Affiliate links and ads keep the lights on around here. We may receive compensation and/or commissions from partnerships with certain companies.
Always consult with a financial professional like investment advisor and/or accountant for specific financial advice. All information provided on this site is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional financial advice on your case.
By using the site beyond May 25th, 2018 you are agreeing to all of the following policies and beyond including GDPR for EU users.
Table of Contents
Private Policy
The Frugal Gene does not collect any personal information about its visitors except standard traffic logs automatically generated by the web server, and anything deliberately left as a comment by the visitors. I will never sell or voluntarily disclose personal information or email addresses.
1. Email Addresses
If you signed up via the subscription form to receive emails from us, then we will have your email address. Other than the name provided and email address, we do not retain any other information about the individuals on our email subscriber list. We have no way of knowing your location from that email address.
Users can unsubscribe from our mailing list at any time using the unsubscribe link up at the top in every email. Our servicer is Mailchimp. We store your name and email address for purposes of delivering such communications. Please refer to Mailchimp’s privacy policy for further information.
Except when required by law, we will not sell, distribute, or reveal your email addresses or other personal information without your consent; however, we may disclose or transfer personal information collected through the Website to third parties who acquire all or a portion of our business, which may be the result of a merger, consolidation, or purchase of all or a portion of our assets, or in connection with any bankruptcy or reorganization proceeding brought by or against us.
2. Comments
When visitors leave comments on the website we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
3. Contact Forms
When visitors to the website utilize our contact form, a name, email address, subject line, and message are used to create an email which is sent to the administrator of this website. Other than the created email, the data is not recorded in any other way.
4. Cookies
If you leave a comment on our 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.
5. Embedded Content From Other Websites
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 tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
6. We use this analytics data (Google) to learn more about our readers and what kind of content they enjoy.
Data
Other than Google Analytics and all public blog comments (also discussed above), we do not share your data with anyone. If this policy ever changes, it will be reflected in this document.
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.
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.
We may use the information collected in the following ways:
To operate and maintain the Website;
To create your account, identify you as a user of the Website, and customize the Website for your account;
To send you promotional information, such as newsletters. Each email promotion will provide information on how to opt-out of future mailings;
To send you administrative communications, such as administrative emails, confirmation emails, technical notices, updates on policies, or security alerts;
To respond to your comments or inquiries;
To provide you with user support;
To track and measure advertising on the Website;
To protect, investigate, and deter against the unauthorized or illegal activity.
Publically Visible Information
If you create a user profile on the Website or leave a comment, certain information may be publicly visible. To create a user profile, you must choose a username and password and input your email address for profile confirmation. Your email address will never be available publicly. At your option, you may also add an avatar, a profile description, and a link to your website.
You may also choose to link your Facebook, Instagram, and Google Account.
Users may see your username, avatar, profile description and website information.
Disclaimer
Information presented on The Frugal Gene website is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional financial advice. The information contained on the site was obtained from sources believed to be reliable, however, I cannot represent that it is accurate, complete or that it will remain up-to-date. You should seek out a trusted financial professional before making any financial decisions. We do not assume any liability with regard to financial results based on the use of the information provided here. Furthermore, advertisers, commenters, and linked sites are solely responsible for their views and content – and do not necessarily represent the views of us or our members.
Affiliate Disclaimer
My site has affiliate links. What it means is that I could receive a small commission if you click on a link of the product or service that I recommend but at no additional cost to you. It also means that it is a product or service that I am personally using that I feel you would find value in. Your information is never shared as I value you as a reader and a debt free community member.
The Frugal Gene may have financial relationships with some of the merchants mentioned on the site and may be compensated by companies mentioned through advertising, affiliate programs, or otherwise. The Frugal Gene may be compensated if you choose to click on one of the links located throughout the content of this site and make a purchase. You are not obligated to click on any link or buy products that are advertised. I will never publish affiliate links for products I do not believe in.
Any references to third party products, rates, or websites are subject to change without notice. Please do the appropriate research before participating in any third party offers.
Links to Other Web Sites
Our website does contain links to affiliate and other websites. The Frugal Gene does not claim nor accept responsibility for any privacy policies, practices and/or procedures of other such websites. Therefore, I recommend all users and visitors to be aware when they leave to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. The aforementioned Privacy Policy agreement applies only and solely to the information collected by our website.
