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Last Updated: 8 months ago

Privacy Policy

I take extra care to respect your privacy as you use this site, but there are some things you should know:

Simply stated

  • I do not know who you are and I won't ask; I do, however, attempt to detect the country from which you're visiting so I can provide prices in the right currency.
  • No purchases are made on this site; I'm an advisor, not a retailer.
  • If you end up buying from a recommended retailer, I might get paid a little for the referral at no extra cost to you.
  • This site uses Cookies to which ad format you prefer (targeted or blind) and interests you might have expressed while browsing the site. That information is used to display information pertinent to you without requiring registration or uploading data on the site.
  • Tek Advisor Uses Google Analytics as well as Facebook and Twitter conversion trackers. They provides me with information regarding how the site's used and actively shape how I maintain the site's content and help me figure out areas to improve. This service mashes every sessions together and do not allow me to track individuals, even if I wanted.
  • Dynamic ads on this site might also, in some scenarios, generate some revenue for me.
  • You can opt out of dynamic ads and tracking in various ways, including the AdChoice Opt-out tool

Registration

It is not necessary to sign up to use this site. You are welcome to follow us on social networks or to subscribe to our newsletter, but it is only to remain informed of new developments with this site. No email addresses or social media account is ever used on this site.

Storage of Personal Information

TekAdvisor.ca

I only import aggregated popularity count on TekAdvisor.ca and I do not even publish those numbers. They're simply used to direct my daily updates, making sure popular devices are given priority regarding the freshness of their data and filtering popular software to lighten compatibility tables.

Popularity totals are updated daily for devices, and weekly for software.

Mailchimp

My newsletter is handled by Mailchimp, which stores users Email address, and optionally, Surname and Last Name. Each and every Email sent through this channel includes an unsubscibe link. You can also unsubscribe here.

Analytics Services (Google, FaceBook, Twitter)

I use analytics to make sure I spend most of my efforts where my visitors' interest lies. Most of that is determined using visitor count on a specific page or event counts related to user actions on the site like completing a quiz, reading an article to the bottom or tracking compatibility for a specific program.

Google provides me only basic informations, like visitors and events count and approximative location (I can see the city from which visitors are coming from, but not further) but without any personally-identifying information.

FaceBook goes a bit more personal; including aggregate gender and age, but without personal details, and only for groups of 100 persons or more.

Twitter, on the other end, only helps determine if an ad was successful or not.

I have more ressources to opt to not be tracked online by lawful organizations like the ones listed above in the Choice/Opt-out section below, but an easy way to opt out is to use the AdChoice Opt-out tool.

Overall

In short, I store no personal information at all, 3rd parties (like Google) do. They aggregate that data and serve it back to me as an anonymous summary.

Analytics

As I mentioned above, I use Google Analytics, Google Advertising, Twitter conversion tracking and FaceBook's tracking pixels to measure how this site is used and identify where improvements are needed. I also use it in conjunction with advertising services to bring visitors back to the site on pages I think would be most useful to my visitors based on their behavior while browsing TekAdvisor.ca.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics collects information such as how often users visit this site, what pages they visit, and what other sites they used before coming to this site. I use the information I get from Google Analytics only to improve this site. Google Analytics collects only the IP address assigned to you on the date you visit this site, rather than your name or other identifying information. I do not combine the information collected through the use of Google Analytics with personally identifiable information. Although Google Analytics plants a persistent cookie on your web browser to identify you as a unique user the next time you visit this site, the cookie cannot be used by anyone but Google. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to this site is restricted by the Google Analytics Terms of Use and the Google Privacy Policy. You can prevent Google Analytics from recognizing you on return visits to this site by disabling cookies on your browser.

Google Analytics employs cookies to define user sessions, which allows for the collection of data about how visitors are using the websites. Google Analytics uses only first-party cookies for data analysis.  This means that the cookies are linked to a specific website domain, and Google Analytics will only use that cookie data for statistical analysis related to your browsing behavior on that specific website.  According to Google, the data collected cannot be altered or retrieved by services from other domains.

If you choose, you can opt out by turning off cookies in the preferences settings in your web browser. For more information on Google Analytics, please visit Google Analytics

Facebook Pixel

Facebook has a similar service which essentially works like Google's. Here's how you can Adjust how Facebook targets advertising at you.

Twitter

Twitter's analytics services only extend to external sites like TekAdvisor.ca for conversion tracking. Those are only used to measure the effectiveness of certain promotional campaigns I might be running on their social media. Here's the page where Twitter offers additional details on the subject, including how to opt out.

