Privacy Policy
Effective date: February 5, 2021
We care deeply about privacy and believe in transparency. We’re committed to being upfront about our privacy practices, including how we treat your personal information and are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected.
Our Privacy Policy Simply Put:
Though the website template and plugins we use to make DiscoverSamuel.com functional collect certain personal identification information (PII or Personal Data), EarthLight, Inc. and/or DiscoverSamuel.com do not sell, share, give away, or in any other manner transfer this information to any third parties, including those that may be associated with Samuel’s work. Nor do we add you to our email list or snail mail list unless you specifically request to be put on that list.
We need to remind you that by using DiscoverSamuel.com, you agree to the collection and use of the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
We wish that was all we had to say for our Privacy Policy, but due to existing legal requirements, our Privacy Policy is long and complex. We really are sorry about that. If you want to wade through it. You can check out the topics below.
Our Privacy Policy Not So Simply Put
DiscoverSamuel.com is built on and uses using WordPress.com templates and plugins.
WordPress.com is a website of Automattic.com whose Privacy Policy can be read here: https://automattic.com/privacy/).
For its store DiscoverSamuel.com uses WooCommerce and for its payment processor it uses Stripe.com.
The WooCommerce Privacy Statement can be read here: https://woocommerce.com/privacy-policy/
The Stripe Privacy Policy can be read here: https://stripe.com/gb/privacy.
Videos on our website are hosted by YouTube, a third party website.
YouTube’s privacy policy can be read here: https://policies.google.com/privacy
Though we don’t actually do webinars from DiscoverSamuel.com, we do post links to the webinars that are streamed through Zoom and/or WebinarJam, which are subject to:
For WebinarJam the privacy policy is that of Genesis Digital, LLC. Genesis Digital’s privacy policy can be read here: https://home.webinarjam.com/privacypolicy?r_done=1 (if the link does not work, copy and paste it in your URL bar)
For Zoom, their privacy policy is can be read here:
We use GetResponse as our Email Marketing Service Provider to manage and send you emails.
GetResponse’s privacy policy can be read here: https://www.getresponse.com/legal/privacy.html
DiscoverSamuel has a link to our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/discoversamuel
Facebook’s privacy policy can be read here: https://www.facebook.com/legal/FB_Work_Privacy
DiscoverSamuel has a link to our Twitter account at https://twitter.com/discoversamuel
Twitter’s privacy policy can be read here: https://twitter.com/en/privacy
We use other WordPress plugins that, to the best of our knowledge, do not set cookies or collect personal information. Those cookies are listed at the end of this document in the event you want to know more about them.
We do not use Google Analytics on DiscoverSamuel.com
For more details about the data collected from you and how we use it see below.
For the purposes of this Privacy Policy:
- Account means a unique account created by you to use certain parts of DiscoverSamuel.
- DiscoverSamuel or DiscoverSamuel.com, refers to the website accessible from https://discoversamuel.com/
- Cookies are small files that are placed on your computer, mobile device, or other device by a website, containing the details of your browsing history on that website among its many uses.
- Data Controller, for the purposes of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation, a set of European regulations), refers to EarthLight as the legal person which alone or jointly with others determines the purposes and means of the processing of Personal Data.
- Device means any device that can access DiscoverSamuel such as a computer, a cell phone, or a digital tablet.
- EarthLight, refers to EarthLight Inc, a Kentucky corporation located at 147 Kentucky Avenue, Lexington, KY 40502. Its registered agent is Frank Schultz, 147 Kentucky Ave., Lexington, KY, USA, which is also the address of its registered office. You can contact Frank at FrankEarthlight532@gmail.com or at 859-338-0746. For the purpose of the GDPR, EarthLight Inc is the Data Controller.
- Facebook Page refers to the public profile named Discover Samuel specifically created by EarthLight on the Facebook social network, accessible from https://www.facebook.com/discoversamuel
- Personal Data and PII is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual. For the purposes for GDPR, Personal Data means any information relating to you such as a name, an identification number, location data, online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the economic identity.
- Service Provider means any natural or legal person who processes the data on behalf of EarthLight. It refers to third-party companies or individuals employed by EarthLight, to provide DiscoverSamuel on behalf of EarthLight, to perform services related to DiscoverSamuel. For the purpose of the GDPR, Service Providers are considered Data Processors.
- Third-party Social Media Service refers to any website or any social network website through which a User can log in or create an account to use the DiscoverSamuel. At this time users are not able to log in or create an account on DiscoverSamuel using third-party social media services. And we have no plans on making this type of log in available in the future.
- Usage Data refers to data collected automatically, either generated by the use of DiscoverSamuel or from DiscoverSamuel infrastructure itself (for example, the duration of a page visit).