Ads
Other third-party companies which place advertising on our site may collect information about you when you view or click on their advertising through the use of their cookies or other tracking technologies, which may include delivering targeted advertisements and marketing messages based upon the third party websites that you visit, or other purposes. We cannot control this collection of information and are not responsible for the privacy policies and data collection, use and disclosure practices of these third party advertisers.
Display Ads
We may use third-party advertising companies to serve content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use cookies, as noted above.
Retargeting Ads
From time to time, the Website may engage in remarketing efforts with third-party companies, such as Google, Facebook, or Instagram, in order to market the Website. These companies use cookies to serve ads based on someone’s past visits to the Website.
Affiliate Program Participation
The Website may engage in affiliate marketing, which is done by embedding tracking links into the Website. If you click on a link for an affiliate partnership, a cookie will be placed on your browser to track any sales for purposes of commissions.
The Frugal Gene is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and links to Amazon.com. As part of this Amazon Associates program, the Website will post customized links, provided by Amazon, to track the referrals to their website. This program utilizes cookies to track visits for the purposes of assigning commission on these sales.
Acceptance of Terms
Through the use of this website, you are hereby accepting the terms and conditions stipulated in the aforementioned Privacy Policy agreement. If you are not in agreement with our terms and conditions, then you should refrain from further use of our sites. In addition, your continued use of our website following the posting of any updates or changes to our terms and conditions shall mean that you are in agreement and acceptance of such changes.
Newsletters
On the Website, you may subscribe to our newsletter, which may be used for advertising purposes. All newsletters sent may contain tracking pixels. The pixel is embedded in emails and allows an analysis of the success of online marketing campaigns. Because of these tracking pixels, we may see if and when you open an email and which links within the email you click. Also, this allows the Website to adapt the content of future newsletters to the interests of the user. This behavior will not be passed on to third parties.
Rights Related to Personal Information
Opt-out – You may opt-out of future email communications by following the unsubscribe links in our emails.
Access – You may access the personal information we have about you by submitting a request.
Amend – You may contact us to amend or update your personal information.
Forget – In certain situations, you may request that we erase or forget your personal data. To do so, please submit a request.
Please note that we may need to retain certain information for recordkeeping purposes or to complete transactions, or when required by law.
At no time should you submit sensitive personal information to the Website. This includes your social security number, information regarding race or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, health information, criminal background, or trade union memberships. If you elect to submit such information to us, it will be subject to this Privacy Policy.
Minor Information
The Website does not knowingly collect any personally identifiable information from children under the age of 16. If a parent or guardian believes that the Website has personally identifiable information of a child under the age of 16 in its database, please contact us immediately and we will use our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.
Mediavine Programmatic Advertising
The Website uses Mediavine to manage all third-party advertising on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website. The cookie may collect information relating to your use of the Website, information about your device such as the device’s IP address and browser type, demographic data and, if you arrived at the Website via a link from a third-party site, the URL of the linking page.
First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The “help” feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/.
Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site.
The Website may collect IP addresses and location information to serve personalized ads and pass it to Mediavine. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit https://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp. You may also visit https://optout.aboutads.info/#/ and https://optout.networkadvertising.org/# to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at https://www.aboutads.info/appchoices to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.
Mediavine partners with the following data processors:
- Pubmatic. You may find Pubmatic’s privacy policy through this link. The data collected on the Website may be transferred to Pubmatic and its demand partners for interest-based advertising. Statistical information and other non-cookie technologies (such as eTags and web or browser cache) may be used by third parties on this Website. Browser settings that block cookies may have no effect on these technologies, but you may clear your cache to delete such trackers. Data collected from a particular browser or device may be used with another computer or device that is linked to the browser or device on which such data was collected.
- Criteo. You may find Criteo’s privacy policy through this link. The data collected on the Website may be transferred to Criteo and its demand partners for interest-based advertising. Criteo may collect, access, and use non-identifying data to improve the Criteo Technology and other Criteo products, programs, and/or services. This non-identifying data may include on-site user behavior and user/page content data, URLs, statistics, or internal search queries. The non-identifying data are collected through the ad call and stored with a Criteo cookie for a maximum period of 13 months.
- Pulsepoint. You may find Pulsepoint’s privacy policy through this link.
