Privacy Policy

Effective May 24, 2018
(ver 2.2, updated May 2024 to include information on hCaptcha use)

Your privacy is critically important to us. It always has been and we will always treat your information with respect.

ESC! Technologies Group, LLC (“ESC!”, “we”, “our” or “us”) operates several websites including Macstock Conference and Expo (“Macstock”, “Conference”, “Macstock Conference”) at macstockconferenceandexpo.com  (“website”, “site”). It is ESC!’s policy to respect your privacy regarding any information we may collect while operating the Macstock website.

We do not knowingly attempt to solicit or receive information from children (for example, under age 13 within the US) except with the permission of the child’s parent or guardian.

Our website address is: https://macstockconferenceandexpo.com.

By accessing or using the Macstock website or attending the in-person Conference (collectively, our “Services”), you expressly consent to the collection, use, storage, processing, and disclosure of your information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS PRIVACY POLICY, YOU SHOULD NOT ACCESS OR USE OUR SERVICES.

The Basics: How the Internet Works

Automatically Collected Information

When you access a website, send an email, connect to a server via FTP – basically do anything via the Internet – service providers such as hosting companies and ISPs (“Internet Service Providers”) use standard technologies to automatically collect certain information about your computer and your connection. As you make use of the Internet, this information may be transmitted by your web browser or be found within the headers of an email message you send. That information is then passed along to your destination whether that be a website or an email inbox.

For example, our website may log your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, which identifies the computer or service provider that you use to access the website, or our website may log information about your browser type, authentication identifiers, and other software and hardware information. If you access our website through a mobile or other device, the site may collect your mobile device identifier, geolocation data, or other transactional information for that device.

ESC! does NOT use that information in any way to market our services or modify our communications with you to display information targeted toward your interests.

Our website may also utilize Cookies. Cookies are small text files that are stored on a user’s computer and allow websites to remember information about its site visitors. We and our service providers use cookies for a variety of purposes. We use transient (also called “session ID”) cookies to provide continuity from page to page. A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser. We may also use persistent cookies. Persistent cookies allow our online store and certain other parts of our site to recognize your browser when you return after your first visit. Cookies allow us to personalize your visits to our site and to save you time, such as purchasing a ticket to Macstock.

You have the choice to set your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is set. (Check the “Help” menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.) It is up to you whether to allow us to send you cookies. Please note that by blocking any or all cookies, you may not have access to certain features, content or personalization available through our website.

Also, when we send HTML-formatted (vs plain text) emails to you via MailChimp, Web Beacons (small electronic images found within web content) may be embedded within such emails to allow us to monitor readership levels so that we can identify aggregate trends and individual usage to provide our audiences with more relevant content or offers. MailChimp calls this technology “Open Tracking” and you can read more about it here: https://kb.mailchimp.com/reports/about-open-tracking. Web Beacons within emails may recognize activities such as when an email was opened, how many times an email was forwarded, which links in the email were clicked on, etc. Web Beacons can be refused when delivered via email by disabling HTML images or refusing HTML (select Text only) emails via your email software.

Visiting Our Website? Personal Information That You Provide Directly

If you are interested in attending Macstock, purchasing products or services, or obtaining information from the website, you may need to provide us with information about yourself.

For example, when purchasing a ticket to Macstock, you will be asked for your name, email address, mailing address, phone number and other information.

Additionally, if you order a ticket to Macstock for another person, you may be asked for that person’s name, mailing address, phone number, and other information in order to enable us to deliver a ticket to the recipient. You are responsible for securing permission to share that person’s information.

Other than anonymous surveys about your experiences at Macstock – which you complete voluntarily – we do not ask for sensitive personal information such as religion, race, political affiliation, health or criminal records, or any other sensitive information to complete a transaction on our website. Nor do we want you to disclose that information to us at any time.

Parts of the Macstock website may allow visitors to post or transmit messages, comments, screen names, computer files and other materials. You should always be careful about what personal information you choose to make public through the Macstock website or any other website.