- We, Us or Our in this Agreement refers to EarthLight and/or Frank Schultz, Lea Schultz, and/or Stuart Waldner the sole owners and employees of EarthLight. They are also the only ones with access to any of the information that is available to Earthlight.
- You means the individual accessing or using DiscoverSamuel.com (or the company, or other legal entity on behalf of which such individual is accessing or using DiscoverSamuel.com, as applicable).Under GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), you can be referred to as the Data Subject or as the User as you are the individual using DiscoverSamuel.com.
When you simply visit the website:
DiscoverSamuel was built using WordPress an open-source content management system written in PHP and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database. By default WordPress does not collect any personal data about visitors, and only collects the data shown on the User Profile screen from account holders that have signed in.
When you create an account:
When you create an account you provide us a username, email address, and password. These are stored in the database of our site. Having an account is not a requirement for using DiscoverSamuel but having an account makes certain functions easier and/or possible.
You do not need an account to make purchases from our website, but you will need an account and be logged in to download any MP3 purchases you have made. However, EarthLight does not and will not share, give away, or sell your any of this information with or to any third parties, including other organizations associated with Samuel’s work.
When you use the website’s Contact Form or other forms
We do not capture or store any information submitted through our general contact forms. However, your first and last name, email address, and message are emailed to us so we can respond to your inquiry.
We do however, export and store information submitted to us by clients using forms created for a specific purpose, like to collect data for a trip registration, meal preferences, ground transportation, flight information, etc. This information is retained in order to provide services to you and to improve upon those services and not used for marketing purposes.
When you leave comments on the website:
When you leave comments on DiscoverSamuel we collect the data you put in the comments form, your IP address, and browser user agent string to help us in 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 actually using that email address.
The Gravatar service privacy policy is available at: https://automattic.com/privacy/.
After approval of your comment, your comment as well as your profile picture (if you using one) is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media on or added to our website
Videos on our website are hosted by YouTube, a third party website. By viewing videos on our website you are adhering to YouTube’s privacy policy and providing some of your personal information to them. We have no control over their use of the information collected by YouTube.
To learn more, please visit YouTube’s privacy policy here. https://policies.google.com/privacy
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 that type of image on the website for their personal or business use.
If you take part in a webinar streamed through WebinarJam, you are subject to their privacy policy.
WebinarJam’s privacy policy can be found here. https://home.webinarjam.com/privacypolicy?r_done=1 If this link does not work, please copy and paste it into your URL bar.
If you take part in a webinar streamed through Zoom, you are subject to their privacy policy.
Zoom’s privacy policy can be found here.
If this link does not work, please copy and paste it into your URL bar.
When you register for a paid event, make purchases of products/services, or make donations they are processed through WooCommerce using the payment gateway Stripe. None of your credit card information will ever pass through or be held by us or on DiscoverSamuel.com. The following information is gathered by WooCommerce and/or Stripe.com (links to their privacy policies are listed at the end of this section). The Stripe plugin for the WooCommerce is PCI compliant.
Though the following information is available to us from our account on their websites, we do not share, give or sell any of this information to any third parties whatsoever.
1. Your name (first, last, and middle if you provide it).
2. Your username.
3. Your contact information, including your email address, mailing address, shipping address, credit card billing address, phone number, and IP address.
4. The operating system used on your device, the browser, and the type of device.
4. What you purchased, when you purchased it, and how it was delivered to you.
5. The last four digits of the credit card number you used and the type of card (Visa, Discover, American Express, etc.)
6. We do not hold any this information on our website, it is solely held and managed by Stripe.com and/or Woocommerce.com.
8. For the information EarthLight does have access to, we do not share it, sell it, or give it to any third parties including organizations affiliated with Samuel’s work.
The WooCommerce Privacy Statement can be read here: https://woocommerce.com/privacy-policy/
The Stripe Privacy Policy can be read here: https://stripe.com/gb/privacy.
What we do with the information we gather
The information is gathered by our service providers to make our site functional, to manage the store, and to be able to deliver the goods and services to you.
We gather the information described above for these reasons:
A. For store purchases we keep the information for internal record keeping concerning our sales and the delivery of our products. However, if you have not signed up on our email list, we will not send you any material other than receipts or other communications regarding the particular purchase for which we collected the information.
B. For registered users who signed up for our mailing list we use your contact information for periodically sending you promotional material about events with Samuel, new products, special offers, or other information, but only if that material is related to Samuel’s teachings, EarthLight or one of the website’s communities. Any such communications will be made using the email address or mailing address you have provided.
C. We WILL NOT sell, share or give away your contact information with any other third parties or individuals including other organizations affiliated with Samuel’s work.
