Privacy Policy

Effective date: July 7, 2017

Westward Leaning is committed to protecting the privacy of visitors to our websites and customers of our services. We have established this Privacy Policy to explain what information we collect and how that information is used. By using our websites or accessing our Services (see our Terms of Use for a definition of our Services) in any manner, you acknowledge that you accept the practices and policies outlined in this Privacy Policy and hereby consent that we will collect, use, and share your information in the following ways.

Here is the Personally Identifiable Information ("PII") we collect:

  • Login Information: We receive and store any information you knowingly provide to us including, without limitation, your name, email address, gender, and password. If you login using a third party account (like, for example, Facebook), we will also collect your third party account login credentials as well as information you allow us to access, including your basic information, your profile information, your birthday, likes and the user ID’s of your Facebook friends.
  • Purchase and Payment Information: We save your address and phone number and our payment gateway, Stripe, saves your payment information in an effort to save time during returns or exchanges. westwardleaning.com does not store credit card information on our site and can only see the last four digits of the card in Stripe at any time.
  • Server Log Information and Cookies: Whenever you interact with our Services, we automatically receive and record information on our server logs from your browser or device, which may include your IP address, device identification, “cookie” information, the type of browser and/or device you’re using to access our Services, and the page or feature you requested. “Cookies” are identifiers we transfer to your browser or device that allow us to recognize your browser or device and tell us how and when pages and features in our Services are visited and by how many people. You may be able to change the preferences on your browser or device to prevent or limit your device’s acceptance of cookies, but this may prevent you from taking advantage of some of our features. Our advertising partners may also transmit cookies to your browser or device, when you click on ads that appear on the Services. This Privacy Policy does not cover the use of cookies by any third parties, and we aren’t responsible for their privacy policies and practices.

We do not Collect PII from Children under 13 Years of Age: The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) requires that online service providers obtain parental consent before they knowingly collect personally identifiable information online from children who are under 13. We do not knowingly collect or solicit PII from children under 13; if you are a child under 13, please do not attempt to register for our Services or send any personal information about yourself to us without first obtaining the consent of your parent(s) or guardian, who may register for our Services on your behalf and who will be responsible for your use of our Services. If we learn we have collected personal information from a child under age 13 without parental consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that a child under 13 may have provided us personal information without parental consent, please contact us at help@westwardleaning.com.

Here is how we use the Personally Identifiable Information we collect:

  • Login Information: We use your login information to allow you to set up a user account and profile and to personalize your experience. We use your email address to send you promotional emails about Westward Leaning and our products and services. We may receive a confirmation when you open an email from us, which helps us make communications with you more interesting and relevant. We neither rent nor sell your PII to anyone. That said, if you do not want to receive communications from us, please indicate your preferences when contacting us at help@westwardleaning.com. You can add, update or delete your personal information by contacting us at help@westwardleaning.com. You can delete your account by contacting us at help@westwardleaning.com. When you update or delete your information, however, we may maintain a copy of the unrevised information in our records, but never in a manner that would identify you personally.
  • Purchase and Payment Information: We save your address and phone number and our payment gateway, Stripe, saves your payment information for 6 months in an effort to save time during returns or exchanges. The Westwardleaning.com website does not store credit card information and we can only see the last four digits of the card in Stripe at any time.
  • Server Log Information and Cookies: When we collect the usage information described in the Server Log Information and Cookies section above, we only use this data in aggregate form, and not in a manner that would identify you personally ("non-PII"). For example, this non-PII aggregate data can tell us how often users use a particular feature of the Services, and we can use that knowledge to make the Services more efficient, and to make them as interesting to as many users as possible.
  • Other Uses:

    Marketing and events: We may use PII to deliver marketing and event communications to you across various platforms, such as email, telephone, text messaging, direct mail, and online via our websites. If we send you a marketing email, it will include instructions on how to opt out of receiving these emails in the future. Please remember that even if you opt out of receiving marketing emails, we may still send you important information related to your account or to the Services.

    Surveys: If you choose to participate in a Westward Leaning survey, any PII you provide may be used in non-PII form for marketing or market research purposes.

    Research and development: We use PII for internal research and development purposes, to improve our products, and to improve and test the features and functions of our Services.

    Social Media: Some of our Services include social media features for communications among friends and information exchange purposes. Depending upon the Service component, the PII you choose to post, share, upload, or make available is public, non-confidential, and visible to others who use those Services (unless we provide you affirmative communication that your communication is secure and private). You should never post or share any information that is confidential or about others unless you have permission to do so. We may use information you provide in social media contexts to personalize your experience and to make content and peer connection recommendations.

