We’re a tiny, overstretched business and we don’t have the time or energy to do anything nefarious with your data. It’s not that we’re not evil – we’re as corruptible as anyone – we’re just too tired to think up a malevolent plot to steal your identity.We collect and store the info we need to provide you with the service you buy from us. We occasionally stalk you via Facebook and Instagram adverts. That’s really it.
Privacy Policy
With thanks to Writers’ HQ, our supreme writing commanders, glorious leaders and excellent but tiny overlords, who have verily granted us permission to use their splendid and sweary Privacy Policy.
This privacy policy is for Whale & Bird (www.whaleandbird.com)
Wow has anyone ever read one of these?
We have to have one of these dealios to explain how we comply with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), the DPA (Data Protection Act) and the PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations) because God knows there’s not enough actual interesting things in the world to read, you need to read 1,000 words of legalese nonsense that makes literally not one bit of difference to anyone, ever.
Also we don’t really know what these things are.
Short words
The best bit about the GDPR is that all this has to be “concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible” so hold on to your hats, motherfuckers, this is going to be the shortest, clearest and best freakin’ privacy policy you ever did see.
So. Here we go…
Tl;dr
COOKIES
Seriously who actually cares? Do you even know what a cookie is or does? Well then. Yes we use cookies because that’s kinda how the Internet works. If you don’t want our delicious home-baked chocolate chip scripts, then you need to block cookies on your browser but don’t come crying to us when nothing does what it’s supposed to.
STALKY VISITOR TRACKING
Look, we’re following you, ok? We use Google Analytics, primarily to stare at the real time stats because they’re cool but also to see what stuff people looking at so we can write more of the stuff you like.We also have the Facebook Pixel installed so that we can sell you stuff. Yes you heard it. We are a business and – shocker – we want you to spend money with us. The Facebook Pixel means that we can see how people interact with our site and with Facebook adverts and then we try to flog you relevant stuff. If you’ve not seen the Facebook Ads analytics dashboard MAN ALIVE it’s stalker central. That shit is a terrifying Black Mirror horror show.
If you’re not on Facebook – well bloody done but the pixel is tracking you anyway. Don’t know if there’s a specific Facebook Pixel blocking thing but we accidentally discovered that if you use Freedom app to block social media while you’re writing it also blocks the FB pixel. Handy hints!None of these things store any super personal data about you but probably they nab your IP address, not that we’d know where to look for it or what to do with it. All we see is that a person or many people have interacted with the website in a particular way. You can mess with us by doing something totally unexpected on the website and skewing our stats. Or you could do something way more fun and useful with your time.
DATA STORAGE
DATA!! It’s all about the data, baby. A literal fuck-tonne of petabytes whirring around the world and what? What’s it all for? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? What will future historians actually see of us and our slowly collapsing society? So. We store your data in a few different places and use it in a couple of different ways. You ready for this? Here on this website! If you register with the site we will store your name and email address. If you buy stuff from us we will store your name, email address, postal address, phone number if you give it to us, and purchase history.
Your payment details ARE NOT held on the site. We obviously go to the maximum effort to keep this data secure and only two people have access to it. Only one of them ever actually looks at it and that’s to solve any technical problems you might have.We’ll be honest: we do absolutely nothing unsurprising or radical with your info. We use your purchase history to target you with ads for stuff you might like. For e.g. if you buy a sweary card, we’ll occasionally ask you if you want to buy more things with swear words on. Does that make us EvilMegaCorp? Idk, it’s fairly standard isn’t it?
Mailchimp! If you’ve told us we can send you emails via our mailing list – your name and email address also wangs its way over to Mailchimp, which is the system we use to manage our newsletters and emails. They are (allegedly) GDPR compliant.
Orderhive! This helps us to track our website inventory and orders. It’s hard to keep track of how many items you have manually especially when we have almost 1000 products listed, so we use this third party system which helps us keep it all in check. When you place an order with us your name, address, email address, what you have ordered and for how much is all tracked within Orderhive. This is pretty essential and is what makes running this retail website possible
Royal Mail Click & Collect! This automatically imports your name and address when you place an order so we can quickly and easily pay the postage and print out shipping labels to send you your goods. In the past we used to hand write all of the shipping labels and then spend a stupid amount of time queuing up at the post office on a daily basis to send things off. This way is much better!
YOUR PAYMENT DETAILS
When you buy stuff, you will either pay through Stripe or PayPal. The only payment-based details we hold on our site is how much you’ve spent and whether you paid with Stripe or PayPal. We have no bank or card details or nada here. Stripe is GDPR compliant. PayPal is being totally weird about it but will have to be GDPR compliant or everyone in Europe will have to stop using it and probably they don’t want that.
EMAIL MARKETING THINGIES AND NEWSLETTERS
If you sign up to our newsletter, we will send you a newsletter – generally just one or two a month, but occasionally more if there is more interesting stuff to tell you. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe button in every newsletter email. Your name and email address are stored securely in Mailchimp.
If you purchase something from us, you will receive automated emails to let you know we have received your order and when we have posted it off. If something goes wrong with your order (which is hardly ever!) we might personally send you an email to keep you updated.
Mailchimp automatically adds tracking things to links so if you click on a link WE KNOW. If you open an email WE KNOW. If you ignore us reminding you to be writing WE KNOW.
The most important thing about this is we have neither the time nor inclination to actually look at or do anything with these stats.
YOUR RIGHT TO BE DELETED
FINE FUCK OFF THEN WE DON’T CARE. If you want to go undercover, just chuck us an email at hello@whaleandbird.com and we’ll delete all the info we have on you from our systems while having a passive aggressive huff about what we could have possibly done wrong. This does not include PayPal and Stripe. If you want to delete your PayPal or Stripe accounts you have to do that yourself via PayPal or Stripe. We cannot delete your purchase history because the taxman will be terribly upset.Just so you know, though, you won’t be able to access your sales history anymore.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND ALL THAT BOLLOCKS
We use social media a lot, partly to promote things that we make that we want you to buy, but also to look at pictures of your cats, dogs and succulents. If you woo us on social media there is a chance we might follow you and maybe send you messages of positivity and tell you how cute your dog is (if you have a dog). You can ask us to be less friendly if you wish and we will of course respect your boundaries.
Got it? Read it? Done it? WELL FUCKING DONE YOU! Celebrate your achievement with a gold star.