Privacy Policy

Advertiser Disclosure

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The content on DollarSprout includes links to our advertising partners. When you read our content and click on one of our partners’ links, and then decide to complete an offer — whether it’s downloading an app, opening an account, or some other action — we may earn a commission from that advertiser, at no extra cost to you.

Our ultimate goal is to educate and inform, not lure you into signing up for certain offers. Compensation from our partners may impact what products we cover and where they appear on the site, but does not have any impact on the objectivity of our reviews or advice.

Effective Date: May 2, 2022

THIS PAGE OUTLINES OUR PRIVACY POLICY. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS SITE.

By using dollarsprout.com (further referred to as the “Site”), you are consenting to the policies listed on this page. Our Privacy Policy, along with our Terms of Use, describe the factors that may impact our content offerings, the personal information we collect through our Site, how we collect that information, and which parties, if any, will have access to it.

By using the Site, which is owned and operated by VTX Capital, LLC (“Company”, “us,” “we” or “our”), you explicitly accept, without limitation or qualification, our practices surrounding the collection, use, and sharing of personal information provided by you in the manner described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with the terms in this Privacy Policy, please do not access, browse, or use this Site.

We encourage you to review our Privacy Policy whenever you use or access the Site to stay informed about our personal information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy.

How We Collect Your Personal Information

We may collect information from you when you use the Site. The information we collect from you may include but is not limited to: (1) information you provide to us directly; (2) information we collect automatically during your use of the Site; and (3) other information, such as information about the device used to access the Site, your geographic location, and information acquired from social networking services or other third-party integrations.

The information we collect can be used alone or combined with other information to identify you as an individual (“personal information”). Examples of personal information include but are not limited to: your name, your mailing address, your email address, or your date of birth. Please be aware that this policy may still apply even if you elect to use private browsing features within your browser.

Information You Provide to Us

Registration or Account Data

We may collect information from you if/when you register with our Site in order to use various features. Such information could include:

(a) Name
(b) Date of birth
(c) Mailing address
(d) Username
(e) Password (where applicable)
(f) Phone number

As you use the Site, we may collect other data that you provide voluntarily (such as comments that you post). We may also collect information about you through other methods, including voluntary survey submissions, social media platforms, verification services, data services, as well as public sources. We may combine this data with your registration data in order to maintain a more thorough profile.

Email Address

We may collect your email address, but only if you voluntarily provide it to us. This may occur, for example, if you sign up to receive an email newsletter, or enter a promotion. We will use your email address for the purposes for which you provided it to us, and also from time to time to send you emails regarding the Site or other products or services that we believe may be of interest to you.

You may opt out of such email communications at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of each email. Your email address may also be shared with the technology provider we use in connection with the purposes for which you provided it, and that technology provider may also contact you from time to time should account or security issues arise.

Information Acquired through Automated Data Collection Technologies

Our Site may, at times, may use third-party Data Processors (for example the Facebook Pixel or the Pinterest Tag) to automatically link your personal information with your user profiles on those sites. As a Data Controller we will not have access to your personal information, but we may utilize their respective advertising platforms to distribute our content to you in the future.

Additionally, as you navigate through and interact with our Site, we, third-party Data Processors, and advertisers may use automatic data collection technologies to collect:

(a) Information about visits to our Site, including traffic patterns, geographic information, and other data logs.
(b) Data about your computer and internet connection (including information about your browser, operating system (OS), or IP address).
(c) Data about your interactions with email messages, such as when you click on a link or whether the messages are opened or forwarded.
(d) Demographic information that may contain personally identifiable information.

We may aggregate automatically collected data with personal information we collect in other ways (such as data collected during an email opt-in) to further enhance your user experience.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include but are not limited to: (1) cookies, (2) flash cookies (3) web beacons, and (4) Google Analytics.

Our Use of Cookies

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.

Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies. We use cookies for the following purposes:

(a) authentication – to identify you when you visit and navigate our website;
(b) status – to help us to determine if you are logged into our website;
(c) personalization – to store information about your preferences and to personalize the website for you;
(d) security – to protect user accounts, including preventing fraudulent use of login credentials, and to protect our website and services generally;
(e) advertising – to display advertisements that will be relevant to you; and
(f) analysis – to help us to analyze the use and performance of our website and services.

Additionally, we use Google Analytics to analyze 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. Google’s privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.

Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. Please consult your browser instructions for information about how to delete or block cookie usage. Please note that blocking cookies may have a negative impact on the functions of many websites, including our Site. Some features of the Site may cease to be available to you.

Mediavine Programmatic Advertising (Ver 1.0)

The Website works with Mediavine to manage third-party interest-based advertising appearing on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website.

First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The “help” feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at https://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/.

Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site. In the event you opt-out, you will still see non-personalized advertisements on the Website.

The Website collects the following data using a cookie when serving personalized ads:

  • IP Address
  • Operating System type
  • Operating System version
  • Device Type
  • Language of the website
  • Web browser type
  • Email (in hashed form)

Mediavine Partners (companies listed below with whom Mediavine shares data) may also use this data to link to other end user information the partner has independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements. Mediavine Partners may also separately collect data about end users from other sources, such as advertising IDs or pixels, and link that data to data collected from Mediavine publishers in order to provide interest-based advertising across your online experience, including devices, browsers and apps. This data includes usage data, cookie information, device information, information about interactions between users and advertisements and websites, geolocation data, traffic data, and information about a visitor’s referral source to a particular website. Mediavine Partners may also create unique IDs to create audience segments, which are used to provide targeted advertising.

