Privacy Policy

You Go Ask! (“us”, “we” or “our”) operates the yougoask.com website. We have a few fundamental principles about your privacy:

• Be thoughtful about the personal information we ask for and collect through the operation of our services.
• Store personal information for only as long as we have a reason to keep it.
• Make it simple for you to request we permanently delete any of your personal information we have collected.
• Aim for full transparency on how we gather, use, and share your information.

Below is our Privacy Policy, which incorporates and clarifies these principles.

Definitions

Services

yougoask.com website and the You Go Ask! podcast.

Personal Data

Identifiable information about an individual, such as a name or email address.

Usage Data

Information about the use of our Services, collected automatically by a Service, such as a page visit on this website.

We try to only use aggregated, anonymized Usage Data that is not individually identifiable.

Summary

• Visits to yougoask.com: We do not collect any Personal Data from general visitors. Information stored by our website in your browser is only used locally for improved functionality (e.g., to remember your preferences). Usage Data is anonymized and collected by a privacy-friendly analytics service, so we may know how our website is being used (e.g., page views).
• Listening to the podcast: When you interact with yougoask.com’s web player, the audio file is downloaded from a podcast service’s servers. They provide us listener statistics (e.g., downloads), aggregated with data from other platforms that host the podcast.
• Submitting questions to the podcast: Visitors may submit questions together with their child through the form on our Ask page. We only ask for Personal Data needed for the show and for verifying the parent or guardian’s consent. We use an encrypted form from our form service, so the submitted Personal Data and audio recording is only viewable by us.
• Supporting us: We link to our Buy Me a Coffee page for donations. They share some Personal Data to us, per their policies, if you choose to share it with us. We regularly publish the list of our supporters’ names in our podcast and elsewhere. Note that you can choose to donate anonymously.

Information we collect and use

We only collect your Personal Data if we have a reason to do so – to provide our Services, to communicate with you, or to make our Services better.

Personal Data you provide to us

We collect Personal Data that you provide directly, such as when you submit a form on yougoask.com (e.g., on our Ask page) and when you communicate with us by email or other platforms.

Usage Data we collect automatically

Some Usage Data is automatically collected by our Services:

• Aggregated statistics about our Services, such as activities (e.g., page views) and device information (e.g., screen sizes, operating systems).
• Approximate user locations from devices’ IP addresses, aggregated to geographic regions.

Information from other sources

We may also receive information about you from other sources. For example:

• Payment and contact information if you support our Buy Me a Coffee page. We receive information per their policies about your donation (but not your payment information) and Personal Data you share unless you donate anonymously.

Note about cookies and locally-stored data

A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides back to the website each time the visitor returns. Similar types of browser storage may be used without automatically transmitting information to the website.

yougoask.com does not use cookies. We only store information for functional purposes, such as letting your browser save and restore your preferences. This information is not sent to us or any third parties.

Children’s Privacy

You Go Ask! is a podcast where we answer questions from children, so Personal Data is collected for that purpose through the form on our Ask page. We do our best to handle this Personal Data in accordance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule ("COPPA"). Questions must be submitted with consent from the child’s parent or guardian, with the following Personal Data:

• Parent’s or guardian’s name
• Parent’s or guardian’s contact information (email address and/or telephone number)
• Child’s first name
• Child’s age
• Child’s home town and state

After receiving a submission, we use the contact information to request confirmation of the parent’s consent. If the parent does not respond within a reasonable time, if the parent retracts their consent, or if the form does not include contact information, we promptly delete the submitted form data.

We only use the child’s recording and information with the parent’s explicit confirmation, and only for the purposes of answering the child’s question on the show. After the show is recorded, we use the contact information to inform the parent and then delete the form data.

For all other use of our Services, we do not knowingly collect Personal Data from those under 18. Anonymized Usage Data does not differentiate between users of different ages. Children under the age of 18 must obtain permission from a parent or guardian before using our Services.

How and why we use information

Purposes for using information

We use our collected information for various purposes:

• To provide our Services
• To ensure quality and improve our Services
• To measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our marketing
• To protect our Services, our users, and the public (e.g., by detecting security incidents; fighting spam; complying with our legal obligations)
• To fix problems with our Services
• To communicate with you, when requested

Legal bases for collecting Personal Data

A note here for those in the European Union about our legal grounds for processing Personal Data about you under EU data protection laws. Our use of your Personal Data is based on the grounds that:

1. You have given us permission to do so; or
2. To fulfill our commitments to you; or
3. For compliance with a legal obligation; or
4. We have a legitimate interest.

