Creator Villa Privacy Policy

Hi there! Your privacy is very important to us. At Creator Villa we have a couple fundamental principles that we follow:

  • We don’t ask you for personal information unless we truly need it. (We can’t stand services that ask you for things like your gender or income level for no apparent reason.)
  • We would never share your personal information with anyone except to comply with the law or protect our rights.

Creator Villa is a website run by Automattic. This Privacy Notice explains how Automattic processes information about Creator Villa visitors in connection with the services Automattic provides through WordPress.com, Jetpack (including WooCommerce Services), IntenseDebate, Crowdsignal.com, and Akismet. The Privacy Notice that follows applies to Creator Villa and the millions of other websites hosted by WordPress.com Read on!

Who’s Who and What This Privacy Notice Covers

Let’s talk first about who Automattic is, what they do, and what this Privacy Notice covers. They’re the folks behind a variety of products and services designed to allow anyone–from bloggers, to small business owners, and enterprises–to create, publish, and manage their own websites:

  • WordPress.com offers the design, features, and support to bring a website to life.
  • With Jetpack, website owners that host their websites elsewhere can connect those websites to features and tools available through WordPress.com and WooCommerce Services.
  • Crowdsignal helps site owners create quizzes, surveys, and polls that fit their brand and vision.
  • Intense Debate gives site owners tools to manage comments on their websites.
  • Akismet helps keep spam under control by filtering out spam comments–hundreds of millions, every day!

Information Automattic Collects About Creator Villa Visitors

Automattic collects information that visitors provide Creator Villa and they collect some information automatically.

Information a Visitor Provided to Creator Villa:

We’ll start with information that visitors provide information directly to Creator Villa, which primarily happens when visitors type into a text field, like a comment field or a sign-up form. Here are the most common ways in which a visitor directly provides Creator Villa information.

  • Follower and Subscriber Information: When a visitor signs up to follow or subscribe to Creator Villa using Jetpack or WordPress.com, Automattic collects the sign-up information requested by Creator Villa, which typically includes an email address.
  • Site Comments: When a visitor leaves a comment on Creator Villa, Automattic collects that comment, and other information that the visitor provides along with the comment, such as the visitor’s name and email address.
  • Crowdsignal Survey Responses: When a visitor completes a poll, quiz, or other type of survey prepared by Creator Villa via Crowdsignal.com, Automattic collect the visitor’s responses to those surveys, and other information that we require for a poll/quiz/survey response, like an e-mail address.
  • Other Information Entered on the Site: Automattic may also collect other information that Creator Villa visitors enter–such as a contact form submission or a search query.

Information Automattic Automatically Collects from Creator Villa:

Automattic automatically collect some information about Creator Villa visitors We’ve listed examples below:

  • Technical Data from a Visitor’s Computer and Etcetera: Automattic collects the information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available about Creator Villa visitors, such as the IP address, browser type, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information.
  • Visitor Interactions: Automattic collects information about a visitor’s interactions with Creator Villa, including the “likes” and “ratings” left by Creator Villa visitors using WordPress.com or Jetpack.
  • Location Information: Automattic may determine the approximate location of a visitor’s device from the IP address. Automattic collects and use this information to, for example, tally for Creator Villa how many people visit Creator Villa from certain geographic regions.
  • Akismet Commenter Information: Automattic collects information about visitors who comment on Creator Villa using the Akismet anti-spam service. The information they collect typically includes the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL (along with other information directly provided by the commenter such as their name, username, email address…oh, and the comment itself, of course).
  • Crowdsignal Response Information: Automattic collects information about visitors who respond to a Crowdsignal survey. The information that they collect typically includes IP address, browser type, operating system, user agent, and the web page last visited.
  • Jetpack Site Activity: Automattic collects visitor activities related to the management of Creator Villa, such as comment submission and management actions.
  • Information from Cookies and Other Technologies: A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Pixel tags (also called web beacons) are small blocks of code placed on Sites. Automattic uses cookies and other technologies like pixel tags to help identify and track visitors and website usage, and to deliver targeted ads through WordAds or Jetpack Ads. For more information about their use of cookies and other technologies for tracking, including how Creator Villa visitors can control the use of cookies, please visit Automattic’s Cookie Policy.

How Automattic Uses Visitor Information

Automattic uses information about Creator Villa visitors in order to provide their Services to us. We may use their Services to, for example, to create and manage Creator Villa, flag and fight comments from spammers, and collect information through polls, quizzes and other surveys.

Automattic also uses and share information that has been aggregated or reasonably de-identified, so that the information could not reasonably be used to identify any individual. For instance, Automattic may publish aggregate statistics about the use of their services.

How Automattic Shares Visitor Information

Automattic may share information collected about Creator Villa visitors in the limited circumstances spelled out below:

  • Subsidiaries, Employees, and Independent Contractors: Automattic may disclose website visitor information to their subsidiaries, other employees, and individuals who are their independent contractors that need to know the information in order to help them provide their services to Creator Villa, or to process the information on Automattic’s behalf. Automattic requires their subsidiaries, employees, and independent contractors to follow this Privacy Notice for information about visitors that Automattic shares with them.
  • Third Party Vendors: Automattic may share Creator Villa visitor information with third party vendors who need to know this information in order to provide their services to Automattic. This group includes vendors that help Automattic provide their services to Creator Villa. Automattic requires vendors to agree to privacy commitments in order to share information with them.
  • Legal Requests: Automattic may disclose Creator Villa visitor information in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.
  • To Protect Rights, Property, and Others: Automattic may disclose Creator Villa visitor information when they believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Automattic, Creator Villa, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if they have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, they may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
  • Business Transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of their business by another company, or in the unlikely event that Automattic goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, their visitor information would likely be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. If any of these events were to happen, this Privacy Notice would continue to apply to Creator Villa visitor information and the party receiving this information may continue to use this information, but only consistent with this Privacy Notice.
  • Information Shared Publicly: Information that visitors choose to make public is–you guessed it–disclosed publicly. That means, of course, that information like visitor comments and “likes” are all available to others, including information about the visitor that is displayed in connection with a comment or “like” (such as a visitor’s WordPress.com username and Gravatar). Automattic provides a “firehose” stream of public data (including comments) from websites to provide that data to firehose subscribers, who may view and analyze the content, but do not have rights to re-publish it publicly. Public information may also be indexed by search engines or used by third parties.

Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, Creator Villa may change our Privacy Policy from time to time, and in Creator Villa’s sole discretion. Creator Villa encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.