Ezoic Services

Ezoic Services
This website uses the services of Ezoic Inc. (“Ezoic”), including to manage third-party interest-based advertising. Ezoic may employ a variety of technologies on this website, including tools to serve content, display advertisements and enable advertising to visitors of this website, which may utilize first and third-party cookies.
A cookie is a small text file sent to your device by a web server that enables the website to remember information about your browsing activity. First-party cookies are created by the site you are visiting, while third-party cookies are set by domains other than the one you're visiting. Ezoic and our partners may place third-party cookies, tags, beacons, pixels, and similar technologies to monitor interactions with advertisements and optimize ad targeting. Please note that disabling cookies may limit access to certain content and features on the website, and rejecting cookies does not eliminate advertisements but will result in non-personalized advertising. You can find more information about cookies and how to manage them here.
The following information may be collected, used, and stored in a cookie when serving personalized ads:

  • IP address
  • Operating system type and version
  • Device type
  • Language preferences
  • Web browser type
  • Email (in a hashed or encrypted form)
Ezoic and its partners may use this data in combination with information that has been independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements across various platforms and websites. Ezoic’s partners may also gather additional data, such as unique IDs, advertising IDs, geolocation data, usage data, device information, traffic data, referral sources, and interactions between users and websites or advertisements, to create audience segments for targeted advertising across different devices, browsers, and apps. You can find more information about interest-based advertising and how to manage them here.
You can view Ezoic’s privacy policy here, or for additional information about Ezoic’s advertising and other partners, you can view Ezoic’s advertising partners here.

Privacy Policy

This privacy policy was last updated on September 7, 2023.

Oz Media Services LLC, dba Oz Media (“us,” “we,” or “our”) operates The Smart Home Spot’s website (the “Service”). This page informs you of our policies regarding collecting, using, and disclosing personal information when you use our Service. We will not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy. We use your Personal Information to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, you agree to the collection and use of information per this policy.

In this policy

Our Privacy Policy, In Plain English

We understand that these privacy policies can be long and hard to read. While you should read the full policy, here’s a plain English summary.

We are strong proponents of online privacy and are grateful for your trust in us to keep your data safe. It is why we request the minimum amount of information from users to provide the service and have taken additional security steps to keep attackers out.

We try to collect as little information as possible on our users while still maintaining an adequate level of service. In most situations, this is only your name and e-mail address. However, in some situations, such as contests and giveaways, we may need to ask for more information for shipping or legal reasons in your specific locality.

We don’t sell your information to third parties nor disclose it to authorities without due cause or process. However, we and select third parties to track your IP address and other information not linked to your identity for services like Google Analytics and Matomo, spam blocking, and advertising through partners such as Ezoic and Google AdSense.

We have taken steps on our end to protect your privacy further. We don’t accept advertising from select categories with historically poor privacy practices (the full list is below, under “Advertising”). We are also working to limit our use of third-party cookies.

Clicking on links on our site may take you to third parties, for which we may be compensated for certain actions. Remember, when you leave our site, the privacy policy of the site you visit applies, not ours.

Information Collection And Use

While using our Service, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you. Personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”) typically includes, but is not limited to:

  • Name
  • E-mail address

Information collection and use may vary based on the application. We may require that you provide additional information, and when that occurs, we will specify in plain language the need for that data and its intended use. You can provide additional information above our requirements, but participation is voluntary and not required to access our site.

How This Data is Used

The above information is used solely by Oz Media and The Smart Home Spot for communication between us and you, the user. This data is not sold nor accessible by third parties.

For this privacy policy, “third parties” are defined as individuals or organizations with a business relationship with us but with no control over the day-to-day operations of our sites. In the event of an acquisition, all individuals who have shared information with us will have the opportunity to opt out and have any personally identifiable information removed before the finalization of the acquisition.

Log Data

We collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit our Service (“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 Service that you visit, the time and date of your visit, and the time spent on those pages, and other statistics.

Additionally, we use the Google Analytics platform to better understand our readers. This software uses cookies to obtain high-level “audience measurements” data such as the referral web domain, type of operating system/browser used, date and time of visit, and other information relating to activities on Our Site to understand its usage better, analyze trends, and optimize the Site experience. It is not linked to any personally identifiable information.