D. We may share your personal information in the following situations:
1. With our Service Providers listed above: We may share your personal information with Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of DiscoverSamuel, for payment processing, and/or to contact you.
2. With other users: when you share personal information or otherwise interact in the public areas with other users, such information may be viewed by all users and may be publicly distributed outside. If you interact with other users they will be able to view descriptions of your activity, communicate with You and view Your profile.
Usage data
Usage Data is collected automatically when using DiscoverSamuel.com.
Usage Data may include information such as your Device’s Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of DiscoverSamuel.com that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers, and other diagnostic data.
When you access DiscoverSamuel by or through a mobile device, we may collect certain information automatically, including, but not limited to, the type of mobile device you use, your mobile device unique ID, the IP address of your mobile device, your mobile operating system, the type of mobile Internet browser you use, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.
We may also collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit DiscoverSamuel or when you access DiscoverSamuel by or through a mobile device.
We will not share, sell, or give this information to any third parties whatsoever.
Tracking technologies and cookies
Cookies and similar tracking technologies are used to track the activity on DiscoverSamuel and store certain information. Tracking technologies used are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze DiscoverSamuel. However, we do not use Google Analytics or any other analytics company.
You can instruct your browser to refuse all Cookies or to indicate when a Cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept Cookies, you may not be able to use some parts of DiscoverSamuel.
WordPress 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 visit our login page, 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.
Types of cookies
Cookies can be “Persistent” or “Session” Cookies. Persistent Cookies remain on your personal computer or mobile device when you go offline, while Session Cookies are deleted as soon as you close your web browser.
Both session and persistent Cookies are used on DiscoverSamuel for the purposes set out below:
- Necessary/essential cookies
Type: Session Cookies
Administered by: Us
Purpose: These Cookies are essential to provide you with services available through DiscoverSamuel and to enable you to use some of its features. They help to authenticate users and prevent fraudulent use of user accounts. Without these Cookies, the services that you have asked for cannot be provided, and we only use these Cookies to provide you with those services.
- Cookies policy/notice acceptance cookies
Type: Persistent Cookies
Administered by: Us
Purpose: These Cookies identify if users have accepted the use of cookies on the Website.
- Functionality cookies
Type: Persistent Cookies
Administered by: Us
Purpose: These Cookies allow us to remember choices you make when you use DiscoverSamuel, such as remembering your login details or language preference. The purpose of these Cookies is to provide you with a more personal experience and to avoid you having to re-enter your preferences every time you use DiscoverSamuel.
A) The website uses cookies for registered users when they sign in to match their user name with their password so that no one can log in as them without both their user name and password.
B) Traffic log cookies are used to identify which pages are being used to help us analyze data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to our user’s needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.
C) 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 computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.
D) You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.
EarthLight will retain Your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies.
EarthLight will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of DiscoverSamuel, or we are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.
Your information, including Personal Data, is processed at EarthLight’s operating offices and in any other places where the parties involved in the processing are located. It means that this information may be transferred to—and maintained on—computers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from your jurisdiction.
Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.
The Company will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of Your data and other personal information.
A. Law enforcement
Under certain circumstances, EarthLight may be required to disclose Your Personal Data if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency).
B. Other legal requirements
EarthLight may disclose Your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:
- Comply with a legal obligation
- Protect and defend the rights or property of EarthLight
- Prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with DiscoverSamuel
- Protect the personal safety of users of DiscoverSamuel or the public
- Protect against legal liability
The security of your Personal Data is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
Our Service Providers have access to your Personal Data only to perform their tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.
Only if you have requested to be on our email list, we may use your Personal Data to contact you with newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other information that may be of interest to you. You may opt-out of receiving these communications by following the unsubscribe link or instructions provided in any email We send or by contacting Us.
We use GetResponse as our Email Marketing Service Provider to manage and send emails to you.
For more information on the privacy practices of GetResponse, please visit their Privacy policy: https://www.getresponse.com/legal/privacy.html
We provide paid products and/or services within DiscoverSamuel and use Stripe.com, a third-party service for payment processing (e.g. payment processors).
Their Privacy Policy can be viewed at https://stripe.com/us/privacy
We will not store or collect your payment card details. That information is provided directly to Stripe whose use of your personal information is governed by their Privacy Policy. Stripe adheres to the standards set by PCI-DSS as managed by the PCI Security Standards Council, which is a joint effort of brands like Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover. PCI-DSS requirements help ensure the secure handling of payment information.
(GDPR refers to a set of European regulations known as General Data Protection Regulation)
Legal Basis for Processing Personal Data under GDPR
We may process Personal Data under the following conditions:
- Consent: You have given your consent for processing Personal Data for one or more specific purposes.
- Performance of a contract: Provision of Personal Data is necessary for the performance of an agreement with you and/or for any pre-contractual obligations thereof.
