Privacy Policy | Hope Healing Words

This page sets out what Hope Healing Words collects about you, why, and what you can do about it. It is written to be understood rather than to be survived.

The short version: the only thing we ask for is an email address, and only if you want the daily reading. We do not sell anything about you to anyone, and we never will.

Who runs this site

Hope Healing Words is an independent devotional site run by one person. It is not a company, a church, or a registered organization. For anything on this page, write to [email protected].

What we collect

If you subscribe to the daily email: your email address, and your first name if you choose to give it. We also record when you subscribed, and whether you opened or clicked a message, which is how we know the emails are arriving.

If you write to us: your name, your email address, and whatever you put in the message.

If you send a letter from the letters page: the same, and if you tick the box to share it, we may publish your letter on that page, trimmed if it runs long, with your first name only. Your email address is never published.

If you give toward the site: PayPal handles the payment. Your card details go to PayPal and never reach us. We see the amount, the date, and the name and email PayPal passes on. If you ask for your name on the supporters wall, that name is published on the site.

Whoever you are: the web server keeps ordinary access logs, which include your IP address, the page you asked for, the time, and what browser you used. Every web server does this.

We do not use website analytics. There is no Google Analytics on this site.

Why we use it

to send you the daily reading, if you asked for it
to answer your message, if you sent one
to share your letter on the letters page, if you said we could
to thank you and to keep the supporters wall accurate, if you gave
to keep the site online and to deal with abuse or attempted break-ins

That is the whole list. We do not build profiles, we do not score you, and we do not use your information to decide anything about you.

Advertising

The site carries advertising from Google AdSense, which is what pays for the hosting and keeps the reading free.

Google and its partners may set cookies and use your IP address and browsing history to choose which advertisements you see. That processing is Google’s, not ours, and it is covered by Google’s policy for sites that use its services. You can change what Google shows you at Google’s Ads Settings, and you can turn off personalized advertising there without losing access to anything here.

The Cookies Policy lists what is set and what each one does.

We share what we have to, with the people who make the site work, and with nobody else:

Sendy, the software that sends the daily email. It runs on our own server, so your address stays with us.
Google AdSense, for advertising, as described above.
PayPal, if you give toward the site.
Namecheap, which hosts the site and therefore holds the server logs.

We do not sell your information. We do not rent it, lend it, or trade it. If we are ever required by law to hand something over, we will, and we will tell you unless we are forbidden to.

How long we keep it

Your email address: until you unsubscribe. After that it is removed within 30 days, apart from a record that the address asked not to be contacted, which we keep so we do not write to you again by accident.
Messages you send us: up to 12 months, then deleted.
Letters you agreed to share: on the letters page until you ask us to take yours down.
Supporters wall entries: until you ask us to take yours off.
Server logs: a short period, normally no more than 30 days.

Children

This site is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has given us an email address, write to us and we will delete it straight away.

If you live in California

California law gives you specific rights over your personal information. Whether Hope Healing Words meets the size thresholds that make those rules binding, we intend to honor them anyway.

The right to know what personal information we have collected about you, where it came from, why we collected it, and who we shared it with.
The right to delete the personal information we hold about you.
The right to correct anything we hold that is wrong.
The right to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.
The right not to be treated differently for using any of these rights. Nothing here becomes unavailable to you and nothing costs more.

To use any of them, write to [email protected]. We will answer within 45 days.

In the last twelve months we have not sold personal information, and we have no plans to.

We do not sell your personal information. We do share it in one narrow sense: when Google AdSense shows you a personalized advertisement, California law treats that as sharing for cross-context behavioral advertising.

You can stop it in either of two ways, and both work immediately:

turn off personalized advertising at Google’s Ads Settings
write to [email protected] and ask us to record your opt-out

You will still see advertising. It will just stop being chosen from your browsing history.

If you live in the EU or the UK

The site is written for readers in the United States, and that is where nearly everyone who reads it lives. If you are reading from the EU or the UK, these rights are yours anyway.

What we rely on to process your information

Your consent, for the daily email, for publishing a letter you sent, and for personalized advertising. You can withdraw it at any time.
Our legitimate interest, for answering your message, keeping the site online, and preventing abuse.

Your rights

to ask what we hold about you and get a copy of it
to have anything wrong corrected
to have your information deleted
to ask us to restrict what we do with it
to receive it in a portable form
to object to processing based on legitimate interest
to withdraw consent at any time, which does not undo anything done before you withdrew it
to complain to your national data protection authority

Where your information goes

The server that runs this site is in the United States, so if you write to us or subscribe from Europe, your information is transferred there. Google and PayPal also process information in the United States, under their own transfer safeguards.

To use any of these rights, write to [email protected]. We will answer within one month.

Security

The site runs over an encrypted connection. Access to the subscriber list is limited to the person who runs the site, and login attempts are rate limited. No website is perfectly safe, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something, but the amount of information here is small and we intend to keep it that way.

Links to other sites

When you follow a link away from here, whatever happens next is governed by that site’s privacy policy, not this one. We do not control them.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, the date at the top of the page changes with it. If a change matters to you, we will say so on the site or in the daily email.

How to reach us

Write to [email protected] or use the contact form. A person reads everything that comes in.