Privacy and Cookie Policy

Who we are

Our website address is: https://www.makingyouthink.ca otherwise referred to as "the site" or"Making You Think".

The site is the personal blog of Mark Hanlon, located in Ontario, Canada.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

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. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Contact forms

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are 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 in to this site, we 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, we 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.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

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.

Guest Authors

From time to time we host guest authors on the site. These articles are noted by their author name or as "Guest Author."

Although edited for quality, the opinions expressed by these authors are their own and may not represent the opinions of the Making You Think team.

Analytics

We do not share your Personal Information with any parties outside of Making You Think. However, we use Google Analytics and WordPress stats as our primary matrix for tracking "Device Information" to help us understand how our customers use the Site.

• You can read more about how Google uses your Personal Information here:
  • https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/
• You can read more about how Google uses your Personal Information here: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/
• You can read more about how Google uses your Personal Information here: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/
• You can also opt-out of Google Analytics here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout 

We use Re-marketing with Google Analytics to advertise to you online.

• Third-party vendors, including Google, may show you TPS ads on sites across the Internet.
• We and third-party vendors, including Google, use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) and third-party cookies together to inform, optimize, and serve ads based on someone’s past visits to our website.
• We and third-party vendors, including Google, use first-party cookies and third-party cookies together to report how your ad impressions, other uses of ad services, and interactions with these ad impressions and ad services are related to visits to our site.

How long do we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website, we also store the personal information they provide in their 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.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you.

This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where we send your data

In addition to visitor tracking through Google Analytics and WordPress analytics; Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Monetization

How does our site make money?

In order for the site to operate, and for Making You Think to continue producing high-quality content, Making You Think generates revenue through ads, sponsorships and lead generation.We sell ad space on our website, where advertisers pay to target our readers and 3rd party services such as Google AdSense. These ads can be in the form of banners, videos or sponsored placements. Our goal is to ensure, as much as possible, that the ads you see are relevant and provide you with offers that you may be interested in. For lead generation, some of the content we produce may mention certain products and services that include a hyperlink with an asterisk (*) that takes the user to the advertisers’ website to learn more and possibly purchase a product, or referred to as our Amazon Store. The asterisk means these links contain a code that enables Making You Think to generate revenue from the advertiser for making a referral. This revenue is fully paid for by the advertiser and the user will never encounter any additional fees.

Amazon Store

In addition to lead generation mentioned above, Making You Think provides likes to our Amazon Store. All items purchased from our store are paid a commission by Amazon.

Do advertisers influence the content?

No. Our editorial content and tools are an unbiased source for Canadians to learn about our points of interest, and so, it is only after the content is produced and edited that we will add monetization links when possible. If there is no monetization opportunity, the piece of content will remain untouched. If there is a monetization opportunity, it will not impact which products are listed or the order in which they are listed.As in the past, if an advertiser wants to influence the content we produce, this will be clearly labeled as ‘sponsored’ and is not considered an editorial piece by Making You Think. Lastly, advertisers are unable to pay to influence any piece of content that ranks or compares products with competitors. These will always be unbiased and written independently, even if that means we are mentioning a product from an organization Making You Think does not have a commercial relationship with.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or would like to contact us - please visit our About Me page.