- Legal obligations: Processing Personal Data is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which EarthLight is subject.
- Vital interests: Processing Personal Data is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or of another natural person.
- Public interests: Processing Personal Data is related to a task that is carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in EarthLight.
- Legitimate interests: Processing Personal Data is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by EarthLight.
In any case, EarthLight will gladly help to clarify the specific legal basis that applies to the processing, and in particular whether the provision of Personal Data is a statutory or contractual requirement, or a requirement necessary to enter into a contract.
Your rights under the GDPR
EarthLight undertakes to respect the confidentiality of your Personal Data and to guarantee you can exercise your rights.
You have the right under this Privacy Policy, and by law if you are within the EU, to:
- Request access to your personal data. The right to access, update or delete the information we have on you. Whenever made possible, you can access, update or request deletion of Your Personal Data directly within your account settings section. If you are unable to perform these actions yourself, please contact us to assist you. This also enables you to receive a copy of the Personal Data we hold about you.
- Request correction of the Personal Data that we hold about You. You have the right to notify us and to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
- Object to processing of your personal data. This right exists where we are relying on a legitimate interest as the legal basis for our processing and there is something about your particular situation, which makes you want to object to our processing of your Personal Data on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your Personal Data for direct marketing purposes.
- Request erasure of your personal data. You have the right to ask us to delete or remove Personal Data when there is no good reason for us to continue processing it.
- Request the transfer of your personal data. We will provide to you, or to a third-party you have chosen, your Personal Data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Please note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with You.
- Withdrawl of your consent. You have the right to withdraw your consent on using your Personal Data. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide you with access to certain specific functionalities of the Service.
Exercising of Your GDPR data protection rights
You may exercise your rights of access, rectification, cancellation and opposition by contacting us. Please note that we may ask you to verify your identity before responding to such requests. If you make a request, we will try our best to respond to you as soon as possible.
You have the right to complain to a Data Protection Authority about our collection and use of your Personal Data. For more information, if you are in the European Economic Area (EEA), please contact Your local data protection authority in the EEA.
Facebook Community Page
EarthLight is the Data Controller of your Personal Data collected while using the Service. As operator of the Facebook Community Page (https://www.facebook.com/discoversamuel), the Company and the operator of the social network Facebook are Joint Controllers.
EarthLight has entered into agreements with Facebook that define the terms for use of the Facebook Community Page, among other things. These terms are mostly based on the Facebook Terms of Service: https://www.facebook.com/terms.php
Visit the Facebook Privacy Policy https://www.facebook.com/policy.php for more information about how Facebook manages Personal data or contact Facebook online, or by mail: Facebook, Inc. ATTN, Privacy Operations, 1601 Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025, United States.
We use the Facebook Insights function in connection with the operation of the Facebook Community Page and on the basis of the GDPR, in order to obtain anonymized statistical data about our users.
For this purpose, Facebook places a Cookie on the device of the user visiting our Facebook Community Page. Each Cookie contains a unique identifier code and remains active for a period of two years, except when it is deleted before the end of this period.
Facebook receives, records and processes the information stored in the Cookie, especially when the user visits the Facebook services, services that are provided by other members of the Facebook Community Page and services by other companies that use Facebook services.
For more information on the privacy practices of Facebook, please visit Facebook Privacy Policy here: https://www.facebook.com/full_data_use_policy
EarthLight does not fall under the provisions of The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) because it does not:
(a) receive at least $25 million in annual gross revenues.
(b) buy, sell, share and/or receive the personal information of at least 50,000 California consumers, households or devices, per year.
(c) derive at least 50 percent of its annual revenue from selling California consumers’ personal information.
Your Content Goes Here
DiscoverSamuel may contain links to other websites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third party link, you will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit.
We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third party sites or services.
We use these WordPress plugins that to the best of our knowledge do not set cookies or collect personal information. Avatar Manager, Blog2Social, Classic Editor, Embed Plus for YouTube , Event Tickets, Event Tickets Plus, Fusion Builder, Fusion Core, Image Widget, Photo Gallery, Pods, Really Simple SSL, Search WP, The Events Calendar, The Events Calendar Pro, Ultimate Post List, Updraft Plus, User Email Verification, WD Manager, Widget Context, WooDonations, WooCommerce, WooCommerce Attributes, WooCommerce Order Status, WooCommerce Stripe Gateway, WooCommerce Subscriptions, WOOF, WP Forms Lite, Yoast SEO.
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page.
We will let you know via email and/or a prominent notice on DiscoverSamuel, prior to the change becoming effective and update the “Last updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy.
You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, You can contact us:
- By visiting this page on our website: https://discoversamuel.com/contact/
