MAKEBELIEFSCOMIX.COM PRIVACY NOTICE

MAKEBELIEFSCOMIX.COM PRIVACY NOTICE

Effective Date: August 23, 2023
Notice Version: 1.0

Data Controller Contact Information:

makebeliefscomix.com c/o
Guarionex Press Ltd.
201 West 77 St. Suite 6A
New York, NY 10024

billz@makebeliefscomix.com

Our privacy notice governs our privacy practices when you are using our website, www.makebeliefscomix.com, and services, hereinafter and collectively referred to as the website.

Our privacy notice tells you what personal data and nonpersonal data we collect from you, how we collect them, how we protect them, how we share them, how you can access and change them, and how you can limit our sharing of them. Our privacy notice also explains certain legal rights that you have concerning your personal data. Any capitalized terms not defined herein will have the same meaning as where they are defined elsewhere on our website.

Definitions

The terms “us”, “we”, and “our” refer to the owner of this Website.

‘NONPERSONAL DATA’ (NPD) means any information that is in no way personally identifiable.

‘PERSONAL DATA’ (PD) means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person can be identified directly or indirectly by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier, or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural, or social identity of that natural person. PD is in many ways the same as Personally Identifiable Information (PII). However, PD is broader in scope and covers more data.

‘SENSITIVE PERSONAL DATA’ (SPD) is a consumer’s social security, driver’s license, state identification card, or passport number; a consumer’s account log-in, financial account, debit card, or credit card number in combination with any required security, access code, password, or credentials allowing access to an account; a consumer’s exact geolocation; a consumer’s ethnic or racial origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, or union membership; the contents of a consumer’s mail, text messages, and email unless the business is the intended receiver of the communication; a consumer’s genetic data; the processing of biometric data to uniquely identify a consumer; personal information collected and analyzed about a consumer’s health; sex life or sexual orientation. Sensitive personal information that is "publicly available" is considered sensitive personal information or personal information.

Topics Covered in Our Privacy Notice

YOUR RIGHTS

INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND HOW WE COLLECT IT

HOW YOUR PD IS USED AND SHARED
RETAINING AND DESTROYING YOUR PD
PROTECTING THE PRIVACY RIGHTS OF THIRD PARTIES

DO NOT TRACK SETTINGS

LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

PROTECTING CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

OUR EMAIL POLICY
OUR SECURITY POLICY

USE OF YOUR CREDIT CARD

TRANSFERRING PD FROM OTHER COUNTRIES

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY NOTICE

YOUR RIGHTS

Contact us using the information at the top of this privacy notice to exercise any of your legal rights contained within this privacy notice. We will respond to your request within 30 days of receiving it.

When using our website and submitting PD to us, you have certain rights under privacy laws in the United States including the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CaCPA), the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (CPRA), and privacy laws of other countries including the European Union General Data Protection Regulation of 2016 (the “EU GDPR”), the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR / the Data Protection Act 2018), the Data Protection Act 2018, and other global privacy laws.  Even if not listed here, we will make reasonable efforts to honor data subject access requests even though we may be under no legal obligation to do so. However, we reserve the right to decline any data subject access request that we are not legally obligated to comply with. Your rights include but are not limited to the following:

