Privacy Policy Extension

BlockSite privacy policy and data collection practices.

BlockSite – Privacy Policy

[Last modified: December 29, 2020]

Introduction

This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) governs the data collection practices BlockSite LP (“Company”, “us”, “we” and “our”) uses when you use our BlockSite browser add-on extension (“BlockSite Product”). 

This Privacy Policy is provided to make important disclosures on how and why we collect, share and use your information. Our users’ privacy is important to us. We encourage you to read the Privacy Policy carefully prior to using our BlockSite Product and use it to make informed decisions.

By using the BlockSite Product, you acknowledge that you have read and understood the terms of this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy is part of our Terms of Use (Link: https://blocksite.co/terms) and the processing of personal data is necessary in order to provide you with the Service (as defined below). Definitions herein shall have the same meaning as in our Terms of Use. 

What Information Do We Collect?

The information we collect when you use the BlockSite Product (“Product Data”) includes (i) non-identifiable information, which may be made available or gathered via a user’s use of the BlockSite Product (“Non-Personal Information“); and (ii) individually identifiable information, namely information that identifies an individual or may with reasonable effort be used to identify an individual (“Personal Information”). 

• The Non-Personal Information we collect incudes technical data such as type of browser, operating system, time stamp and certain browsing data. In order to actively avoid processing any Personal Information and to transfer solely Non-Personal Information to our servers, we make sure the browsing data, such as visited URLs, is cleaned and scrubbed on your device prior to being sent to our servers, for the purpose of removing and filtering any information that could be used to identify you. 
• The Personal Information we collect or save includes: (i) online identifiers such as IP address, which is hashed (irreversibly encrypted) on a daily basis, and thus is not and cannot be traced back to an individual or used in any way to identify an individual; (ii) unique ID, which is a random number we generate to keep track of the amount of data sets we collect. Although the unique ID does not reveal the identity of a user and is not generated based on any user personal information, it may be considered under some jurisdictions as Personal Information.

If you contact us for support, you will also need to provide us with your contact details so we can communicate with you to provide the support needed. This is also Personal Information but we will treat this as separate from the Product Data in our systems.

How is the Product Data Used?

We use the Product Data to allow you to make use of and benefit from the features offered by the BlockSite Product. The BlockSite Product helps block access to certain sites based on your preference to ensure a safe and positive browsing experience (the “Service”). In order to know which sites to block for you, we need to process the Product Data as described above. This includes your browsing data.

How is the Product Data Shared?

We do not share any Personal Information with third parties unless (i) required by law or regulation; (ii) needed to deliver the Service, for security and fraud detection; and (iii) in case of merger and acquisition.  

For the sole purpose of providing and improving the Services we share Product Data with third-party service providers and our affiliated companies who help us deliver elements of the Service.

You may stop us from collecting certain Product Data by following the steps mentioned below in the section “Stopping the collection of Product Data”. 

Cookies and Third-Party Tools

The BlockSite Product makes use of Cookies. A “Cookie” is a small text file found in a browser directory, which a website assigns and stores on your computer while you view a website. Cookies may be used for a number of different purposes including facilitating automatic activation of some features, remembering your preferences, customizing your user experience, etc. More information about how Cookies work can be found at www.allaboutcookies.org. 

BlockSite Product makes use of the following Cookies: 

1. Google Analytic and Firebase Cookies: These cookies are used to collect analytic data about how users use our BlockSite Product as well as tracking analytics, reporting and fixing crashes. For more information, please review Google’s privacy policy available here, as well as Google Analytics opt out available here. For additional information regarding our use of Google products, click here.
2. Sentry Cookies: These cookies are used for error tracking in order to monitor and fix crashes in real time. Sentry’s privacy policy is available here. 

Google and Sentry may use and store Cookies on your device separately from the Cookies used by the BlockSite Product. 

• Any information collected about you from these Cookies (including Personal Information) will be managed on the basis of the relevant privacy practices of these third parties which we recommend you review. 
• You may stop these Cookies from collecting information by following the instructions of the relevant third party, or by adjusting your browser preferences. 

Lawful Basis for Processing

Product Data: We process Personal Information comprised within the Product Data for the purpose of providing the Services to meet your needs. The lawful basis for processing this data is the legitimate interest we have in providing the Services to you, or, where applicable, your consent for the processing of this data, for example, the deployment of Cookies. 

Contact: If you contact us for support, or register to receive our newsletter, we will process Personal Information as necessary to provide the requested support / communications. The lawful basis for processing this data is the legitimate interest we have in addressing your request. 

Retention arrangements

Unless you instruct us otherwise, we retain the information we collect for as long as needed to provide the Services and to comply with our legal obligations. We believe in data minimization and only keep the information we truly need and only for the period of time required. 

User Rights

If you are resident in the EU or UK and certain other countries, you may have the right to ask us to delete Personal Information, to access and/or obtain a copy of your Personal Information, to data portability, to request data rectification, to object to processing, to restrict processing, and/or to withdraw consent to processing. These rights are governed by applicable privacy laws and may be subject to important legal exceptions. 

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer at: dpo@blocksite.co who will be pleased to help. Note that we may request proof of your identity and we reserve the right to charge a fee where allowed by law.

Occasionally, we may contact you with information and promotional emails about BlockSite services and related products. If you would like to opt-out of receiving such communications, please follow the instructions in the email or send us an email at support@blocksite.co.
Just so you know, it may take up to ten (10) business days for us to process opt-out requests. It may still be possible for us to send you emails about your account or any BlockSite Services you’ve requested from us even if you opt-out of receiving promotional and informational emails.

