Privacy Policy

Effective Date: 08-30-2026

1. Introduction

At Shaw Spouses' Club, accessible from https://shawspousesclub.org/, your privacy is one of our primary concerns. This Privacy Policy document contains types of information we collect and record, and how we use it. By using our website, you hereby consent to our Privacy Policy and agree to its terms.

2. Who We Are

Our website address is: https://shawspousesclub.org/

3. Information We Collect

3.1. Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site, we collect:

  • Data from the comments form: This includes your name, email address, website, and the comment itself.
  • IP Address and Browser User Agent String: To assist with spam detection and enhance security.
  • Gravatar Service: 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. After approval of your comment, your profile picture (if available) is visible to the public in the context of your comment. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: Gravatar Privacy Policy

3.2. Media

If you upload images to the website:

  • Embedded Location Data: Please avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

3.3. Cookies

Our website uses cookies to enhance your browsing experience:

  • Comments Cookies: When you leave a comment, you may opt-in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies. These are for your convenience for future comments and last for one year.
  • Login Cookies: When you log in, we set up cookies to save your login information and screen display choices.
    • Login cookies last for two days.
    • Screen options cookies last for one year.
    • Selecting “Remember Me” extends login retention to two weeks.
    • Logging out removes login cookies.
  • Temporary Cookies: Visiting our login page sets a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. It contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
  • Editing or Publishing Articles: This sets an additional cookie in your browser, indicating the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after one day.

3.4. Microsoft Forms - Application Forms

We use Microsoft Forms (forms.office.com) for our charity application process. When you submit an application through our website:

  • Data Collected: Information you provide in the application form (name, email, organization details, etc.)
  • Third-Party Processing: Microsoft Forms is a service provided by Microsoft Corporation. Your form submissions are processed according to Microsoft's privacy policies.
  • Additional Third-Party Services: Microsoft Forms may use additional services (including HubSpot) for form analytics and feedback collection. These are controlled by Microsoft, not Shaw Spouses' Club.
  • Privacy Policy: Review Microsoft's privacy practices at https://privacy.microsoft.com/

3.5. Formspree - Contact, Sub-Club, and Auction Sponsorship Inquiries

Board-interest inquiries go through our Contact Us form. Our contact, sub-club, and auction sponsorship forms send your first name, last name, email address, and comment to Formspree for processing and delivery to the club. Auction sponsorship inquiries go to the treasurer. We use this information to respond to your inquiry. Please review Formspree’s Privacy Policy.

3.6. Zeffy - Donations and SSC Merch

We embed Zeffy forms for donations and Shaw Spouses' Club T-shirt orders. Information you submit in these forms, including order and payment details, is processed by Zeffy. Review Zeffy's privacy information for details.

3.7. Embedded Content from Other Websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g., videos, images, articles). Embedded content from other websites behaves as if you have visited the other website directly. These websites may:

  • Collect data about you.
  • Use cookies.
  • Embed additional third-party tracking.
  • Monitor your interaction with the embedded content, including tracking your interaction if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Events Aggregation

The "Upcoming Events" section aggregates events from our Google Calendar, Microsoft 365 calendar, and Facebook page. These sources are fetched server-side at build time (every six hours via an automated workflow) and stored as a static JSON snapshot in our public source repository. As a result:

  • No third-party cookies, scripts, or tracking pixels are loaded by the events section when you view our site.
  • We never send your IP address, browser fingerprint, or any other identifier to Google, Microsoft, or Meta as part of displaying events.
  • When you click "View on Facebook/Google/Microsoft" or "Add to calendar", you leave our site and the destination's own privacy policy applies.
  • If an event is deleted at the source, it is removed from our snapshot at the next scheduled refresh (up to six hours). For immediate deletion of personal data shown on an event, contact us at the address below.

4. How We Use Your Information

We use the collected information for various purposes:

  • To Operate and Maintain Our Website: Ensuring smooth functionality and user experience.
  • To Improve Customer Service: Your information helps us respond to your requests and support needs more efficiently.
  • To Personalize User Experience: Understanding how our users utilize the services and resources provided.
  • To Process Transactions: Information provided during transactions is used strictly for order processing.
  • To Send Periodic Emails: Using the email address to send information and updates pertaining to your interests.

