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Privacy Policy

PRIVACY STATEMENT FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM

This page contains the privacy policy of BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM. Privacy policies typically have a lot of legalese in them and so I wanted to preface this privacy policy with a plainspoken note about my personal intentions when it comes to protecting the privacy of the users of BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM. I've been in the media industry for over 30 years and, as an insider, have seen the lengths to which media companies will go to track their users. I've seen it all; the buying and selling of lists, the use of retargeting technologies, IP address matching through third-party services, and so on. In many cases, the mechanisms that websites have installed to facilitate these activities have significantly interfered with the quality of the user experience. There are certain sites that I refuse to visit on the basis of all the pop-ups, browser notifications that I must block or allow, auto-playing videos, etc. It's a mess.

Here at BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM, it is my intention to disrupt that mess. In particular, I'm interested in finding new ways to put the user in direct control of their personal information. For example, wouldn't it be great if users were in so much control of their personal information that they get to decide who their information gets shared with before that sharing takes place? Not just "who" in terms of broad classes of parties that personal information might get shared with, but exactly which parties on a one-to-one basis and when. In essence, you should be able to say "Yes, I'm willing to share my personal information with specific party A, but not specific party B, and when that sharing can take place." Furthermore, after granting a party access to your personal information, wouldn't it be great if you could revoke that access as well?

There are a lot of unanswered questions on how to achieve these goals. But I have ideas on how we might be able to affect that future and I have every intention of pursuing them because I and the BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM team are wholly committed to not just maintaining your privacy, but reinventing how such maintenance is done.

To set the tone for this direction, you should notice how, upon visiting BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM, the overall user experience is devoid of all of the awful intrusions found on other sites. Most notably banner advertisements, but also all the pop-ups and auto-playing media that just stands in the way of the reader getting to our comprehensive article content on how to use distributed ledger technology (DLT) as your business's means to digital transformation, business innovation, and industry disruption. In fact, we are dogfooding that very mission. We ourselves are looking for ways to disrupt the media industry with DLT.

However, given the current state of the Web, there's only certain ways to accomplish certain things. For example, if, after we make it possible for you to log in to our website, you want to remain logged in even after closing your browser tab (which many users like to do), we need to issue a persistent cookie to your system as a means of connecting your next visit to our site with your unique account. This approach doesn't reveal any personally identifying information to any third parties. But technologically speaking, while cookies are often used as a means of intruding on end-user privacy, cookies are also the main way to optimize the user experience for you. When BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM itself issues a cookie to your system, our intention here is strictly to optimize the experience for you.

However, not all cookies that end up on your system, as a result of using our site, will be a result of cookies that BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM itself delivered to your system for the purposes of giving you a better user experience. For example, we have launched a YouTube channel and will be using YouTube's technology to embed videos onto various pages of our website.

As a result of using YouTube to facilitate this part of our multimedia experience, you may find other cookies on your system that came from YouTube. It's not ideal. But that's how it works and, for the record, BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM doesn't even have access to those cookies. You are of course free to block those cookies as you should be. However, blocking those cookies could also disable your ability to view the videos in their embedded form. Again, in the spirit of enabling you to engage with BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM in as private a way as possible, we will look to enable workarounds to such challenges. For example, everywhere we embed a video, we will endeavor to provide a direct link to that video on YouTube. This way, you can visit the video directly on YouTube where maybe, YouTube will make it possible to view that content without forcing the delivery of a cookie.

The same arrangement may be true of other third-party services that we rely on to deliver the best user experience possible. For example, if we enable the ability to login to our site through a single sign-on provider such as Google or Facebook in order to make logging in more frictionless (and give you one less user ID and password to remember).

Just like any business that has to keep track of its business performance, we have our own metrics and KPIs that we track in order to know if we're doing a good job. For us, like other media destinations, that means reporting on the usage of BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM in terms of metrics like daily, monthly, and annual page views, the number of pages viewed per visit, which pages are getting viewed more than others, etc. To facilitate this part of our business, we use Google Analytics. As a result of our usage of Google Analytics to help us better understand how our website is getting used, the Google Analytics service may issue cookies to your system. Similar to other cookies (such as those from YouTube), you are free to block the cookies from Google Analytics. We wish you wouldn't because doing so also distorts our statistics and dashboards. But, I also believe that it is you that should be fully in control of your privacy and if you deem it necessary to block those cookies, then so be it.

