Privacy Policy

Who we are

Our business is called West Michigan Guides and our website address is: https://westmichiganguides.com, referred to in this document as “we” and “the website.” Our parent company is Advantage Marketing & Publications, Inc.

Users may contact us using the contact form available at https://westmichiganguides.com/contact.

Comments

We do not allow users to submit comments on our website.

Embedded content from other websites

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

Cookie policies

Plugin: GDPR Cookie Consent

We use a plugin called ‘GDPR Cookie Consent’ to allow users to enable or disable cookies on this website as well as adjust cookie settings.

About our cookie policy

This policy is intended to explain what cookies are and how we use them, the types of cookies we use i.e, the information we collect using cookies and how that information is used, and how to control the cookie preferences.

You can at any time change or withdraw your consent from the Cookie Declaration on our website.

Your consent applies to the following domains: westmichiganguides.com
[user_consent_state]

What are cookies ?

Cookies are small text files that are used to store small pieces of information. They are stored on your device when the website is loaded on your browser. These cookies help us make the website function properly, make it more secure, provide better user experience, and understand how the website performs and to analyze what works and where it needs improvement.

How do we use cookies ?

As most of the online services, our website uses first-party and third-party cookies for several purposes. First-party cookies are mostly necessary for the website to function the right way, and they do not collect any of your personally identifiable data.

The third-party cookies used on our website are mainly for understanding how the website performs, how you interact with our website, keeping our services secure, providing advertisements that are relevant to you, and all in all providing you with a better and improved user experience and help speed up your future interactions with our website.

What types of cookies do we use ?

Essential: Some cookies are essential for you to be able to experience the full functionality of our site. They allow us to maintain user sessions and prevent any security threats. They do not collect or store any personal information. For example, these cookies allow you to log-in to your account and add products to your basket, and checkout securely.

Statistics: These cookies store information like the number of visitors to the website, the number of unique visitors, which pages of the website have been visited, the source of the visit, etc. These data help us understand and analyze how well the website performs and where it needs improvement.

Marketing: Our website displays advertisements. These cookies are used to personalize the advertisements that we show to you so that they are meaningful to you. These cookies also help us keep track of the efficiency of these ad campaigns.
The information stored in these cookies may also be used by the third-party ad providers to show you ads on other websites on the browser as well.

Functional: These are the cookies that help certain non-essential functionalities on our website. These functionalities include embedding content like videos or sharing content of the website on social media platforms.

Preferences: These cookies help us store your settings and browsing preferences like language preferences so that you have a better and efficient experience on future visits to the website.

[cookie_audit columns=”cookie,description” heading=”The below list details the cookies used in the ‘GDPR Cookie Consent’ Plugin.”]

How can I control the cookie preferences ?

Should you decide to change your preferences later through your browsing session, you can click on the “Privacy & Cookie Policy” tab on your screen. This will display the consent notice again enabling you to change your preferences or withdraw your consent entirely.

In addition to this, different browsers provide different methods to block and delete cookies used by websites. You can change the settings of your browser to block/delete the cookies. To find out more about how to manage and delete cookies, visit wikipedia.org, www.allaboutcookies.org.

Other Third Party Plugins and Services

Plugin: Hummingbird

The Plugin ‘Hummingbird’ uses the Stackpath Content Delivery Network (CDN) in order to deliver improved loading time on our website. Stackpath may store web log information of site visitors, including IPs, UA, referrer, Location and ISP info of site visitors for 7 days. Files and images served by the CDN may be stored and served from countries other than your own. Stackpath’s privacy policy can be found here.

Plugin: Smush

The Plugin ‘Smush’ does not interact with end users on your website but instead is aimed at reducing the file size of images and other features aimed at optimizing the website’s loading time. Smush sends images to the WPMU DEV servers to optimize them for web use. This includes the transfer of EXIF data. The EXIF data will either be stripped or returned as it is. It is not stored on the WPMU DEV servers.

Smush uses the Stackpath Content Delivery Network (CDN). Stackpath may store web log information of site visitors, including IPs, UA, referrer, Location and ISP info of site visitors for 7 days. Files and images served by the CDN may be stored and served from countries other than your own. Stackpath’s privacy policy can be found here.

Third-Party Email Service: Drip

Smush uses a third-party email service (Drip) to send informational emails to the site administrator. The administrator’s email address is sent to Drip and a cookie is set by the service. Only administrator information is collected by Drip.

Plugin: Ninja Forms

We use the plugin ‘Ninja Forms’ to create input forms on our site such as the form on the Contact Us page. The sole purpose of these forms is to provide an easy way for users to send emails to our website administrators and advertisers. We do not share personal information submitted through these forms with any third parties whatsoever; instead our site administrators and advertisers use your contact information only to respond to your email.

Google reCaptcha

We employ ‘reCaptcha’ developed by Google as a spam-prevention service. The reCAPTCHA algorithm will check to see if there’s a Google cookie placed on the computer being used. Then an additional reCAPTCHA-specific cookie will be added to the user’s browser, and a complete snapshot of the user’s browser window at that moment in time will be captured, pixel by pixel.

Some of the browser and user information collected at this time includes:

All cookies placed by Google over the last 6 months,
How many mouse clicks you’ve made on that screen (or touches if on a touch device),
The CSS information for that page,
The date,
The language your browser is set to,
Any plug-ins you have installed on the browser, and
All Javascript objects

The use of Google’s reCaptcha service does not to assist or permit any third party to pass information to Google that Google could use or recognize as personally identifiable information.

Google Analytics

We ask for your consent to use cookies, including those set by Google Analytics, to track user impressions and clicks on westmichiganguides.com. We use the Google Analytics cookie to track page visits, asset loading, and your user behavior (clicks on impressions) on any of the posts or pages of this website. We leverage Google advertising cookies in order to serve ads that are relevant to your interests. These cookies are set by Google based on your previous user behavior. The use of these cookies does not to assist or permit any third party to pass information to Google that Google could use or recognize as personally identifiable information.
Users can opt-out of the Google Analytics Advertising Features you use, including through Ads Settings, Ad Settings for mobile apps, or any other available means (for example, the Browser Opt-Out Add-on).

Google Privacy Policy Documentation

Google’s Privacy Policies differ in different countries. Click here for detailed documentation about Google’s Privacy Policy in the United States.

Google Advertising

Our website employs Google Analytics Advertising Features that may include:

Remarketing with Google Analytics
Google Display Network Impression Reporting
Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting
Integrated services that require Google Analytics to collect data for advertising purposes, including the collection of data via advertising cookies and identifiers

By enabling the Advertising Features, we enable Google Analytics to collect data about our website traffic via Google advertising cookies and identifiers, in addition to data collected through a standard Google Analytics implementation.

As it relates to Google Analytics Advertising Features, we are the sole controller under all applicable data protection legislation.

We will not identify users or facilitate the merging of personally identifiable information with additional information collected through any Google advertising product or feature without robust notice of, and the user’s prior affirmative (i.e., opt-in) consent to, that identification or merger, and are using a Google Analytics feature that expressly supports such identification or merger. Irrespective of users’ consent, we must not attempt to disaggregate data that Google reports in aggregate.

Click here for more details about Google’s contracts and policies.

European Union user consent policy

We comply with the European Union User Consent Policy.

Interest-based advertising

We comply with the Google Ads Policy for Personalized advertising and its sensitive category restrictions, and the Platform Program Policies.