Privacy Policy
Last updated: September 2020
This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) describes how Business Africa Online. (“BAO”) with registered address may collect, use and share information you provide when using our Service, including your personal information. The term “Service” includes the websites www.businessafricaonline.com together with any related subsites, sub-domains, mobile and software applications, services, features and/or content associated therewith (collectively, “our Websites”). For purposes of this Privacy Policy, the terms “we,” “us” and “our” refer to BAO and “you” refers to you, as a user of our Service.
We’ve tried to keep this Privacy Policy simple, but if you’re not familiar with any of the terms used or have any questions, contact us at legal@businessafricaonline.com. We must emphasize again that your privacy matters to us at BAO, so whether you are new to our Service or are a regular or longtime user, it is important that you take the time to carefully read our Privacy Policy, so you can understand our practices as relates to
your information.
We will ask for your consent before using your information in any manner and for any purpose other than as described in this Privacy Policy.
This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information we receive from users of the Site. We use your Personal Information only for providing and improving the Site as it concerns providing you with valuable business content, tools and insights. By using the Site, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy.
1. Information Collection And Use
While using our Site, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you.
2. The Kinds of Information We Collect.
We collect information to provide better services to all of users of our Service, including determining what types of editorial content and the products and services offered on our Service that are of the most interest and relevance to you. We collect information about you from the following two sources:
a. The Information you give us. For example, many of our services require that you create an account. When you do, we’ll ask for personal information, like your name, email address, telephone number, and, if you are purchasing products or services on our Service, purchase information such as the products or services purchased, the dates of purchase and the purchase price.
b. The information we collect from your use of our Service. This information relates generally to what editorial and advertising content you view, and the products and services you use that we and our third-party providers offer. This information includes:
(i) Device Information, we collect information about the devices you use to access our Service, such as hardware settings, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and referral URL.
[ii] Use of our Service
Service, including the following:
(a) details about how you have used our Service, such as your search queries;
(b) your IP address, which is the number assigned to an Internet connected device such as a tablet or smartphone and used to identify the geographic location of that device; and
(c) cookies that may uniquely identify your browser and collect information about how our visitors interact with our Service, as well as help us identify problems such as error messages from certain pages. A cookie is
a small file containing a string of characters that is sent to your computer or other device when you visit our Service. When you visit our Service any time thereafter, the cookie allows our Service to recognize your browser and to store information about your user preferences and other personal information.
(iii) Location information. When you visit our Service, we may collect and process information about your actual location. We use various technologies to determine location, including IP address.
(iv) Local storage. We may collect and store information (including personal information) locally on your device, using mechanisms such as browser web storage (including HTML 5), which allows for data to be stored on a browser even after the browser has been closed and the reopened, and application data caches, which allow for data to be stored on your device, enabling an application to run without an Internet connection and to load content faster.
(v) Collection and Storage technologies. We and our partners use various technologies to collect and store information when you access the BAO Service, and this may include using cookies or other technologies to identify your browser or device. We also use these technologies to collect and store information when you access our Service and interact with the content and products and services we offer, such as advertising services.
3. How We Use Information We Collect.
Like many site operators, we collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit our Site, otherwise referred to as “Log Data”. This Log Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, browser version, the pages of our Site that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages and other statistics.
We may use third party services such as Google Analytics that collect, monitor and analyze this.
We use this data to improve our Service, as well as to maintain, protect and improve your overall experience. In particular, you may choose (i) to subscribe to any of our electronic newsletters, (ii) to receive “special offers” by BAO and its various service providers, (iii) to receive franchise and business opportunity information from selected advertisers, and we will use your information for these purposes provided you have given us your consent. You may also choose (iv) to submit questions or comments in response to editorial content on our Service, we will process your information to perform our agreement or comply with your request. In each of those instances you will be asked to provide, and we will collect and store, certain personal information such as email address, zip code, telephone number, and in some instances information about your business.
By providing that information and provided you have consented thereto, you acknowledge that it can be used by BAO and its various advertisers and other service providers to send you promotions and other communications concerning business opportunities, products or services. You can remove yourself from any such electronic newsletters and otherwise stop receiving any further promotions and other commercial communications by following the “unsubscribe” directions included with each newsletter or, in all of the above instances, by sending an email with the word “unsubscribe” in the subject line to unsubscribe@businessafricaonline.com.
