Privacy Agreement

  1. This Privacy Agreement (also herein, this “Agreement”, also our “Privacy Policy” or “policy”) is entered into by and between Thomas Cottage Enterprises Inc., (herein the “Company”, “we”, “us” or “our”), including our legal successors and assigns, and you (“Member” “you”, or “your”); this Agreement also sets forth how we use and protect any information that you give us while you are using homesteadingfamily.com and www.cwiproperties.com (both collectively and individually referred to herein as this “website” or “site”), any of our information, products and/or services, and/or while communicating with us. This Agreement also sets forth certain duties you may have as to us as you use our website, our content, and materials. The privacy of our users is very important to us. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, our products and/or services, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this Privacy Agreement.

 

This Privacy Policy is subject to the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and other applicable privacy laws. Company agrees that under the GDPR, Company is a data “Controller” and you are a “Data Subject” with certain protected privacy rights concerning your “Personal Data.” Company will take commercially reasonable steps to maintain compliance with GDPR requirements. Your Personal Data may identify you as a person, and thus is often referred to as Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”).

 

  1. Regulatory Matters: Only to the extent the following statutes or rules may be applicable as to this Agreement, to us and to you, the terms of this Agreement, our standard practices and the terms of any other agreement(s) between you and the Company are intended to comply with the terms and rules of the European Union General Data Protection Regulation first effective May 25, 2018, as amended (“GDPR”), the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, as amended (“CCPA”), with the online privacy Nevada Senate Bill 220 of 2019, as approved and amended (“NV SB220”), with the terms and rules established by the US Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), as amended (“FTC Rules”), including the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003, as amended (“CAN-SPAM Act”) and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, as amended (“COPPA”), and also with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 of the United States, as amended, and the rules established by the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”), as amended (“WIPO Rules”) (each of the above, only to the extent applicable hereunder, a “Regulation, and collectively, the “Regulations”). Both parties to this Agreement pledge their best efforts in cooperation with each other, and in their compliance with applicable Regulations, in general, and as set forth in this Agreement.

    REGULATIONS NOTICE: Among other means that you may provide us for our communicating with you, you consent and agree to communicate with us via email. If at any time you would like to stop the collection or use of your information by us, you may opt out or unsubscribe by simply using the “UNSUBSCRIBE” link or button at the bottom of any of our standard email messages to you. Keep in mind that unsubscribing or opting out in this manner may result in limitations on your use of our website, in the ongoing receipt of our products or services, in our ability to communicate with you, or in your ability to communicate with us. See Section 13 below for more details.

 

  1. What We May Collect: On various pages on the Website, we may request specific PII about you in order to register you for an account to use our Services, add you to our email list, facilitate your payments for Services, or fulfill your requests for information. You may choose not to provide your PII, but then you might not be able to take advantage of some of the features of our Website and Services. We only collect basic personal data about you that does not include any special types of information (e.g., health-related) as defined in the GDPR. The types of personal information we collect and save include:
  • Contact information including names and email address(es), mailing address and phone number;
  • General demographic information including geographic information such as countries, states, provinces, territories, etc.;
  • Information you provide such as feedback, comments or other messages;
  • Other information relating to your preferences and interests or that is relevant to any customer orders, surveys and/or any offers or giveaways (for example, if you are one of our giveaway winners, we will need your mailing address so we can send you your prize by post or parcel);
  • Any information you may send, provide or deliver to us, either electronically or otherwise, regardless of whether we have committed not to collect it as part of our standard practices under this policy; and
  • Device information such as mobile phone provider associated with the device you are using to access the Website or Services, your device’s unique identifier, the type of device and its operating system, the pages or features accessed most frequently, calls and messages placed through the Website or Services, how pages or features of the Services are used, search terms entered, and similar analytics about use of the Website or Services.

 

  1. Aggregate Information. We may also collect anonymous, non-identifying and aggregate information such as the type of browser you are using, device type, the operating system you are using, and the domain name of your Internet service provider.

 

  1. Location Information. When the Services you request require location-based information, the Website or Services may need to use GPS or other location-based services to identify your physical location. With your consent, the Website or Services may access your device’s calendar, contacts, call history, camera roll, or other device-stored information, in order to facilitate and provide the Services.

 

  1. What We Do Not Collect: We use secure third-party payment processors for any online payments to us, and we also use secure third-party email service providers and other contractors (as defined in Section 9 below) for communicating with you. For these reasons, and for the benefit of your privacy and security, under our standard practices we do not collect, hold or control any of the following information:
  • Credit card or debit card numbers, except for the last four digits of them, which may be collected by us to provide you with any refund, if available, to verify your status as an adult, and for transaction verification purposes.
  • Online financial information or bank account information.
  • Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses or Media Access Control (“MAC”) addresses, which may be obtained by us only if required to do so by applicable law, Regulation, rule, administrative order, or in the event we believe you have breached any of your duties to us under this Agreement or any other written agreement we have with you.
  • Dates of birth.
  • Information from persons under age 13, unless provided by you (see also Section 14 below).
  • Tax identification numbers, for example, US social security numbers or Canadian social insurance numbers, except as may be necessary for tax purposes from our affiliates that are providing us these numbers so they can receive payments from us.