5. Who We Share Your Data With

We respect your privacy and do not sell, trade, or rent your personal identification information to others. However:

  • Service Providers: We may share your information with third-party service providers to help us operate our website or administer activities on our behalf, such as sending out newsletters or surveys.
  • Spam Detection Services: Visitor comments may be checked through automated spam detection services.
  • Legal Obligations: We may disclose your information if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities.

6. Data Retention

6.1. Comments

  • Retention Period: Comments and their metadata are retained indefinitely. This allows us to recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically.

6.2. Registered Users

  • User Profiles: For users that register on our website, we store the personal information provided in their user profile.
  • User Rights: All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except for changing their username). Website administrators can also view and edit this information.

7. Your Rights Over Your Data

You have the following data protection rights:

  • Access and Portability: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
  • Correction: Request that we correct any personal information if it is inaccurate or incomplete.
  • Erasure: Request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions.
  • Restrict Processing: Object to our processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
  • Withdraw Consent: Withdraw your consent at any time where we relied on your consent to process your personal information.

To exercise these rights, please contact us at shawspousesclub@outlook.com.

8. Your Rights in the European Union, United Kingdom, and EEA (GDPR)

If you visit from the European Union, the United Kingdom, or the wider European Economic Area, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the UK GDPR applies to our handling of your personal data, and this section supplements the rest of this policy.

Legal bases. We process personal data only on these bases:

  • Consent: In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, Google's tags set no analytics or advertising cookies and read no identifiers from your device until you accept through the cookie consent banner — until then they only count visits in an aggregate, cookie-free way. Elsewhere, including the United States, analytics cookies are set from your first visit and our basis is legitimate interests rather than consent; you can still switch them off at any time. Session recording (Microsoft Clarity) and marketing (Meta Pixel) scripts load only if you explicitly opt in, everywhere in the world. You can withdraw consent at any time via the Cookie Preferences link in the footer; this site then deletes the tracking cookies it set, Google's tags return to that cookie-free state, and the opt-in scripts stop loading from your next page view.
  • Legitimate interests: Operating, securing, and improving this website (for example, essential cookies and server logs), balanced against your rights.
  • Legal obligation: Where processing is required to comply with applicable law.

How consent works, in plain language. We use Google Consent Mode, and what it does depends on where you are. If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, nothing is stored until you accept: Google's tags set no analytics or advertising cookies and read no identifiers from your device, and analytics counts your visit only in an aggregate, cookie-free way. Everywhere else — including the United States, where this charity operates — analytics cookies are set from your first page view without requiring your prior opt-in — the banner is still shown, so you can decline — because no law there requires us to ask first and the measurement is what tells us whether the site is working. Advertising data is shared with Google in those regions too, for the Ad Grants search ads described in the California section below, and you can stop that at any time with the Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information link in the footer or by sending a Global Privacy Control signal. To be precise about what happens before an EEA/UK/Swiss visitor decides: the tags still load and send a cookie-free signal to Google, which is what lets us count visits without identifying anyone; nothing is stored on your device and nothing follows you to your next visit. One thing does travel: if you arrived from an ad, the click identifier already in your link is carried between pages of this site so the ad can still be credited if you accept — until you do, it is stripped from what the tags send. You can change your mind at any time via the Cookie Preferences link in the footer. See our Cookie Policy for details.

Your rights. You have the right to: access the personal data we hold about you; have inaccurate data rectified; have your data erased; restrict or object to processing; receive your data in a portable format; and withdraw any consent you have given, at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.

Exercising your rights and complaints. Contact us at shawspousesclub@outlook.com to exercise any of these rights; we will respond within the time limits the GDPR sets. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your national data protection supervisory authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office).

9. Your California Privacy Rights (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA/CPRA), gives you specific rights, and this section supplements the rest of this policy.

We do not sell your personal information for money. Shaw Spouses' Club has never received, and does not receive, payment for your personal information. California law defines “sharing” broadly enough to cover what we describe next, so we tell you plainly rather than rely on that distinction.

