Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Your privacy is critically important to us. At Brumfield Labs, we have a few fundamental principles:

• We are thoughtful about the personal information we ask you to provide and the personal information that we collect about you through the operation of our services.
• We store personal information for only as long as we have a reason to keep it.
• We aim for full transparency on how we gather, use, and share your personal information.

Below is Brumfield Lab LLC’s privacy policy, which incorporates and clarifies these principles.

Who We Are and What This Policy Covers

Howdy! We are the folks behind FromThePage, designed to allow handwritten historical documents be shared and transcribed by the world.  Our mission is to make visible and findable handwritten historical material, much of which has not be previously seen.  We believe in participating in the open Internet with code that is open source and are proud to say that the vast majority of our work is available under the AGPL. Unlike most other services, because our AGPL code is public, you can actually download and take a look at that code to see how it works.

This Privacy Policy applies to information that we collect about you when you use:

• Our websites;
• Our mobile sites and any future mobile applications ; and
• Other products and services that are available on or through our websites (including FromThePage.com plans).

Throughout this Privacy Policy we’ll refer to our website, mobile applications and other products and services collectively as “Services.”

Below we explain how we collect, use, and share information about you, along with the choices that you have with respect to that information.

Please note that this Privacy Policy does not apply to any of our products or services that have a separate privacy policy.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us.

Information We Collect

We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so–for example, to provide our Services, to communicate with you, or to make our Services better.

We collect information in three ways: if and when you provide information to us, automatically through operating our services, and from outside sources. Let’s go over the information that we collect.

Information You Provide to Us

It’s probably no surprise that we collect information that you provide to us. The amount and type of information depends on the context and how we use the information. Here are some examples:

• Basic Account Information: We ask for basic information from you in order to set up your account. For example, we require individuals who sign up for a FromThePage.com account to provide a username and email address–and that’s it. You may provide us with more information–like your name–but we don’t require that information to create your account.
• Public Profile Information: If you have an account with us, we collect the information that you provide for your public profile. For example, if you have a FromThePage.com account, your username is part of that public profile, along with any other information you put into your public profile. Your public profile is just that–public–so please keep that in mind when deciding what information you would like to include.
• Transaction and Billing Information: If you buy something from us–a subscription to a FromThePage.com plan, or integration services–you will provide additional personal and payment information that is required to process the transaction and your payment, such as your name, credit card information, and contact information.
• Content Information: Depending on the Services you use, you may also provide us with information about you in the draft and published content for projects you transcribe or translate.
  
• Communications with Us (Hi There!): You may also provide us information when you respond to surveys, communicate with our staff about a support question, or post a question about your project in our public forums.

Information We Collect Automatically

We also collect some information automatically:

• Log Information: Like most online service providers, we collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information. We collect log information when you use our Services–for example, when you create a project or transcribe or translate a page on FromThePage.com.
• Usage Information: We collect information about your usage of our Services. For example, we collect information about the actions that site administrators and users perform on a site–in other words, who did what, when and to what thing on a site. We also collect information about what happens when you use our Services (e.g., page views, button clicks) along with information about your device (e.g., mobile screen size, name of cellular network, and mobile device manufacturer). We use this information to, for example, provide our Services to you, as well as get insights on how people use our Services, so we can make our Services better.
• Location Information: We may determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address. We collect and use this information to, for example, calculate how many people visit our Services from certain geographic regions. We may also collect information about your precise location via our mobile apps (when, for example, you post a photograph with location information) if you allow us to do so through your mobile device operating system’s permissions.
• Stored Information: We may access information stored on your mobile device via our mobile app. We access this stored information through your device operating system’s permissions.  For example, if you give us permission to access the photographs on your mobile device’s camera roll, our Services may access the photos stored on your device when you upload photos of those documents you took at the county courthouse or Library of Congress.
• Information from Cookies & Other Technologies: A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Pixel tags (also called web beacons) are small blocks of code placed on websites and e-mails. Brumfield Labs uses cookies and other technologies like pixel tags to help us identify and track visitors, usage, and access preferences for our Services, as well as track and understand e-mail campaign effectiveness and to deliver targeted ads.

Information We Collect from Other Sources

We may also get information about you from other sources. For example, if you create or log into your FromThePage.com account through another service (like Google) or if you connect your website or account to a social media service (like Twitter), we will receive information from that service (such as your username, basic profile information, and friends list) via the authorization procedures used by that service. The information we receive depends on which services you authorize and any options that are available.

We may also get information from third party services about individuals who are not yet our users (…but we hope will be!), which we may use, for example, for marketing and advertising purposes.