    Legal obligations: We may be required to use and retain PII for legal and compliance reasons, such as the prevention, detection, or investigation of a crime; loss prevention; fraud; to meet our internal and external audit requirements, information security purposes, and as we otherwise believe to be necessary or appropriate under applicable law; to respond to requests from courts, law enforcement agencies, regulatory agencies, and other public and government authorities; to enforce our terms and conditions; and to protect our rights, privacy, safety, or property, or those of other persons.

We will Not Share Your Personally Identifiable Information. As indicated above, we neither rent nor sell your PII to anyone. However, we may share your PII with third parties as described in this section:

  • Information that’s no longer personally identifiable: We may anonymize your PII so that you are not individually identified, and provide that non-PII information to our partners. We may also provide aggregate usage information to our partners, who may use such information to understand how often and in what ways people use our Services, so that they, too, can provide you with an optimal online experience. However, we never disclose aggregate information to a partner in a manner that would identify you personally, as an individual.
  • Affiliates and Third Parties: We employ other companies and people to perform tasks on our behalf and need to share your information with them to provide products or services to you; for example, we may use a payment processing company to receive and process your credit card transactions for us. Our agents do not have any right to use the PII we share with them beyond what is necessary to assist us. Under California Civil Code Sections 1798.83-1798.84, California residents are entitled to ask us for a notice identifying the categories of PII, which we share with our affiliates and/or third parties for marketing purposes, and providing contact information for such affiliates and/or third parties. If you are a California resident and would like a copy of this notice, please submit a written request to help@westwardleaning.com.
  • Business Transfers: We may choose to buy or sell assets. In these types of transactions, customer information is typically one of the business assets that would be transferred. Also, if we (or our assets) are acquired, or if we go out of business, enter bankruptcy, or go through some other change of control, PII could be one of the assets transferred to or acquired by a third party.
  • Protection of Westward Leaning and Others: We reserve the right to access, read, preserve, and disclose any information that we believe is necessary to comply with law or court order; enforce or apply our Terms of Use and other agreements; or protect the rights, property, or safety of Westward Leaning, our employees, our users, or others.

We comply with the California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA). Because we have customers in California, our Privacy Policy complies with CalOPPA. Two aspects of CalOPPA deserve special emphasis. First, please know that you have the right to change, edit, or delete any of the PII we have collected from you during your use of our website(s) and our Services. If you desire to make such changes, please contact use at help@westwardleaning.com. Second, please know that if you use a popular browser (such as, but not limited to, Safari, Chrome, or Firefox) you can set the “Do Not Track” (or DNT) preference setting on your browser to opt-out of online behavioral tracking, which is done by various companies, particularly by those that provide targeted advertising, and your right to opt-out of such tracking is protected in CalOPPA. We do do not track our customers over time and across third-party websites to provide targeted advertising and therefore we do not respond to Do Not Track (DNT) signals. However, some third-party sites track your browsing activities, which enables them to send you targeted advertising. If you are visiting such sites, your web browser allows you to set the DNT signal so that advertisers know you do not want to be tracked.

Legal caveats our lawyers made us add:

We make effort to keep your account secure but we cannot guarantee complete security. Your account is protected by a password for your privacy and security. If you access your account via a third party site or service, you may have additional or different sign-on protections via that third party site or service. You must prevent unauthorized access to your account and PII by selecting and protecting your password and/or other sign-on mechanism appropriately and limiting access to your computer or device and browser by signing off after you have finished accessing your account. We endeavor to protect the privacy of your account and other PII we hold in our records, but unfortunately, we cannot guarantee complete security. Unauthorized entry or use, hardware or software failure, and other factors, may compromise the security of user information at any time.

We might make updates to this Privacy Policy. If we do this, we'll update the Effective Date above, and we’ll alert you to changes by placing a notice on www.westwardleaning.com, and/or by emailing you, and/or by some other means. Please note that if you haven’t provided us with your email address, those legal notices will still govern your use of the Services, and you are still responsible for reading and understanding them. If you use the Services after any changes to the Privacy Policy have been posted (as indicated by the Effective Date above), that means you agree to all of the changes. Use of information we collect now is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time such information is used.

Any Questions?

If you need clarification on any other terms we use in this Policy, please look at the definitions in the Terms of Use.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding our privacy policies, please send us a detailed message to help@westwardleaning.com, and we will try to resolve your concerns.