All this said, there are a great many circumstances where we may come into contact with your personal information in the course of running our business. For example, if you write an email to one of our editors or to our support team, then, naturally, we now have your email address. This is a good example of where we shouldn't use your personal information for a purpose other than the original context under which we received that information. For example, if you send an email to [email protected], your email address should not get used outside of the context of getting support without consent from you. We might retain the actual email in our email system only so that if you email us again, we can see the history of our support relationship with you (which in turn speaks to how we might store your email address and the nuances involved wherever a privacy policy mentions something like the storage of personal information).

The long-winded point I'm trying to make here is that I believe when it comes to respecting your privacy, my intention is to handle your personal information in the same way that I personally wish all businesses would handle my personal information; with the utmost care. Having been personally exposed to the inner machinations of the media industry, I have a pretty good idea of exactly what I wouldn't want done with my personal information.

All of this said, having a privacy policy is a standard operating procedure for any website. As spartan as BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM is when it comes to putting cookies on your system or using "web beacons" (typically used with email newsletters, a feature that was not offered at the time the website was launched) and other mechanisms that readers might consider to be intrusions on their privacy, there may come a time when we introduce them for the various intentions stated above. So, for those reasons, here is a privacy policy that accounts for both current and forward-looking scenarios. I welcome your feedback at [email protected].

David Berlind 
Editor-in-Chief 
BlockchainJournal.com

BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM PRIVACY POLICY, EFFECTIVE AS OF JAN 1, 2023

BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM ("the Service") is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Swirlds Labs Inc. This BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM privacy statement ("Privacy Statement") describes the privacy practices of the Service.

When our terms and conditions use the words "we," "us," and "our," we mean the Service. When this privacy policy speaks of "you" or "your" it means anyone who uses the Service.

Please read this Privacy Statement carefully and thoroughly to learn how we may collect, use, share and otherwise process your information ("Personal Data"), and your rights and choices regarding our processing of your Personal Data.

1. PROCESSING ACTIVITIES COVERED

This Privacy Statement applies to the following processing activities:

  1. Visiting the Service or using an authorized application offered by the Service (e.g.; an application offered specifically by the Service through an app store) which displays or links through to this Privacy Statement 
     
  2. Registering or attending physical or online events that are produced or sponsored by BLOCKCHAINJOURNAL.COM

The Service may contain links to other websites, applications, and services maintained by third-parties. The information practices of such other services are governed by third-party privacy statements, which we encourage you to review to better understand those third-parties' privacy practices.

2. WHAT PERSONAL DATA DO WE COLLECT?

  1. Personal Data we collect directly from you:

    The Personal Data that we collect directly from you may include the following:

    if you express an interest in obtaining additional information about our services, request customer support, use a "Contact Us" or similar feature offered by the Service, register to use the Service, sign up for a physical or online event, or download certain content, we may require you to provide us with your contact information, such as your name, email address, account ID, account alias, or distributed ledger-related wallet ID;

    if you attend an event that is produced or sponsored by the Service (e.g.; conferences, hackathons, meetups), we may, upon your consent, scan your attendee badge or your personal QR code (associated with an account that you control on a third-party service such as LinkedIn), require an online registration form, collect your business card, ask for hard copy sign-ups, which may provide us with one or more of the following: name, title and company name, address, country, phone number, and email address;

    if you use and interact with the Service, we may automatically collect log files and other information about your device and your usage of the Service through cookies, IP-addresses or other identifiers, which may qualify as Personal Data (view the "What device and usage data we process" section below);

  2. Personal Data we collect from other sources:

    Where the Service relies on integration with other online services for specific end-user features and functionality (including but not limited to third-party single sign-on services), we may collect information about you from those third-parties to better facilitate the provision of the Service and all of its features and functions to you.

3. WHAT DEVICE AND USAGE DATA WE MAY PROCESS

We use common information-gathering tools, such as log files, cookies, and similar technologies to automatically collect information, which may contain Personal Data, from your computer or mobile device as you navigate the Service or interact with emails we have sent you.

