Privacy Policy

1 – INTRODUCTION

Kindly go through this privacy policy carefully to understand the personal information we collect. If the Policy has any point on which you disagree, a request is not to utilize our applications and services or any other website linked to our Policy. Therefore, by using and accessing this website and its services, you agree to this Privacy Policy. Policy-changes are always viable and will be posted on the website. We will also try various methods of informing you and seeking your explicit consent with the terms and conditions that will be added. You will have to keep a check over our privacy policy to keep your account operative under every periodic change or update.

1.1 How Do We Collect Information?

Most of the information is directly provided by the user himself through your account registration or while submitting a review on the website. Some information is collected under technical processes like your IP address. 

1.2 How Do We Use the Information Collected?

The purpose of the personal information collected is to provide advanced security and quality services. It also serves other purposes such as fraud prevention, direct contact between two parties, digital marketing services, and ensuring the marketplace’s integrity.

To understand how the information provided by the writers is used, please continue under the line.

We will provide our services to you, including site hosting and an active account to operate and use the data for optimization and analysis. Other usages are to:

  • Identify you as a registered account holder whenever you login or re-visit the website.
  • Provide and improve our website and services.
  • Send you our newsletter if subscribed.
  • Adhere with various requirements and legal policies relevant in the industry; set on the requests of governmental and public authorities.
  • Authenticate that the reviews are original
  • Request you for writing more reviews
  • Inform the company that you reviewed and product or some service, and you utilized the Dodbuzz platform to review the overall experience.
  • Notify you if your review earns a five-star rating or has had bad feedback.
  • Respond to any query in your mind and provide satist=factory customer services.
  • Immediately contact you if your content gets flagged by some company or any other user. We might ask for documentation to check the legitimacy of the write-up.
  • Facilitate the user with a social sharing function. It gives the choice to members of our network; they can freely connect with any specific Dodbuzz user On any social media of choice with the data provided to us.
  • Highlight which members of a social media are also a user of our platform, which boosts confidence among other community members. It also enhances the quality of reviews and user-experience on the website.t
  • Implement our terms and condition
  • Protect the operations of the company and its affiliates by prioritizing privacy, rights, and safety.
  • Incorporate audits, data monitoring, fraud monitoring, and develop upgraded services & products. Other internal purposes include improving the website, recognizing trends, and determining the effectiveness of the promotional campaign responsible for deepening the company’s business activities.

We also utilize the information you provide in a few specific ways to notify and ask for explicit approval.

1.3 Why We Collect Information 

The purpose of collecting your personal data is to:

  • Comply with various legal obligations to operate smoothly in the industry, within set legal acts.
  • Establish, defense, or exercise legal claims, in necessary cases.
  • Act upon our agreement with you.
  • Practice legitimate industry interests, including our services or any thirds party interests that do not override any user’s rights and interests.

A few of the reasons for the process of data collection overlap, and we are bound to collect that information. However, in certain situations where you readily give consent to process your personal data, you can easily mail us revoke the permission at any time. For example- If you subscribe to our newsletter, you can easily regulate the subscription and unsubscribe the newsletter. Please be aware that your personal data is processed in cases justified in the points above, but you have all the rights as a user.

When you create a review or use the Dodbuzz website, you share some personal data with us. This personal data is further processed to achieve multiple business efficiency targets. Please read this document carefully to understand what information we collect, how we use it, and which rights you have regarding personal data protection.

2. Master data

Whenever a profile is created on the website, the website auto-generates a personal account (Dodbuzz Account) for the user. This process stores personal information about the account holder, and the data collected are:”

  • username (public data),
  • strongly encrypted passcode,
  • email address, and
  • Geo-location and country (country data is public).

This information is essential for creating a properly functional account that helps post the reviews on the website.

Further, user can choose to include some additional information on the profiles. You can add a name, photo, gender, profile description, language, and city. All this extra data you put on your profile will also be publicly visible.

At Dodbuzz displays high-quality write-ups and links them to its profile to improve visitors on the profile. It also promotes various other reviews of the same user. It is always up to the user to create an anonymous profile, which depends upon the kind of data shared- like a username.

2.1 Information in reviews and ratings

When a new review about some company is written, we collected the following user info and put it in the ratings and reviews.

  • The name of the company reviewed
  • The title and content of the write-up
  • The category of sale or service experience that the review is talking about (definition of “Service Experience” in our Guidelines For Review)
  • Rating of your Service Experience with the company (1-5 stars)
  • Your product rating (1-5 stars)
  • Location of your Service Experience
  • The publishing date of the review, if updated, the date of editing content
  • An order id or reference number, in case it is provided by the writer or the company

If the company asks for documentation to verify the Service Experience, we invite you not to share any sensitive information or documents with, either concerned to others or yourself. We only process the asked data for the purpose(s) stated in our request.

