Privacy Policy – Your data and what we do with it

by MaddOx

Who we are

FULLSYNC is a pretty straightforward concept. Simply put, we’ve all met great people through gaming and we want to do what we can to continue that. One step which will help us toward achieving our goal is by making sure we maintain the trust and confidence of all you lovely people who come to visit us.

So, whether it be for the latest gaming/tech news and reviews or just pictures of Josh’s cats, you can rest assured that we won’t be selling, renting or trading any of your details we hold with other companies and businesses for marketing purposes.

That said, don’t just take our word for it, check our privacy policy out so you know what we do do (pause for immature giggles) with your information, we’ve all the details you could ever need below. And best of all, we’ve written it in plain and simple English so as not to confuse ourselves or anyone else.

Types of data we collect

Cookies (we prefer Jaffa Cakes)

What are they?

You may have heard of cookies but might not be so sure what they are. Well, cookies are small data files which are placed on your computer or other devices (such as smartphones or tablets) as you browse this and other websites.

They are used to ‘remember’ when your computer or device accesses our website. Cookies are essential for the effective operation of our website and are also used to tailor the products and services advertised to you, both on our website and elsewhere.

Why do we collect cookies and what information do they store?

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to save 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.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Cookie Monster struggling with Privacy Policy
Don’t get confused like Cookie Monster

Analytics and Adsense

We use Google Analytics to analyse the use of our website. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website so we can find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site.

This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website. Google’s privacy policy is available at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/

We also publish Google AdSense interest-based advertisements on our website. These are tailored by Google to reflect your interests. To determine your interests, Google will track your behaviour on our website and on other websites across the web using cookies.

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 AdSense partner network cookie using those settings.

However, these opt-out mechanisms themselves use cookies, and if you clear the cookies from your browser your opt-out will not be maintained. To ensure that an opt-out is maintained in respect of a particular browser, you may wish to consider using the Google browser plug-ins available at https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996

Mailing lists

Whilst we do not have an official newsletter that we send out, you are able to sign up for website notifications courtesy of a plugin we use designed by Jetpack. All you have to do to sign-up is enter your email in the appropriate section on our website. You will then be forwarded notifications for any content we post to our website, as and when it goes live.

Emails are the only information needed to sign up for this service, and details are not held by ourselves but by Jetpack, whose Privacy Policy you can read here: https://jetpack.com/support/subscriptions/#privacy

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site 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.

An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Contact forms

If you want to contact our site, you can do so by email or via our embedded contact form. This will save details you enter such as your name, email address and your message. We use these details so we can respond to any queries sent to us.

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 tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Third parties

FULLSYNC will only pass information to Third Parties in the instance of the site running a giveaway where the Third Party is supplying the prize directly to a winner after they have been drawn. The winner of the competition will be notified to request the required information to be sent so it can be arranged for their prize to be dispatched.

Details will be passed via email through secure servers, and a request made to be kept up to date with prize tracking information. Once delivery has been confirmed, all personal information stored will be deleted.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

Under GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations), you have the right to access and amend any of your personal data that we hold. It is yours after all so why shouldn’t you.

Therefore, if you wish to view, amend, or delete the personal information that we hold. Email your request to our data protection officer Laurence Stark at n1lgames@fullsync.co.uk.

Privacy Policy Cartoon
Not sure this is what he had in mind when they were told to keep their information Safe

Changes to this Privacy Notice

This privacy policy will be reviewed on a yearly basis, with the next review date being the 25/05/2018. The policy may also be reviewed and adjusted at any other time should we see fit to ensure we continue to comply with GDPR.

Advertised Features and Affiliate Links

Like most businesses, we have bills to pay and although we do have adverts on our website to generate revenue, FULLSYNC will also occasionally post Advertised Features and use Affiliate Links.

These are just a couple of simple marketing strategies employed by many marketing and PR firms to help increase brand awareness and sales for businesses. In return, we receive payment or commission which allows us to ensure we can keep running the website without losing money.

Anything that is made then gets reinvested into FULLSYNC to cover things like hosting, travel to events, and of course, to help purchase top prizes for our giveaways.

In case you were curious and wanted more information on these Advertised Features and Affiliate Links, we’ve dropped a few lines below.

Advertised Features

Advertised Features are articles that we have received payment for, in return for posting them on our website. You may also have heard of these posts as being ‘collaborative’ or ‘sponsored’ posts on other websites, but they are essentially advertisements, and as you know with us, we like to be openly honest and transparent about how we operate.

Although some of these articles will be written by us, the majority are not, but we do receive full editorial control over them. What makes them an advertisement is that they will contain links to external websites by brands advertising products or services.

Where this is the case, we will ensure that the post is clearly marked and categorised as an Advertised Feature.

The good news is, there is no data collected as part of these Advertised Features, so even if you choose to view these articles, your details are kept safe. Unless you decide to hand them over yourself anyway.

Affiliate Links

Affiliate links are just as they sound. They’re links affiliated between two parties. In the case of FULLSYNC this would usually represent a partnership between ourselves and another company.

By using these links, anything purchased through them will earn us some commission depending on sales. By no means are you required to use them, but if you do so it helps us out. You will see them for sites like Amazon, Gearbest and CDKeys.

Where affiliate links are used, we’ll be sure to disclose it at the bottom of the page, although the links themselves may be scattered throughout. However, we will keep them as unobtrusive as possible because we don’t want to ruin your experience on our site.