  1. The right to equal service, price, and not being discriminated against even if you exercise your privacy rights.
  2. The right to one or more means where you can submit requests under this privacy notice.
  3. The right to know whether your PD is sold, shared, or disclosed, and to whom.
  4. The right to request that we do not sell or share any of your PD.
  5. The right to request that we disclose the following personal information to you: the categories of personal information we collected about you; the categories of sources from which your personal information is collected; the business or commercial purpose for collecting, selling, or sharing your personal information; the categories of third parties to whom we disclose your personal information; the specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you.
  6. The right to be informed about the PD that we collect from you and how we process them.
  7. The right to get confirmation that your PD are being processed and you can access your PD.
  8. The right to have your PD corrected if they are inaccurate or incomplete.
  9. The right to request the removal or deletion of your PD if there is no compelling reason for us to continue processing them. However, the right to deletion is not absolute and can be overridden to continue data processing in some cases where we still have a legal ground or overriding legitimate interest to process your data.
  10. The right to ‘block’ or restrict the processing of your PD. When your PD are restricted, we are permitted to store your PD, but not to process them further.
  11. The right to request the PD that you provided to us and use them for your own purposes. Upon express request, we will provide your data to you or another service or product provider within 30 days of your request subject to commercial and industrial secrets.
  12. The right to object to us processing your PD for the following reasons:
    1. processing was based on legitimate interests or the performance of a task in the public interest/exercise of official authority (including profiling);
    2. direct marketing and targeted advertising (including profiling);
    3. processing for purposes of scientific/historical research and statistics.
  13. The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects regarding you or similarly significantly affects you.
  14. The right that we limit the collection of your PD to that which is "adequate, relevant and reasonably necessary with the purposes for which the data is processed.
  15. The right that we do not process your PD for purposes that are neither reasonably necessary nor compatible with the disclosed purposes for which such personal data is processed, as disclosed to you unless the controller obtains your
  16. The right to designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf. When designating an authorized agent, you must provide a valid power of attorney, the requester’s valid government-issued identification, and the authorized agent’s valid government-issued identification.
  17. The right to file a complaint with supervisory authorities if your information has not been processed in compliance with your rights under privacy laws.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND HOW WE COLLECT IT

Generally, you control the amount and type of information that you provide to us when using our website.

Our Legal Basis for Collecting and Processing PD

Our legal basis for collecting and processing your PD when you buy our products and services, or fill in any of the contact forms on our website is based on the necessity for the performance of a contract or to take steps to enter into a contract. Our legal basis for collecting and processing your PD when you sign up for our newsletter, download free information, and use other technologies through our website to create content is based on consent.

Automatic Information

We automatically receive information from your web browser or mobile device. This information may include the IP address of your computer/the proxy server you use to access the Internet, your Internet service provider’s name, your web browser type, the type of mobile device, your computer operating system, and data about your browsing activity when using our website. We use all this information to help improve our website.

When Entering and Using Our Website

When you enter and use our website and agree to accept cookies, some of these cookies may contain your PD.

Our Use of Cookies

Our website uses cookies. A cookie is a small piece of data or a text file that is downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you access certain websites. Cookies may contain text that can be read by the web server that delivered the cookie to you. The text contained in the cookie generally consists of a sequence of letters and numbers that uniquely identifies your computer or mobile device; it may contain other information as well.

By agreeing to accept our use of cookies you are giving us and the third parties with which we partner permission to place, store, and access some or all the cookies described below on your computer and or mobile device.

  • Strictly Necessary Cookies - These cookies are necessary for the proper functioning of the website, such as displaying content, logging in, validating your session, responding to your request for services, and other functions.
  • Performance Cookies - These cookies collect information about the use of the website, such as pages visited, traffic sources, users’ interests, content management, and other website measurements.
  • Functional Cookies - These cookies enable the website to remember users’ choices, such as their language, usernames, and other choices while using the website.
  • Media Cookies - These cookies can be used to improve a website’s performance and provide special features and content. They can be placed by us or third parties who provide services to us.
  • Advertising or Targeting Cookies - These cookies are usually placed and used by advertising companies to develop a profile of your browsing interests and serve advertisements on other websites that are related to your interests.
  • Session Cookies - These cookies allow websites to link the actions of a user during a browser session. They may be used for remembering what a user puts in their shopping cart as they browse a website. Session cookies also permit users to be recognized as they navigate a website so that any item or page changes they make are remembered from page to page. Session cookies expire after a browser session.
  • Persistent Cookies - These cookies are stored on a user’s device between browser sessions, which allows the user’s preferences or actions across a website or across different websites to be remembered. Persistent cookies may be used for remembering users’ choices and preferences when using a website or target advertising to them.
  • We may also use cookies for:
    • identifying the areas of our website that you have visited;
    • personalizing the content that you see on our website;
    • our website analytics;
    • remembering your preferences, settings, and login details;
    • targeted advertising and serving ads relevant to your interests;
    • allowing you to share content with social networks.

Most web browsers can be set to disable the use of cookies. However, if you disable cookies, you may not be able to access features on our website correctly or at all.

Web Beacons

We may use a technology called web beacons to collect general information about your use of our website and your use of special promotions or newsletters. The information we collect by web beacons allows us to statistically monitor the number of people who open our emails as well as provide us with other information about your interaction with our services.

