Site Policies

Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy was last modified on July 15, 2020. Valerie’s Kitchen® (“us”, “we”, or “our”) operates https://fromvalerieskitchen.com (the “Site”). This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information we receive from users of the Site. We use your Personal Information only for providing and improving the Site. By using the Site, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy.

Advertising.

This Site is affiliated with CMI Marketing, Inc., d/b/a Raptive (“Raptive”) for the purposes of placing advertising on the Site, and Raptive will collect and use certain data for advertising purposes. To learn more about Raptive’s data usage, click here: https://raptive.com/creator-advertising-privacy-statement.

We encourage you to periodically check back and review this policy so that you always will know what information we collect, how we use it, and with whom we share it.

I. The Information We Collect

We receive both information that is directly provided to us, such as personal information you provide when you visit the Site, and information that is passively or automatically collected from you, such as anonymous information collected from your browser or device. In this Privacy Policy, we refer to all of this as the “Information”.

Information You Provide To Us. In some areas of the Site, you can register, order products, enter contests, vote in polls or otherwise express an opinion, subscribe to one of our services such as our online newsletters, or participate in our community. In the course of these various offerings, we often seek to collect from you various forms of information, such as: name, address, or e-mail address.

Information That is Passively or Automatically Collected. We, and our “Partners” who include Site affiliates, third-party service providers, advertisers, advertising networks and platforms, agencies, and distribution or other partners may use automated means to collect various types of Information about you, your computer or other device used to access our Site. A representative, non-exhaustive list of the types of automatically collected information may include: network or Internet protocol address and type of browser you are using (e.g., Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer), the type of operating system you are using, (e.g., Microsoft Windows or Mac OS), the name of your Internet service provider (e.g., Comcast, Verizon or AT&T) and domains used by such providers, mobile network, device identifiers (such as an Apple IDFA or an Android Advertising ID), device settings, browser settings, the web pages you have visited, the type of handheld or mobile device used to view the Site (e.g., iOS, Android), location information, and the content and advertisements you have accessed, seen, forwarded and/or clicked on.

Please see our section titled Cookies, and Other User and Ad-Targeting Technologies for more information about how the foregoing Information may be collected and used.

Information Collected By and From Social Media Services and Other Third-Party Platforms. You also can engage with our content, such as video, games, applications, and other offerings, on or through social media services or other third-party platforms, such as Facebook, or other third-party social media plugins, integrations and applications. When you engage with our content on or through social media services or other third-party platforms, plugins, integrations or applications, you may allow us to have access to certain Information in your profile. For a description on how social media services and other third-party platforms, plugins, integrations or applications handle your information, please refer to their respective privacy policies and terms of use, which may permit you to modify your privacy settings.

II. How We Use the Information

We, along with our Partners, may use the Information to:

provide and communicate with you about the Site or your account with us,
fulfill your requests regarding the Site, including without limitation requests for newsletters and notifications, respond to your inquiries, enforce the legal terms (including without limitation our policies and terms of service) that govern your use of our Site, and/or for the purposes for which you provided the Information, provide technical support for the Site, prevent fraud or potentially illegal activities on or through the Site, protect the safety of our Users, customize or personalize ads, offers and content made available to you based on your visits to and/or usage of the Site or other online or mobile websites, applications, platforms or services, and analyze the performance of those ads, offers and content, as well as your interaction with them, perform analysis regarding how you use the Site or any part thereof.

When you provide information about yourself to us through a third-party application or plugin, through our Site, it may be publicly viewed by other members of these services and we cannot prevent further use of the information by third-parties.

We or a Partner may use “cookies” or similar technologies to associate certain of the Information with a unique identifier that then associates the Information with your device or browser.

For information about how these technologies work and how we may use them, please see our section titled Cookies, and Other User and Ad-Targeting Technologies.

Sometimes, we may associate cookies with the Information, including de-identified, “hashed,” or anonymous versions of Information you have provided (such as during registration), in order to send or help our Partners send ads and offers based on your presumed interests or demographic information.

If you register and create a profile with our Site, the screen name you select as well as other content you submit to your profile (e.g., photos, comments, video, reviews) will be displayed publicly on the Site, is searchable, can be found by third-parties and may be reused and redistributed by us in our sole discretion.

We may disclose the Information as follows:

To service providers or Partners that we have engaged to perform business-related functions on our behalf. This may include service providers that: (a) conduct research and analytics; (b) create content; (c) provide customer, technical or operational support; (d) conduct or support marketing (such as email or advertising platforms); (e) fulfill orders and user requests; (f) handle payments; (g) host our Site and online community; (h) administer contests; (i) maintain databases; (j) send or support online or mobile advertising; and (k) otherwise support our Site.

In response to legal process, for example, in response to a court order or a subpoena, a law enforcement or government agency’s request or similar request.

