Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Smarts (smarts.co), owned and operated by MeiggsMedia LLC (“Smarts,” “we,” “us” or “our”), collects, uses, protects and shares information when you visit or use this website (the “Site”).

This privacy policy has been compiled to better serve those who are concerned with how their ‘Personally Identifiable Information’ (PII) is being used online. PII, as used in US privacy law and information security, is information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate a single person, or to identify an individual in context. Please read our privacy policy carefully to get a clear understanding of how we collect, use, protect or otherwise handle your Personally Identifiable Information in accordance with our website.

Our Terms of Use & Conditions also apply to your use of the Site.

You do not need an account to use Smarts, and the Site has no store or checkout. We collect information from you when you sign up for our email list, post a comment, send us a message, use the Site search, or visit and click around the Site.

Information you give us

• Your email address, when you join our email list through a sign-up form on the Site.
• Your name, email address and comment text, when you post a comment. Your name and comment are shown publicly with the comment.
• Anything you include in an email you send us.
• The words you type into the Site search box.

Information collected automatically

• Your IP address, and the date and time of your visit or click.
• Your browser type and version, operating system and device type.
• The pages you view, the links you click, and the page, search result or ad that sent you to the Site, including any advertising click ID in the web address (such as a Google, Microsoft, Facebook or TikTok click ID).
• Your approximate location (your country, and for some links your U.S. state or region), which our network provider works out from your IP address. We do not collect your precise location.

We may use the information we collect from you when you sign up for our newsletter, post a comment, contact us, browse the website, or use certain other site features, in the following ways:

• To send periodic emails, such as our newsletter, The Smarts Brief, and other emails about our content, products and services.
• To publish and moderate comments, and to reply to comments and messages.
• To understand how visitors use the Site, so we can improve our guides and fix problems.
• To measure which pages and links lead to clicks on partner sites.
• To send some links to the offer that applies in your country or U.S. state.
• To detect bots, spam, fraud and abuse, and to keep the Site secure.
• To comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect our rights, property or safety, or those of others.

Yes, Smarts uses cookies. A cookie is a small text file a website sends to your device so it can remember some information about your visit. We also use similar tools, such as your browser’s local storage. These are the ones we set or know of today:

Other companies whose tools run on the Site, and the companies you reach when you click a partner link, may set cookies of their own. Cloudflare, which protects and speeds up the Site, may also set cookies for security and bot detection. We do not control those cookies, and each company’s own policy governs them.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser, as explained under Your choices.

We rely on outside services to run the Site. They process information on our behalf or as part of the tool they provide, under their own privacy policies.

Many guides link to financial companies and products. Some of those links pass through a short Smarts web address (such as smarts.co/name) on the way to the company’s website. When you click one of those links:

• Our link manager records the click: the date and time, your IP address, your browser, operating system and device type, the page you came from, your approximate country, and whether the click looks like it came from a bot. We keep these records as long as we need them for reporting, accounting and fraud checks.
• We add a code to the destination address that names the Smarts page and spot where you clicked and how you arrived, such as search, email or direct. If your visit started from an ad or search result that carried a click ID, the code can include it. The code does not include your name or email address, and we do not link these records to your name or email address.
• For some links, we pick the destination by your country or U.S. state.
• The company you click through to receives your visit directly, including your IP address and browser details, and may set its own cookies. That company’s own privacy policy governs what it does.

For how Smarts earns money from these links, see How We Make Money.

Smarts does not currently show third-party display advertising, such as Google AdSense or Mediavine ads, on its pages. If you arrive from an ad or a search result, the platform that showed it may have set its own cookies before you reached the Site. We do not control those.

The services described in this policy, including Google Analytics and the companies you reach through partner links, may collect information about your activity on the Site and on other sites over time. Third-party behavioral tracking can therefore occur on and through the Site.

You can manage advertising and analytics choices in several places. See Your choices for the links.

We use security measures to help protect the Site and the information you give us, including HTTPS encryption, Cloudflare network protection and bot filtering, comment spam filtering, and login protection.

Your personal information is contained behind secured networks and is only accessible by a limited number of persons who have special access rights to such systems, and are required to keep the information confidential.

We implement a variety of security measures when a user enters, submits, or accesses their information to maintain the safety of your personal information. Information you send through the Site is encrypted in transit using HTTPS (SSL/TLS). Smarts does not take payments and does not ask you for credit card or bank account information.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Third party disclosure

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information unless we provide you with advance notice. This does not include website hosting partners and other parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others’ rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Third party links

Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on our website. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

• Unsubscribe. Use the unsubscribe link in any email from us, or email [email protected] and we will promptly remove you from ALL correspondence.
• Change or remove your information. You can change your personal information by emailing us at the same address. You can also ask us to remove a comment you posted.
• Cookies. You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You do this through your browser settings. Each browser is a little different, so look at your browser’s Help menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookies. If you turn cookies off, some features that make your site experience more efficient may be disabled and some of our services may not function properly. You can still read the guides on Smarts. For more, see All About Cookies.
• Analytics. You can opt out of Google Analytics permanently with the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
• Advertising. You can set preferences for how Google advertises to you on the Google Ad Settings page. You can also opt out of interest-based advertising through the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page and the Digital Advertising Alliance website, or download the AppChoices app to opt out in mobile apps.

Residents of some states, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Virginia, and other states with comprehensive privacy laws, may have rights over their personal information. These laws apply only to businesses that meet certain thresholds. Where one of them applies to Smarts, you may have the right to:

• know and access the personal information we hold about you;
• correct inaccurate personal information;
• delete personal information we hold about you;
• get a copy of your personal information in a portable format; and
• opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information and of targeted advertising.

Sale, sharing and targeted advertising

Smarts does not sell personal information for money. Some state laws define “sale,” “sharing” and “targeted advertising” broadly, and they may cover some of what this policy describes, such as analytics cookies and the click IDs and page codes passed to partners when you click a partner link. To the extent those laws treat these activities that way, you can opt out by emailing [email protected] with “Opt out” in the subject line. We will act on your request as far as we are able and tell you what we did. This does not change our statement under Third-party disclosure and links that we do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information unless we provide you with advance notice. You can also use the browser and opt-out tools listed under Your choices, which work without contacting us.

How to make a request

Email [email protected], or write to MeiggsMedia LLC, 1390 Chain Bridge Rd Suite A188, McLean, VA 22101-3904. Tell us which right you want to use and the email address you used to join our list or comment, so we can find your information. We may ask you to confirm your identity before we act, for example by replying from that email address. Some records, such as analytics and click records, are not tied to your name or email address, so we may not be able to find them.

We will respond within the time the law requires, which is generally 45 days. We may extend that period as the law allows, and if we do we will tell you.

Appeals

If we deny your request, our decision email will explain why. If you live in a state that gives you the right to appeal, such as Virginia, Colorado or Connecticut, reply to that email with “Appeal” in the subject line and we will review the decision and respond in writing.

Authorized agents

You may use an authorized agent to make a request for you. We may ask for written proof that you gave the agent permission, and we may still need to confirm your identity with you.

No discrimination

We will not discriminate against you for using any of these rights.

CalOPPA is the first state law in the nation to require commercial websites and online services to post a privacy policy. The law’s reach stretches well beyond California to require a person or company in the United States (and conceivably the world) that operates websites collecting personally identifiable information from California consumers to post a conspicuous privacy policy on its website stating exactly the information being collected and those individuals with whom it is being shared, and to comply with this policy. Read more about CalOPPA.

According to CalOPPA we agree to the following

• Users can visit our site anonymously.
• We link to this privacy policy from our home page, and as a minimum on the first significant page after entering our website.
• Our Privacy Policy link includes the word ‘Privacy’, and can easily be found on the pages specified above.

Users will be notified of any privacy policy changes:

• On our Privacy Policy Page

Users are able to change their personal information:

• By emailing us

How does our site handle Do Not Track signals?

Smarts does not currently change how the Site works when your browser sends a Do Not Track (DNT) signal. The analytics, cookies and link tracking described in this policy continue to run.

Does our site allow third party behavioral tracking?

It’s also important to note that we allow third party behavioral tracking. See Advertising and behavioral tracking.

When it comes to the collection of personal information from children under 13, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) puts parents in control. The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, enforces the COPPA Rule, which spells out what operators of websites and online services must do to protect children’s privacy and safety online.

We do not specifically market to children under 13.

The Fair Information Practices Principles form the backbone of privacy law in the United States and the concepts they include have played a significant role in the development of data protection laws around the globe. Understanding the Fair Information Practice Principles and how they should be implemented is critical to comply with the various privacy laws that protect personal information.

In order to be in line with Fair Information Practices we will take the following responsive action, should a data breach occur:

We will notify the users via email:

• Within 7 business days

We will notify the users via in site notification:

• Within 7 business days

We also agree to the individual redress principle, which requires that individuals have a right to pursue legally enforceable rights against data collectors and processors who fail to adhere to the law. This principle requires not only that individuals have enforceable rights against data users, but also that individuals have recourse to courts or a government agency to investigate and/or prosecute non-compliance by data processors.

The CAN-SPAM Act is a law that sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have emails stopped from being sent to them, and spells out tough penalties for violations.

We collect your email address in order to send you our newsletter and other emails about Smarts. To be in accordance with CAN-SPAM we agree to the following: if at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, you can use the unsubscribe link in any email, or email us at [email protected], and we will promptly remove you from ALL correspondence.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we post the new version on this page and change the “Last updated” date at the top.

If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy you may contact us or use our contact page.