- LiveRamp. You may find LiveRamp’s privacy policy through this link. When you use the Website, we share information that we may collect from you, such as your email (in hashed, de-identified form), IP address or information about your browser or operating system, with LiveRamp Inc, and its group companies (‘LiveRamp’). LiveRamp may use a cookie on your browser and match your shared information to their on- and offline marketing databases and those of its advertising partners to create a link between your browser and information in those other databases. This link may be shared by our partners globally for the purpose of enabling interest-based content or advertising throughout your online experience (e.g. cross device, web, email, in-app, etc.) by third parties unaffiliated with our website. These third parties may in turn link further demographic or interest-based information to your browser. To opt out of LiveRamp’s targeted advertising, please go here: https://liveramp.com/opt_out/
- RhythmOne. You may view RhythmOne’s privacy policy through this link. RhythmOne uses cookies and similar tracking technologies (such as mobile device identifiers and digital fingerprinting) to provide its services. RhythmOne may use aggregated information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other Websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please visit the following webpage: https://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.
- District M. You may find District M’s privacy policy through this link.
- YieldMo. You may find YieldMo’s privacy policy through this link. If you want to opt out of receiving interest based ads from Yieldmo or exercise your right under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) to opt-out of the sale of your personal information, you may do so through this link.
- The Rubicon Project. You may find Rubicon’s privacy policy through this link. If you want to opt out of receiving interest based ads from Rubicon or exercise your right under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) to opt-out of the sale of your personal information, you may do so through this link. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page.
- Amazon Publisher Services. You may find Amazon Publisher Services’ privacy policy through this link.
- AppNexus. You may find the AppNexus privacy policy through this link.
- OpenX. You may find OpenX’s privacy policy through this link.
- Verizon Media formerly known as Oath. You may find Verizon Media’s privacy policy through this link. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page to opt-out of the use of cookies for interest-based advertising.
- TripleLift. You may find TripleLift’s privacy policy through this link. To opt out of receiving interest-based advertising (including retargeting) from TripleLift’s services through the use of cookies in your current browser and for more information on what it means to opt-out, please go to www.triplelift.com/consumer-opt-out.
- Index Exchange. You may find Index Exchange’s privacy policy through this link. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page to opt-out of the use of cookies for interest-based advertising.
- Sovrn. You may find Sovrn’s privacy policy through this link.
- GumGum. You may find GumGum’s privacy policy through this link. GumGum may (i) use place and use cookies on end users’ browsers or use web beacons to collect information about end users who visit such Publisher Websites and (ii) link such collected end user information to other end user information provided by third parties in order to deliver targeted Advertisements to such end users.
- Digital Remedy. You may find Digital Remedy’s privacy policy through this link.
- MediaGrid. You may find MediaGrid’s privacy policy through this link. MediaGrid may collect and store information about end-user interactions with this website through cookies, advertising IDS, pixels and server-to-server connections. MediaGrid was receive the following information: the page an End-User has requested and the referring/exit pages; Timestamp information (i.e., the date and time the End-User has visited the page); IP address; mobile device identifier; device model; device operating system; browser type; carrier; gender; age; geolocation (including GPS coordinates); clickstream data; cookie information; first-party identifiers’; and hashed email addresses; demographic and inferred interest information; and post-conversion data (from both online and offline behaviour). Some of this data is gathered from this website and others is gathered from advertisers. MediaGrid uses this data to provide its services. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page to opt-out of the use of cookies for interest-based advertising or review their privacy policy for more information.
- RevContent – You may find RevContent’s privacy policy through this link. RevContent may collect information about your browser or device, including browser type, IP Address, device type, user agent string, and operating system. RevContent also collects information about the websites you visit through their services, such as date and time of access and specific pages accessed and the content and ads you click on. You may opt-out of any personalization track by opting-out of RevContent’s data collection.
- Centro, Inc. – You may find Centro’s privacy policy through this link. You may find opt-out information for Centro’s services through the privacy policy link.
- 33Across, Inc. – You may find 33Across’s privacy policy through this link. To opt-out of personalized advertising, please visit https://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1.
- Conversant. LLC – You may find Conversant’s privacy policy through this link. Conversant uses information that does not directly identify you, such as information about your browser type, time and date of visit, your browsing or transaction activity, the subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over, and a unique identifier (such as a cookie string, or a unique advertising identifier provided by your mobile device) during your visits to this and other websites and apps in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. Conversant may use technologies such as cookies and other tracking technologies to collect this information. To learn more about interest-based advertising, or to opt-out, you can visit www.youronlinechoices.eu or https://www.networkadvertising.org/.
Last updated: Jul 03, 2020