Creative ideas to live a life of happiness and meaning.

My Privacy Philosophy

Your privacy is important to me. At Amethyst Dreams, I have a few fundamental privacy principles:

  • I am thoughtful about the personal information I ask you to provide and the personal information that I collect about you through the operation of my services.
  • I store personal information for only as long as I have a reason to keep it.
  • I try to make it as simple as possible for you to control what information is shared publicly (or kept private), indexed by search engines, or permanently deleted.
  • I aim for full transparency on how I gather, use, and share your personal information.

Who I am and What This Policy Covers (the Summary)

My name is Julia Rymut. I’m the owner of Amethyst Dreams LLC, the company that runs the TaraTrue website. My website address is: https://taratrue.com and I’m located in Madison, WI (USA).

The mission of Amethyst Dreams is to help people increase their happiness and well-being courses and coaching (also called “my services”).

While Amethyst Dreams is a one-woman company, I use many outside services to help me out. This means that there is my data falls in two categories: data that I personally can view and manage, and data that is processed by third-party services.

Data I view and manage

My main database that includes your personal information is my email list. Every newsletter has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. You can unsubscribe or request to have your information deleted at any time. I view and manage your email information through Convertkit so obviously, they have your information as well.

I can view and manage any of your comments. If you would like to have your comments deleted, please email me at julia@taratrue.com

I can view and manage any communication I have through my contact form. You can request to have your information deleted by emailing me at julia@taratrue.com.

And finally, if you make a purchase, I can view some of your information.

Data processed by others

As part of running my business, I use analytic reports created by other services (Google, Facebook, etc.). These reports don’t show any information about an individual user; they are summaries of everyone. I do not have any access to your personal information–only the aggregated data in my reports.

This is the big picture. Below you will find specifics so that you can understand the details better.

What Data I Collect (The Details)

I only collect information about you if I have a reason to do so–for example, to provide my services, to communicate with you, or to make my services better. I collect information in three ways: if and when you provide information to me, automatically through operating my services, and from outside sources.

Let’s go over the information that I collect.

Information you provide to me

It’s probably no surprise that I collect information that you provide to me. The amount and type of information depends on the context. Here are some examples:

  • Communications With Me: You may provide me information when you email me, use my contact form, respond to surveys, ask support questions, or post a question in a public setting.
  • Social Media: Some of your communication may be on social media like Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest. If you contact me through social media, you will be sharing your public social media information.
  • Newsletters and Downloads: One of the services I provide is free, on-going information about well-being. You may provide your name and email in order to download free information and/or to receive my newsletter.
  • Basic Account Information: For some of my courses, I ask for basic information in order to set up your account. Typically this is your name and email address.
  • Public Profile Information: If you take a course with me, I collect the information that you provide for your public profile. For example, your username or photo may be part of that public profile. Your public profile information is just that–public. Please keep that in mind when deciding what information you would like to include.
  • Transaction and Billing Information: If you buy something from me, you will provide additional personal and payment information that is required to process the transaction and your payment. For example, you may provide your name, credit card information, or contact information.

Information I collect automatically

I also collect some information automatically. Two of the ways that this information is collected is through cookies and pixels.

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 websites and emails.

Like most websites, I use both cookies and technologies like pixel tags to help me identify and track visitors, usage, and access preferences for my services, as well as track and understand email campaign effectiveness and to deliver targeted ads.

This automatically collected information can include:

  • Login Information: Cookies and pixels collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available. For example, this information can include your browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, your operating system, or your mobile network information.

  • Comments Gravatar: When you leave comments on TaraTrue, my system automatically collects the data shown in the comments form, your IP address, and your browser user agent string to help spam detection.

    Sometimes this information is used by other third-party services. For example, an anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

  • Comment Login: If you leave a comment on my site, you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website. This opt-in uses cookies. This option is for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

    If you have an account and you log into this site, my system will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

    When you log in, it will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

  • Embedded Content from Other Websites: Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

    These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

  • Location Information: My system may determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address. It collects this information and I use it to provide better services and analyze my advertising.

Information I collect from other sources

I may also get information about you from other sources. For example, you may leave comments by logging in through another service (like Google, Facebook, or Twitter).

How And Why I Use Information

Purposes for collecting your information

I use information about you as mentioned above and for the purposes listed below:

  • To provide my services–for example, to set up and maintain your course account.
  • To monitor and analyze trends and better understand how you use my services. This helps me figure out how I can be more helpful.
  • To measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of my advertising, and better understand user retention and attrition. For example, I may analyze how many people purchased a course after receiving a particular marketing message.
  • To monitor and prevent any problems with my services, protect the security of my services, detect and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities, fight spam, and protect the rights my users.
  • To communicate with you–for example to email you about offers and promotions that I think will be of interest to you, solicit your feedback, or keep you up to date on TaraTrue and my products.
  • To personalize your experience using my services, target my marketing messages (for example to send messages to people who have bought a particular course), and serve relevant advertisements.