2.2 Information about views, likes, and how useful your review is not for writers

When people find a review useful, they “like” what you wrote on our website, we collect this information. We also collect data such as how many people read your review and how many shared it with others. We don’t track the traffic generated by the identities not logged in and read your reviews. In case you “like” other writers’ reviews, we will manage to collect that piece of information too. Websites are designed with such an algorithm that they are reluctant to track down most of the activities.

2.3 Notifications to Us

If you happen to pass by any write-up/review that you believe violates the User Guidelines offered by us, you are free to notify us. The users provide notification to us with information like a description over the specific review. The data thus obtained includes:

  • The review you notified us about
  • The date of submission of the report
  • The reason why you think it violates set guidelines, and similar.

2.4 Information from other services, including social networks like Facebook

Your Dodbuzz profile comes with the feature of linking your account with any of your social profiles like Facebook and instagram (“Social Networks”). When users switch to this option, the platform automatically collects various data depending on the privacy settings’ status on the Social Networking Sites. The information made public on the platform is first to be stored, and basic data about you is collected by us viz:

  • Name and/or username on the platform
  • Registered email address
  • Profile photo
  • Your social connections

Whenever you request to connect the social media profile with your Dodbuzz profile, you will be notified about the data that we will collect. You will receive an authorization window link to carry out the process. 

Moreover, it depends on the user on how long he wants to connect the two profiles. You can easily disconnect both profiles through your dodbuzz account. Immediately after this action, Dodbuzz will delete your unique Social Network ID. It will also revoke itself from your social media ID. However, the profile picture from Facebook or instagram will continue on your Dodbuzz profile until changed separately.

3.  Cookies

Cookies are used to identify your device and computer rather than an individual user. They are also critical for various other purposes. Our websites use cookies.

Whenever the site is visited, we register the computer’s browser settings and IP address. Browser settings include the kind of browser used to visit the website, time-line, and browser language.

3.1 Settings and Location

We register your computer’s IP address whenever you visit the website. This IP address is a unique numerical identification code for your device used to browse our website’s reviews.

Browser settings may include the kind of browser being used, its language, and time-zone. This information is collected to trace back the computer or device used in case of unlawful actions or other misuses linked to our website. We also use this IP address feature to locate you at the approximate city-level so that we can understand which set of Terms and Conditions are applied to you depending on your global location.

4. Newsletters and digest emails

When you subscribe to our newsletters or similar email services, we store your email address and newsletter preferences. If the user wants to quit the newsletter or any other email subscription, he can unsubscribe in easy steps. Log into your account, go to the email settings, and switch to unsubscribe. In case you cannot stop receiving our newsletters, contact us at admin@dodbuzz{dot}com.

You have the right to object to how we process your personal data or ask us to restrict the processing. Please see below, at 12, for more details.

If you would like more information about our legal basis for processing your personal data, please contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO) – see 14 below.

5. Disclosure of personal data

Personal information can float on the platform in different ways; however, there is a limit to the disclosure of a specific profile. Websites and online platforms have a custom user interface, which makes them very different from each other. Personal settings and other general security settings must always be upgraded while using such platforms and giving permissions.

5.1 Disclosure of personal data on the website

Dodbuzz is an open review platform, and its purpose is to share your reviews on this website. This mechanism helps readers interested in a product or a company to learn from your experiences. When a review is written, we disclose specific data about the writer, mainly:

  • Your username
  • Various 
  • reviews you’ve written
  • Your location or country

5.2 Other information you made public like your Social Networks

If you want to use a pseudonym to develop as a writer on Dodbuzz, never select your real name as the username. It will reveal your identity in part or full. It depends on the level of information that the user provides, which decides if your profile will be anonymous or not.

Be cautious and exercise care while deciding which information to make available for disclosure on the website.

5.3 Master Data and other information: In the event of any activity such as review writing or Log-in, username, country, and other additional information made available by you will be visible on the website. The company you write about can also be informed about the review you wrote. To delimit the visibility, take action via Account Settings.

5.4 Geo-location: If you write a review, we use your device’s IP address to estimate your location to the nearest state. It comes under the automatic mechanism of the world wide web. This data is available for other users of the website too.

Reviews you found useful: When you find valuable reviews yourself and appreciate the work by “liking” it, other users on Dodbuzz can see the list of reviews you like.

5.5 Social Networks:  When you connect your account to a social media network, the information collected includes your name, your profile photo, date of birth, and country you come from. This information are subject to your privacy settings on social media, so the level of information you make available on Facebook will be used to identify you on the website. Other users will also be able to locate the reviews that you’ve published. 

