Hot Springs (“HotSprings”) operates hotsprings.co and may operate other websites. It is HotSprings’ policy to respect your privacy regarding any information we may collect while operating our websites.

Website Visitors

Like most website operators, HotSprings collects non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. HotSprings’ purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is to better understand how HotSprings’ visitors use its website. From time to time, HotSprings may release non-personally identifying information in the aggregate, e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of its website.

HotSprings also collects potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses for logged-in users and for users leaving comments on hptsprings.co blogs/sites. HotSprings only discloses logged-in user and commenter IP addresses under the same circumstances that it uses and discloses personally-identifying information as described below, except that commenter IP addresses and email addresses are visible and disclosed to the administrators of the blog/site where the comment was left.

Gathering of Personally-Identifying Information

Certain visitors to HotSprings’ websites choose to interact with HotSprings in ways that require HotSprings to gather personally identifying information. The amount and type of information that HotSprings gathers depends on the nature of the interaction. For example, we ask visitors who sign up at hptsprings.co to provide a username and email address. Those who engage in transactions with HotSprings are asked to provide additional information, including as necessary the personal and financial information required to process those transactions. In each case, HotSprings collects such information only insofar as is necessary or appropriate to fulfill the purpose of the visitor’s interaction with HotSprings. HotSprings does not disclose personally identifying information other than as described below. And visitors can always refuse to supply personally-identifying information, with the caveat that it may prevent them from engaging in certain website-related activities.

Aggregated Statistics

HotSprings may collect statistics about the behavior of visitors to its websites. HotSprings may display this information publicly or provide it to others. However, HotSprings does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below.

Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information

HotSprings discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only to those of its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations that (i) need to know that information in order to process it on HotSprings’ behalf or to provide services available at HotSprings’ websites, and (ii) that have agreed not to disclose it to others. Some of those employees, contractors, and affiliated organizations may be located outside of your home country; by using HotSprings’ websites, you consent to the transfer of such information to them. HotSprings will not rent or sell potentially personally identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone.

Other than to its employees, contractors, and affiliated organizations, as described above, HotSprings discloses potentially personally identifying and personally-identifying information only in response to a subpoena, court order or other governmental requests, or when HotSprings believes in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of HotSprings, third parties or the public at large. If you are a registered user of an HotSprings website and have supplied your email address, HotSprings may occasionally send you an email to tell you about new features, solicit your feedback, or just keep you up to date with what’s going on with HotSprings and our products. If you send us a request (for example via email or via one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish it in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users. HotSprings takes all measures reasonably necessary to protect against the unauthorized access, use, alteration or destruction of potentially personally identifying and personally identifying information.

Cookies

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. HotSprings uses cookies to help HotSprings identify and track visitors, their usage of HotSprings website, and their website access preferences. HotSprings visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using HotSprings’ websites, with the drawback that certain features of HotSprings’ websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.

Google Analytics

We use the web analytics service Google Analytics from Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland; ‘Google’) on our website.

The data processing serves the purpose of analyzing this website and its visitors as well as for marketing and advertising purposes. For this purpose, Google will use the information obtained on our behalf as the operator of this website to evaluate your use of the website, to compile reports on website activity and to provide us with other services related to website activity and internet usage. The following information, among others, can be collected: IP address, date and time of the page view, click path, information about the browser you are using and the device you are using (device), pages visited, referrer URL (website from which you accessed our website), location data, purchase activities. The IP address of your browser transmitted by Google Analytics is not linked to any other Google data.

Google Analytics uses technologies such as cookies, web storage in the browser and tracking pixels, which enable an analysis of your use of the website. The information about your use of our website generated by the Google Analytics cookies is normally transmitted to a Google server in the USA and stored there. There is no adequacy decision by the EU Commission for the USA. The data transmission takes place i.a. on the basis of standard contractual clauses as appropriate guarantees for the protection of personal data and is available at: https://policies.google.com/privacy/frameworks and https://business.safety.google/ adsprocessorterms/. Both Google and US government agencies have access to your data. Your data may be linked by Google with other data, such as your search history, your personal accounts, your usage data from other devices and any other data that Google has about you.

IP anonymization is activated on this website. However, when you activate IP anonymization on our website, Google shortens your IP address within the Member States of the European Union or in other countries that are parties to the European Marketing Area Treaty. Only in exceptional cases is the full IP address transmitted to a Google server in the USA and shortened there.

Cookies or comparable technologies are used with your consent on the basis of § 25 (1) TTDSG in conjunction with Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR. Your personal data will be processed with your consent on the basis of Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR. You can revoke your consent at any time without affecting the legality of the processing carried out on the basis of the consent up to the revocation.

You can find more information on terms of use and data protection at https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/us/ or at https://policies.google.com/?hl=en&gl=de and at https://policies.google.com/technologies/cookies?hl=en. Our website also uses Google Analytics reports for performance, based on demographic characteristics and interests as well as reports to impressions in the Google Display Network. You may deactivate Google Analytics for display advertising and set the displays in the Google Display Network by accessing the display settings under this link: https://www.google.de/ads/preferences?ac_tld=de&continue=aHR0cHM6Ly9hZHNzZXR0aW5ncy5nb29nbGUuZGUvYW5vbnltb3Vz.

Google Tag Manager

This website uses Google Tag Manager. Google is a group of companies and consists of the companies Google Ireland Ltd. (provider of the service), Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland and Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA and other affiliated companies of Google LLC.