Legal basis for collecting and using information

Those in the European Union have a right to know my legal grounds for processing information under EU data protection laws. My use of your information is based on the grounds that:

  1. The use is necessary in order to fulfill my commitments to you under my Terms of Service or other agreements with you or is necessary to administer your account–for example, in order to enable access to your course or charge you for a paid plan; or
  2. The use is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; or
  3. The use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or
  4. I have a legitimate interest in using your information–for example, to provide and update my services, to improve my services so that I can offer you an even better user experience, to safeguard my services, to communicate with you, to measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of my advertising, and better understand user retention and attrition, to monitor and prevent any problems with my services, and to personalize your experience; or
  5. You have given me your consent–for example when you sign onto my email list.

Sharing Information

How I share information

I do not sell your private personal information. I share information for limited reasons and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy:

  • Independent Contractors or Employees: I may disclose information about you to my employees or independent contractors that need to know the information in order to help me provide my services or to process information on my behalf. For example, I may disclose relevant information to a bookkeeper or customer support person. I require my employees and independent contractors to follow this Privacy Policy.
  • Third Party Vendors: I may share information about you with third party vendors who need to know information about you in order to provide their services to me, or to provide their services to you. This group includes payment providers (that process your credit and debit card information), email delivery services, learning management services, marketing services, etc.
  • Legal Requests: I may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.
  • To Protect Rights, Property, and Others: I may disclose information about you when I believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Amethyst Dreams LLC, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if I have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, I may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
  • Business Transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of Amethyst Dreams LLC, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, or in the unlikely event that Amethyst Dreams LLC goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user 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 Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use your information, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
  • With Your Consent: I may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction.
  • Aggregated or De-Identified Information: I may share information that has been aggregated or reasonably de-identified, so that the information could not reasonably be used to identify you. For instance, I may publish aggregate statistics about the use of my services and I may share a hashed version of your email address to facilitate customized ad campaigns on other platforms.
  • Published Support Requests: And if you send me a support request (for example, via a support email or one of my feedback mechanisms), I reserve the right to publish that request in order to help me clarify or respond to your request or to help me support other users.

Information shared publicly

Information that you choose to make public is–you guessed it–disclosed publicly. That means, of course, that information like your public profile, your “Likes,” and comments, are all available to others. Public information may also be indexed by search engines or used by third parties. Please keep all of this in mind when deciding what you would like to share.

How Long I Keep Information

I generally discard information about you when I no longer need the information for the purposes for which I collected it and I am not legally required to continue to keep it.

Specifically, your comments and their metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so I can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), I also store the personal information you provide in your user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

Choices

You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:

  • Limit the Information that You Provide: If you have an account with me, you can choose not to provide the optional account information, profile information, and transaction and billing information.
  • Opt-Out: You may opt out of receiving promotional messages from me. Just click the unsubscribe link at that bottom of every email.
  • Set Your Browser to Reject Cookies: You can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies from TaraTrue.
  • Close Your Account: You can close your accounts with TaraTrue at any time. Please keep in mind that I may continue to retain relevant information after closing your account, such as information that is reasonably needed to comply with (or demonstrate our compliance with) legal obligations such as tax laws, law enforcement requests, or legitimate business interests.

Your Rights

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data I hold about you, including any data you have provided to me. You can also request that I erase any personal data I hold about you. This does not include any data I am obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes. You can unsubscribe from any newsletters and request to be forgotten. You can also close your course accounts.

Where I Send your Data

TaraTrue uses third-party plugins to run this site. This means that your data may be sent to these services. For example, your comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service, your social media profile may be accessed through a social bookmarking service, and the whole site (including your comments) are backed up with a back-up service, etc. I use well-regarded services in order to protect your information.

How to Reach Me

If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact me about any of the rights mentioned in the Your Rights section above, please contact me.

How I Protect Your Data

I make every effort to keep your data safe. I use only well-regarded services, contractors, or vendors in my business.

Privacy Policy Changes

I have tried to make this Privacy Policy as clear and complete as possible. However, as my business grows and changes, it may become necessary to update, clarify, or change it in the future. If I need to make changes, I will add the changes to a log below or in some cases, provide additional notice (such as sending an email or writing a blog post). If you continue to use my services after the policy changes, you will be subjected to the updated policy.