At User Registration

When you register as a user, based on our current practices (and including our practices over the last 12 months), we collect the following categories of information about you:

We may collect some or all of the following information: Your email address, password, and username. If you decide to register using your Google account, we collect and store your email address.

Google API

By using our website, you are subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
When collecting and processing user data, including PD from Google APIs, we will follow Google API Services User Data Policy. We also require that our employees, contractors, and agents comply with the Google API Services User Data Policy.

Google Analytics

Our website uses Google Analytics to collect information about the use of our website. Google Analytics collects information from users such as age, gender, interests, demographics, how often they visit our website, what pages they visit, and what other websites they have used before coming to our website. We use the information we get from Google Analytics to analyze traffic and improve our marketing, advertising, and website. We do not combine the information collected using Google Analytics with PD. You can prevent Google Analytics from using your information by opting out at this link: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Google Ad and Content Network

Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies, pixels, and other technologies to serve ads based on a user's past visits to our website. These technologies are also used to track your activities on our website and other websites, including the web pages that you visited, the ads or content that you clicked on, any items you may have purchased, and the search terms you used to deliver tailored advertising to you. Users may opt-out of the use of Google’s cookies for interest-based advertising by visiting http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ For European users visit http://www.youronlinechoices.eu

What Happens If You Don’t Give Us Your PD

If you do not provide us with enough PD, we may not be able to provide you with all our products and services. However, you can access and use some parts of our website without giving us your PD.

HOW YOUR PD IS USED AND SHARED
We use the information we receive from you to:

  • provide our products and services you have requested or purchased from us;
  • personalize and customize our content;
  • make improvements to our website;
  • contact you with updates to our website, products, and services;
  • resolve problems and disputes;
  • contact you with products and services that we believe may be of interest to you.

Communications and Emails

When we communicate with you about our website, we will use the email address you provided when you registered as a user or customer. We may also send you emails with promotional information about our website or offers from us or our affiliates unless you have opted out of receiving such information. You can change your contact preferences at any time through your account or by contacting us using the information at the top of this privacy notice.

Sharing Your Information When You Login Using Social Media Websites

We may share your PD with third parties such as Facebook.com, Twitter.com, YouTube.com, Instagram.com, Google.com, and others. If you sign into our services through a third-party social networking service or website, your “friends” list from that service or website might be automatically imported to our services. We do not have any control over the privacy notices and business practices of other third-party services or websites.

If you log into our website using social media websites, you are agreeing to let us use and store your profile information from those websites to make better use of any social media features on our website. This sharing of information helps us provide you with a better experience when using our website and provides us with information such as visitor traffic. If you use any of the social sharing icons on our website to share our information, you may also be sharing your personal information through social media websites.

Sharing Information with Third Parties

At times we give your PD to third-party service providers whom we hire to provide services to us. These third-party service providers may include but are not limited to AWS, web analytics companies, advertising networks, call centers, data management services, help desk providers, accountants, law firms, auditors, shopping cart and email service providers, and Paypal.

Legally Required Releases of Information

We may disclose your PD if such disclosure is (a) required by subpoena, law, or other legal processes; (b) necessary to assist law enforcement officials or government enforcement agencies; (c) necessary to protect us from legal action or claims from third parties, including you and or other users; or (d) necessary to protect the legal rights, personal and or real property, or the personal safety of our company, users, employees, and business partners.

Disclosures to Successors

If our business is sold or merges in whole or in part with another business that would become responsible for providing the website to you, we retain the right to transfer your PD to the new business. The new business would retain the right to use your PD according to the terms of this privacy notice as well as to any changes to this privacy notice as instituted by the new business. We also retain the right to transfer your PD if our company files for bankruptcy and some or all of our assets are sold to another individual or company.

RETAINING AND DESTROYING YOUR PD

We will maintain your PD in a structure that identifies you only for as long as it serves the purpose(s) for which it was initially collected as stated in this privacy notice, or for legal, business, or tax purposes. We will attempt to permanently erase or anonymize your PD once it reaches the end of its retention period or if we receive a valid request from you to do so. However, some of your data may still exist within our systems, for example, content generated by users, such as comics or posts, are retained for as long as the content remains published on our Website. Users can request removal of their content, and, upon authentication to the best of our ability, we will take appropriate actions to remove it.

