This Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) explains how “How to Improve,” including its affiliates and partners, (“we,” “us,” “our”) collects, uses, and discloses information from and about you, as well as your choices concerning this information. This Policy applies to our website, www.howtoimprove.net (the “Website”), and any mobile applications we may offer (the “Apps”). Together, the Website and Apps are collectively referred to as the “Services.”
Please take the time to review this Policy carefully to understand how we handle your information.
By accessing or using our Services, you acknowledge and agree to the terms of this Policy. If you have any questions about our practices or this Policy, please contact us at privacy@howtoimprove.com.
Information We Collect
Depending on your interaction with our Services, we may collect information in the following ways:
a. Information You Provide to Us
We collect information directly from you when you engage with our Services. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Contact information: Your name, email address, phone number, and physical address.
- Account information: Your login credentials, account preferences, and areas of interest, provided when creating and using your account.
- Demographic information: Your gender, birth date, and marital status.
- Order information: Billing and shipping address, order details, transaction history, and payment information, including credit card details.
- User-generated content: Comments, photos, posts, reviews, feedback, or other content that you submit on the Services.
- Communications: Information provided in emails, during customer service interactions, on social media (e.g., likes or shares), and through surveys, quizzes, or sweepstakes.
- Information from your device or other apps: Data you provide to the Services or grant access to via our Apps, such as photos, device camera content, calendar data, and information from fitness apps.
- Health-related information: Details about your health status, conditions, diagnoses, medications, care sought, sexual orientation, and information related to scheduling medical appointments.
- Location information: General location derived from your IP address or precise location data (if you give an App or Service permission).
- Information requested by forms: Contact and payment information, and other relevant data as required.
You are not obligated to provide us with any information about yourself, but certain information may be necessary for you to access specific features. For instance, account creation requires your name and email address.
Please note that certain data, such as health-related information, may be considered sensitive and subject to specific privacy regulations, as outlined in Regional Privacy Notices. Refer to your regional privacy notice for additional information.
b. Information We Collect Automatically
We gather certain information automatically when you interact with our Services. This data includes, but is not limited to:
- Device information: IP address, device type, hardware and software details, browser type, version, language, time zone, unique device identifiers, and advertising identifiers.
- Usage information: Date and time of interactions with the Services, pages viewed, links clicked, time spent on each page, websites or apps visited before and after using our Services, search history, and content posted on our platform.
- Location information, as described above.
To collect and store some of this data, we, along with third parties, may use cookies and similar technologies. For more information about how these technologies are utilized on our Services, please refer to the “Cookies, Analytics, and Advertising” section below.
c. Information We Collect from Other Sources
We may obtain information about you from external sources, such as:
- Our affiliates and subsidiaries, if you use or engage with their services.
- Third-party login services and social network connections. When you access our Services through third-party connections (e.g., social networks), we may access and collect information from your social network profile, which could include account and profile data, your posts, “likes,” “shares,” and your list of friends, subject to your settings on such services. If you do not wish to grant access to this information, do not use third-party connections to access our Services.
- Credit reporting services, which we may use for specific Services to comply with applicable laws and facilitate transactions.
- Other parties, including business partners, marketers, advertising networks, data providers, analysts, public databases, and more, to supplement information collected by other means (e.g., demographic, contact, and statistical information).
How We Use Your Information
We utilize the information we collect for various purposes, depending on the type of data and your interactions with our Services. These purposes may include:
- Providing and maintaining the Services, including account registration and business operations.
- Personalizing the Services by remembering your preferences.
- Conducting analysis and research to improve the Services and understand their usage.
- Developing new features, products, and services.
- Communicating with you about your account, requested services, and customer inquiries, in line with your preferences.
- Advertising and marketing the Services and other products or services to you, in accordance with your communicated preferences.
- Conducting surveys, sweepstakes, and similar activities.
- Maintaining security and preventing fraud.
- Verifying your identity or authenticating you.
- Complying with applicable laws, regulations, and legal processes.
- Exercising our legal rights, enforcing our terms and policies, detecting and preventing illegal activity, and protecting the rights, property, or safety of “How to Improve,” our users, employees, or others.
We may also combine data collected through the Services with information collected automatically or from other sources, using such combined information in accordance with this Policy. Additionally, we may aggregate or de-identify information so that it cannot reasonably be linked to you or your device. Such aggregated or de-identified data may be used for research and marketing purposes, and may be disclosed as needed.