We may use the name you provide for your BAO Profile across all of the services we offer that require an BAO Account, which is where the information you provide is maintained. In addition, we may replace past names associated with your BAO Account, so that you are represented consistently across all our services.
When you contact BAO, we retain a record of your communications to help solve any issues you might be facing, or to maintain a record to assist with legal claims. We will keep these records for a period of no more than 6 years. Provided you have consented thereto, we may use your email address to inform you about the products and services offered on our Service, such as letting you know about upcoming changes or improvements.
We use information collected from cookies and other technologies, like pixel tags, to improve your user experience and the overall quality of our services. You can reset your browser to reject all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. But you need to know that you may not be able access or use some features and services on our Service without cookies. A pixel tag is a type of technology which is placed on a website or within an email and used for the purpose of tracking activity on a website and is often used in combination with cookies.
We do not track our users across third party websites and thus do not respond to Do Not Track (“DNT”) signals. However, some third party websites do keep track of your browsing activities when they serve you
content, which enables them to tailor what they present to you. If you are visiting such sites, certain website browsers allow you to set the DNT signal on your browser so that third parties (particularly advertisers) know you do not want to be tracked.
4. The Advertising on Our Service.
Advertising on our Service makes it possible for us to offer you the information and products/services free of charge. We take seriously and make every effort to make sure that advertising is safe, unobtrusive and as relevant as possible.
Cookies are used to make that advertising as relevant as possible to the needs and interests of users of our Service, and more valuable to our advertisers in being able to show our visitors more relevant ads. Cookies
are also used to avoid you seeing the same ad multiple times and to detect and prevent click fraud. We use AdSense, Google Analytics and other DoubleClick services (collectively, “Google® Services”), which help us manage and improve our Service and help our advertisers better understand and track user interaction with their ads. When you visit a location on our Service that includes one or more of these ads, various cookies may be sent to your browser.
We may use other technologies, including Flash and HTML5, which provide the functionality for such displays as interactive advertising. We may also use your IP address to select and provide advertising targeted to that
address, in order to improve the relevance of the ads you see and to measure and report to advertisers non-personal statistical information about geographical location of those website visitors who are viewing their ads.
The advertising you see on our Service is determined by a number of factors relating to relevance, including (i) your approximate geographical location base on you IP address and (ii) the subject matter you may be
viewing on our Service. For example, if you are viewing an article about physical health, you may see ads concerning exercise equipment.
If you wish to know more about the information collected from website users and used to tailor those advertisements for products and services which might be of the most interest and relevance to the users.
5. Privacy and Choice.
People have different concerns about privacy. Our goal is to be clear about what information we collect, so that you can make meaningful choices about how that information is used. You may set your browser in its “options” or “preferences” feature in order to warn you before accepting cookies or to disable all cookies entirely. However, it is important to understand that many of the services we provide on our Service and to
our Service users may not function properly if your cookies are disabled.
6. Cookies
Cookies are files with small amount of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a web site and stored on your computer’s hard drive.
Like many sites, we use “cookies” to collect information. 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 Site.
7. Where We Store the Information
The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside of your country and the European Economic Area (“EEA”) including, in particular, Nigeria or the United States. It may also be
processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers. Such staff may be engaged in, among other things, the fulfillment of your order, the processing of your payment details and the
provision of support services. By submitting your information, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing.
8. The Information You Share.
Our Service allows visitors to share information with others, such as comments on editorial content and information shared via social media. When you share information, it may as a result become accessible to others, through such mechanisms as search engines. We cannot be responsible for how others with whom you may share information may use that information. (See Paragraph below—The Scope of Our Privacy
Policy.)
9. Updating Your Personal Information.
It is our policy that, whenever you visit our Service, you should be able to access your personal information, which is information identifying you such as name, email address, billing information or any other information which can reasonably be expected to identify you. If that information is incorrect, we try to provide you ways to update it quickly or to delete it – unless we have to keep that information for legitimate business or legal purposes, in which case it will be retained for the periods specified in this Privacy Policy. When updating your personal information, we may ask you to verify your identity before we can act on your request.