We are also evaluating Matomo as a permanent replacement for Google Analytics. Matomo is open-source analytics software, and allows us to track website activity without sharing information with third parties. During the evaluation period, you may be tracked by either or both platforms.

Opting out of Google Analytics

You may opt out of Google Analytics tracking on Our Site and others by installing this Google-provided browser plug-in, available for several browsers, including Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.

We also log the IP address, user agent, and referrer of all incoming visitors to our site through the BPS Security plug-in. By using our site, you agree to allow us to store this data and use it to compare against a database of known malicious accounts.

Opting out of Matomo Analytics

Matomo respects the “DoNotTrack” setting within web browsers. When users have set their web browser to “I do not want to be tracked” (DoNotTrack is enabled) then Matomo will not track these visits. For more information, click here.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form and the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help with spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Cookies

Cookies are files with a small amount of data, which may include a unique anonymous identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your computer’s hard drive. We use “cookies” to collect information.

Google Analytics also uses cookies as part of its tracking code. Users are urged to read Google, Inc.’s privacy policy to understand how their data is handled. Matomo sets cookies as well, however these cookies are set locally by our local Matomo installation.

Notifications

Our site sends notifications to consenting visitors via the OneSignal platform. We do not collect personally identifiable information when you consent to receive our notifications. However, OpenSignal does collect information to serve notifications to you properly. This may include:

  • Device, browser, or operating system type
  • Evidence of your consent or preferences on which types of notifications you wish to receive, if applicable
  • Select anonymous information on your interaction with the notification for statistical purposes.

Please refer to OneSignal’s privacy policy for more information.

Opting Out of OneSignal Push Notifications

You may, in most cases, opt out of receiving push notifications by going to your device “Settings” and clicking on “Notifications,” then changing those settings for some or all of the apps on your device. (Different device configurations or updates may affect or change how these settings work.)

Advertising

Our site displays advertising from our partners, including Google Adsense. Users are reminded that these partners use cookies to serve relevant ads, which may already be present on your computer due to visiting another site that uses one of our advertising partners, not necessarily due to visiting our site.

Users are reminded that once they leave our site by clicking on an ad, the policies of the site you visit may change and be less or more strict than ours. Review their privacy policy if you have any concerns.

Google Adsense allows you to opt out of cookie-based tracking by visiting this page. Other advertising partners might have similar opt-out methods. We will update this privacy policy with any relevant information on opting out of tracking, although most major ad networks participate in a central site for opting out, located at https://www.aboutads.info.

To further protect our users, we do not permit advertising from businesses in the following sensitive categories due to their content and/or historically poor data privacy practices: “get rich quick” schemes, sexually suggestive advertising, Astrology & Esoteric topics, social casino games, alcohol advertisements, and betting sites. While no ads from these categories should appear on our site, our ad partners may erroneously show ads from these businesses through erroneous or intentional misclassification of the ad or other reasons out of our control.

Our site may contain links to retailers and partners who pay us a small commission if you purchase on their site within a given period. We receive no personally identifiable information as a result of this transaction. In addition, we use Google Analytics to track when these links are clicked to count conversions, which does not link the event to any personally identifiable information or anything you may have purchased as a result of clicking that link. You can review our Affiliate Policy by clicking here.

Service Providers

We may employ third-party companies and individuals to facilitate our Service, provide the Service on our behalf, perform Service-related services, or assist us in analyzing how our Service is used. These third parties have access to your Personal Information only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.

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. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Our Service may contain links to other sites that we do not operate. If you click on a third-party link, it will direct you to that third-party’s site. We strongly advise you to review every site’s privacy policy. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for third-party sites or services’ content, privacy policies, or practices.

Children’s Privacy

Our Service does not address anyone under 18 (“Children”) but generally contains information suitable for children.

We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 18. However, if you are a parent or guardian and are aware that your child has provided us with Personal Information, please contact us. If we discover that a child under 18 has provided us with Personal Information, we will delete such information from our servers immediately.

Compliance With Laws

We will disclose your Personal Information only where required by law or subpoena.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page. Therefore, you are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. This Privacy Policy changes are effective when posted on this page.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at info@thesmarthomespot.com.

The Smart Home Spot participates in Amazon Associates and other affiliate programs and may receive a commission from clicking on links on our site.