If you chose to preserve your real identity by using a pseudonym as your Dodbuzz username, be cautious that connecting to Social Network(s) can lead to a different result. It can reveal your real identity to the viewers on the website and dissolve the developmental pseudonym. Further, if some of your social contacts are also user of Dodbuzz, we tend to display these “Connection” on the websites only to you. No other user of Dodbuzz can see your Social Network’s Connections other than you.

5.6 Disclosure on services to which you connect your profile

In case you opt to connect your Dodbuzz account to any preferred Social Networking profile, data compiled by the company about your use of the services on our website, reviews, and other information provided by you will be displayed and shared with the Connections. Unless you choose to change your privacy settings on the Social Network, data like ‘the number of reviews you wrote’ will exist in Connections.

5.7 Disclosure to other services, websites, and companies

To increase the potential growth in audience for your reviews on the website, we have developed a sustainable structure within the industry’s parameters. Dodbuzz’s main objective is to enhance the exposure and availability of our neat and honest reviews. Therefore, we permit other feature reviews that were created on this website.

There are various sections of third-party organizations and services allowed to display your reviews, including your public user profile. These mainly include:

  • Search engines, viz. Google and Bing
  • Companies that are reviewed on Dodbuzz
  • Companies that invite you to review their Service/Product
  • Business and Consumer, which include shopping guides, cost comparison websites, etc.
  • Application associates and platforms, such as WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, & Prestashop.
  • In Dodbuzz’s assessment, various other websites could be appropriate for users to use our reviews.
  • Facebook, if your review finds its way to the Social Network, this means that the following information is disclosed:
  • Your review(s), (see 1.2, above)
  • Your username, country (location), and the supplementary statistics you like to put into your profile. Some examples are- your city, a profile description, gender, name, photo, and language.

5.8 A few points to be noted:

Suppose a company sends you a request to write a review about their products via our invitation services, and you create a review on Dodbuzz in response to the invitation. Then, the company that invited you to write the review will be able to use and link your review with the invitation.

When we need to check your review’s legitimacy, we contact you and demand the necessary documentation to verify that you have had a service or buying experience with the company you reviewed. Therefore, we highly recommended that you store that documentation of proof of your buying or service experience for 12 months from the day of review. You must avoid sending critically personal documentations.

We never share the documentation that you send to us with the company you reviewed. Nonetheless, if we are provided with some reference number or order id, we may circulate that to the company. Else, you may ask us not to.

6. Other disclosures

Apart from the above-listed, we also reveal your personal information to the below-mentioned parties under different conditions:

  • To permit service providers, consultants, and third-party vendors to carry out service on our behalf.
  • To companies and DodBuzz subsidiaries. 
  • To adhere to the laws, legal process claims, and requests from government and public authorities.
  • To comply with the government authorities and regulatory bodies concerning the case referrals or investigations.
  • To third-party enforcement entities under USER GUIDELINES, TERMS, and CONDITIONS.
  • To third-parties for protects our and affiliated operations.
  • To third-parties protecting our property, safety, privacy, rights, affiliates, you, and others. 
  • To third-parties to limit damages and pursue accessible remedies.
  • To third-parties for investigating or preventing actual or suspected activities that are not limited to our website’s misuse and fraud.
  • To third-parties when acquisition sales, reorganization, assignment, merger, joint venture, dispositions, or transfer for any or all assets or business including proceedings or bankruptcy. 

7. Data controller

To make the data control simple and easy to understand for the readers, We have created two sections—information under our control and information under your authority.

7.1 Information for which we are the data controller

We are the information controllers of Master Data and other additional data that you enter to create and maintain the account. It includes but is not limited to your email address, name, location, password, and IP address. We are under the direct control of data in areas other than this, like in services, etc. And that information is disclosed earlier but to go through that piece, visit 2.3

In the European Union, Denmark’s data protection laws maneuver the terms of collecting personal data by Dodbuzz.

7.2 Information for which you are the data controller

You are the data controller for the information you opt to disclose on the website. In any case, like Social Network linking, the personal data disclosed after connecting both profiles is subject to your privacy setting on the social platforms.

8. Links to websites

You may find hyperlinked URLs that will redirect you to another website. You must understand that we never endorse the products, services, or other websites on our platform. The writer adds the hyperlinks upon submitting UGC (USER GENERATED CONTENT) to us. Therefore, we never control the content or information of the hyperlinked webpages. Consequently, we do not hold any accountability for the hyperlinked sites’ practices, policies, or third-party particulars. 