Cookies

A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user’s computer for record-keeping purposes.

The site uses a few cookies to identify visitors over a very short period and improve your experience in various ways such as directing you to a different home page if you are a returning user or helping you see at a glance if your favorite software runs on the devices you are browsing through.

An unintrusive bar appears at the bottom of the page when you first visit the page and lets you select between blind (i.e. not tailored by your past behavior) and targetted ads. That preference is stored in a cookie which is set to expire after a year.

If you demonstrated interest in a specific App, Program or Game and consented to the site's use of cookies, it will also keep those on your computer for 30 days to show their compatibility rating in product lists and to provide personalized recommendations.

The site can display prices in Canadian Dollars (CAD) or US Dollars (USD), and a cookie stores your currency preference for a period of 30 days.

Session identifiers are not stored once visitors leave the site, but other cookies will last longer unless you are browsing the site in private mode.

Third party content displayed on this site such as ads are likely to generate additional cookies outside of my control.

As mentioned above, third party cookies are used by third parties as a part of their analytics and advertising services.

  • Google's cookies are documented in detail here.
  • Facebook's cookies are documented here.
  • Twitter's cookies are documented here.

For more information concerning cookies, what they are and how to deal with them, you can also visit whatarecookies.com.

Geolocation

This product includes GeoLite2 data created by MaxMind, available from https://www.maxmind.com.

This feature attempts to locate visitors current country using their IP address. IP addresses and the resulting location data are not stored on TekAdvisor.ca. They are only used to set the currency cookie mentioned above if it does not already exist.

Remarketing

As you visit this site, analytics such as Google's and FaceBook take note of what you're looking for; for instance, what kind of devices you're looking at and what user profiles they correspond to. That data could then be used to send you ads to pages on this site which could come in handy to you.

For instance, let's say you looked at comparisons for specific laptop models on TekAdvisor and that those laptops are the "productivity" type. Facebook would be in measure to present ads promoting my listing of Laptops geared for productivity to you and/or people like you.

Third-party Website Destinations

This website includes thousands of "web links" to other websites operated by many other individuals, companies, and organizations. Almost all of those sites use cookies and log files to track your activity, and some may also utilize other strategies to track and monitor your use of their websites. Some of the links to external websites pass through intermediaries such as Rakuten LinkShare or VigLinks, which also track your click, store a cookie, and transfer your request to another web server. These intermediaries (and their cookies) are later checked if you make a purchase at the third-party destination website, and if so, the intermediary records information about that transaction so that the third parties can account and pay me an advertising fee in exchange for directing customers to their websites. Some merchants share aggregate purchase information with us; for example, Amazon.ca reports the specific items that were purchased by consumers that were referred from this website; I use this information when updating this website's content and advertising. However, these third-party merchants do not share any personal identifying information with us.

Third-party Website Content (including ads)

Certain content that appears on this site comes from Amazon Services LLC, Rakuten Linkshare, VigLink and Google AdSense. This content is provided 'as is' and is subject to change or removal at any time.

Third-party content's use is likely to be tracked by its site of origin. It is then possible that third parties such as Amazon and Rakuten LinkShare could know how often certain products have been looked at on this site and gain some knowledge about you.

Sponsored links and content.

Some of the devices ranked on this site are available through affiliated links (also referred to as "Sponsored links"). Those links will take you to a retailer's website where the product is up for sale, and if you end up making a purchase, I could receive a small remuneration for the referral.

I try to identify these links whenere I can, but since I started using VigLink (now Sovrn), that became more difficult because of their automation. As a result, any link on TekAdvisor.ca could turn into an affiliate link without any action on my part.

Information Sharing and Disclosure

This website does not collect or share any personally identifiable information with third parties. The only information "sharing" occurs in the manner specified in the preceding paragraphs. I do not aggregate user data with personally identifiable information.

Choice/Opt-out

I've mentioned a few opt-out methods already, but here they are for your convenience:

Legal Disclaimers

I reserve the right to disclose any information I may have as required by law and when I believe that disclosure is necessary to protect my rights and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our Website.(Since I do not gather any personal identifying information about you, I cannot inform you if this occurs.)

I follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the information submitted on this site. However, no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure, however. Therefore, while I strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect any information gathered on this site, I cannot guarantee its absolute security.

In the event that this website goes through a business transition, such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, the information collected by this website will likely be among the assets transferred.

Changes in this Privacy Statement

If this site decides to change its privacy policy, those changes will be posted to this privacy statement and other places I deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information I collect, how I use it, and under what circumstances, if any, I disclose it. I reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently.