Privacy and Disclosures

Privacy is important, and your personal information isn't collected or used by anyone associated with The Tool Pit.com, other than to answer any emails you may initiate. Your email address won't be rented, sold, loaned, retained, added to any lists, or be used in any marketing materials. The following sections explain our privacy policy in more detail, along with our relationship with Amazon:

Amazon (Affiliate Links)

There are links within some of the product reviews on The Tool Pit.com website, and the links that go to Amazon are called affiliate links, which may pay a commission if you purchase an item found on our site. Our reviews are straightforward and honest, and we don't accept any products for free in exchange for a review. None of your Amazon account information is passed on to anyone at The Tool Pit.com. Amazon has a strict privacy policy and their privacy policy can be found here.

There are quite a few rules we need to follow as an affiliate and one of the required rules is to display the affiliate disclosure which is:

The Tool Pit.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees.

Another required disclosure is for cookies (Amazon doesn't require specific wording so here's ours):

When you click on any of the Amazon links on The Tool Pit.com website, a cookie will be enabled by Amazon in order to process your purchase. Without that information, Amazon wouldn't be able to fill your order. Whatever information contained in that cookie is for Amazon's eyes only - we don't receive any of your personal info. The length of time the cookie is active depends on your browser settings, and whether you've purchased the item or added it to your cart for a future purchase.

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission)

The FTC has gotten involved with affiliate marketers recently, and that's a good thing. When using a desktop, a consumer can hover over a link to see where it goes before clicking, but that's not an option with cell phones. The FTC wants any paid endorsements and/or affiliate disclosures to be displayed at the beginning of each affiliated article, rather than one general disclosure being buried on an 'About' or 'Privacy' page.

The FTC doesn't give any specific compliance examples, so we've chosen to add a disclosure at the top of any page that includes affiliate links, and for now, we're adding the word 'ad' to most affiliated links on those pages. The wording in the paragraph also makes it clear that the links are going to Amazon. For example, 'all links go to Amazon', or [product] is available on Amazon, etc., so if there are multiple affiliate links in a paragraph, not every link will need the word 'ad'.

No other affiliations

The Tool Pit.com isn't affiliated with any other businesses or websites, so even if there's a link to Walmart, Lowe's, or Home Depot on The Tool Pit website there's no affiliation or financial benefit, and as mentioned earlier, we don't accept products for free in exchange for a review.

Google

Like Amazon, Google also uses cookies and depending on the privacy settings you've chosen through your Google account, they may log your IP address. Google is constantly changing their policies, so you'll need to search for 'Google privacy policy' to get their latest info. Here's a link to the Google ad network privacy policy: http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html. Here's a link to Google's privacy policies if you need more info. You can also check out the Digital Advertising Alliance for more info and read about their opt-out page.

Google Analytics

Most websites use some type of analytics (in our case it's Google Analytics) to monitor where the online traffic is originating (country), and which articles are most popular. This information helps us to deliver useful, interesting, and relevant content. The information we get from Google Analytics doesn't give any specific information about you, your specific location, or your email address.

YouTube Videos

The Tool Pit.com has a YouTube channel and our videos are included on the Tool Pit.com website in order to complement our corresponding written subject matter. As with our website, our YouTube videos don't contain any advertisements, but they may contain an affiliate link in the description area if the video is viewed on the YouTube website, and you have the choice whether or not to click on the link. Google and YouTube are one in the same, so the YouTube privacy policy is the same as Google's privacy policy.

Google/YouTube November 2020 TOS update

Unbelievably, on 11/18/2020, Google announced they're going to be placing ads on any and all videos regardless of whether the video's creator consents. Google gets to keep all the proceeds, and also chooses which ads are placed on which videos. We have no control over those ads, and receive no financial compensation.

Coppa

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) is a law enacted to protect the personal information of children under 13 years of age. The Tool Pit doesn't target or collect information from kids under 13 (or anyone else for that matter) so by default, The Tool Pit is COPPA compliant. Here's a link to the COPPA website page if you'd like to find out more.

California Online Privacy Protection Act

CalOPPA requires commercial websites and online services to post a privacy policy and state exactly what information is being collected and disclose with whom it's being shared. We're not a commercial website or online service, don't collect any information, and if you email us we'll reply, but won't share your email with anyone and have no reason to keep your email once we've replied. Visit Consumercal.org for more info.

GDPR

The European Union enacted a privacy law in 2018 called GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which focuses on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union. The law covers how long a website owner is allowed to keep any personal info, along with the requirement to obtain permission to use your email for marketing material and/or newsletters.

The Tool Pit isn't an e-commerce site so there's no financial transaction information, we don't send out a newsletter or any other marketing material, and there are no comment forms that would require you to register in order to post a comment. As mentioned at the beginning of this Privacy Policy page, we don't collect any personal information, no matter where you live.

Changes to this privacy policy

The contents of this privacy page may change at any time and we'll update this Privacy page when they occur. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to touch base.

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