Who we are

Our website address is: https://thatstheteaau.com

This policy explains what information we collect when you use ThatsTheTea websites (ThatsTheTeaAU.com) sites, services, mobile applications, products, and content (“Services”). It also has information about how we store, use, transfer, and delete that information. Our aim is not just to comply with privacy law. It’s to earn your trust.

Information We Collect & How We Use It

ThatsTheTea doesn’t make money from ads. We don’t collect data in order to advertise to you. The tracking we do at ThatsTheTea is to make our product work as well as possible; to give you the best possible experience in using ThatsTheTea Services, we collect information from your interactions with these Services. Some of this information, you actively tell us (such as your email address, which we use to track your account or communicate with you). Other information, we collect based on actions you take while using ThatsTheTea Services, such as what pages you view (including how much of a given page and for how long) and your use of product features. This information includes records of those interactions, your Internet Protocol address, information about your device (such as device or browser type), and referral information (how you got to a particular page).

We use this information to:

  • provide, test, improve, promote and personalize the Services
  • fight spam and other forms of abuse
  • generate aggregate, non-identifying information about how people use the Services

When you create your ThatsTheTea account, and/or authenticate with a third-party service (like Twitter, Facebook, Apple or Google) we may collect, store, and periodically update information associated with that third-party account, such as your lists of friends or followers. We will never publish something through one of your third-party accounts without your express permission.

Information Disclosure

ThatsTheTea won’t transfer information about you to third parties for the purpose of providing or facilitating third-party advertising to you. We won’t sell information about you to a third-party.

We may transfer your account information with third parties in some circumstances, including: (1) with your consent; (2) to a service provider or partner who meets our data protection standards; (3) with academic or non-profit researchers, with aggregation, anonymization, or pseudonymization; (4) when we have a good faith belief it is required by law, such as pursuant to a subpoena or other legal process; (5) when we have a good faith belief that doing so will help prevent imminent harm to someone.

If we are going to share your information in response to legal process, we’ll give you notice so you can challenge it (for example by seeking court intervention), unless we’re prohibited by law or believe doing so may endanger others or cause illegal conduct. We will object to legal requests for information about users of our services that we believe are improper.

Data Storage

ThatsTheTea uses third-party vendors and hosting partners, such as Amazon, Digital Ocean and MailChimp, for hardware, software, networking, storage, and related technology we need to run ThatsTheTea . We maintain two types of logs: server logs and event logs.

  • Server logs: Like most internet companies, our servers automatically record each request made when someone visits our sites uses our apps. We have two types of server logs: web proxies and application. These server logs may include your web request, IP address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request, and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser. We will delete all server logs after 30 days or earlier.
  • Event logs: Our event logs record user actions on the site, such as clicking through pages, posts, comment or scrolling. Event logs do not contain IP addresses, user names, user addresses, or user email addresses. They do contain user IDs generated by ThatsTheTea web services, as well as descriptions of actions users take on the site. We may keep event logs indefinitely.

By using the Services, you authorize ThatsTheTea to transfer, store, and use your information in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, United States and any other country where we operate or where the data storage facilities of our third-party vendors are located.

Third-Party Embeds

Some of the content that you see displayed on ThatsTheTea is not hosted by ThatsTheTea . These “embeds” are hosted by a third-party and embedded in a ThatsTheTea page, so that it appears to be part of that page. For example: YouTube or Vimeo videos, Imgur or Giphy gifs, SoundCloud audio files, Twitter tweets, GitHub code snippets, or Scribd documents that appear within a ThatsTheTea post. These files send data to the hosted site just as if you were visiting that site directly (for example, when you load a ThatsTheTea post page with a YouTube video embedded in it, that video appears because of a pointer to files hosted by YouTube, and in turn YouTube receives data about your activity, such as your IP address and how much of the video you watch).

ThatsTheTea doesn’t control what data third parties collect in cases like this, or what they ultimately do with it. So, third-party embeds on ThatsTheTea are not covered by this Privacy Policy. They are covered by the privacy policy of the third-party service (so, when you watch a YouTube video embedded in a ThatsTheTea post, the use of data about your interactions with the video would be covered by YouTube’s privacy policy).