With regard to our website or otherwise, and to the best of your and our knowledge, you and we agree that we are not a “data processor”, nor are we in any way accepting the duties or obligations of a “data processor”, as such term may be described or defined in the GDPR.

  1. What We Do with the Information We Gather: We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:
  • We may use the information to improve and customize our website, products and/or services;
  • We may periodically send you promotional emails about new products, services, special offers or other information we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided;
  • We may contact you by email, online chat, social-media connections, phone, text, fax or mail, according to the contact information you have provided us and/or the way(s) you have communicated with us;
  • We may use your information to send you promotional information about third parties or the Company that we think you may find interesting or useful;
  • From time to time, we may also use your information to contact you for market-research purposes; and
  • We may use anonymous information that we collect to improve the design and content of our Website, and to enable us to personalize your Internet experience.  We also may use this information in the aggregate to analyze how our Website is used, analyze industry trends, as well as to offer you programs or services.

You, as a Member, have the ability to opt in or opt out of any of the above described uses by us.

  1. Security: We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online, including our use of secure contractors (as defined in Sec. 11 below), third-party payment processors and email service providers. Any of your information collected by these contractors, third-party payment processors and service providers is subject to their own privacy policies, not ours; therefore, you and we agree that we will have no liability in connection with the actions or inactions of these payment processors and service providers.

 

  1. Our Pledge to Each Other:
  2. We agree that we will not sell, lend, lease or rent your information to third parties. We also agree not to share your information with third parties except as provided in this Agreement; we also may share your information under the following circumstances: (i) we have your permission to do so, (ii) it is clearly probable that you have breached the terms of this Agreement or another agreement we may have with you, or (iii) we are required by applicable law, Regulation, rule or administrative order to do so. We love our users, clients, customers and subscribers, and we hope and believe these feelings are mutual.
  3. You agree that a number of the provisions of our Terms & Conditions and Member License Agreement may affect your privacy; therefore, our Terms & Conditions and Member Agreement are incorporated herein by reference. You also agree that you will uphold and respect our complete ownership of our content, trade names and materials, which are more fully defined and described as “Names” and “Materials” in our Member License Agreement with you, and you agree to fully uphold your duties and obligations to us under our license to you of our Materials as described in that agreement. The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of our website, products or services, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone. We urge you to be careful about giving out information in public areas of the website, such as message boards or on social media. The information you share in public areas may be viewed by any user of the website. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to us or to our website. To the fullest extent possible under applicable Regulation, any transmission of personal information by you to us or to a third party is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention by you or any third party of any privacy settings or security measures contained on our website, with our contractors (as defined in Section 11 below), or with any third party.

  4. Cookies: A “Cookie” is a small file that is usually temporarily stored on your electronic device, often by your internet browser; without limitation these Cookies also may be called pixels, bots, tags, code snippets, beacons, logs, log records, remarketing or retargeting protocols, or may include similar technologies (all of these foregoing are defined as “Cookies” or “cookies” here). The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.
  • We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used on our website(s) and webpage(s). This helps us analyze data about webpage traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to each user’s needs. We use this information for statistical analysis purposes.
  • Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your electronic device or any information about you other than the information you have elected to share with us by use of your browser and system settings.
  • Also, as part of our standard practices we do not monitor or recognize (and, therefore, our systems typically do not have the capability to honor) any behavioral-advertising opt-out or do-not-track mechanisms, settings or signals, including those of your, or anyone else’s, web browser.
  • You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser and other system settings to decline, modify or manage cookies, if you prefer. This may prevent or limit you from taking full advantage of our website and/or services.

 

  1. Advertising and Third-party Contractors: Some of our ad networks, advertisers, social media platforms, email delivery and management service providers, payment processors or other independent third-party contractors (all “contractors” herein) occasionally serve you cookies as well. We do not have control over cookies placed by these contractors. We also may use advertising service contractors to help present advertisements on the website and on other sites across the internet. Our contractors also may use cookies to provide you advertisements tailored to interests you have shown by browsing on this and other sites you have visited, to determine whether you have seen a particular advertisement before and/or to avoid sending you duplicate advertisements, or for other similar purposes. In doing so, these contractors may collect data such as your browser type, your operating system, email address(es), web pages visited, time of visits, content viewed, ads viewed, IP/MAC address(es) and other clickstream data. Also, some of our contractors may be considered “data processors” under the GDPR, as applicable, which you acknowledge and agree shall have no bearing upon our being classified as such under the GDPR. The use of cookies by our contractors is subject to their own privacy policies and legal terms, not ours; therefore, you and we agree that we will have no liability in connection with the actions or inactions of these contractors or in connection with your actions or inactions with regard to your information that you may have provided to these contractors.