  1. Log Files:

    As is true of most websites, we gather certain information automatically via log files. This collected information may include your Internet Protocol (IP) address (or that of your proxy server), device identifiers, your location, your browser type, your Internet service provider and/or mobile carrier, the pages and files you viewed, your searches, your operating system and system configuration information, and date/time stamps associated with your usage. This information is used to analyze overall trends, to help us provide and improve the Service and to guarantee their security and continued proper functioning. We may also collect IP addresses from users when they log into the Services as part of the Service's security features. To the extent that we use third-party services to provide the best possible user experience to you, including but not limited to third-party analytics services or third-party content delivery network (CDN), those third-party services may collect the aforementioned information in this section (section 3a) in their logs. For analytics, the Service uses Google Analytics. For CDN capabilities (to offer the best performance of the website), the Service uses Cloudflare. Users of the Service are encouraged to review the privacy policies of these and other third-party services that we rely on.

  2. Cookies and other tracking technologies:

    We use cookies, tags, and Javascript alone or in conjunction with cookies to compile information about usage of the Service.

    When you visit the Service, our servers or an authorized third-party may place a cookie on your browser, which can collect information, including Personal Data, about your online activities over time and across different sites. Cookies allow us to track overall usage, determine areas that you prefer, make your usage easier by recognizing you and providing you with a customized experience.

    We may use both session-based and persistent cookies. Session cookies exist only during one session and disappear from your computer when you close your browser software or turn off your computer. Persistent cookies remain on your computer or device after you close your browser or turn off your computer. You can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level, but if you choose to disable cookies, it may limit your use of certain features or functions on the Service. We use Google Analytics to measure and improve the Service and offer the ability for users of the Services to reject cookies that Google Analytics serves to your device. To opt-out from tracking by Google Analytics, please use the specific opt-out mechanism as indicated further below.

    We may also place web beacons in emails that notify us when you click on a link in the email that directs you to the Service. Such tracking technologies are used to operate and improve the Service and measure the clicking of links or opening of emails.

    The following sets out how we use different categories of cookies and similar technologies, as well as information on your options for managing the settings for the data collection by these technologies:

    Required Cookies: 
    Required cookies enable you to navigate the Service and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the Service.

    If you have chosen to identify yourself to us, we may place on your browser a cookie that allows us to uniquely identify you when you are logged into the Service and to process your online transactions and requests.

    Managing Required Cookies: 
    Required cookies are essential to operate the Service and there is no option to opt-out of these cookies. Please refrain from using our site if you do not consent to these cookies.

    Functional Cookies: 
    Functional cookies allow us to remember information you have entered or choices you make (such as your account ID, account alias, language, or your region) and provide enhanced, more personal features.

    Functional cookies may also be used to improve how the Service functions and to help us provide you with more relevant content. These cookies collect information about how the Service is used, including which pages are viewed most often.

    We may use our own technology or third-party technology to track and analyze usage and volume statistical information to provide enhanced interactions and more relevant content.

    In particular, we use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA as our processor. Google Analytics uses cookies to help us analyze how the Service is used, including the number of visitors, the websites visitors have come from, and the pages they visit. This information is used by us to improve the Service.

    We also use Cloudflare CDN, a content delivery network service provided by Cloudflare, Inc., 101 Townsend St, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA as our CDN. Cloudflare may currently or at some point in the future use cookies or collect IP addresses to perform its function. This information may be used by us to improve the Service.

    Managing Functional Cookies: 
    To manage the use of functional cookies on the Service, consult your individual browser settings for cookies. Note that opting out may impact the functionality you receive when using the Service. For example, if the Service relies on a third-party service such as YouTube for video content playback, disabling the receipt of cookies from YouTube may disable the Service's video display and playback features. We also endeavor to provide such opt-out capability through a cookie consent feature and will make every reasonable effort to ensure the proper functioning of the feature. Per our Terms of Service, we do not guarantee the feature's feature's availability or proper functioning at the time(s) of your visit to the Service.

  3. Opt-Out from the collection of device and usage data:

    You may opt-out from the collection of device and usage data (see "What device and usage data we process" section above) by managing your cookies at the individual browser level. Please note, however, that by blocking or deleting cookies and similar technologies used on the Service, you may not be able to take full advantage of the Service.