With third parties in order to investigate, prevent, or take action (in our sole discretion) regarding potentially illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to any person, us, or the Site, or violations of our policies, to verify or enforce compliance with the policies governing our Site.

We may transfer some or all of your Information if we, or one of our business units, undergoes a business transition, like a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or part of our assets, or if a substantial portion of our or of a business unit’s assets is sold or merged in this way.

Please note that the Site may offer content (e.g., contests, sweepstakes, promotions, games, applications, or social network integrations) that is sponsored by or co-branded with identified third parties. By virtue of these relationships, the third parties may obtain information from their visitors. We have no control over these third parties’ use of this information, which is subject to their own privacy policies.

IV. Cookies and Other User and Ad-Targeting Technologies

We use cookies and other technologies both to provide our Site to you and to advertise to you. We also may work with Partners to help them advertise to you when you visit other websites or mobile applications, and to help them perform user analytics. These technologies may also be used to analyze how our Users interact with advertising on our Site and elsewhere, and more generally, to learn more about our Users and what services or offers you might prefer to receive. We describe some of these technologies below.

Cookies. Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information which are sent to your browser and stored on your computer, mobile phone or other device when you visit a website. The cookies send information back to the originating website or another website that recognizes that cookie.

We use cookies for purposes such as improving the functionality of our website, to understand site usage and to improve or customize the content, offerings or advertisements. For example, we may use cookies to personalize your experience on our Site, save your password in password-protected areas, or save settings you may have made on the Site. We also may use cookies to help us offer you products, programs, or services that may be of interest to you and to deliver relevant advertising.

Advertising cookies may be placed by third parties such as advertisers, ad platforms and their agents, and can be permanent or temporary cookies. In short, they are related to advertising services provided by third parties on our website.

For visitors generating from the EU and EEA, advertising cookies are automatically not used for personalization and all advertising on the site will be generic and non-targeted.

For more information on cookies, please visit our Advertising Privacy Statement below.

Syncing Cookies and Identifiers. We may work with our Partners (for instance, third-party ad platforms) to synchronize unique, anonymous identifiers (such as those associated with cookies) in order to match our Partners’ uniquely coded user identifiers to our own. We may do this, for instance, to enhance data points about a particular unique browser or device, and thus enable us or others to send ads that are more relevant, match Users to their likely product interests, or better synchronize, cap, or optimize advertising.

For visitors generating from the EU and EEA, advertising cookies are automatically not used for personalization and all advertising on the site will be generic and non-targeted.

Disabling Cookies. Most web browsers are set up to accept cookies. You may be able to set your browser to warn you before accepting certain cookies or to refuse certain cookies. However, if you disable the use of cookies in your web browser, some features of the Site may be inoperable.

We may work with certain third-party companies that use techniques other than HTTP cookies to recognize your computer or device and/or to collect and record information about your web surfing activity, including those integrated with our Site. Please keep in mind that your web browser may not permit you to block the use of these techniques, and those browser settings that block conventional cookies may have no effect on such techniques. To learn more about Interest-Based Advertising or to opt-out of this type of advertising by those third parties that are members of DAA’s opt-out program, please go to http://www.aboutads.info.

Web Beacons. We and our Partners may also use “web beacons” or clear GIFs, or similar technologies, which are small pieces of code placed on the Site or in an email, to monitor the behavior and collect data about the visitors viewing the Site or email. For example, web beacons may be used to count the users who visit a web page or to deliver a cookie to the browser of a visitor viewing the Site. Web beacons may also be used to provide information on the effectiveness of our email campaigns (e.g., open rates, clicks, forwards, etc.).

By visiting the Site, whether as a registered user or otherwise, you acknowledge, and agree that you are giving us your consent to track your activities and your use of the Site through the technologies described above, as well as similar technologies developed in the future, and that we may use such tracking technologies in the emails we send to you.

Our unaffiliated Partners and third parties may themselves set and access their own tracking technologies when you visit our Services and they may have access to information about you and your online activities over time and across different websites or applications when you use the Site. Their use of such tracking technologies is not in our control and is subject to their own privacy policies.

V. Your Ad Choices

Advertising enables us to provide the content on the Site and to provide much of this content free of cost to our Users. Thus, we strive to provide you with ads that are relevant to you and for products you may want.

However, you can find more information about entities involved in online advertising and to know your choices you may make through the Network Advertising Initiative (http://optout.networkadvertising.org/) and the Digital Advertising Alliance (http://optout.aboutads.info).

The tools provided on the Network Advertising Initiative and Digital Advertising Alliance opt-out pages are provided by third parties, not the Site. The Site does not control or operate these tools or the choices that advertisers and others provide through these tools.

VI. Other Important Information About Your Privacy

How We Respond to Do Not Track Signals. At this time the Site does not recognize automated browser signals regarding tracking mechanisms, which may include “do not track” instructions.