How we share your information

We do not sell your Personal Data to third parties, for marketing or any other purposes.

We share information about you in limited circumstances, and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy.

Service providers

Third-party vendors may need your information to facilitate our Services or provide their services to you, including:

• A form service so you can provide information to us. Their forms are embedded into our site, so your information is sent directly to their servers for processing and storage. We use their encrypted forms service to keep your information private, even from the service.
• Our podcast hosting provider collects information when you connect to its servers to download audio files through our website. They provide us with aggregated Usage Data statistics.
• Analytics services to help us understand and enhance our Services. Usage Data on yougoask.com is anonymized and collected by a service whichrespects users’ privacy and complies with privacy regulations (see here for an explanation on how that works).
• Communications services such our email provider if you contact us directly.

Legal requirements

We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.

Other

• With your consent or at your direction.
• For business transfers in connection with any merger, sale, or acquisition of our business by another company, or in the event that You Go Ask! goes out of business or enters bankruptcy. This Privacy Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use it, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
• Aggregated or de-identified information that can no longer reasonably be used to identify you may be shared (e.g., we may publish aggregate statistics about the use of our Services).

Information you share publicly

Information that you provide us to make public is disclosed publicly (e.g., a question submitted for our podcast). Your public posts or comments in relation to You Go Ask! on other platforms, such as social media, are all available to others. Please keep this in mind when deciding what you would like to share publicly.

How long we keep information

We generally discard Personal Data about you when it’s no longer needed for the purposes for which we collect and use it, and we’re not legally required to keep it.

Security

While no online service is 100% secure, we strive to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so.

Choices

You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:

• Limit the Personal Data that you provide: You can choose not to submit information to our forms. If you donate to support us, you may do so anonymously.
• Update your Personal Data: You may update your shared Personal Data by emailing us at hello@yougoask.com.

Your rights

When using our Services and submitting Personal Data to us, some parts of the world have privacy laws regarding your personal information. You should make yourself aware of the rights your have in your region. Depending on your circumstances, you may have some or all of the following rights:

• Request access, correction or deletion of your Personal Data.
• Object to our use and processing of your Personal Data.
• Request that we limit our use and processing of your Personal Data.
• Request portability of your Personal Data.
• Withdraw consent for our use of your Personal Data.
• Not receive discriminatory treatment for exercising your rights.

You may also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority.

Categories of personal information

Laws in some regions require information about the categories of personal information we collect and share, where we get that personal information, and how and why we use it (if you are a California resident, please note that this is the Notice at Collection we are required to provide you under California law).

In the last 12 months, we collected the following categories of personal information, depending on the Services used:

• Identifiers (like your name, contact information, and device and online identifiers).
• Internet or other electronic network activity information (such as your usage of our Services).
• Geolocation data (such as your location based on your IP address).
• Inferences we make (such as likelihood of retention or attrition).

You can find more details about what we collect and sources of that information in the Information we collect and use section above. We collect personal information for the purposes described in the How and why we use information section. We share this information with the categories of third parties described in the How we share your information section. We retain this information for the length of time described in our How long we keep information section.

Links to other websites

Our Services may contain links to other websites, which are not under our control and are not subject to this Privacy Policy. They likely have their own policies. We have no responsibility for their content, policies, or practices.

How to reach us

If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact us about any of the rights mentioned in the Your rights section, please contact us via email.

When you contact us about your rights, we’ll need to verify that you are the right person before we disclose or delete anything (e.g., we will need you to contact us from the email address associated with your Personal Data). You can also designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf by giving us written authorization. We may still require you to verify your identity with us.

Creative Commons Sharealike license

This Privacy Policy is available under a Creative Commons Sharealike license. It is modified from WordPress.com’s open-sourced legal documents, shared under the same license.

You’re more than welcome to copy it, adapt it, and repurpose it for your own use. Just make sure to revise the language so that your policy reflects your actual practices.

Disclaimer – This is not legal advice. Before you use this document (as-is or with modifications), please consult your lawyer.

Privacy Policy changes

We may change our Privacy Policy from time to time. The “effective date” at the top of this policy will be updated to notify you of significant revisions. Your further use of the Services after a change will be subject to the updated policy.