If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit Opt Out – NAI: Network Advertising Initiative. You may also visit http://optout.aboutads.info/#/ and http://optout.networkadvertising.org/# to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at YourAdChoices.com | AppChoices to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.

For specific information about Mediavine Partners, the data each collects and their data collection and privacy policies, please click here.

How We Secure Your Information

We have implemented measures designed to secure your personal information from loss or unauthorized access. All private information you provide to us is stored on secure servers, behind firewalls, and is encrypted using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology. The purpose of this encryption technology is to keep information confidential when it is passed back and forth between a web server and a user.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not always completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted through the Site. Any transmission of personal information, or otherwise, is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures employed by the Site.

How We Use Your Information

The information we collect from users is integral to enhancing the functionality of the Site. For example:

(a) We use the information that you provide, in tandem with the information automatically collected, to operate, maintain, enhance and provide all of the features of the Site, and to enable third parties to serve personalized content, goods, and services recommendations.

(b) We use the information that you provide to understand and analyze your Site usage trends and preferences. This helps us improve user experience across different devices, create new features and functionality, and improve fraud detection and information security.

(c) We may use your e-mail address or other personal information (a) to contact you for administrative purposes such as customer service; (b) intellectual property concerns related to content you have posted on the Site, and/or (c) to send you promotional messages, offers, and/or materials related to the Site or the third-parties we work with. Generally, you can opt-out of receiving promotional communications, through links provided in the messages or by contacting us directly at hello@dollarsprout.com.

(d) We may use Cookie and/or Automatically Collected Data to: (a) personalize our services or recommendations, such as remembering your information so that you will not have to re-enter it during a return visit to the Site; (b) provide personalized advertisements or content across your devices; (c) analyze the effectiveness of Site or third-party marketing activities; (d) monitor aggregate site usage metrics such as total number of visitors, pages viewed, and session duration; and (e) track your entries, submissions, and status in campaigns, promotions, or other similar activities.

When We Share Your Information

We may use third parties (WordPress plugins) to provide additional functionality that allows you to register for, or otherwise enhances our Site; in this case the third party will also have access to your information. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other websites or third parties, and we cannot control how third-parties may use your data.

For example, we work with third-party social media tools to offer you their social networking services when using the Site. If you use third-party social networking services found on the Site to share our content with your friends and family, these social networking services may be able to collect information about you. These third-party social networking services may also notify your friends about your use of the Site in accordance with their own privacy policies.

By linking to such websites or using such third parties’ services, we are not endorsing their content or practices. We encourage you to be aware when you access any such third-party links and to read the privacy policies associated with each website you access. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the third-party directly.

Otherwise, we do not provide any personally-identifying information about you to third parties, except if or when required by law.

Your Choices About Your Information

You may, of course, decline to share certain information with us, in which case we may not be able to provide to you some of the features and enhanced functionalities of the Site. For example:

If you do not wish to receive email offers or newsletters from us, you can opt-out of receiving email information from us by using the “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of each email. Although your wishes to unsubscribe are reflected promptly in our active user database, we may need to retain  some information you submit for a variety of purposes, including backups and archiving, and to prevent future emails from arriving to your inbox.

You can also request that your browser to refuse all or some cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. To learn how you can manage your cookie settings, visit Help or FAQ section of your preferred internet browser. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of the Site may then be inaccessible or not function properly.

Lastly, some of our third-party Data Processors require us to specifically list their opt-out links, and those links, as well as as opt-out links for other providers we may use, are listed below.

(a) Facebook: Opt-Out
(b) Google: Opt-Out 
(c) Google Analytics: Opt-Out
(d) Google Retargeting: Opt-Out

Disclosures and Additional Information

International Visitors

The Site is hosted in the United States and is intended solely for visitors located within the United States. The information we provide and the third-party products and services featured are tailored for the United States market only. By using the Site, you acknowledge and consent to the transfer and processing of your personal information in the United States as described in this Privacy Policy.

Please be aware that the data protection laws and regulations applicable to your personal information transferred to the United States may be different from the laws in your country of residence.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Compliance

We are in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act).  We do not knowingly collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older. We recommend that anyone under 18 years of age participate and use our website, products or services only with parental permission and supervision.

We do not intend to collect any personal information from children under the age of 18. If a parent or guardian of a child who has provided us with such personal information would like the information deleted from our records, he or she should contact us at the email address listed at the bottom of this Privacy Policy. We will then delete the child’s personal information (if any) from our records.

Do Not Track Signals

Some browsers offer a “Do Not Track” option to help protect consumers as they navigate throughout the web. Unfortunately, there is no uniform standard for how websites should respond to DNT. Due to lack of such standards, the Site does not respond to Do Not Track consumer browser settings or like signals.

In Case of Merger or Sale

DollarSprout reserves the right to transfer or assign the information that we have collected from users in connection with a corporate transaction, such as a divestiture, merger, consolidation, asset sale, or Company bankruptcy.

Future Changes to our Privacy Policy

We may change our Privacy Policy from time to time. The most recent version of our Privacy Policy will always be posted on the Site, with the “Effective Date” posted at the top of the page.

We may revise and update our Privacy Policy if our practices change, as technology changes, or as we add new services or change existing ones.

If we make any material changes to our Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal information, or we are going to use any personal information in a manner that is materially different from that stated in our Privacy Policy at the time we collected such information, we will reasonably attempt to notify you of such changes. By continuing to use our Site or services after the Effective Date, you are deemed to consent to our then-current policies.

Our Contact Information

It is very important that the information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or need help updating your personal information within our system, email us at hello@dollarsprout.com.

Or write by mail to:

Attn: Ben Huber
VTX Capital, LLC
504 23rd St.
Virginia Beach, VA 23451, USA