Your privacy is vitally important to us, and so is being transparent about how we collect, use and share information about you. We believe you should know as much as possible about Unbound's practices, so that you can make informed decisions about the information you share with us. This Privacy Policy explains:

• The legal basis for processing your personal data;
• What personal information we collect;
• How and why we use your personal information;
• How and why we share the information we collect;
• How we store and protect your information;
• How you can access, update and take control of your personal information.

This Privacy Policy sets out the privacy practices for United Authors Publishing Ltd t/a Unbound ("Unbound"), a company incorporated in the United Kingdom with company number 07279146 whose registered office is at Unbound c/o TC Group, 6th Floor Kings House, 9 - 10 Haymarket London, SW1Y 4BP, United Kingdom ("we", "us", "our"), and applies to our website www.unbound.com (the "Site") and any subdomains and services we offer (together with the Site, the "Services"). By visiting the Site or using our Services you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree please do not use or access our Site or Services.

If at any time you have questions about our practices or any of your rights described below, you may reach our to us by emailing admin@unbound.com. This inbox is monitored and managed so that we can deliver an experience that you can confidently trust.

1. Legal basis for processing (for EEA Users)

We collect and process information about you only where we have legal basis for doing so under applicable EU laws. The legal basis depends on the services you use and how you use them. This means we collect and use your information only where:

• We need it to provide our Services, including to provide any personalised Services, provide customer support and to protect the safety and security of the services against fraud, spam and abuse, etc.;
• It satisfies a legitimate interest (which is not overridden by your data protection interests) such as to: monitor, maintain and improve internal business processes; develop innovative and tailored offerings to our users; send you relevant marketing information and to protect our legal rights and interests;
• You give us consent to do so for a specific purpose; or
• We need to process your data to comply with a legal obligation.

2. What Personal Information We Collect

We require certain information from you to provide our Services. We collect information that directly or indirectly identifies you, if you choose to share it with us.

We receive information in a few different ways, including when you create an Unbound account, sign up for a newsletter or apply for a job at Unbound. We also collect additional information when delivering our Services to ensure necessary and optimal performance. These methods of collection may not be as obvious to you, so we have highlighted and explained below a bit more about why we collect this information and the ways of collecting this information.

2.1. Information you provide to us

i. Basic account information: In general, if you have not created an Unbound account or you are not logged in, the only information you reveal to us when you browse the Site is your IP address. 

If you do choose to create an account, you must provide us with some personal data so that we can provide our Services to you, such as:

• Name;
• Address;
• Telephone number;
• Email address;
• Other data collected that could directly or indirectly identify you.

ii. Payment information: Unbound does not store credit card information. All payment information you submit is collected and used by our payment processors in accordance with their privacy policies, which you can read below:

Stripe: https://stripe.com/gb/privacy
Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/ua/privacy-prev

iii. Information you provide through support communications: for example, when you ask for support, send us questions or comments, or report a problem.

2.2. Information we collect automatically when you use the Services

i. Location information: We collect information about your location, which we get from signals such as your IP address, to personalise our Services to you.

ii. Cookies: A cookie is a small piece of data that is stored on your computer or mobile device. Like many websites, we use cookies to track how you browse our Site, the links you click, the Unbound projects you view, your device type, and to collect various data, including analytics, about how you use and interact with our Services. This allows us to provide you with more relevant product offerings, a better experience on our Site, and to collect, analyse and improve the performance of our Services. For additional information, and to learn how to manage the technologies we use, please visit our Cookie Policy.

iii. Log data: Data about the use of our Services is automatically collected when you use and interact with our Services, including metadata, log files, cookie/device IDs and location information. This information includes specific data about your interactions with the features, content and links (including those of third parties, such as social media plugins) contained within the Services; Internet Protocol (IP) address; browser type and settings; the date and time the Services were used; information about browser configuration and plugins; language preferences and cookie data; information about devices accessing the Services, including type of device, what operating system is used, device settings, application IDs, unique device identifiers and error data; and some of this data collected might be capable of and be used to approximate your location.

iv. Information we receive from other sources: If you choose to sign up and log in to the Services using accounts you create with third-party products and services such as Facebook or X (formerly Twitter) ("Third-Party Accounts"), we will collect information that you have agreed to make available such as your name, email address, profile information and preferences with the applicable Third-Party Account. This information is collected by the Third-Party Account provider and is provided to Unbound under their privacy policies. You can generally control the information that we receive from these sources using the privacy settings in your Third-Party Account.

3. How and why we use your personal information

We are committed to both minimising the data we collect and limiting its use and purpose to only that (1) for which we have been given permission, (2) as necessary to deliver our Services, or (3) as we might be required or permitted for legal compliance or other lawful purposes. These uses include:

3.1. Delivering, improving, updating and enhancing our Services

We collect various information relating to transactions you make on our Site, and your use of and/or interactions with our Services. We use this information to:

• Improve and optimise the operation and performance of our Services;
• Diagnose problems with and identify any security risks, errors or enhancements to our Services;
• Detect and prevent fraud and abuse of our Services and systems;
• Collect aggregate statistics about use of the Services;
• Understand and analyse how you use our Services and what products and services are most relevant to you.

Often, much of the data collected is de-identified or aggregated in ways that do not personally identify you. Examples of such aggregated information or statistical data include information about interactions of the Site (e.g. page views) or customer profiling (e.g. demographics or location information).

3.2. How we share your data

i. Sharing with trusted third parties for operational purposes

We outsource certain aspects of our business to trusted third parties. For example:

• Fulfilling rewards (e.g. delivering books, organising events);
• Processing credit card payments;
• Communicating with you, such as by way of email or survey delivery;
• Customer relationship management;
• Marketing campaigns.