This service allows you to administer so-called website tags centrally via an interface. Google Tag Manager implements only tags. No cookies are used and no personal data are collected.

Google has a suitable privacy policy for such data collection by third-party providers: https://marketingplatform.google.com/intl/de/about/analytics/tag-manager/use-policy/

However, Google Tag Manager does not access these data. If certain domains/websites or cookies were deactivated, it remains in place for all tracking tags provided that they are implemented using Google Tag Manager.

Facebook pixel for creating custom audiences with advanced data matching

Within our online offer, the so-called ‘Facebook Pixel’ of the social network Facebook is used in the mode of extended data comparison, which is operated by Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, 4 Grand Canal Quare, Dublin 2, Ireland (‘Facebook’).
On the basis of their explicit consent, if a user clicks on an advertisement placed by us on Facebook, the URL of our linked page will be appended by Facebook Pixel. After forwarding, this URL parameter is then written to the user’s browser via cookie, which our linked page sets itself. In addition, specific customer data such as the email address, which we collect on our website linked to the Facebook ad for transactions such as purchases, account logins or registrations, is recorded by this cookie (extended data comparison). The cookie is then read by the Facebook pixel and enables the data, including specific customer data, to be forwarded to Facebook.

With the help of the Facebook pixel with extended data comparison, Facebook is able to precisely determine the visitors of our online offer as a target group for the display of advertisements (so-called ‘Facebook Ads’). Accordingly, we use the Facebook pixel with extended data comparison in order to only display the Facebook ads we have placed to those Facebook users who have also shown an interest in our online offer or who have certain characteristics (e.g. interests in certain topics or products that are determined based on the websites visited), which we transmit to Facebook (so-called ‘Custom Audiences’). With the help of the Facebook pixel with extended data comparison, we also want to ensure that our Facebook ads correspond to the potential interest of the user and are not annoying. In this way, we can further evaluate the effectiveness of the Facebook ads for statistical and market research purposes by understanding whether users were redirected to our website after clicking on a Facebook ad (so-called ‘Conversion’). Compared to the standard version of Facebook Pixel, the advanced data comparison feature helps us to better measure the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns by recording more attributed conversions.

All transmitted data is stored and processed by Facebook so that a connection to the respective user profile is possible and Facebook can use the data for its own advertising purposes in accordance with the Facebook data usage guidelines (https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/). The data can enable Facebook and its partners to place advertisements on and outside of Facebook.

These processing operations only take place if you have given your explicit consent in accordance with Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR. The information generated by Facebook is usually transmitted to a Facebook server and stored there. This can also result in transmission to the servers of Meta Platforms Inc. in the USA. If you wish to object to the use of Facebook’s Website Custom Audiences, you may do so under https://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=ads .

In addition, we use Customer Match Lists in the context of our Facebook advertising activities, e.g. for ‘Lookalike Audiences’ and remarketing. For the use of Customer Match, lists with encrypted user data are uploaded to Facebook. After uploading the data, the system checks which data are already known and assigns the users to a list. After the preparation of the Customer Match List, the encrypted customer data are again automatically erased. Facebook does not obtain any new addresses in this process (encryption).

Pinterest

We use the services of Pinterest, Inc., 808 Brannan St, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA on our website. The embedded ‘Pin it’ button on the website informs Pinterest that you accessed the respective page of our website. If you are logged in with Pinterest, Pinterest is able to attribute this visit of our website to your Pinterest account and thus link the data. The data transmitted by clicking the ‘Pin it’ button are stored by Pinterest. You may access further information about the purpose and range of the collected data, their processing and use as well as about your rights and setting options for the protection of your privacy in the privacy policies of Pinterest: https://policy.pinterest.com/en/privacy-policy.

In order to prevent Pinterest from attributing your visit of our website to your Pinterest account, you must log out from your Pinterest account before visiting our website.

Business Transfers

If HotSprings, or substantially all of its assets, were acquired, or in the unlikely event that HotSprings goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. You acknowledge that such transfers may occur, and that any acquirer of HotSprings may continue to use your personal information as set forth in this policy.

Interest-Based Advertising

Advertising

This Site is affiliated with CMI Marketing, Inc., d/b/a Raptive (“Raptive”) for the purposes of placing advertising on the Site, and Raptive will collect and use certain data for advertising purposes. To learn more about Raptive’s data usage, click here: https://raptive.com/creator-advertising-privacy-statement/

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed. Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

Affiliate Program Participation

HotSprings.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and links to Amazon.com.  As part of this Amazon Associates program, the website will post customized links, provided by Amazon, to track the referrals to their website. This program utilizes cookies to track visits for the purposes of assigning commission on these sales.

Newsletters

On the website, you may subscribe to our newsletter, which may be used for advertising purposes. All newsletters sent may contain tracking pixels. The pixel is embedded in emails and allows an analysis of the success of online marketing campaigns. Because of these tracking pixels, we may see if and when you open an email and which links within the email you click. Also, this allows the website to adapt the content of future newsletters to the interests of the user. This behavior will not be passed on to third parties.

Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, HotSprings may change its Privacy Policy from time to time, and in HotSprings’ sole discretion. HotSprings encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. If you have a hptsprings.co account, you might also receive an alert informing you of these changes. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about these Terms, please contact us.