Some embeds may ask you for personal information, such as submitting your email address, through a form linked to from a ThatsTheTea post. We do our best to keep bad actors off of ThatsTheTea . However, if you choose to submit your information to a third party this way, we don’t know what they may do with it. As explained above, their actions are not covered by this Privacy Policy. Make sure you understand who you are submitting your information to and what they say they plan to do with it. We suggest that you do not submit your email address or other personal information to any third-party through an embedded form.

Tracking & Cookies

We use browser cookies and similar technologies to recognize you when you return to our Services. We use them in various ways, for example to log you in, remember your preferences (such as default language), evaluate email effectiveness, allow access to more confidential ThatsTheTea information, and personalize content and other services.

We track your interactions within the ThatsTheTea Services (which encompasses ThatsTheTea .com, custom domains hosted by ThatsTheTea , and your interactions with email and marketing application)s.

Some third-party services that we use to provide the Service, such as Google Analytics, may place their own cookies in your browser. This Privacy Policy covers use of cookies by ThatsTheTea only and not the use of cookies by third parties.

Modifying or Deleting Your Personal Information

If you have a ThatsTheTea account, you can access, modify or export your personal information, or delete your account here.

To protect information from accidental or malicious destruction, we may maintain residual copies for a brief time period (generally several weeks). But, if you delete your account, your information and content will be unrecoverable after that time. ThatsTheTea may preserve and maintain copies of your information beyond this time period when required to do so by law.

Data Security

We use encryption (HTTPS/TLS) to protect data transmitted to and from our site. However, no data transmission over the Internet is 100% secure, so we can’t guarantee security. You use the Service at your own risk, and you’re responsible for taking reasonable measures to secure your account.

Business Transfers

If we’re involved in a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, reorganization or sale of assets such that your information would be transferred or become subject to a different privacy policy, we’ll notify you in advance so you can opt out of any such new policy by deleting your account before transfer.

Email from ThatsTheTea

Sometimes we’ll send you emails about your account, service changes or new policies. You can’t opt out of this type of “transactional” email (unless you delete your account). But, you can opt out of non-administrative emails such as digests, newsletters, and activity notifications through your account’s Settings page or by following the instructions found at the bottom of EVERY email sent to you by ThatsTheTea .

When you interact with an email sent from ThatsTheTea (such as opening an email or clicking on a particular link in an email), we may receive information about that interaction.

We won’t email you to ask for your password or other account information. If you receive such an email, please forward it to us at [email protected] so we can investigate.

Changes to this Policy

ThatsTheTea may periodically update this Policy. We’ll notify you about significant changes to it. The most current version of the policy will always be here.

Questions

We welcome feedback about this policy at [email protected]

Data Protection Statement for European Union Users

Description of Processing Activity

ThatsTheTea collects and stores personal information about its users to customize their reading experience and enable personalized distribution of content. It shares minimal data with its service providers.

Purposes of Processing

• Provide, test, promote, and improve the Services
• Gather usage statistics of services
• Provide customized reading experience
• Publish and distribute user-generated content
• Provide access to paid content
• Pay authors in Partnership Program for certain content
• Fight spam, fraud, and other abuse of services

Legal Bases

In order to provide the Services, ThatsTheTea collects and stores personal data about its users to fulfill its contractual obligations to users as described in our Terms of Service and to Members as described in your Dealership contract.

ThatsTheTea also pursues its legitimate interests by collecting minimal data of logged out users to provide the Services, as outlined above. These legitimate interests are not outweighed by (nor do they violate) our users’ privacy interests because we collect minimal user data for these purposes and we are fully transparent about these activities.

Public Nature of Personal Data

Logged-in users may choose to interact publicly with the Services in the form of sharing or commenting on a post, highlighting parts of a post, sharing links on connected social media accounts. Where such personal data may reveal special category protected data, it is processed on the basis that it is manifestly made public by the user.

Additional information on potential consequences of such processing can be found below. If you do not agree to this public usage, do not create an account or use these features of the Services.

Search engines are instructed NOT to index your ThatsTheTea user profile page, public interactions and comments.