We only share your personal data as necessary for any third party to provide the services as requested or as needed on our behalf. These third parties are subject to confidentiality agreements with us and other legal restrictions that prohibit their use of the information we provide them for any other purpose except to facilitate the specific outsourced Unbound-related operation, unless you have explicitly agreed or given your prior permission to them for additional uses.

ii. Third-party websites

Our Site contains links to third-party websites, such as social media websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of third-party sites. Please read the privacy policy of any website you visit.

Certain areas on our site contain embedded videos, served by https://www.youtube.com/. Visiting these pages results in YouTube being sent data about your browsing activity. This can be disabled using your browser settings.

iii. Community Forums

Our site offers publicly accessible forums such as Q&As and the author update tool. You should be aware that information you provide in these may be read, collected and used by any other member of the public who accesses the Site. We urge you to consider the sensitivity and legality of any content you contribute when using the Services.

3.3. Communicating with you

We may use your personal information to contact you directly or through a third-party service provider regarding products or services you have signed up or purchased from us, such as is necessary to deliver transactional or service-related communications. We may also contact you with offers for additional services we think you'll find valuable if you give us consent, or where allowed based upon legitimate interests.

You don't need to provide consent as a condition to use our Services.

You can modify your email subscription settings by unsubscribing from our marketing emails, or contacting us directly at support@unbound.com.

3.4. Website Analytics

Like most websites, we use various web analytics tools provided by service partners such as Google Analytics to collect information about how you interact with our Site, including what pages you visit, what site you visited prior to visiting our website, how much time you spend on each page, what operating system and web browser you use, and network and IP information.

We use the information provided by these tools to improve our Services. These tools place persistent cookies in your browser to identify you as a unique user the next time you visit our website. Each cookie cannot be used by anyone other than the service provider (e.g. Google for Google Analytics). The information collected from the cookie may be transmitted to and stored by these service partners on servers in a country other than the country in which you reside. Though information collected does not include personal data such as name, address, billing information, etc., the information collected is used and shared by these service providers in accordance with their individual privacy policies. You can control the technologies we use by managing your settings through your browser settings.

For more information on the analytics tools we use and their privacy practices, please refer to the list below:

If you would like to opt out of having this information collected by or submitted to these tools, you can manage your settings in your browser.

i. Targeted advertisements

Targeted ads may be presented to you based on your activities on our Site. These ads display as varying product banners presented to you while browsing. We also partner with third parties to manage our advertising on our Site.

ii. Transfer of personal data abroad

Some of our service providers are based outside of the European Economic Area (the "EEA"). Where we transfer your data to a service provider that is outside of the EEA we ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to make sure that your personal data is held securely and that your rights are upheld.

iii. Legal requirements

Unbound cooperates with government and law enforcement inquiries, as well as other third parties to enforce laws such as intellectual property rights, fraud and other rights, to help protect you and the Unbound service. Therefore, in response to a genuine request by law enforcement or other government officials relating to a criminal investigation or alleged illegal activity, we can share personal information about you, if we determine that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with the law.

4. How we store and protect your information

We take the security of your personal data very seriously. We follow industry-standard practices to protect the data we collect and maintain, and use safeguards to protect your personal information against loss or theft, as well as unauthorised access and disclosure to protect your privacy.

5. Your Rights: Managing Your Personal Information

5.1. Accessing or rectifying your personal data:

If you have registered an account with Unbound, you can access and modify the personal information you have shared with us and associated with your account when you sign into your Account and visit your "Account".

It is important that you update this information or let us know if there are any changes to your situation, contact or personal details. This is so we can successfully fulfil our obligations to you and communicate with you safely.

You can also request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you. Should you wish to make such a request, please email admin@unbound.com with adequate information to identify yourself to assist us in fulfilling your request. We will respond to any request within 28 days.

5.2. Marketing preferences:

You have the right to withdraw consent or object to direct marketing. You can:

• unsubscribe by following the instructions contained at the bottom of each marketing email.
• contacting us directly to request removal from any direct advertising.

Any administrative or service-related emails (to confirm a purchase, or an update to this Privacy Policy or the Terms of Service, etc.) generally do not offer an option to unsubscribe as they are necessary to provide the Services you have requested.

5.3. Privacy settings:

When you are logged into your Unbound account, you can manage your settings using your browser.

5.4. Right of erasure:

You can request that we erase your personal data by emailing admin@unbound.com. If you make a request to delete your personal data and that data is necessary for the products or services you have purchased, the request will be facilitated only to the extent it is no longer necessary for any Services or required for our legitimate business purposes or legal or contractual record-keeping requirements.

We will respond to any request to delete personal data within 28 days.

6. Complaints

If you are not satisfied with how we manage your personal data, you have a right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

You can visit their website for information on how to make a data protection complaint here, call their helpline on 0303 123 1113 or chat online with an ICO advisor here.

7. Age Restrictions

Our Services are only available for those over the age of 18. Our Services are not targeted at, intended to be consumed by or designed to entice individuals under the age of 18. If you know of or have reason to believe anyone under the age of 18 has provided us with any personal data, please contact us.

8. Notice

We may amend this Privacy Policy at any time by posting the amended terms on the Site. All amended terms shall automatically be effective immediately after posting on the Site. If we make a change to this policy that, in our sole discretion, is material, we will notify you in accordance with your email preferences.

By continuing to access or use the Services after those changes become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised Privacy Policy.

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