicking on this link.

You can opt-out to the creation of a user profile, Hotjar’s storing of data about your usage of our site and Hotjar’s use of tracking cookies on other websites by following this opt-out link.

Mediavine Programmatic Advertising (Ver 1.1)

The Website works with Mediavine to manage third-party interest-based advertising appearing on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website.

Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site. In the event you opt-out, you will still see non-personalized advertisements on the Website.

The Website collects the following data using a cookie when serving personalized ads:

IP Address
Operating System type
Operating System version
Device Type
Language of the website
Web browser type
Email (in hashed form)

Mediavine Partners (companies listed below with whom Mediavine shares data) may also use this data to link to other end user information the partner has independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements. Mediavine Partners may also separately collect data about end users from other sources, such as advertising IDs or pixels, and link that data to data collected from Mediavine publishers in order to provide interest-based advertising across your online experience, including devices, browsers and apps. This data includes usage data, cookie information, device information, information about interactions between users and advertisements and websites, geolocation data, traffic data, and information about a visitor’s referral source to a particular website. Mediavine Partners may also create unique IDs to create audience segments, which are used to provide targeted advertising.

If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit National Advertising Initiative opt out page. You may also visit Digital Advertising Alliance website and Network Advertising Initiative website to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at Digital Advertising Alliance’s AppChoices app to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.

For specific information about Mediavine Partners, the data each collects and their data collection and privacy policies, please visit Mediavine Partners.

Changes to the policy

I may update this privacy policy from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to our practices or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons.

Contacting me

For more information about my privacy practices, if you have questions, or if you would like to make a complaint, please contact me by email at tom (at) steadydrinker.com.