This website/blog (www.rachellechristensen.com) is a personal site written and edited by me, “Rachelle J. Christensen,” for the purpose of sharing information about my books, reviewing books and products, and posting giveaways. This privacy policy is for users who choose to use this site and may be updated from time to time. For questions about this website, please contact me via email: [email protected].
The Website
I strive to make certain user privacy is maintained throughout their visit to this site. This website is compliant with all privacy laws and requirements for users.
Use of Cookies
This website uses cookies. Where relevant, this website uses a cookie control system that should allow the user on their first visit to the website to allow or disallow the use of cookies on their computer or device. This is in accordance with recent legislation requirements for websites to get explicit consent from users before leaving behind or reading cookies on a user’s computer or device.
Cookies are small files that track, save and store information about the user’s usage of the website and are stored on the user’s computer hard drive. Through the website server, this allows for a custom user experience.
Users are advised to take the necessary steps in their web browser security settings to block all cookies from this website if they want to deny the use of cookies.
This website uses tracking software to better understand users and how they use this site. This software is provided by Google Analytics, which uses cookies to track visitor usage. The software will save a cookie to a user’s computer’s hard drive in order to track and monitor your website usage, but will not store, save or collect personal information. You can read Google’s privacy policy for more information here: [ http://www.google.com/privacy.html ].
When a user clicks on a sponsored link or ad, other cookies might be stored to your computer’s hard drive. This includes a Facebook pixel. These cookies are used for referral tracking and typically expire after 30 days, though some may take longer. No personal information is stored, saved or collected unless you specifically sign up for the email list or newsletter.
Contact & Communication
Users contacting this website and/or me and who give any personal information, do so at their own risk. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely until it has no use. Every attempt has been made to guarantee a safe email submission form, but using this form is at the user’s own risk.
This website uses any information supplied by the user to provide more information about the products or services they offer or to answer any questions or comments from the user. This includes using your information to subscribe you to any email newsletter, but only if this was made clear to you and your explicit permission was given when submitting any form. This is not an entire list of your user rights in regard to receiving email marketing material. Your information is not passed on to any third parties.
Email Newsletter
This website has an email newsletter, which is used to let subscribers know about products and services provided by this website. Users can subscribe to the email newsletter through an online automated process if they want to do so, but do so at their own risk.
All personal information relating to subscriptions are secure and will not be given to anyone other than those who manage this website and used only for purposes relating to the website.
Email marketing campaigns issued by this website or its owners might track within the email. Subscriber activity is tracked and stored in a database for future analysis and evaluation. Such tracked activity might include: the opening of emails, forwarding of emails, the clicking of links within the email content, times, dates and frequency of activity. This information is used to shape future email campaigns and give the user content that is more relevant to their preferences.
Patreon WordPress
Subscribers are given the opportunity to un-subscribe at any time through an automated system. This process is detailed at the footer of each email campaign.
In order to enable you to use this website with Patreon services, we save certain functionally important Patreon information about you in this website if you log in with Patreon.
These include your Patreon user id, Patreon username, your first, last names and your vanity name. Additionally, the id of your campaign at Patreon and your campaign’s Patreon URL are also saved.
If you request that your data be deleted from this website, this data will also be deleted and Patreon functionality will not work. You would need to register on this website and log in to this website with Patreon again in order to re-populate this data and have Patreon functionality working again.
External Links
Although this website tries to only include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are cautioned before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website to do so at their own risk. (External links are colored clickable text / banner / image links to other websites.)
I cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite my best efforts. Users should know that they click on external links at their own risk and I cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned, including purchases or donations for books or services.
Sponsored Links
This website does not currently accept any form of cash advertising, sponsorship, or paid topic insertions. However, I will and do accept and keep free products, services, travel, event tickets, and other forms of compensation from companies and organizations in exchange for writing an honest review. Hyperlinks are often Amazon affiliate links, where I receive a small percentage of sales if you wish to make a purchase.
The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in this blog. All advertising is in the form of advertisements generated by a third party ad network. Those advertisements will be identified as paid advertisements. Currently only a small percentage of my reviews are compensated and the compensation is the use of the product which I am reviewing. (For example I am provided a free book from a publisher in return for reading and reviewing said book.) Most of my reviews are independent and receive no trial offer/product or compensation whatsoever. I review because I think my experience might be useful to someone else in their decision to use or not use a product.
I am compensated in the form of a trial of product to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though I may receive compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers’ own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.
What works for one person may not work for another and vice versa, and while the writer may have had a good/bad experience with a product, someone else may have the opposite result. Purchase and/or use any of my reviewed/mentioned products at your own discretion. Responsibility for your use of any item and any consequences from use belongs solely to you.
If in the future this website has sponsored links, clicking on any such link will send you to another website through a referral program which may use cookies and will track the number of referrals sent from this website. Some of these cookies may be saved on your computer’s hard drive. Users who click on sponsored external links do so at their own risk and I cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.
Giveaways
Giveaway winnings fall into one of two categories.
1) A giveaway I have paid for out of my own pocket and will be shipping to the winner myself.
Entrants agree that if you are the winner you receive and use the product at your own risk. Entrants agree that I will not be held accountable for anything that happens to it, that it’s used for, or that happens in correlation with or as a result of using the product. I agree to ship it in an envelope/box appropriate for the object(s) and that I will mail it as soon as I am able after the winner is confirmed. The entrant agrees that if they win that I am not responsible for the prize after it is turned over to the Post Office. If the P.O. damages it or loses it, I cannot be held liable.Even if my packaging is faulty, the winner agrees that I packaged it in good faith and I will not be held liable.
2) A giveaway that is sponsored by a company or individual other than myself.
In this case, the winner will likely be put in touch with the company for the purpose of claiming their prize. In some cases, I may be a mediator and winner will not have contact with the company, in that case if there is a problem the winner will be put in touch with the company to work it out. Anything that happens after winning a sponsored giveaway is between the winner and the company and falls under the company’s own policies. I would never knowingly accept sponsorship from a company that is dishonest or has bad customer service, but in the rare case that the company does not follow through on their end of the deal, doesn’t send the winner’s prize, or any other mishap, miscommunication, rudeness, accident, natural disaster, act of God, etc. happens, I’m not to be held liable. The WINNER must work it out with the company.
In the very rare case that a giveaway is sponsored, BUT the sponsor has turned the prize over to ME to mail on to the winner, this may fall under the rules and liabilities of either or both of the above two categories, depending on the situation.
Entrants agree to abide by the requirements, guidelines, and/or rules posted here and in each giveaway. If the rules are not followed or qualifications are not met, you agree that I have the right to delete unqualified comments/entries at my discretion.
This website does contain content which might present a conflict of interest. This content may not always be identified.
Social Media Platforms
Any communication or action taken through social media platforms that this website and I participate in are held to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies for each social media platform respectively.
Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate on them with caution in regard to their own privacy and personal information. I will not ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms and encourage users who want to discuss sensitive information to contact me through email: ([email protected]).
This website uses social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platforms. Before using social sharing buttons, users need to know that they do so at their own risk and be aware that social media platforms may track and save your request to share a web page through your social media account.
Shortened Links in Social Media
I might share web links to relevant web pages with my social media accounts. Some social media platforms shorten long urls (like bit.ly, for example).
Users should take caution and good judgement before clicking any shortened urls published on social media platforms by this website and its owners. Although I do my best to guarantee that actual urls are published, many social media platforms are susceptible to spam and hacking. I cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any shortened links.
Updated: May 17, 2018