We do share advertising data with Google. This site advertises through Google Ad Grants, the programme that gives nonprofits free search advertising to reach people looking to donate or volunteer. Keeping that grant requires us to measure which ads lead to those actions, so where advertising storage is permitted we allow Google to set advertising cookies and to receive conversion data. Under the CCPA/CPRA this may constitute “sharing” for cross-context behavioral advertising, and you have the right to opt out. We do not enable personalized or remarketing advertising — Ad Grants accounts cannot use it, and we leave that signal switched off.

How to opt out. Use the Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information link in the site footer. We also honor the Global Privacy Control (GPC): if your browser or an extension sends that signal we treat it as an opt-out automatically, and you need do nothing else. Opting out stops advertising data sharing; it does not switch off the basic analytics we use to see how the site performs, which you control separately through Cookie Preferences. Visitors in the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland are never opted in to begin with — nothing is shared there until you accept.

When the opt-out takes effect. For Google's tags it is immediate: the signal is read before any of them load, so a browser sending Global Privacy Control never has advertising cookies set at all. The Meta Pixel does not understand that signal, so we stop it by hand — opting out deletes the cookies it has already set and prevents it loading on any later page. We are being precise rather than reassuring here: a Pixel that is already running in the page you are on cannot be unloaded until you navigate, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.

One more limit, for the same reason. We record your choice in your browser's own storage, and some private-browsing modes refuse to let us write anything there. When that happens the opt-out still takes effect for the rest of your visit — nothing we do can quietly undo it — but there is nowhere to remember it, so you may need to make it again on a later visit. A browser sending Global Privacy Control needs no record at all: we read that signal fresh on every page.

We do not knowingly collect or sell the personal information of anyone under 16. We do not collect sensitive personal information beyond what is necessary to provide this website and our services, and we do not use it to infer characteristics about you.

Your rights. You have the right to: know what personal information we collect, use, and disclose, and to access it; delete personal information we collected from you; correct inaccurate personal information; opt out of the sharing of personal information for advertising, as described above — this right does apply here, and the footer link or a Global Privacy Control signal exercises it; limit the use of sensitive personal information; and not be discriminated against for exercising any of these rights, which means opting out does not change what this site offers you.

Opt-out preference signals (Global Privacy Control / Do Not Track). This site reads the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal and treats it as an opt-out of advertising data sharing. The check runs before any Google tag loads, so a browser sending GPC never has advertising cookies set in the first place — there is nothing to undo afterwards. Because GPC is a statutory signal, this site does not override it: if your browser sends it, the opt-out stands even if you also press Accept. Do Not Track (DNT) is a separate, deprecated signal with no agreed meaning, and we do not act on it. GPC opts you out of sale and sharing, not of basic analytics: outside the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland analytics cookies are set automatically, and any visitor, anywhere, can turn them off at any time via the Cookie Preferences link in the footer — we delete the cookies we set when you do. Session recording (Microsoft Clarity) and marketing (Meta Pixel) scripts never load unless you explicitly opt in.

Exercising your rights. Submit a request to shawspousesclub@outlook.com. We will verify your request using information associated with your interactions with us, and you may use an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf. We will respond within the timeframes California law requires.

10. Security Measures

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information:

  • Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Technology: To encrypt sensitive information transmitted online.
  • Access Controls: Limited access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors, and other third parties who have a business need to know.
  • Regular Security Audits: To identify and address potential vulnerabilities.

However, please note that no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure.

11. Third-Party Links

Our website may contain links to external sites that are not operated by us. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services. We encourage you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit.

12. Children’s Privacy

Protecting the privacy of young children is especially important:

  • Age Restrictions: Our services are not intended for individuals under the age of 13.
  • Parental Consent: We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without parental consent. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us immediately.

13. International Data Transfers

Your information may be transferred to—and maintained on—computers located outside of your state, province, country, or other governmental jurisdiction where data protection laws may differ:

  • Consent to Transfer: Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.
  • Compliance with Laws: We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

14. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time:

  • Notification of Changes: Any changes will be posted on this page with an updated effective date.
  • Review Periodically: We encourage users to frequently check this page for any changes to stay informed about how we are helping to protect the personal information we collect.

15. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us:

16. Additional Information

16.1. Privacy Contact

Questions about this Privacy Policy, or about how Shaw Spouses' Club handles your personal information, can be sent to shawspousesclub@outlook.com.

Your trust matters to us, and we are committed to protecting your personal information and using it responsibly.