Cookies, Analytics, and Advertising
a. Cookies
We and third parties may employ cookies and similar technologies, such as pixels (clear GIFs), to collect data. Cookies are small text files placed on your device by web servers, designed to store basic information and assist websites and apps in recognizing your browser. These technologies serve various purposes, such as navigation and interaction on the Services, enhancing the relevance and personalization of your experience, analyzing Service usage, saving preferences, authentication, and enabling specific types of advertising. Cookies used on the Services may be first-party (set by us) or third-party (set by third parties). These cookies may be session cookies (deleted when you close your browser) or persistent cookies (remaining on your browser/device for longer periods). We may also use pixels in emails you receive from us to record actions like opening an email or clicking a link within it.
You can adjust your cookie preferences by referring to your browser’s “Help” section for information on setting notifications for new or updated cookies or blocking them entirely. It is important to note that preferences set in this way apply solely to the specific device/browser used. If you block or disable specific cookies, it may impact the intended functionality of the Services, limiting access to certain features. Some cookies are deemed necessary for the Services to operate, and opting out may not be possible.
b. Analytics
We, along with third-party web analytics services like Google Analytics, may use cookies and similar technologies for analytics purposes on our Services. You can find more information on Google’s analytics practices here.
To prevent Google Analytics from using your data for analytics, you can install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on by clicking here. Please note that preferences set using these methods only apply to the specific device/browser used. If you wish for these preferences to apply when accessing the Services from a different browser or device, you must configure them accordingly for that specific browser or device.
c. Online Advertising
On our Services, we may permit third-party cookies and advertising technologies (e.g., ad networks and ad servers such as Google’s ad services) that use cookies and similar technologies to provide relevant and targeted advertisements and content to you, both on our Services and other websites and applications you use. These advertisements may be based on the content of the page you are currently visiting, automatically collected information, data you provide, and other details about you. They may also take into account your present and historical online activity across various websites, tailoring content to your interests.
It’s important to note that you may still see ads on our Services or ads for our Services on other websites or applications, but these ads may not be tailored to you. We do not control any of the opt-out links mentioned above and are not responsible for choices made through them, their ongoing availability, or their accuracy. Preferences set using these methods only apply to the specific device/browser used. For preferences to carry over when accessing the Services from another browser or device, you must indicate these preferences for that specific browser or device.
d. Mobile App Advertising
When using our Apps or other mobile applications, you may encounter tailored in-app advertisements. We may use vendors or other parties for mobile app ads or analytics. Your device’s operating system provides instructions on how to manage tailored in-app ads. Consult these instructions and your device settings for further information on controlling in-app advertisements. Please be aware that we do not have control over your operating system’s settings for tailored in-app ads.
e. Do Not Track
“Do Not Track” (DNT) is a privacy preference available in certain web browsers. You can learn more about DNT here. Like many other services, we do not currently recognize or respond to browser-initiated DNT signals. Please be aware that DNT differs from the user “preference signal” discussed in the “Your Rights and Choices” section below, which is a browser-based control indicating whether you would like to opt out of the processing of your data for specific purposes, such as the “sale” of your data or its disclosure for targeted advertising, as defined by applicable laws.
How We Disclose Your Information
We may disclose the information we collect from and about you in the following ways:
a. Personnel
Our employees, contractors, and other personnel have access to your information as needed to provide the Services.
b. Affiliates
Information you provide to our Website or Apps may be disclosed to our other Websites and Apps. We may also share your information with our corporate affiliates, including Healthline Media UK.
c. Vendors
We may disclose or provide access to your information to vendors offering services on our behalf. These services encompass website hosting, data storage, analytics, research, marketing and advertising, payment processing, security, data enrichment, content, contests, and other offerings.
d. Advertising
We may share specific data with advertising platforms like Google and social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Snapchat to target existing users and customers with highly relevant advertising campaigns. To achieve this, we may share a unique code (e.g., a hashed email address) with the appropriate advertising platform to match it with existing users and identify potential audiences for targeted advertising. We may use services like Google Ads’ Customer Match, LinkedIn Matched Audiences, ID5, LiveRamp, and Facebook Custom Audiences for such campaigns.