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

hCaptcha

We use the hCaptcha security service (hereinafter “hCaptcha”) on our website. This service is provided by Intuition Machines, Inc., a Delaware US Corporation (“IMI”). hCaptcha is used to check whether user actions on our online service (such as submitting a login or contact form) meet our security requirements. To do this, hCaptcha analyzes the behavior of the website or mobile app visitor based on various characteristics. This analysis starts automatically as soon as the website or mobile app visitor enters a part of the website or app with hCaptcha enabled. For the analysis, hCaptcha evaluates various information (e.g. IP address, how long the visitor has been on the website or app, or mouse movements made by the user). The data collected during the analysis will be forwarded to IMI. hCaptcha analysis in the “invisible mode” may take place completely in the background. Website or app visitors are not advised that such an analysis is taking place if the user is not shown a challenge. Data processing is based on Art. 6(1)(b) of the GDPR: the processing of personal data is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the website visitor is party (for example, the website terms) or in order to take steps at the request of the website visitor prior to entering into a contract. Our online service (including our website, mobile apps, and any other apps or other forms of access offered by us) needs to ensure that it is interacting with a human, not a bot, and that activities performed by the user are not related to fraud or abuse. In addition, processing may also be based on Art. 6(1)(f) of the GDPR: our online service has a legitimate interest in protecting the service from abusive automated crawling, spam, and other forms of abuse that can harm our service or other users of our service. IMI acts as a “data processor” acting on behalf of its customers as defined under the GDPR, and a “service provider” for the purposes of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). For more information about hCaptcha’s privacy policy and terms of use, please visit the following links: https://www.hcaptcha.com/privacy and https://www.hcaptcha.com/terms

Contact Forms and Email

In addition to the information provided directly when completing a form submission or composing an email to us (Name, Email Address, Phone Number, etc), when visitors make use of a form on our website to send inquiries (including but not limited to simple questions, group rates, volunteering, or educational discounts), complete surveys, subscribe to our newsletters, or request sponsorship information, the following information will be automatically collected and stored on our web server: Entry Date, IP Address and Source URL.

Information you supply via form submission or email is not shared with outside organizations and is only used to facilitate communication with you (e.g. answer your inquiry).

We may send you “system” emails, such as password reset requests or payment notifications/receipts even if you have not opted-in to email marketing lists.

It may be necessary to send you Macstock Conference-related announcements. If you are a registered attendee of Macstock and have supplied your email address, ESC! may occasionally send you an email to tell you about new features, solicit your feedback, or just keep you up to date with what’s going on with Macstock. For example, if Macstock’s location and/or dates should change, we may send attendees an email. We primarily use our blogs and social media to communicate this type of information, so we expect to keep this type of direct email to a minimum.

If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses.

If you send us a request (for example via a support email or via one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish some or all of your comment in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users. Any non-Conference related email you receive from us (aka “Marketing” or “Newsletter”) will include an unsubscribe link that will allow you to opt-out of receiving future emails.

Marketing Permissions

All email lists and campaigns are “double opt-in” meaning we will not send you these sorts of emails unless you clearly indicated that you wish to receive them during signup or other interactions on our website.

As mentioned, we use MailChimp as our marketing automation platform. By subscribing to our newsletter via the forms found on our site, you acknowledge that your name and email address as provided will be transferred to MailChimp for processing in accordance with their Privacy Policy and Terms and you agree that we may process your information in accordance with these terms.

ESC! will use the information you provide on these forms to be in touch with you and to provide updates and marketing information about Macstock (e.g. ticket availability and promotions available to discounted pricing on those tickets).

All marketing emails sent by us will include an unsubscribe link in the footer of the email. You can change your mind at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the footer of any email you receive from us sent via MailChimp or by contacting us at support@macstockconferenceandexpo.com.