How We Use Information

We use information about you as mentioned above and as follows:

• To provide our Services–for example, to set up and maintain your account, host your project, backup and restore your website, or charge you for any of our paid Services;
• To further develop our Services–for example by adding new features that we think our users will enjoy or will help them to create and manage their websites more efficiently;
• To monitor and analyze trends and better understand how users interact with our Services, which helps us improve our Services and make them easier to use;
• To monitor and protect the security of our Services, detect and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities, fight spam, and protect the rights and property of Brumfield Labs and others;
• To communicate with you about offers and promotions offered by Brumfield Labs and others we think will be of interest to you, solicit your feedback, or keep you up to date on FromThePage; and
• To personalize your experience using our Services, provide content recommendations and serve relevant advertisements.

Sharing Information

How We Share Information

We do not sell our users’ private personal information.

We share information about you in the limited circumstances spelled out below and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy:

• Subsidiaries, Employees, and Independent Contractors: We may disclose information about you to our subsidiaries, our employees, and individuals who are our independent contractors that need to know the information in order to help us provide our Services or to process the information on our behalf. We require our subsidiaries, employees, and independent contractors to follow this Privacy Policy for personal information that we share with them.
• Third Party Vendors: We may share information about you with third party vendors who need to know information about you in order to provide their services to us. This group includes vendors that help us provide our Services to you (like payment providers that process your credit and debit card information) and those that help us understand and enhance our Services (like analytics providers). We require vendors to agree to privacy commitments in order to share information with them.
• As Required by Law: We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.
• To Protect Rights and Property: We may disclose information about you when we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Brumfield Labs, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if we have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, we may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
• Business Transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, or in the unlikely event that Brumfield Labs goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would likely be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. If any of these events were to happen, this Privacy Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use your information, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
• With Your Consent: We may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction. For example, we may share your information with third parties with which you authorize us to do so, such as the social media services that you connect to your site.
• Aggregated and De-Identified Information: We may share information that has been aggregated or reasonably de-identified, so that the information could not reasonably be used to identify you. For instance, we may publish aggregate statistics about the use of our Services.
• Published Support Requests: And if you send us a request (for example, via a support email or one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish that request in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users.

Information Shared Publicly

Information that you choose to make public is–you guessed it–disclosed publicly. That means, of course, that information like your public profile, transcriptions, translations, other content that you make public on projects, and your comments on other projects that use our Services, are all available to others.  Public information may also be indexed by search engines or used by third parties. Please keep all of this in mind when deciding what you would like to share.

Security

While no online service is 100% secure, we work very hard 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 Information that You Provide: If you have an account with us, you can choose not to provide the optional account information, profile information, and transaction and billing information. Please keep in mind that if you do not provide this information, certain features of our Services–for example, paid, premium themes–may not be accessible.
• Limit Access to Information On Your Mobile Device: Your mobile device operating system should provide you with the ability to discontinue our ability to collect stored information or location information via our mobile apps. If you do so, you may not be able to use certain features (like adding a location to a photograph, for example).
• Opt-Out of Electronic Communications: You may opt out of receiving promotional messages from us. Just follow the instructions in those messages. If you opt out of promotional messages, we may still send you other messages, like those about your account and legal notices.
• Set Your Browser to Reject Cookies: You can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies before using Brumfield Lab’s websites, with the drawback that certain features of our websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.

Other Things You Should Know (Keep Reading!)

Transferring Information

Brumfield Labs & FromThePage is a worldwide service. By accessing or using the Services or otherwise providing information to us, you consent to the processing, transfer, and storage of information in and to the U.S. and other countries, which may have rights and protections that are different from those in your home country.

Ads and Analytics Services Provided by Others

Ads appearing on any of our Services may be delivered by advertising networks. Other parties may also provide analytics services via our Services. These ad networks and analytics providers may set tracking technologies (like cookies) to collect information about your use of our Services and across other websites and online services. These technologies allow these third parties to recognize your device to compile information about you or others who use your device. This information allows us and other companies to, among other things, analyze and track usage, determine the popularity of certain content, and deliver advertisements that may be more targeted to your interests. Please note this Privacy Policy only covers the collection of information by Brumfield Labs and does not cover the collection of information by any third party advertisers or analytics providers.

Third Party Software

If you’d like to use third party software with our Services, please keep in mind that when you interact with them you may provide information about yourself to those third parties. We don’t own or control these third parties and they have their own rules about collection, use and sharing of information. You should review their rules and policies when installing and using third party software.

Our Users’ Websites

If you are a visitor to a self-hosted FromThePage site, for example–please note that this privacy policy doesn’t apply to you in regard to that specific site. We process information that visitors provide to our users’ websites on behalf of our users and in accordance with our user agreements. We encourage our users to post a privacy policy that accurately describes their practices on data collection, use, and sharing of personal information.

 

Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, Brumfield Labs may change its Privacy Policy from time to time. We encourag visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the change log below, and, in some cases, we may provide additional notice (such as adding a statement to our homepage or sending you a notification through e-mail or your dashboard).  Your continued use of the Services after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your consent to such change.

Change log

• February 7, 2018: Initial policy