  4. Social Media Features:

    The Service may use social media features, such as the Facebook "like" button, the "Tweet" button and other sharing widgets ("Social Media Features"). You may be given the option by such Social Media Features to post information about your activities on a website to a profile page of yours that is provided by a third-party social media network in order to share with others within your network. Social Media Features are either hosted by the respective social media network or hosted directly on the Service. To the extent the Social Media Features are hosted by the respective social media networks, the latter may receive information that you have visited the Service from your IP address. If you are logged into your social media account, it is possible that the respective social media network can link your visit to the Service with your social media profile.

    The service may allow you to log in using single sign-in services such as those offered by Google, Facebook and other third-party single sign-on providers. These services may authenticate your identity and provide you the option to share certain Personal Data with the Service such as your name and email address to pre-populate a sign-up form.

    Your interactions with Social Media Features are governed by the privacy policies of the companies providing the relevant Social Media Features.

4. PURPOSES FOR WHICH WE PROCESS PERSONAL DATA AND THE LEGAL BASIS ON WHICH WE RELY

We collect and process your Personal Data for the purposes and on the legal bases identified in the following:

Providing the Service: We will process your Personal Data to the extent this is necessary for the performance of our contract with you for the use of the Service and to fulfill our obligations under the applicable terms of service; where we have not entered into a contract with you, we base the processing of your Personal Data on our legitimate interest to operate and administer the Service and to provide you with content you access and request (e.g., download of certain content from the Service);

Promoting security of the Service: We will process your Personal Data by tracking use of the Service, creating aggregated, non-personal data, verifying accounts and activity, investigating suspicious activity, as well as violations of and enforcement of our terms and policies, to the extent this is necessary for the purpose of our legitimate interests in promoting the safety and security of the systems and application used for the Service, and protecting our rights and the rights of others;

Managing user registrations: We will process your Personal Data by managing your user account for the purpose of performing the contract with you according to any applicable terms of service;

Handling contact and user support requests: If you fill out a "Contact Me" web form, request user support, or if you contact us by other means, we will process your Personal Data for the performance of our contract with you and to the extent it is necessary for the purpose of our legitimate interests to fulfill your request and communicate with you;

Managing event registrations and attendance: We will process your Personal Data to plan and host the physical or online event, including related communication with you, on basis of the performance of our contract with you;

Developing and improving the Service: We may process your Personal Data to analyze trends, track your usage of the Service and interactions with emails to the extent this is necessary for our legitimate interests to develop and improve the Service and to provide our users with more relevant and interesting content;

Displaying content: We may process any Personal Data we receive as a result of the aforementioned business activities to conduct research, advertise to you, provide personalized information about us on and off the Service, and other personalized content based upon your activities and interests to the extent it is necessary for our legitimate interests to advertise the Service or, where necessary, to the extent you have provided your prior separate consent (please also view "Your rights relating to your Personal Data" below to learn how you can control how your Personal Data is processed by the Service));

Sending communications: We may process your Personal Data to send you non-transactional communications (e.g., site advisories) about the Service (please also view "Your rights relating to your Personal Data" section below);

Complying with legal obligations: We will process your Personal Data when cooperating with public and government authorities, courts, or regulators in accordance with our legal obligations under applicable laws to the extent this requires the processing or disclosure of Personal Data to protect our rights, and is necessary for our legitimate interests to protect against misuse or abuse of the Service, to protect personal property or safety, to pursue remedies available to us and limit our damages, to comply with a judicial proceedings, court order or legal process, and/or to respond to lawful requests. Where we need to collect and process Personal Data by law, or under a contract we have entered into with you and you fail to provide that required Personal Data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract.

5. WHO MAY WE SHARE PERSONAL DATA WITH

We may share your Personal Data with the following recipients:

If you use the Service to register for specific content or a physical or online event that's organized or sponsored by a third party, we may share your Personal Data with the third-party to the extent this is required on the basis of the contract with you to process your registration and ensure your access to the event or content; in such case, our affiliate will process the relevant Personal Data as a separate controller and will provide you with further information on the processing of your Personal Data, where required;

If you attend a physical or online event organized by us, we may share your information with sponsors of the event if: (1) you consent to such sharing via an event registration form; or (2) you allow your attendee badge to be scanned at a sponsor booth. In that event, your information will be subject to the sponsors' respective privacy statements. If you do not wish for your information to be shared, you may choose not to opt-in via event registration or elect not to have your badge scanned at such events;

The Service may also share your Personal Data with its parent organization including if that organization changes through the merger, acquisition, or reorganization of the Service or its parent organization. If the Service is involved in a merger or reorganization, or if all or a portion of the Service is acquired by another third-party, we may transfer some or all of your Personal Data to such third-party. In accordance with applicable laws, we will use reasonable efforts to notify you of any such transfer of Personal Data to an unaffiliated third-party as processing of your Personal Data will be required for the purposes set out in "Purposes for which we process Personal Data and on which legal bases" section above.