Comments

When enabled on a blog post, product, or page, when visitors leave comments on the website, those comments are checked through the automated spam detection service, Akismet. The information we collect typically includes the commenter’s IP address, browser user agent string, and referrer, (along with other information directly provided by the commenter such as their name, username, email address, website URL, and the comment itself). The Akismet service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Comment & Account Cookies (“Cookies”)

If you leave a comment on our site, you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

If you establish an account and log in to the Macstock website, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

We’ll also use cookies to keep track of cart contents while you’re browsing our site.

If you edit or publish an article – a feature not currently available on the Macstock website – an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Again, you have the choice to set your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is set. (Check the “Help” menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.) It is up to you whether to allow us to send you cookies. Please note that by blocking any or all cookies the features of our website described above will no longer work.

Social Media

We use  third-party providers, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & YouTube to manage our social media interactions. If you send us a private or direct message via social media the message will be stored by Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & YouTube. It will not be shared with any other organizations.

Twitter Privacy Policy: https://twitter.com/en/privacy

YouTube Privacy Policy: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/

Facebook Privacy Policy: https://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation

LinkedIn Privacy Policy: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. YouTube or Vimeo videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Logging out of all third party accounts before visiting a page with embedded content (i.e. logging out of Gmail or Vimeo), browsing via a “private window” (Check the “Help” menu of your browser to learn how), or browsing anonymously utilizing a service such as TOR (https://www.torproject.org/), are all ways to avoid third parties like YouTube and others from linking content we may have embedded on our site to your accounts with them.

Shopping and Purchases on the Macstock Website

We collect information about you during the shopping and checkout process on our store.

While you visit our site, we’ll track:

  • Products you’ve viewed: we’ll use this to, for example, show you products you’ve recently viewed
  • Location, IP address and browser type: we’ll use this for purposes like estimating taxes and shipping
  • Shipping and Email address: we’ll ask you to enter this so we can, for instance, estimate shipping before you place an order, and send you the order!
  • We’ll also use cookies to keep track of cart contents while you’re browsing our site.

When you purchase from us, we’ll ask you to provide information including your name, billing address, shipping address, email address, phone number, credit card/payment details and optional account information like username and password. We’ll use this information for purposes, such as, to:

  • Send you information about your account and order
  • Respond to your requests, including refunds and complaints
  • Process payments and prevent fraud
  • Set up your account for our store
  • Comply with any legal obligations we have, such as calculating taxes
  • Improve our store offerings

If you create an account, we will store your name, address, email and phone number, which will be used to populate the checkout for future orders.

We will also store comments or reviews, if you choose to leave them.

ESC! has access to the information you provide us. We have access to this information to help fulfill orders, process refunds and support you.

For example, we can access: Order information such as what was purchased, when it was purchased and where it should be sent, as well as Customer information like your name, email address, and billing and shipping information.

Payment Card Information

You may choose to purchase conference tickets, products, or services from Macstock using a payment card. For payment transactions via the website we use PayPal and Stripe. At our in-person conference, Macstock, we use Square.

If you choose to use PayPal to make purchases through our website, you will be directed to the PayPal website and provide your payment information directly to PayPal.

We do not store your credit card information and do not control and are not responsible for Stripe or Square or their collection or use of your information.

PayPal’s privacy policy can be found here: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/privacy-full

Stripe’s privacy policy can be found here: https://stripe.com/us/privacy

Square’s privacy policy can be found here: https://squareup.com/legal/privacy

Visitor Analytics

Other than the automatic and anonymous logging that occurs at the web hosting level as described above, as of May 2018, Macstock no longer tracks or records information about individuals and their visits via Google Analytics. If this should change in the future, we will update the Privacy Policy to indicate the change and the types of information collected by Google Analytics.

Effective September 2020, Macstock began using the Jetpack plugin by Automattic to help us better manage shipping and postage via USPS for orders placed through the site. WordPress.com Stats via Jetpack allows us to know how many visits our site gets, and what posts and pages are the most popular.

Here is how Jetpack uses your data for these stats:

Data Used: IP address, WordPress.com user ID (if logged in), WordPress.com username (if logged in), user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp of event, browser language, country code. Please also see Data Visibility and Retention information for this feature.

