Welcome,
This page is about your safety and peace of mind as you engage with Poetry Joy. It explains how your data is used – or not – when visiting this site. I have done my best to be transparent and provide all the required information. This is a WordPress.com site, so some elements fall under their responsibility. Links to their policies are found in my policy below.

Personal information may be collected in the following ways:

1. Names and email addresses are required to make blog comments, in order to avoid spam. Comments are kept indefinitely. Your email address will not be visible on the comment. The option to link to your website is up to you. Be aware that comments filled with lots of links within the body of the text are often marked as spam
2.  There may also be comment form cookies which remember a user’s name or email address, automatically filling in the comment form for you in future. To view the WordPress cookie policy, click here.
3.  Names and email addresses are submitted by users on the contact form. This email is used to reply to your enquiry and may be stored on a third-party email server. Email addresses are collected for the purpose of subscribing to blog posts by email.
4.  If you are a non-Wordpress user, I will be able to see them and they are stored on WordPress in order to fulfil your subscription request. There is an ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of all emails sent and you can use this to unsubscribe at any time.
5. Some information is collected when users subscribe via feed in order for posts to appear in their feed readers. WordPress users will need to refer to WordPress privacy policy (see Automattic policy link below). I do not see email addresses from those who subscribe via WordPress feed readers.
6.  This site has the following social media elements which may involve cookies by these third-party sites, if you use them: Facebook page widget with like button, Instagram feed and a link to my book on Amazon. It also contains links to my personal Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+ accounts.
7.  Any personal information collected by me on this site is not shared with third-parties, except for storage on a third-party email server when using the contact form. This simply means that I have a record of your email address in my designated email account, as you would when anyone sends you an email.
8. Information is not collected about your visit to this blog other than to analyse content performance through the use of cookies, which you can turn off at anytime by modifying your Internet browser’s settings. The Automattic privacy policy is here (Automattic is ‘behind’ WordPress.com).
9.  I am not responsible for the republishing of the content found on this blog on other websites or media without my permission.
10.  This is currently an ad-free site under WordPress.com’s personal plan. I do not use Google Analytics for this site at this time.

Please note: As this is a WordPress.com site and not self-hosted, I cannot answer all queries about what data WordPress has stored about you (you’ll need to contact them on that). In terms of what I can see about you, everything should be explained here, but you can get in touch with me via my contact form if you have any questions. This privacy policy is subject to change without notice to meet future requirements, with updates and clarifications as needed.