Who we are

This Colonial Botanicals website is operated by Ruffin Associates, LLC in North Carolina, USA.

Website address ~ https://colonialbotanicals.com

Email address ~ info@colonialbotanicals.com

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Colonial Botanicals and Ruffin Associates, LLC strongly support the United States Constitution, including Amendments I and IV.

In regards to your privacy, Colonial Botanicals and Ruffin Associates, LLC do not collect, use or sell your private information of any kindor any data related to your account preferences, comments you may make orcookies you may use during your visits with this site.

Please note that we cannot speak for any of the service providers enabling publication and distribution of this site. They have their own privacy policies and so we strongly beseech you, the user, to carefully review those policies and proceed with caution.

This Colonial Botanicals site is published through WordPress. In regards to a site visitor’s personal data, WordPress states the following:

By default WordPress does not collect any personal data about visitors, and only collects the data shown on the User Profile screen from registered users. However some plugins may collect personal data.

~ WordPress

This Colonial Botanicals site does use third-party “plugins,” which are technical tools created by other companies that enable special functionality to improve site usability and presentation. Colonial Botanicals and Ruffin Associates, LLC do not create the technology being used on this site.

Colonial Botanicals simply has access to the information you provide through these tools. We use these tools as follows:

The following features may be enabled on this site with third-party technology and plugins. Please be advised that WordPress and all other providers will collect your data by default.

Comments

You should always be careful anytime you make comments on the internet. Any personal data you provide is captured when you submit a form of any type, and this includes when you share your thoughts and comments on a blog.

When visitors leave comments on the site, WordPress collects 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

Likewise, you should be careful anytime you upload media files to the internet. All uploaded files are usually publicly accessible.

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

Contact forms

As is the case with all other types of forms, you should be careful anytime you submit your personal information through a contact form on the internet. You should always assume that any personal data you provide is captured by the technology companies providing that functionality, and sometimes their business partners. Colonial Botanicals and Ruffin Associates, LLC may enable contact forms on this site simply as a means of communicating directly with you. Your submissions through these forms are kept indefinitely. Colonial Botanicals and Ruffin Associates, LLC uses the information associated with these submissions for customer service purposes, but does not for direct marketing purposes. Please be advised that WordPress, their third-party technology providers and their business partners have their own policies regarding use of your submissions.

Cookies

Colonial Botanicals and Ruffin Associates, LLC do not use cookies. Cookies are used by WordPress, many third-party plugins and analytical tools, as well as social media companies. They temporarily store details related to your visit and interaction with a site, and generally help to keep you from having to re-enter the same information over and over on each subsequent page you view during your visit. Cookies may be installed by default or ask for your permission first.

If you leave a comment on a WordPress 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, WordPress 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, WordPress 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

This site, Colonial Botanicals and Ruffin Associates, LLC do not currently incorporate embedded content. All content on this site is original or provided directly with permission. However, WordPress or other technology providers may be able to insert embedded content without our knowledge. Examples of embedded content are articles or images provided by others, advertisements or affiliate links.

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 tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

By default WordPress does not collect any analytics data. However, many web hosting accounts collect some anonymous analytics data.

Who we share your data with

Colonial Botanicals and Ruffin Associates, LLC do not knowingly sharedata about you or other users with any one, including any web host, cloud storage, advertisers or third-party service providers. WordPress specifically states that, by default, they do not share any personal data with anyone.

Colonial Botanicals and Ruffin Associates, LLC do not knowingly receive data about you or other users from any one, including any web host, cloud storage, advertisers or third-party service providers.

Colonial Botanicals and Ruffin Associates, LLC do not knowingly send site data or personal data about you or other users with any one, including any web host, cloud storage, advertisers or third-party service providers. Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Colonial Botanicals and Ruffin Associates, LLC do not provide any service that includes automated decision making, e.g., allowing you to apply for credit, or aggregating your data into an advertising profile.

How long we retain your data

Colonial Botanicals and Ruffin Associates, LLC may retain data collected or processed by this web site, including contact form entries, analytics records, and customer purchase records. This data is retained indefinitely for customer service, administrative, security and legal purposes.

For example, 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 this website (if any), WordPress also stores the personal information those users provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their own 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.