Activity Tracked: Post and page views, video plays (if videos are hosted by WordPress.com – Macstock uses YouTube and Vimeo), outbound link clicks, referring URLs and search engine terms, and country. When this feature is enabled, Jetpack also tracks performance on each page load that includes the JavaScript file they use for Stats. This is exclusively for aggregate performance tracking across Jetpack sites in order to make sure that the plugin and code is not causing performance issues. This includes the tracking of page load times and resource loading duration (image files, JavaScript files, CSS files, etc.).

Additional usage tracking for users of WooCommerce and Jetpack to help Automattic make WooCommerce better for everyone: Jetpack tracks when site visitors view products, add and remove products from the cart, view checkout, and complete orders. Events include metadata such as page URL; product name, product ID, quantity, and product category; unique user ID (randomly generated identifier); WooCommerce version; blocks used on cart & checkout pages.

Data Synced: None.

Data Visibility and Retention: Any piece of data explicitly identifying a specific user (IP address, WordPress.com ID, WordPress.com username, etc.) is not visible to the site owner when using this feature. For example, a site owner can see that a specific post has 285 views, but he/she cannot see which specific users/accounts viewed that post. Stats logs — containing visitor IP addresses and WordPress.com usernames (if available) — are retained by Automattic for 28 days and are used only for the purpose of powering this feature.

For more information on Jetpack and Privacy, see: https://jetpack.com/support/privacy/

Advertising (“Ads”)

We do not display third-party ads or utilize ad networks on the Macstock website. We may, however, display the logos of Macstock’s sponsors on our website or within our newsletters with direct links to their websites.

Websites Linked To/From This Site

We are not responsible for the practices employed by websites linked to or from our site nor the information or content contained therein. Often links to other websites are provided solely as pointers to information on topics that may be useful to the users of our site.

When you use a link to go from our site to another website, our Privacy Policy is no longer in effect. Your browsing and interaction on any other website, including sites which have a link on our site, is subject to that website’s own rules and policies. Please read over those rules and policies before proceeding.

Macstock, Our In-Person Conference

As previously stated, when you purchase a ticket to our in-person conference, Macstock, on our website, we collect information about you including (but not limited to) your name, your mailing address (including your country location), and your email address. Attendees who create an account when purchasing their ticket may edit their profile at any time to change, add, or remove personal information. We process your personal information for conference administration, to deliver additional benefits to you, and to inform you of upcoming events, content, and other benefits or opportunities associated with your Macstock ticket purchase. ESC! may also use this information to help us understand attendee’s needs and interests to better tailor future Macstock conferences and events.

If you register for Macstock, we will access the information in your account to provide you with information and services associated with the event. Your name will be printed on a “conference badge” provided to you upon check-in at the registration desk. This badge may be required to gain access to certain areas of the conference or conference-related activities, but you are not required to wear it. Should you wear the badge, please be aware that other attendees will have access to your name, but no other personal information.

If you are a presenter at one of our events, we will collect information about you including your name  and personal and/or emergency contact information, and photograph, and we may also collect information provided by event attendees who evaluated your performance as a presenter. We may also make and store a recording of your voice and likeness.

We keep a record of your participation in Macstock as an attendee or presenter. This information may be used to tell you about other events and publications. It may also be used to help Macstock understand our attendees’ needs and interests to better tailor our products and services.

Macstock is a sponsored conference. ESC! does not provide attendee lists to Macstock’s sponsors. ESC! asks sponsors, co-sponsors and exhibitors of the conference to collect information from interested attendees directly.

If you do not want your information used by sponsors, co-sponsors and/or exhibitors, do not provide it to them!

Surveys

We may also conduct surveys of our attendees that we use to produce original research on the likes and dislikes of Macstock attendees. We do not track individuals, but look at information in the aggregate only. Providing a name and email address for feedback on your survey answers as well as participation in our surveys is voluntary.

