Privacy policy

This Privacy Policy describes how The Romance Queen ("we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, discloses, and otherwise processes your personal information when you visit, browse, place an order on, or otherwise interact with romancequeenbooks.com (the "Site"), including through our emails, advertisements, and customer service communications.

1. PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Depending on how you interact with us, we may collect the following categories of personal information:

A. Information you provide directly
- Name
- Billing address and shipping address
- Email address
- Phone number, if you choose to provide it
- Account login details, if you create an account
- Order details and purchase history
- Any information you provide when you contact us, subscribe to our emails, join our book club, request free content, or otherwise communicate with us

B. Payment and transaction information
When you make a purchase, your payment is processed by Shopify and our payment service providers. We receive order and transaction details, but we do not store your full payment card number.

C. Information collected automatically
When you visit the Site, we and our service providers may automatically collect certain information using cookies, pixels, tags, web beacons, log files, and similar technologies, including:
- Internet Protocol address
- Browser type and device information
- Operating system
- Approximate location information
- Pages viewed and products viewed
- Search terms or referring websites
- Interactions with the Site
- Dates, times, and duration of visits

2. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may use your personal information to:
- Provide, operate, and improve the Site
- Process and fulfill orders, including digital and physical products
- Process payments, provide invoices and confirmations, and arrange delivery
- Create and manage customer accounts
- Communicate with you about your orders, account, customer support requests, and purchases
- Send newsletters, free chapters, new release notices, promotions, discounts, and book club emails if you sign up for them or if otherwise permitted by law
- Personalize your experience and remember your preferences, including language, region, or currency settings
- Detect, investigate, and help prevent fraud, abuse, security incidents, and other unlawful activity
- Analyze Site performance, customer behavior, and marketing effectiveness
- Show, measure, and improve advertisements, including advertisements on Meta platforms such as Facebook and Instagram
- Comply with legal obligations and enforce our terms and policies

3. COOKIES AND SIMILAR TECHNOLOGIES

We use cookies and similar technologies to operate the Site, remember preferences, analyze traffic, understand how visitors interact with the Site, and support our marketing and advertising efforts.

Where required by applicable law, we will request your consent before using non-essential cookies or similar technologies. You can also manage cookies through your browser settings. Please note that disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of the Site.

4. HOW WE SHARE PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may share personal information with the following categories of recipients:
- Shopify, which hosts our online store and provides ecommerce services
- Payment processors and fraud prevention providers
- Shipping, fulfillment, and delivery providers
- Email service providers and customer communication tools
- Analytics and advertising partners
- Professional advisers, such as legal, tax, and accounting providers
- Government authorities or other third parties where required by law or to protect our rights
- A buyer, successor, or other relevant party in connection with a merger, sale, financing, or other business transaction

We do not sell personal information for money. However, some sharing involving cookies, pixels, and advertising technology may be considered a "sale," "sharing," or "targeted advertising" under certain privacy laws.

5. SHOPIFY

Our store is hosted by Shopify. Shopify provides us with the ecommerce platform that allows us to sell our products and services to you. Your data may be stored through Shopify's data storage, databases, and general Shopify applications. For more information about how Shopify handles personal information, please visit:
https://www.shopify.com/legal/privacy

6. META, FACEBOOK, AND ADVERTISING

We may use the Facebook and Instagram by Meta sales channel, Meta Pixel, Conversions Application Programming Interface tools, or similar advertising tools to help us understand how visitors use our Site, measure the performance of our ads, improve our marketing, and show relevant advertisements on Meta platforms.

Depending on your browser, device, consent choices, and our settings, the information shared for these purposes may include:
- Device identifiers and browser information
- Internet Protocol address
- Pages viewed and products viewed
- Actions taken on our Site, such as viewing content, adding items to cart, starting checkout, or completing a purchase
- Referring website or ad information
- Order information and event data
- If enabled in our Shopify and Meta settings, customer details such as name, email address, phone number, city, state, or purchase value

Meta may use information it receives in accordance with its own terms and privacy practices. You can learn more here:
https://www.facebook.com/legal/technology_terms
https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policy/

You can opt out of certain interest-based advertising by visiting:
https://www.aboutads.info/choices
https://youradchoices.ca/en/tools
https://www.youronlinechoices.com/

If available on our Site, you can also use our "Your Privacy Choices" page to request an opt out of the sale, sharing, or use of your personal information for targeted advertising.

7. EMAILS, NEWSLETTERS, AND BOOK CLUB COMMUNICATIONS

If you subscribe to our newsletter, request free content, join our book club, create an account, or purchase a bundle or offer that includes email-delivered benefits, we may send you:
- Transactional or service emails, such as order confirmations, delivery notices, account notices, customer service messages, and important updates related to your purchase
- Marketing emails, such as free chapters, new release announcements, special discounts, newsletters, and book club updates

You can unsubscribe from marketing emails at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the email or by contacting us at customercare@romancequeenbooks.com. Even if you opt out of marketing emails, we may still send you transactional or service-related communications. If a specific membership or book club benefit is delivered primarily by email, opting out of those marketing emails may limit your ability to receive that benefit.

8. YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to request access to, correction of, deletion of, or portability of your personal information, and to object to or restrict certain processing. You may also have the right to withdraw consent where we rely on consent.

Residents of certain United States states may have the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information and the use of personal information for targeted advertising.

If you are located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, we generally process your personal information on one or more of the following legal bases:
- Performance of a contract
- Compliance with legal obligations
- Your consent
- Our legitimate interests, such as operating our business, securing the Site, preventing fraud, improving the Site, and marketing our products where permitted by law

To exercise any privacy right, please contact us at customercare@romancequeenbooks.com. We may need to verify your identity before processing your request. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may have the right to appeal or lodge a complaint with a regulator, depending on where you live.

9. DATA RETENTION

We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including to fulfill orders, provide customer support, maintain business and tax records, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. If you unsubscribe from marketing emails, we may retain limited information to honor your opt-out request and maintain suppression records.

10. SECURITY

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information. However, no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

11. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS

Your personal information may be transferred to, stored in, and processed in countries other than the country in which you live, including the United States and other countries where Shopify or our service providers operate. These countries may have data protection laws that are different from those in your jurisdiction.

12. MINORS

The Site is not intended for individuals under the age of 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe someone under 18 has provided personal information to us, please contact us so we can review and address the issue.

13. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes to our business, Site features, legal requirements, or data practices. When we do, we will post the updated version on this page and update the "Last updated" date above.

14. CONTACT US

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or would like to exercise your privacy rights, please contact us at:

The Romance Queen
romancequeenbooks.com
Email: customercare@romancequeenbooks.com