Privacy Policy - TCI

Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to The Catfish Institute’s website, uscatfish.com. The Catfish Institute’s website is provided for information and educational purposes and may contain links to other sites. Once you enter another website (whether through an advertisement, service, or content link), be aware that The Catfish Institute is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites, nor should it be considered an endorsement by The Catfish Institute. We encourage you to review privacy policies of each and every website you visit.

Here we describe the privacy practices for our website, which will answer questions regarding the data we collect, how we use it, and the controls we give you over your information.

 

Information We Collect and How We Use Information

We collect the following personal information from you on the U.S. Catfish website forms.

  • First and Last name

  • Email address

By entering this information, you are providing personal information that will be used by U.S. Catfish for the sole purpose of returning your contact request.

If you choose to subscribe to our action updates, you will receive those updates, announcements and occasional promotional information via email.  At the time you subscribe or any time thereafter, you can choose to opt-out of receiving these emails from us.

Passive Information We Collect

Like many other websites, we also automatically collect and log other non-identifying information when you interact with the U.S. Catfish website:

 

Device data. We collect data from the device and application you use to access the U.S. Catfish website, such as your Internet protocol (IP) addresses, operating system, device type, browser type and timestamps.

Usage data. We collect usage data that may include which U.S. Catfish web pages you visit, what you click on, when you performed those actions, and so on. Emails sent by U.S. Catfish collect information about who opened those emails and clicked on links in them. We do this to measure the performance of the U.S. Catfish email messaging and to monitor and improve email deliverability and open rates.

 

How Information Is Shared

Except as set forth in this Privacy Policy or as specifically agreed to by you, U.S. Catfish will not disclose any Personally Identifiable Information it gathers from you on our website. We will only release Personally Identifiable Information to third parties:

(i) to comply with valid legal requirements such as a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or court order.

(ii) in special cases, such as a physical threat to you or others. In the event that we are legally compelled to disclose your Personally Identifiable Information to a third party, we will attempt to notify you unless doing so would violate the law or court order. In addition, we may disclose Personal Information as described in this policy.

 

Your Rights To Access Your Data and Your Right to Be Forgotten

You may ask us at any time for information about any personal data we hold about you. You can ask us to correct any of your personal data, and you may also ask us to permanently delete that information from our databases. We will complete this request within 30 days of the initial request for information being received. Please fill out the contact us form to start this process. If you need further assistance regarding your rights, please contact catfishinfo@uscatfish.com, and we will consider your request in accordance with applicable laws.

 

Analytics and Advertising Services Provided by Others

Google Analytics. In addition, our website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). The information generated by the cookie about your use of our website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of our website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. If you would like to prevent your date from being used by Google Analytics, you can use the Google Analytics Opt-OUt Browser Add-on. Further information may be obtained by visiting Google’s privacy policy.

 

Cookie Policy

We use cookies and other technologies to ensure that everyone who uses U.S. Catfish website has the best possible experience. By continuing to visit or use our services, you are agreeing to the use of cookies and similar technologies for the purposes we describe in this policy. If you would like to learn more about cookies, or how to control or delete them, please visit cookiesandyou.com.

Most browsers allow you to control cookies through their settings preferences. Here is a list of cookies used by U.S. Catfish. Note: the names of cookies, pixels, and other technologies may change over time.

 

Cookie NamePurposeExpirationPrivacy Policy

_gaUsed to distinguish users. 2 years https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html

_gidUsed to distinguish users. 24 hours https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html

_gat If Google Analytics is deployed via Google Tag Manager, this cookie will be named _dc_gtm_<property-id. Used to throttle request rate. 1 minute https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html

AMP_TOKEN Contains a token that can be used to retrieve a Client ID from AMP Client ID service. Other possible values indicate opt-out, inflight request or an error retrieving a Client ID from AMP Client ID service. 30 seconds to 1 year https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html

_gac_<property-id> Contains campaign related information for the user. If you have linked your Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts, Google Ads website conversion tags will read this cookie unless you opt-out. 90 days https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html The Catfish Institute A container tag that houses tracking pixels. No Expiration https://www.sizmek.com/privacy-policy/optedout/

We use Hotjar in order to better understand our users’ needs and to optimize this service and experience. Hotjar is a technology service that helps us better understand our users’ experience (e.g. how much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don’t like, etc.) and this enables us to build and maintain our service with user feedback. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our users’ behavior and their devices. This includes a device’s IP address (processed during your session and stored in a de-identified form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), and the preferred language used to display our website. Hotjar stores this information on our behalf in a pseudonymized user profile. Hotjar is contractually forbidden to sell any of the data collected on our behalf.

For further details, please see the ‘about Hotjar’ section of Hotjar’s support site.

 

Changes to this Policy

We reserve the right to modify this privacy policy at any time, so please review it frequently. Changes and clarifications will take effect immediately upon their posting on the website. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here that it has been updated, so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we use and/or disclose it.

 

Questions and Contact Information:

If you would like to access, correct, amend or delete any personal information we have about you, you are invited to contact us using the information below:

The Catfish Institute
Roger Barlow, President
6311 Ridgewood Rd, Ste.W404
Jackson, MS  39211
601-977-9559
catfishinfo@uscatfish.com