 

  1. Links to Other Websites: Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we shall not be responsible for the content you may encounter or other results that may occur by your visiting these external sites, nor for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide while visiting such sites and that such sites are not governed by this policy, including in the event that any of such sites happens to be owned or operated by one of our contractors. You should exercise caution and look at the legal terms and the privacy policy or agreement applicable to the website in question.

 

  1. Opting Out, Unsubscribing and Managing Your Information with Us: You may choose to stop the collection or use of your information by us by opting out (also interchangeably described as “unsubscribing” below) at any time as provided here and above in Section 2 of this Agreement. Please note, however, if you are a member of any of our paid membership programs or an affiliate of our affiliate program, then opting out under this policy may result in a cancellation of your membership or affiliate account(s) with us, and a new membership fee or reinstatement fee may apply if you ever want to regain access to any of our membership or affiliate programs. For this reason, if you are a member or affiliate of ours, we may, at our option, email you to verify (i) that you have fulfilled or are fulfilling your obligations under any agreement you may have with us, and (ii) that you do intend to cancel your membership(s) or affiliate account(s) with us, before we close your membership(s) or affiliate account(s). If at any time you no longer want to receive emails similar to those you are receiving from us, you may opt out or unsubscribe using the “unsubscribe” link or button at the bottom of our email messages. You hereby agree that it is your sole responsibility to properly communicate your decision to opt out in accordance with this Section and this policy. You also acknowledge that your unsubscribing from one email list owned or managed by us may not unsubscribe you from every list owned or managed by us depending on how you elected to subscribe to more than one list with us or if you subscribed using more than one email address with us; therefore, you hereby agree that we may continue to send you correspondence if or when (i) you have subscribed to more than one list with us, or (ii) you have subscribed to one or more of our lists with more than one email address. In either or both of the above circumstances, it remains your sole responsibility to (i) unsubscribe from multiple lists of ours, and/or (ii) to unsubscribe for more than one email address you are using with us, as applicable. If at any time you believe that any information we are holding with regard to you is incorrect or incomplete, please contact us by reply email to any email we have sent to you including the words “contact info correction” in the subject line. Typically, we cannot delete your personal information except by also deleting your user account. Also, we may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe (i) you have breached this Agreement, (ii) the change would violate any applicable law or Regulation, or (iii) would cause the information to be incorrect. If you choose to unsubscribe, we wish you all the best, and you’re welcome to re-subscribe at any time.

 

  1. Minor Children, Communications & Other Privacy Matters: By using our website, you represent the following: (1) that you are at least the age of majority (the “Age of Majority”) in your nation, territory, state or province of residence (“your Place”), and (2) that you are hereby accepting complete legal responsibility for any person in your household or who is using your electronic device who is under the age of majority in your Place, including without limitation any of your minor dependents (any such persons herein, “your minors”) who may be using our website, and (3) if any of your minors are under the age of 13 (herein, an “twelve-and-under minor”), then you also hereby agree to in no way, either directly or indirectly, provide us with any personal data or information relating to any of your minors who also is a twelve-and-under minor. You also represent that any of your minors for whom you are providing your consent herein are subject to your complete and direct supervision for their use of our website and in any and all communications between or among the parties herein. You agree and acknowledge that any communications between or among the parties may include information that we or you consider private, and that not all electronic networks, whether online or private, are always secure. To the fullest extent allowable under applicable law or Regulation, you agree to hold us harmless for any non-intentional loss of, or access to, electronically exchanged and stored information. For us to maintain our standard practices updated in light of ongoing legal and regulatory changes, we reserve the right to make changes to this policy at any time without prior notice to you. You agree to review this Privacy Agreement from time to time to ensure that you are satisfied with any changes. Still, from time to time we may request that you verify, and even re-verify your intent to continue as a party to this Agreement, regarding which you pledge your best efforts to cooperate with us. This version and last update of this Privacy Agreement have been effective since the date listed at the end of this document.

 

  1. Changes to this Policy - Because our business needs may change over time, we reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy.  If at any time in the future we plan to use your PII in a way that differs from this Privacy Policy, we will revise this Privacy Policy as appropriate.  In the event of a change to our Privacy Policy, we will email the updated policy to the email address that you provided to us. Your continued use of the Website following our notice of changes to this Privacy Policy means you accept such changes.

 

This Privacy Policy was last updated on March 22, 2022.