Privacy Policy

LAST UPDATE: June 2, 2022

The primary goal of Austin DesignWorks (“us”, “we”, or “our”) is to provide our clients exceptional customer service and provide them with a website that meets their needs. As part of that goal, we are committed to protecting your Personal Data and sensitive information and this policy explains ways in which we might use your information in conjunction with designing, building, and maintaining your website, or any other service we might provide.

This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use, storage, and disclosure of Personal Data when you use our services and the choices you have associated with that data.

If you have any questions about our policy or how your data is used, feel free to use the contact form at the bottom of the page to reach out to us. We are happy to answer any inquiry.

By using this site, you consent to the terms of this privacy policy.

Our fundamental principles regarding personal data

We do not sell data. Period.
We do not distribute data unless compelled by law or at your explicit direction, which must be submitted in writing.
We do not ask for personal information or data unless it’s needed to provide a service or information on a service.
We do not store personal information or data unless required for providing on-going service, or as legally required.

What personal data or information do we collect from our clients?

Austin DesignWorks collects your name and email when you send us an email directly; or fill out our General Inquiry Contact Form, Request for Quote form, or other contact forms on this website. We may also gather other identifiable information through surveys and questionnaires in order to provide you a quote for your project or for the purpose of designing, developing, and maintaining your website.

At some point during development, we may request access to certain service provider accounts necessary for us to complete your project. These accounts may include, but may not be limited to the following (based on your project type and specifics):

Your Website Host – where your website is “stored” on the Internet
Your Domain Registrar – where your domain is registered
Your Newsletter or Mailing List service or provider

To access most accounts, we will need a username or login, email address, and password. We will not request access to any account(s) other than those necessary to complete your project or to assist you with any future additions or changes that you request for your site. You are not required to provide ongoing access to any of your accounts. If you do not wish us to have ongoing access and later make a request for assistance with your site, you will need to provide temporary access at that time, if necessary to fulfill your request. In some instances, you may be able to add us to an account as a collaborator or administrator, with limited access to the account’s most sensitive data.

We do not review or store, under any circumstances, the personally identifiable data of your newsletter subscribers or any other personally identifiable information that may be stored in your website database, including but not limited to names and email addresses. Nor do we actively access or review this information while assisting with legitimate tasks associated with your website.

How your personal data is used

Clients

Any Personal Data or sensitive information submitted to Austin DesignWorks will be used only to assist you in creating/developing or maintaining your website, as well as to provide technical support for your website. Any Personal Data you provide will be kept private and confidential. It will not be sold, rented, or distributed except in circumstances where we may be required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency).

In certain circumstances, we may request to share your name and website address to market our services through our website, and possibly through third-party businesses such as magazines/publications, social media sites, or other outlets, with the aim of raising public awareness of our business and services. We will not share any of your other information or other private data for these purposes.

Forms on this website

Any forms on this site request only the most necessary personal data – name and email – for us to communicate with you about our services.

Blog Comments

If you elect to comment on any published page or blog post on our site, the name and email address you enter into the comment form, along with your computer’s IP address and the date and time of the comment will be saved to our site database. The Personal Data you enter is used solely to identify you as a commenter on the respective page or blog post. Your Personal Data is not shared with or processed by a third party, but it will remain in our database until the comment is deleted or the respective page or post is deleted. On the public-facing site, only the name you entered will be visible alongside the comment, although if you make a comment with an email associated with a Gravatar account, your Gravatar image will be also be displayed. If you ever wish us to remove your Personal Data from our site, please make a request through the contact form at the bottom of this page or on the Contact page, using the same email address you used to comment.

NOTE: We strongly urge you to never include personal or identifying data in comments on this site.

Newsletters & mailing lists

If you retain Austin DesignWorks for your website project, you will be explicitly offered the opportunity (within a project survey) to join our client-only, general mailing list, which keeps our clients informed of the following:

Any office hour changes due to vacations, holidays, and any other expected or unexpected circumstances where our office hours might be affected for an extended period.
Any changes and/or additions to our products and services, or pricing changes and specials.
Information we deem important to website security, such as alerts about any WordPress updates that WordPress.org marks as urgent or critical to site security.
Any information that affects all client sites in a significant way or requires action on part of the website owner. Examples of this type of information:
- The push by Google and other web businesses for all sites to use SSL certificates for secure connections between users’ web browsers and the server that hosts your site. Not having an SSL certificate will negatively affect your search engine rankings, and your site will be marked unsecured by web browsers.
- The new European ePrivacy laws affect how websites handle user data and requires, among other things, transparency in how that data is gathered and used, and an interactive “cookie consent” option for site visitors.

If you consent, you will be added to the list.
If you do not consent, you will not be added to the list.

Note: We do not require clients to be subscribed to any newsletter we offer.

If you consent but decide to opt-out later, you may unsubscribe using the text link at the bottom of any newsletter emails that you may have received from Austin DesignWorks in the past, or you may contact us directly through our website using the form below to request your removal from our mailing list(s). Removal requests will be honored immediately and completely.