Upon disclosing our accountability on hyperlinked content or website, we urge you to read the privacy policies and other details. It is imperative because their process of collecting and handling personal data will differ from ours. You should always act smart while browsing any website or collecting any information. Again, we are not authoritative for the privacy policies, information, UGC, and other details of hyperlinked URLs, products, services, or websites.

9. Data Processing

We hire a third-party to process and handle the technical data of our website and services. The external party is reputed for the data process to secure your personal information. Upon accepting our Policy, you consent to our protocols to handle and control your data as per our guidelines. 

We have a strict and unchangeable agreement between a third-party company and DODBUZZ. The agreement states that the process and actions taken on your personal data is carried out as per our instructions. Upon accepting the protocol, you allow us to instruct the third-party data processor to handle and process your data according to our policies and the fundamental purpose of browsing our website.

We also instruct the third-party data processor company to take reasonable organizational and technical measures to protect your data from illegal activities or scammers. They ensure that your personal information is never destroyed, stolen, deteriorated, or lost to unauthorized people. Besides, your personal data sharing is a violated act under the protection laws. 

If you want to see how the third-party and our experts use and process your data, you may have to pay the data processor company. The professionals will provide you with enough evidence that your personal information is carefully handled and processed while being protected from other people. They will also illustrate the safety measures taken for your personal data. 

DODBUZZ is operated and controlled from the United States. Therefore, the policies and safety measures are not subjected to the jurisdiction or laws of other territories, countries, or states. When you browse our website from other locations than the US, you agree to process, store and transfer your personal information to the US database. 

10. Data retention

We keep the records of your accounts, reviews, and other activities performed on our services. You can procure these details by contacting us at our email address. Besides, the data will be deleted from our master Database when you delete the registered account on our website. However, it would help if you also understood that your posted reviews would also be deleted from your account. Since our database is a treasure, all details will be deleted except email address, name, and account deletion time/date. We will keep track of these details for three years.

Even after account deletion, we record your visits on our site under aggregated or anonymized form.

11 – How Long Do We Keep Personal Information 

11.1 Data under Children Under 16

Security

As mentioned earlier, we use technologically savvy administrative, technical, and organizational safety measures to safeguard your details. Therefore, we consistently audit and analyze the measures to keep them safe against vulnerabilities. As the internet never promises 100% safety, we also cannot commit a tight warranty or assurance on your personal details submitted to us. We may also send you emails when you subscribe to our newsletter. However, the emails are not always encrypted. Hence, you must never submit any confidential details with us via mails. 

You can also read the security practices to know more about the current policies and procedures. We strive to work ceaselessly to improve the security measures and keep you informed at all times.

11.2 External Links and Cookies 

We use scripts, tags, pixels, web beacons, cookies, and related technologies to personalize and improve the readers’ experience, analyze the site’s performance, provide the services, and for promotional purposes. To know more about how third-party service providers and we use cookies and control your own over them, please read the Cookie Policy.

You must understand that our site contains hyperlinked URLS to other websites. When you visit the other website from DodBuzz, any information you submit to that site and its use are not the accountability of DodBuzz and subject to our Policy. You must read the privacy policy of all websites before using them. Our Policy solely applies to your personal data collected by us. When you update content, including social networks, personal information, etc., you need to tag our site. The submission you made on other websites or social media handles will be subjected to their designated privacy policy, not ours. We never hold any accountability on other privacy policies and sites. Therefore, we never review them adequately. It implies you need to review other websites’ privacy policies before providing them with your personal information.

11.3 Updating Personal Information

We have strict security measures to guarantee that your personal data is updated and genuine. Besides, we also give you a platform to edit your personal information without involving us or any other party. When you cannot change any incorrect details in your account, you need to contact us immediately. We will ensure that the data is investigated and updated as per your requirements and our guidelines. If you wish to delete your account after that, we will store some data for potential legal purposes and legitimate business operations. 

When you submit any personal data, we will verify the details before taking any actions on it. In case you face difficulties in deleting your account from our website, please reach out to us to make an effort by adhering to our privacy policy.

You can quickly change and review your personal data by signing in to our website and going to the account settings page. 

When you delete the UGC from our site, it can reflect other websites, archived and cached pages. There are possibilities that your UGC may get stored or copied by other sites. Use and proper access of information submitted on our website, including UGC, are managed by our service terms policy. 

11.4 Right to Amend this Policy

We genuinely hold the right to change our privacy policy according to our wishes. We may not send a notification to the users. Therefore, they are suggested to check our policy time-to-time to stay informed. They may also check the posted or updated date on this webpage. It will guide them through our updated or reviewed privacy policy.

12 – Contact Us

If you still have questions about our privacy policy and how we handle your data, please connect with us at admin@dodbzz.com. We will assist you and resolve the queries in no time.