Stopping the collection of Product Data

You may stop the automatic collection of certain Product Data from your device at any time by managing your settings. To do this, go to your browser settings page and find the “Extensions” tab, where you should be able to find “BlockSite” as a listed extension. Click on “Settings” for this extension then deselect the checkbox next to the words “Enable “Block By Category” Blocking”. 

If you follow the deactivation steps explained above, we will no longer automatically collect Product Data from you. It is important to note that deactivation may mean that some or all of the Services provided by BlockSite may no longer be available. 

How do we safeguard your information?

We take great care in implementing and maintaining the security of your information; therefore, we have implemented technical, physical and administrative security measures to protect your information. In addition, we internally limit access to your information and limit the amount of data processed and shared. For example, we hash your IP address and use a randomly generated number as your unique ID, to limit the amount of Personal Information we hold about you. 

Product Data are stored in data servers managed by AWS. AWS are a well-respected global cloud provider, who help manage our data in a secure environment. For more information regarding the data security provided by AWS, please see: https://aws.amazon.com/security/.  

We will take the necessary steps to ensure that international transfers of personal data (including Personal Information) meet all requirements under applicable data protection laws. When personal data collected within the European Economic Area (“EEA“) is transferred outside the EEA, we will take the steps necessary to ensure that the transfer of such data provides sufficient safeguards, and you may exercise your rights, where applicable, to receive information on such transfer mechanism. Personal Information transferred outside the EEA is transferred for processing by AWS on its servers in the United States, and among the Company’s affiliates, in both cases pursuant to standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission. If you would like to understand more about these arrangements and your rights in connection therewith, please contact our Data Protection Officer at: dpo@blocksite.co.

Minors

Children under 13 are prohibited from using the BlockSite Product. In the event that we become aware that a user under the age of 13 has shared any information, we will discard such information. If you have any reason to believe that a child under the age of 13 has shared any information with us, please contact our Data Protection Officer at: dpo@blocksite.co. If you are under 18, please be sure to read this policy with your parents or legal guardians and ask questions about things you do not understand.

Amendments

We reserve the right to periodically amend or revise the Privacy Policy; material changes will be effective immediately upon the display of the revised Privacy Policy. The last revision date will be reflected in the “Last modified” heading. Your continued use of the BlockSite Product, following the notification of such amendments on our website, constitutes your acknowledgement of such amendments to the Privacy Policy and, where the processing of personal data is based on consent (see above), your agreement to be bound by the terms of such amendments.

How to contact us?

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at: support@blocksite.co.

If you have a complaint about your handling of Personal Information under the terms of this Privacy Policy and you are resident in European Union or United Kingdom, you may raise that with your local data protection supervisory authority.  

Additional Rights of California Users

California residents have certain additional rights, pursuant to California privacy laws, including the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”). The CCPA defines “personal information” as any information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, to a particular California resident or household, but excluding publicly available data. This section does not apply to our handling of publicly available information or other personal information subject to an exemption pursuant to Section 1798.145(c)-(f) of the CCPA.

Personal Information that We Collect, Disclose, and Sell

The following list (our “Notice of Collection”) describes the categories of personal information about California residents that we collect, from the sources listed in the “What Information Do We Collect” section above. We do not sell your personal information or disclose it to third parties for a business purpose. We may disclose these categories of personal information to our service providers, solely for their use as necessary to perform services on our behalf. The personal information collected is used according to the “How is the Product Data Used” section above.  

Note that the term “sale” is defined broadly in the CCPA to include any exchange of data for consideration of any kind. 

Your Rights as a California Consumer

Consumers have certain rights under California law, which restricts certain business practices, and which gives California consumers the right to request disclosure of what personal information about you we collect, use, disclose, and sell.  This includes (a) the right to opt out of the sale (if applicable) of your personal information; (b) the right to request, at no charge up to twice every 12 months: (i) a copy the personal information collected from you in the preceding 12 months; (ii) deletion of the personal information collected from you; (iii) disclosure of certain information about how we handled your personal information in the prior 12 months (your “Right to Know”), including certain information on the categories of information collected, the categories of sources, the business purposes for its collection and sale (if applicable), and the categories of third parties with whom it was shared.

You may exercise the foregoing rights by (a) clicking here ; (b) contacting us at dpo@blocksite.co.

If you submit one of these requests, we will first try to verify your identity. Then, we will attempt to match the information provided in your request with personal information we have about you, if any. If you have created an account on our BlockSite Product, we may ask you, as part of our identity verification process, to sign in to your account. We will take further action on your request only where we are reasonably satisfied that we have verified your identity. We will use reasonable efforts to respond to your request within forty-five days after we receive and verify it, or, if we cannot do so, then we will respond over the following forty-five day period.   

The CCPA does not allow any discrimination against California consumers for exercising their rights under the CCPA. In addition, financial incentives offered to California consumers related to their personal information are subject to certain requirements imposed by the CCPA. In particular: (a) A company may not discriminate against a consumer who exercised his/her rights under the CCPA, such as by denying or providing a different level or quality of services to the consumer, or by charging different prices or rates to, or imposing penalties on the consumer, unless reasonably related to the value provided by the consumer’s data.

Your Rights under California’s Shine-the-Light Law.  California’s “Shine-the-Light” law (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.83), provides that California residents who provide certain personal information to us have the right to request and obtain from us, free of charge, information about the personal information we have shared with third parties for their own direct marketing use (if any). These requests may be made once each calendar year regarding information shared with a third party in the previous calendar year. To make such a request, please submit the request in writing to dpo@blocksite.co, and include in the request a statement confirming that you are a California resident.

The use of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.