Who we share your data with

ESC! discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only to those of its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations that (i) need to know that information in order to process it on ESC!’s behalf or to provide services available at ESC!’s websites, and (ii) that have agreed not to disclose it to others. Some of those employees, contractors and affiliated organizations may be located outside of your home country; by using ESC!’s websites, you consent to the transfer of such information to them.

ESC! will not rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone. Other than to its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations, as described above, ESC! discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only in response to a subpoena, court order or other governmental request, or when ESC! believes in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of ESC!, third parties or the public at large.

How long we retain your data

We will retain your information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy unless a longer retention period is required or allowed by law. For example, we will store order information for a minimum of 7 years for tax and accounting purposes. This includes your name, email address and billing and shipping addresses.

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website, we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

Remember that even after you cancel your account, or if you ask us to delete your personal information, copies of some information from your account may remain viewable in some circumstances where, for example, you have shared information with social media or other services. Because of the nature of caching technology, your account may not be instantly inaccessible to others. We may also retain backup information related to your account on our servers for some time after cancellation or your request for deletion, for fraud detection or to comply with applicable law or our internal security or record keeping policies. It may not always be possible to completely remove or delete all of your information due to technical constraints, or contractual, financial or legal requirements.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

You can also request “to be forgotten” and we will erase any personally identifiable data we have about you. This excludes data we need for administrative or security purposes or if we are required by law to retain some of the data.

An individual who seeks access, or who seeks to correct, amend, or delete inaccurate data, should direct his/her query to support@macstockconferenceandexpo.com. We will respond within a reasonable time frame, not to exceed one week.

Additional information

How we protect your data

ESC! uses a third-party service, Wordfence to help maintain the security of the Macstock website. To deliver this service it processes the IP addresses of visitors to our website(s). For further information please see Wordfence (.com) privacy notice here: https://www.wordfence.com/privacy-policy/

ESC! takes all measures reasonably necessary to protect against the unauthorized access, use, alteration or destruction of potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information.

Should any event occur where sensitive customer data has been lost, stolen, or potentially compromised, our policy is to alert our customers via email no later than 72 hours of becoming aware of the event. We will work closely with any customers affected to determine next steps such as any end-user notifications, needed patches, and how to avoid any similar event in the future.

We request that you help protect your account(s) against brute-force attacks with strong passwords consisting of, at minimum, upper and lower-case letters, numbers, and punctuation.

We also request that you do not send private information to us by email.

Disclosing Information for Legal Reasons

We may disclose your personal information if required to do so by law or subpoena or if we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to:

  • Conform to the law or comply with legal process served on us or affiliated parties.
  • Protect and defend our rights and property, our site, the users of our site, and/or our affiliated parties.
  • Act under circumstances to protect the safety of users of our site, us, or third parties.

Business Transfers

If ESC!, or substantially all of its assets, were acquired, or in the unlikely event that ESC! goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would be one of the assets that may be transferred or acquired by a third party. You acknowledge that such transfers may occur, and that any acquirer of ESC! may continue to use your personal information as set forth in this policy.

Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, ESC! may change its Privacy Policy from time to time, and in ESC!’s sole discretion. ESC! encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.

Contact Us

If you have additional questions regarding this privacy policy, please contact us at:

Email: privacy@macstockconferenceandexpo.com

ESC! Technologies Group, LLC
138 Cass Street
Woodstock IL 60098

Change log:
Macstock Privacy Policy Version 2.0 – May 24, 2018
version 2.0.1 – May 24, 2018: email correction. clarified user responsibilities related to passwords, external website links, email retention, legal disclosure.
version 2.0.2 – May 27, 2018: clarified comment data collection via Akismet.
version 2.0.3 – July 20, 2019: added information about the conference badge provided at in-person conference.
version 2.1 – April 1, 2021: added more information on Jetpack Stats via WordPress.com
version 2.1.1 – March 12, 2023: corrected spelling, punctuation, and incorrect wording errors. Adjusted minimum response time to 72 hours within the “How we protect your data” section.
version 2.2 – May 19, 2024: Added information related to the implementation of hCaptcha to protect login, checkout, account, and other forms from abuse by bots.