Categories of Personal Data Collected

Logged out users:

    • Reading history
    • IP address
    • Browser information
    • DNT status

Logged in users:

    • Username
    • Display name
    • Bio
    • Avatar image
    • Email address (non-public)
    • Session activity (security)
    • Linked social media accounts (optional)
    • IP address
    • Browser information
    • Reading history (on ThatsTheTea Services only)
    • Meta-data about URLs saved by using the optional feature Save to ThatsTheTea
    • Network interactions (recommends, follows, etc.)
    • Posts, responses, or series published by user

Members:

    • Billing information and history

Partner authors:

    • Bank account for payments
    • Business information, if applicable

Categories of Recipients
ThatsTheTea shares minimal personal data with third-party processors in order to provide the Services. These processors offer at least the same level of data protection as that set out in this statement. This includes the following categories of recipients:

    • Hosting, Storage, & Other Infrastructure
    • Security
    • Analytics
    • Communication & Support
    • Payment Processors

Payment Processors

ThatsTheTea may provide Services in conjunction with several payment processors, including: Stripe, PayPal, Google Play, and Apple Pay, through which users may pay for ThatsTheTea memberships or purchase products based on participation in our Dealer program. Those companies acting as payment processors may collect and store personal data related to your billing information and history in order to provide their services, and may collect and store personal data and business data to prevent fraud and other abuse.

When you delete your ThatsTheTea account, ThatsTheTea deletes your personal data as explained in this policy. However, to delete your payment or billing information, you will need to do so with your payment provider, as ThatsTheTea only has minimal secure access to those records as needed to provide the Services.

Use of Algorithms to Personalize User Experience

ThatsTheTea collects and stores personal data about its users to customize their reading experience by displaying content tailored to the preferences and interests indicated by the users (including through their reading history and Services interactions). This does not constitute automated decision-making as that phrase is used in the GDPR because it does not produce any legal effects or similarly significant effects for users. ThatsTheTea also moderates content for the purposes of fighting and preventing spam, fraud, and other forms of abuse, and may rely on algorithms as part of doing so.

Potential Consequences of Processing

By creating and using an account on ThatsTheTea , users may make certain personal data about themselves public and accessible to others on their profile and through network interactions. This may in some cases constitute special category protected data which is considered manifestly made public by the user.

Due to the public nature of information posted to ThatsTheTea , it may be possible for third parties to derive identifying personal data from posts, whether by reading, inference, supplemental research, or automated extraction and analysis.

Users are free to use their real name and information, or a pseudonym of their choosing, for their account. Users may also choose to use the service without posting data or engaging in network interactions. However, if you do not agree with and accept the risks of such usage, you may not use the Services.

Cross-border Transfers

ThatsTheTea is hosted in Singapore. By using the Services, you authorize ThatsTheTea to transfer, store, and use your information in Singapore and any other country where we operate. Where your data is disclosed to our processors, it is subject by contract to at least the same level of data protection as that set out in this statement.

Retention

ThatsTheTea retains personal data associated with your account for the lifetime of your account. If you would like to delete your personal information, you can delete your account at any time. Deleted account profile pages will yield an error 404 “file not found” page, immediately upon initiating deletion, and will become unrecoverable in our system after a period of fourteen days. It may take several additional days for your personal data to be de-indexed from search engines, depending on those search engines’ practices, over which ThatsTheTea may have limited or no control.
To delete your payment or billing information, you will need to do so with your payment provider, as ThatsTheTea only has minimal secure access to those records as needed to provide the Services.

Rights of Data Subjects

If you sign up for a ThatsTheTea account, you may at any time request an export of your personal information by contacting us.

  • You may correct information associated with your account from the Settings page.
  • You may withdraw consent by deleting your account at any time through the Settings page, which will erase your personal information completely within 14 days (except to the extent ThatsTheTea is prevented by law from deleting your information).
  • You may object at any time to the use of your personal data by contacting [email protected]. If your complaint relates to alleged misuse of your personal data by a third party, it may result in suspension of that post or account in keeping with relevant law, public interest, our contractual obligations, and the rights of expression and access to information of others.
  • Under EU law you have the right to lodge a complaint regarding the processing of your personal data by ThatsTheTea with the dedicated Supervisory Authority of your EU member state.

Subject Access Requests

For security and account ownership verification reasons, we process Subject Access Requests and account deletion requests from the account holder only. We are unable to process requests made by third-party services.

Contact Information

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you can contact us at [email protected]

Or you can contact us at:

ThatsTheTea
Canberra, Australia
Telephone: +61 4266 9 6400
Email: [email protected]