PROTECTING THE PRIVACY RIGHTS OF THIRD PARTIES

If you make any postings on our website that contain information about third parties, you agree that you have permission to include that information. While we are not legally liable for the actions of our users, we will remove any postings about which we are notified if such postings violate the privacy rights of others.

DO NOT TRACK SETTINGS

Some web browsers have settings that enable you to request that we do not track your movement within our website. You can turn off tracking features and other security settings in your browser by referring to your browser’s user manual. If your browser supports it, you can turn on the Global Privacy Control to opt-out of the “sale” of your personal information under

California’s CCPA/CPRA and other applicable state privacy laws.

LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

Our website may contain links to other websites. These websites are not under our control and are not subject to our privacy notice. We have no responsibility for these websites, and we provide links to these websites solely for your convenience. You acknowledge that your use of and access to these websites are solely at your risk.

PROTECTING CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

Our website is not designed for use by anyone under the age of 16 unless the age of consent in their country/state/province/territory, etc., provides for 13-, 14-, or 15-year-old children to give us their consent to collect PD from them. Where the age of consent is 16 or older, the child will need consent from a parent or legal guardian before providing us with their PD.

If you are a parent or legal guardian and believe that your child is using our website without your required consent, please contact us. Before we remove any information, we may ask for proof of identification to prevent malicious removal of account information. If we discover that an unauthorized child is using our website, we will delete his or her information within a reasonable period of time. You acknowledge that we do not verify the age of our users nor have any liability to do so.

OUR EMAIL POLICY

You can always opt-out of receiving email correspondence from us or our affiliates. We will not sell, rent, or trade your email address to any unaffiliated third-party without your permission except in the sale or transfer of our company, or if our company files for bankruptcy as described in the section Disclosures to Successors.

OUR SECURITY POLICY

We have built our website and services using industry-standard security measures and authentication tools to protect the security of your PD. We and the third parties who provide services to us also maintain technical and physical safeguards to protect your PD. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee the prevention of loss or misuse of your PD or secure data transmission over the Internet because of its nature. We strongly urge you to protect any password you may have for our website and not share it with anyone.

USE OF YOUR CREDIT CARD OR OTHER PAYMENT METHOD

You may have to provide a credit/debit card or other payment method to buy products and services from our website. We use third-party billing services and have no control over them. We use commercially reasonable efforts to ensure that your payment information is kept strictly confidential by using only third-party billing services that use industry-standard encryption technology to protect your credit card number from unauthorized use. However, you understand and agree that we are in no way responsible for any misuse of your payment information.

TRANSFERRING PD FROM OTHER COUNTRIES

PD that we collect from you may be stored, processed, and transferred among any countries in which we operate. The European Union has not found the United States and some other countries to have an acceptable level of protection of PD under Article 45 of the GDPR. Our company relies on derogations for specific situations as defined in Article 49 of the GDPR. If you are a European Union user, or a user from another country, with your consent your PD may be transferred to the United States or other countries when you request information from us. When you buy goods or services, we will use your PD for the performance of a contract with you. Wherever we transfer, process, or store your PD, we will attempt to apply reasonable safeguards to protect it. We will use the information we collect from you by following the practices described in our privacy notice. Also, we may enter into data processing agreements and standard contractual clauses when appropriate. By using our website, you agree to the transfers of your PD described within this section.

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY NOTICE

We reserve the right to change this privacy notice at any time. If our company decides to change this privacy notice, we will post those changes on our website so that our users and customers are always aware of what information we collect, use, and disclose. If at any time we decide to disclose or use your PD in a method different from that specified at the time it was collected, we will provide advance notice by email sent to the email address on file in your account. Otherwise, we will use and disclose our users’ and customers’ PD in agreement with the privacy notice in effect when the information was collected. In all cases, your continued use of our website, services, and products after any change to this privacy notice will constitute your acceptance of such change. If you have questions about our privacy notice, please contact us through the information at the top of this privacy notice.

NEW SAVE OPTION

MakeBeliefsComix.com recently established a new feature that gives users the option – if they wish – of setting up user accounts to save their comic strips so that they may continue working on them at later times or keep them as digital portfolios.  This requires the collection of information that includes a username, an optional email address, and a password.

The email address request to save comics is optional but recommended so that the users can regain access to their accounts in case they forget or lose their password. Without entering an email address, there is no way to recover a lost password.

Copyright © - This document or any portion of it may not be copied or duplicated in any way.