Linked Services. The site may contain links to or integrations with other services such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other media services and platforms whose information practices may be different than ours. Visitors should consult these other services’ privacy notices as we have no control over information that is submitted to, or collected by, these third parties.

International Transfer. This Site is governed by and operated in accordance with US law. If you are located outside of the US, you use this Site at your own risk. We operate globally so it is necessary to transfer your Information internationally. In particular, your Information will be transferred to and processed in the United States where many of our central databases operate. By using this Site, you (a) acknowledge that the data protection and other laws of other countries, such as the United States, may provide a less comprehensive or protective standard of protection than those in your country, and consent to your Information being collected, processed and transferred as set forth in this Privacy Policy and US law.

Data Security. There are physical, electronic, and managerial procedures designed to help prevent unauthorized access, to maintain data security, and to use correctly the Information we collect online. These safeguards vary based on the sensitivity of the Information that we collect and store. Although we take appropriate measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of Information, we cannot assure you that Information will never be disclosed, altered or destroyed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.

How You Can Access or Correct Information. Access to certain personal Information that is collected from the Site and that we maintain may be available to you. For example, if you created a password-protected account within our Site, you can access that account to review the Information you provided.

You may also send an e-mail to valerieskitchen@att.net requesting access to or correction of your personal Information. Please include your registration information such as first name, last name and e-mail address in the request. We may ask you to provide additional information for identity verification purposes, or to verify that you are in possession of an applicable email account.

How to Contact Us/Opting Out of Marketing Communications. If you have any questions or concerns about the online Privacy Policy for this Site or its implementation, you may contact us at valerie@fromvalerieskitchen.com.

If you have signed up to receive our e-mails and prefer not to receive marketing information from this Site, follow the “unsubscribe” instructions provided on any marketing e-mail you receive from this Site.

VII. Children’s Privacy

The Site does not address anyone under the age of 13 (“Children”). We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13. If you are a parent or guardian and are aware that your Children have provided us with Personal Information, please contact us. If we discover that Children under 13 have provided us with Personal Information, we will delete such information immediately.

Contact

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact: Valerie Brunmeier (valerie@fromvalerieskitchen.com)

Advertising Privacy Statement

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed. Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

By using this Site, you consent to the use of such cookies and the sharing of data captured by such cookies with AdThrive, Google, and our other third party partners. You can view, delete or add interest categories associated with your browser by visiting: https://adssettings.google.com. You can also opt out of the network cookie using those settings or using the Network Advertising Initiative’s multi-cookie opt-out mechanism at: http://optout.networkadvertising.org. However, these opt-out mechanisms themselves use cookies, and if you clear the cookies from your browser your opt-out will not be maintained.

Nutrition Information Disclaimer

The website, www.fromvalerieskitchen.com, known as “Valerie’s Kitchen”’ owned by Valerie Brunmeier, occasionally provides nutritional information. The calculations were done using an online tool called WP Recipe Maker. Even though we have tried to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates. Varying factors (such as product types or brands, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, substitutions, serving sizes, and the way ingredients are processed) change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Any change in ingredient (such as using a different nondairy milk than mentioned or using a sweetened version, salted chickpeas versus home cooked unsalted etc) will change the nutritional information, sometimes considerably.

Different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition-fact sources, databases and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate representation of the nutritional information in a given recipe, please calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients and amounts used, using your preferred nutrition calculator. Under no circumstances shall this website, www.fromvalerieskitchen, and/or the author,Valerie Brunmeier, be responsible for any loss or damage resulting for your reliance on the given nutritional information. You are solely responsible for ensuring that any nutritional information provided is accurate, complete, and useful.

I am not a certified nutritionist and make no claims to the contrary. Each individual’s dietary needs and restrictions are unique to the individual. I don’t use calculations in my everyday meals and enjoy a variety of convenience foods, produce, etc.

This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. Statements within this site have not been evaluated or approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This website is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Content should not be considered a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment.

Affiliate and Sponsored Work

Valerie’s Kitchen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Valerie’s Kitchen participates in the rewardStyle affiliate program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to a variety of affiliated sites. Please visit Amazon and rewardStyle for their specific site privacy and cookie policies.

Valerie’s Kitchen will from time to time, work with different companies as an affiliate and affiliate links may appear in my posts. I will receive a small percentage of the sale if you choose to make a purchase after clicking through from one of these affiliate product links. All posts containing affiliate links or those that are sponsored or paid will be identified as such.

From time to time, this blog will work with various brands and/or corporate sponsors and may receive some sort of compensation in the form of cash, products, travel expenses, etc. in return for recipe creation, product review, promotion, and opinions on various other topics. The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made on this blog. The views and opinions expressed on Valerie’s Kitchen are purely my own.