Any Personal Data or other information you choose to submit in communities, forums, blogs, or chat rooms on the Service or any extension of the Service on a third-party service that is not under the Service's control may be read, collected, and/or used by others who visit these forums, depending on your account settings on the Service and on any third-party services that host that activity.

6. CHILDREN

The Service is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect Personal Data from children under the age of 18. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with Personal Data without your consent, please contact us as described in the "Contacting Us" section below and we will take steps to delete such Personal Data from our systems.

7. HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR PERSONAL DATA?

We may retain your Personal Data for a period of time consistent with the original purpose of collection (see "Purposes for which we process Personal Data and on what legal basis" section above). We determine the appropriate retention period for Personal Data on the basis of the amount, nature, and sensitivity of your Personal Data and the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure.

After expiry of the retention periods, your Personal Data will be deleted. If there is any information that we are unable, for technical reasons, to delete entirely from our systems, we will put in place appropriate measures to prevent any further use of the data.

8. YOUR RIGHTS RELATING TO YOUR PERSONAL DATA

  1. Your rights:

    You have certain rights regarding your Personal Data, subject to local data protection laws.

    These may include the following rights:

    • to access your Personal Data held by us (right to access);
    • to erase/delete your Personal Data to the extent permitted by other legal obligations (right to erasure; right to be forgotten);
    • to rectify inaccurate Personal Data and ensure it is complete (right to rectification);
    • to transfer your Personal Data to another controller to the extent possible (right to data portability);
    • to object to any processing of your Personal Data carried out on the basis of our legitimate interests (right to object);
    • to the extent we base the collection, processing and sharing of your Personal Data on your consent, to withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of the processing based on such consent before its withdrawal (right to revoke consent) 
       
  2. How to exercise your rights:

    To exercise your rights, please contact the Service in accordance with the "Contacting Us" section below. We try to respond to legitimate requests within one month and will contact you if we need additional information from you in order to honor your request. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month, taking into account the complexity and number of requests we receive.

    In addition, if you have registered for an account with the Service, you may generally update your user settings, profile, organization's settings or event registration by logging into the Service with your account credentials and editing your settings or profile. To update your information, discontinue your account, and/or request return or deletion of your Personal Data and other information associated with your account, please contact us.

  3. Your preferences for marketing communications:

    If the Service processes your Personal Data for the purpose of sending you email communications, you may manage your receipt of those emails and non-transactional communications from the Service by clicking on the "unsubscribe" link located on the bottom of those emails. Additionally, you may unsubscribe by contacting us using the information in the "Contacting Us" section below. Please note that opting-out of such communications does not opt you out of receiving important business communications related to your current relationship with us, such as information about your subscriptions, event registrations, service announcements, or security information.

9. SECURITY

We take precautions including organizational, technical, and physical measures, to help safeguard against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure of, or access to, the Personal Data we process or use.

While we follow generally accepted standards to protect Personal Data, no method of storage or transmission is 100% secure. You are solely responsible for protecting your password and other user account credentials, limiting access to your devices, and signing out of the Service after your sessions. If you have any questions about the security of the Service, please contact us via the "Contacting Us" section below.

10. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY STATEMENT

We will update this Privacy Statement from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements and other factors. If we do, we will update the "effective date" at the top of this Privacy Statement. If we make an update, we may provide you with notice prior to the update taking effect, such as by contacting you using the email address you provided.

We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Statement to stay informed about our collection, processing and sharing of your Personal Data.

11. CONTACTING US

To exercise your rights regarding your Personal Data, or if you have questions regarding this Privacy Statement or our privacy practices please contact us at:

[email protected]

We are committed to working with you to obtain a fair resolution of any complaint or concern about privacy.

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