If allowed under applicable law, we may reject requests that are unreasonably repetitive, require disproportionate technical effort (for example, requests which would be extremely impractical (for instance, requests concerning information residing on backup systems)).
Where we can provide information access and correction, we will do so at no cost to you, except where it would require a disproportionate effort. We aim to maintain our services in a manner that protects information from accidental or malicious destruction. Because of this, after you delete information from our Service, we may not immediately delete residual copies from our active servers and may not remove information from our backup systems.
10. The Information We Share.
We do not share personal information with companies, organizations and individuals outside of BAO, unless one of the following circumstances applies:
a. We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of BAO when we have your opt-in or other consent to do so.
b. We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of BAO if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of that information is reasonably necessary to:
(i) comply with applicable law, regulations, legal process or enforceable governmental request;
(ii) enforce any of our applicable Terms of Service, including any potential violations;
(iii) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues; or
(iv) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of users of our Service or service providers, as well as the general public and BAO as required or permitted by law.
c. We may share personal information with a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, reorganization, dissolution or other sale or transfer of some or all of BAO’s assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by BAO about our Service users is among the assets transferred.
d. We may share your information publicly and with our partners such as third-party content providers, advertisers or connected sites, but in a manner which does not reveal your personally identifiable information and which is aggregated with other user information to show usage of BAO and third-party products and services offered on our Service and trends based on such categories as age, gender, geographical origination and other demographic characteristics.
11. The Protection of Your Information.
We work hard to protect the information provided by, or collected about, the users of our Service, from unauthorized access, or alteration, disclosure or destruction. In particular:
a. We encrypt much of that information using SSL.
b. We review our information collection, storage and processing practices, including physical security measures, to guard against unauthorized access to our systems and the information collected and stored therein.
c. We restrict access to personal information to those of our employees, contractors and agents, who need to know that information in order to process it for us, who are subject to the obligation of strict confidentiality as relates to that information, and who will be subject to discipline, including termination, if they violate that obligation.
12. The Scope of Our Privacy Policy.
Our Privacy Policy applies to all of the services offered through our Service. However, our Privacy Policy does not apply to the any of the following:
a. services offered by other companies or individuals on non-EMI websites or applications, including any such websites or applications which may be referenced on or linked from our Service; and
b. the information collected by, and information practices of, other companies, organizations or individuals, who advertise our Service, editorial or advertising content, or any of the products or services offered on our Service, and who may use cookies, pixel tags and other technologies to serve and offer relevant ads.
13. Children and Privacy.
We encourage parents and guardians to spend time with their children online and to be fully familiar with the websites visited by their children. Children under the age of thirteen [13] years of age are expressly prohibited from submitting or posting any personally identifiable information on the website or other services.
14. Security
The security of your Personal Information 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 Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
15. Handling Complaints from Service Users and Regulatory Authorities.
We regularly review our compliance with this Privacy Policy and with any and all industry-recommended best practices, as well as applicable laws and regulations. When we receive a formal written complaint, we will contact the person who made the complaint to follow up. This is without prejudice to your right to launch a claim with your local data protection supervisory authority. We work with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the
transfer of personal data that we cannot resolve with the users of our Service directly.
16. Privacy Policy Revisions and Updates.
Our Privacy Policy may be revised from time to time, in which case the Privacy Policy you view will be the most current version and the date of the latest such revision will be identified at the beginning of this Privacy Policy. We will provide you with 30 days’ notice of any substantial changes to the terms of this Privacy Policy.
This Privacy Policy is effective as of (September 2020) and will remain in effect except with respect to any changes in its provisions in the future, which will be in effect immediately after being posted on this page.
We reserve the right to update or change our Privacy Policy at any time and you should check this Privacy Policy periodically. Your continued use of the Service after we post any modifications to the Privacy Policy on this page will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified Privacy Policy.
If we make any material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you either through the email address you have provided us, or by placing a prominent notice on our website.
17. Contacting Us.
If you have any questions, concerns or suggestions about this Privacy Policy, you may contact us at legal@businessafricaonline.com or at the following address:
Business Africa Online.