In the future, Austin DesignWorks may offer additional newsletters to provide other information we believe of value to our clients but clients will only be informed of the newsletter’s availability and provided a link where they can sign up if interested. Clients will not be automatically subscribed to any such newsletter.

Note: If you elect not to be part of the general mailing list, you will not receive advance notice of office hour changes, news about services and pricing changes, or critical alerts about site security.

Usage data

Austin DesignWorks may also collect information about how our website is accessed and used (“Usage Data”). This Usage Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our website that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

IP Addresses
We temporarily log IP addresses of site visitors for the purpose protecting our website from hacking and spamming attempts. Logs purged after 30 days.

Cookies
Austin DesignWorks may use first-party and third-party cookies to compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction in order to optimize our website. Cookies are files with small amount of data which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your device. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our website.

Examples of Cookies we may use:

Session Cookies – used to operate our website.
Preference Cookies – used to remember your preferences and various settings.
Security Cookies – used for security purposes

» View Our Cookie Policy

Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics to monitor and analyze the use of our website. Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic and uses the data collected to track and monitor the use of our website. This data is shared with other Google services. Google may use the collected data to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network. You can opt-out of having made your activity on our website available to Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. The add-on prevents the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, and dc.js) from sharing information with Google Analytics about visits activity. For more information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit the Google Privacy Terms web page.

» View Our Cookie Policy

Retention of data

Austin DesignWorks will retain your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies.

Security of data

The security of your data is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Third-party disclosure

Austin DesignWorks does not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your Personally Identifying Information unless you request in writing for us to do so. We may use the services of various Service Providers in order to process your data more effectively and conduct our business so long as those providers agree to keep this information confidential.

Services we use include:

SiteGround
We use SiteGround to host our Website. If we host your website, then SiteGround is your host as well, as such, we have access to any information contained in your site database. We do not, however, process any personally identifying information from your site visitors or store any such information within our website or services (as listed below). We access your website only at your behest and only what is necessary to complete the tasks you request. Read SiteGround’s Privacy Policy.

Plutio
We use the secure, password-protected, third-party service at Plutio to collect your name, email address, and project information, and to send out invoices in relation to our services. Plutio keeps your information confidential and will not sell or share your information, and they will not contact you directly. Read Plutio’s Privacy Policy.

Paypal
We use PayPal for some invoicing tasks but largely for collecting payments for invoices sent via Plutio. Read PayPal’s Privacy Policy.

DropBox
We use DropBox to securely collect information, such as text or image files, from clients for use in their projects. We assign each client a specific folder and access is shared only with the client. Read DropBox’s Privacy Policy.

Please note: There may be some instances where Austin DesignWorks may disclose your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:

Comply with a legal obligation, as noted above
Protect and defend the rights or property of Austin DesignWorks
Prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with our services
Protect others’ rights, property, or safety.
Protect against legal liability

Transfer of data

Due to the global nature of the internet and internet services, your information, including Personal Data, may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of your state, province, country, or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from your jurisdiction.

If you are located outside the United States and choose to provide information to us, please note that we transfer the data, including Personal Data, to the United States, where Austin DesignWorks is located, and process it there.

Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.

Austin DesignWorks will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of your data and other personal information.

Your rights

Austin DesignWorks aims to take reasonable steps to allow you to correct, amend, delete, or limit the use of your Personal Data. Whenever made possible, you can update your Personal Data directly. If you are unable to change your Personal Data, please contact us to make the required changes. If you wish to be informed what Personal Data we hold about you and if you want it to be removed from our systems, please contact us.

In certain circumstances, you have the right:

To access and receive a copy of the Personal Data we hold about you
To rectify any Personal Data held about you that is inaccurate
To request the deletion of Personal Data held about you

You also have the right to data portability for the information you provide to Austin DesignWorks. You can request to obtain a copy of your Personal Data in a commonly used electronic format so that you can manage and move it.

Lost or forgotten usernames and/or passwords
While we can definitely empathize with losing or forgetting usernames and passwords, as a general rule and for your security, we do not give out any login credentials you may provide us in connection with your website or related services, even if the request for that information appears to come from you.

If you have lost your password or username for a service provider or account, you should consult the resources from that provider for resetting your password or locating your username.

If we are the service provider or your only recourse in obtaining this information, for your security and legal reasons, we may require proof of your identity before we release such information.

Links to other sites

Our website may contain links to other sites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit.

We have no control over and assume no responsibility, legal or otherwise, for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third-party sites or services.

Children’s privacy

Our website and services do not address anyone under the age of 13 (“Children”).

We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with Personal Data, please contact us. If we become aware that we have collected Personal Data from children without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from our servers.

Changes to this privacy policy

If Austin DesignWorks decides to change any part of this policy, we will post the changes on this page. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

Contact Us

By submitting the form above, you are consenting to Austin DesignWorks contacting you in regards to your communication regarding our privacy policy. Your information will be handled as stated in this policy. You are free to request that these communications stop at any time.

If you don’t hear from us within 48 business hours of submitting this form or via any other method of contact, please check your spam or junk inbox, just in case our reply landed there. If you don’t find a response from us, absolutely feel free to email us directly.