California Privacy Notice (CCPA)

Introduction and Scope

California residents have a defined set of rights with respect to their personal information under the California Consumer Privacy Act and the California Privacy Rights Act (together, the "CCPA"). This notice from RetVolve.com tells you what we collect, how we use it, with whom we share it, and how to exercise each of those rights. It is a California-specific supplement to our broader Privacy Policy.

Categories of Personal Information Collected

The categories of personal information that RetVolve.com has collected from California consumers during the past twelve months are: (a) identifiers such as IP addresses and email addresses; (b) personal-records information you submit voluntarily (name and message text in our forms); (c) commercial information (newsletter subscription history); (d) internet or other network activity information (browsing on our site, referring URL); (e) geolocation data of coarse precision; and (f) inferences drawn from the foregoing for the purpose of audience analytics. We do not knowingly collect biometric information, sensory data, professional or employment information, or education information.

Sources of Personal Information

Sources of the personal information we hold about California consumers include: you, directly (when you subscribe, contact us, or submit a tip); your browser and device (request headers, IP address, cookie identifiers); and our limited list of operational service providers (hosting, CDN, email delivery, analytics). RetVolve.com does not purchase personal information from data brokers or rent contact lists.

Business and Commercial Purposes

RetVolve.com processes personal information for clearly defined business purposes: delivering the content you request; sending newsletter editions you have explicitly opted into; replying to messages submitted through our Contact and other forms; producing aggregated reports of site usage for editorial and advertising operations; securing the service against fraud and abuse; and complying with our legal and regulatory obligations under California and other applicable laws.

Disclosure to Service Providers and Third Parties

RetVolve.com discloses personal information only to a short list of service providers that act on our behalf and only for the business purposes outlined in this notice. These vendors are bound by contract to use the information solely for the contracted service and to delete it when their engagement ends or when it is no longer required to provide the service. We do not disclose personal information to any third party for that party's own marketing or commercial purposes.

Sale and Sharing of Personal Information

RetVolve.com does not sell personal information and does not share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising as those terms are defined under the CCPA. In the preceding twelve (12) months we have not sold or shared the personal information of any California consumer, including any California consumer under the age of 16, and we have no actual knowledge of any such sale or sharing.

Sensitive Personal Information

We do not collect or process sensitive personal information as defined by the CCPA for the purpose of inferring characteristics about you. To the extent any sensitive personal information is incidentally collected (for example, if you voluntarily disclose it in a message), we use that information only for the business purpose for which it was provided and not for any additional uses requiring further consent under the CCPA.

Your California Privacy Rights

Under the CCPA, California consumers have the following rights: (1) the right to know what personal information we have collected about you, including the categories of information, the sources, the purposes, and the categories of third parties to which we disclose it; (2) the right to access the specific pieces of personal information we hold; (3) the right to correct inaccurate personal information; (4) the right to request deletion of personal information; (5) the right to opt out of any sale or sharing of personal information (we do not sell or share, but the right exists); (6) the right to limit the use of sensitive personal information; and (7) the right to non-discrimination for exercising any of these rights.

How to Exercise Your Rights

Verifiable consumer requests under the CCPA can be submitted to RetVolve.com through our Contact form or to the email address shown on the Contact page. To prevent fraudulent access requests, we will verify your identity using reasonable means tied to the data we hold — typically by confirming control of the email address tied to a subscription or by matching identifiers you provide against information already in our records. We respond to verified requests within the 45-day window required by the statute, with one 45-day extension where reasonably necessary.

California consumers may use an authorized agent to exercise their CCPA rights. To process a request submitted by an agent, RetVolve.com requires the agent to provide signed written permission from the consumer or a power of attorney, plus reasonable verification of the consumer's identity. We may also contact the consumer to confirm that they have indeed authorized the agent to make the request.

Consumers Under 16 Years of Age

We do not knowingly collect, sell, or share personal information about California consumers under 16 years of age. Our service is directed to adults. Should we ever change this practice (which we do not anticipate), we would do so only with the express opt-in consent required by the CCPA for consumers aged 13 to 15, or with parental opt-in consent for children under 13. Parents who suspect their child's data has been submitted can contact us for prompt deletion.

Right to Non-Discrimination

Exercising your rights under the CCPA will not result in any adverse treatment by RetVolve.com. We will not deny you the service, charge a different price, reduce the quality of the service, or otherwise penalize you for submitting a verifiable consumer request. The free editorial content we publish is available on the same terms to all visitors regardless of whether or how they exercise their CCPA rights.

Retention of Personal Information

Personal information collected from California consumers is kept by RetVolve.com only for the period necessary for the purposes described in this notice plus any legally mandated retention period. Concretely: newsletter email addresses are retained for the life of the subscription; contact-form submissions are retained up to 24 months; server logs are kept up to 90 days; non-identifying aggregate analytics may be retained indefinitely.

Changes to This Notice and How to Reach Us

RetVolve.com may revise this California Privacy Notice when our practices change, when regulators issue new guidance, or when the law requires. The current version is the one published on this page. To raise any question about this notice — or to submit a request under the CCPA — please use the Contact form linked from the footer of every page on the site.