Privacy Policy

MAVENFAIR PRIVACY POLICY

Welcome to MavenFair™ Artisans and Crafters Market Incorporated (MavenFair). The services and network of MavenFair are operated by MavenFair™ Artisans & Crafters Market Incorporated and its corporate affiliates (collectively, “us”, “we” or “the Company”). MavenFair is a social e-commerce and networking portal that allows vendors to create an online store in order to trade Canadian handmade goods and services with other users. We are dedicated to maintaining high standards of privacy and confidentiality with respect to the Personal Information we receive from our Registered Users and others, in accordance with our obligations under the Personal Information Protection (PIPEDA) and Electronic Documents Act and the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA).

This Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) applies to MavenFair and forms part of the Terms of Use Agreement. The Terms of Use Agreement requires all account owners to be at least 19 years of age, therefore, this policy does not discuss use of our Site or services by minors.

For the purposes of this policy, “you” refers to a Registered User or other user of MavenFair services. “Registered User” means an individual who has been accepted for membership in MavenFair or who seeks to become a member of MavenFair.

This Policy details our practices concerning the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information provided to MavenFair. Our obligations apply to all of our officers, employees, agents or representatives who provide services to or on behalf of MavenFair in connection with our delivery of products, services and information, as well as our website. We urge you to read this Policy to gain a clear understanding of how we may collect, use and disclose your Personal Information in the course of our delivery of products, services or information, or in the course of your use of our website(s).

If you do not consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Information in accordance with this Policy, do not provide us with any Personal Information. You also have the right to withdraw your consent to our collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Information at any time upon reasonable, advance notice. However, you cannot withdraw your consent retroactively. It is important to note that most of our products and services can only be provided if we receive the required Personal Information from you. Consequently, should you choose not to provide us with the required Personal Information, we may be unable to offer these products and services to you.

INFORMATION COLLECTED

MavenFair collects Personal Information about members and users provided in writing, including via electronic media, verbally over the telephone or in person.

By accessing and browsing our website(s), you agree that we may collect, use and disclose any information we collect about you through our website(s) as described in this Policy.

A visitor to the MavenFair website (www.mavenfair.ca) is not required to reveal any information such as name, street address or telephone number. We do not passively collect this information by electronic means. To access and use exclusive portions of the site, Registered Users need to provide certain Personal information. We use the information that we gather from you in a variety of ways. For example, if you purchase an item, your shipping information will be shared with the seller and we will use your email address to communicate with you.

We collect information when a person voluntarily completes an online membership application form, event registration or online survey. We collect, use or disclose this information in a manner consistent with this Policy. We also collect email addresses during the online application process, but you may indicate that you do not wish to receive unsolicited electronic communications from us. We comply with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) with respect to the sending of commercial electronic messages.

Our web server automatically collects visitor information in the form of the visitor’s domain or Internet Protocol (IP) address, as well as information about the pages being accessed, the date and time of your visit to our websites, the documents that you downloaded, the searches you performed, and the website you were on prior to visiting our website(s). We use this information to better serve visitors by managing our sites, diagnosing any technical problems, and improving the content of our website(s). We may also track your activity on other websites or social media platforms that you visit after leaving the MavenFair website for the purposes of delivering advertising campaigns that may be of interest to you. For information on how you may opt-out of the collection of such information, please contact us (see Contact Information below).

For the transfer and receipt of certain types of sensitive information such as financial information, visitors will be re-directed to a secure server.

PURPOSE OF COLLECTING PERSONAL INFORMATION

MavenFair uses only fair and lawful methods to collect Personal Information. We collect certain information from you for the purposes of fulfilling our objectives and mandate. These purposes include:

  • Communicating with our Registered Users and determining their needs
  • Providing services and information
  • Managing our relationships with MavenFair users
  • Distributing publications, invitations to events and programs, and other communications that may be of interest to MavenFair users
  • Responding to questions and concerns
  • Meeting legal or regulatory requirements
  • Communicating for any other purpose for which we have the Registered Users’ consent

USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

Our use of Personal Information is limited to the purposes described in this Policy, unless we expressly tell you otherwise. We do not otherwise sell, trade, barter, exchange or disclose for consideration any Personal Information we have obtained from you.

DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

As a general rule, we hold all information concerning a Registered User in strict confidence. Except in limited circumstances, we do not reveal this information to anyone unless you have expressly or implicitly authorized us to do so.

There are circumstances where the use and/or disclosure of Personal Information may be justified or permitted, or where MavenFair is obliged to disclose information without consent. These circumstances may include:

  • Where required by law or by order or requirement of a court, administrative agency or other governmental tribunal
  • Where MavenFair believes, upon reasonable grounds, that it is necessary to protect the rights, privacy, safety or property of an identifiable person or group
  • Where it is necessary to establish or collect fees
  • Where it is necessary to permit MavenFair to pursue available remedies or limit any damages that MavenFair may sustain
  • Where the information is public as permitted by law
  • Where it is reasonable for the purposes of investigating a breach of an agreement, or actual or suspected illegal activity
  • Where it is necessary to determine whether to proceed with a prospective business transaction or complete the transaction, or where it is necessary to carry on the activity that was the object of a completed business transaction. A “business transaction” includes:
    • The purchase, sale or other acquisition or disposition of an organization or a part of an organization, or any of its assets
    • The merger or amalgamation of two or more organizations
    • The making of a loan or provision of other financing to an organization or a part of an organization
    • The creating of a charge on, or the taking of a security interest in or a security on, any assets or securities of an organization
    • The lease or licensing of any of an organization’s assets
    • Any other prescribed arrangement between two or more organizations to conduct a business activity

When this occurs, we will not disclose more information than is required.

CROSS-BORDER TRANSFER OF INFORMATION

MavenFair may transfer Personal Information to a service provider which is located outside of Canada where privacy laws may offer different levels of protection from those in Canada. Your Personal Information may also be subject to access by and disclosure to the local courts, law enforcement and national security authorities under the applicable foreign legislation.

CONSENT

By providing your Personal Information to us, you agree that we may collect, use and disclose it in accordance with this Policy and as otherwise permitted or required by law. However, we may seek your consent to use or disclose Personal Information after it has been collected in cases where we wish to use or disclose the information for a purpose not previously identified or expressed in this Policy.

If you need to provide us with Personal Information about other individuals (such as your employees, employer, supervisor, etc.), you represent and warrant to us that you will obtain their consent where required by law and prior to your disclosure to us. Consent is required for us to use and disclose the Personal Information of these individuals for the specific purpose(s) for which you made the disclosure.

WITHDRAWAL OF CONSENT

You may withdraw your consent to us collecting, using and disclosing your Personal Information at any time, subject to reasonable notice and any legal and/or contractual restrictions.

You may, at any time, ask us not to send you further marketing materials about our services. If you do not wish to receive further invitations to events, you may unsubscribe or contact us as set out in the Contact Information section below and ask that we not contact you for these purposes.

If you wish to withdraw your consent to have your MavenFair registration information disclosed to affiliated organizations, preferred suppliers and other reputable organizations, please contact us as set out in the Contact Information section below.

ACCURACY AND RETENTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We endeavour to ensure that any Personal Information provided to us and in our possession is accurate, current and complete. If we become aware that Personal Information is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date, we will revise the Personal Information and, if necessary, use reasonable efforts to inform third parties. We do not actively maintain information of former Registered Users and, for as long as we hold that information, we cannot assure the information is accurate.

We keep your Personal Information of a Registered User’s relationship with us, but it will only be held as long as it is necessary for us to communicate with you or to have sufficient information to respond to any issues that may arise. When we no longer require your Personal Information, we have procedures to securely destroy, delete, erase or convert it into an anonymous form.

PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We endeavour to maintain appropriate physical, procedural and technical security safeguards at our offices and information storage facilities to prevent any unauthorized access to, or loss, misuse, disclosure or modification of Personal Information. This also applies to our disposal or destruction of Personal Information.

We further protect Personal Information by restricting access to those employees who need access to provide services or information. If a MavenFair employee misuses Personal Information, we will consider the act a serious offence for which we may take disciplinary action up to and including terminating employment. If any individual or organization misuses Personal Information, we will consider it a serious issue and may take action up to and including terminating any agreement between MavenFair and that individual or organization.

We audit our procedures and security measures from time to time to ensure that they remain effective and appropriate.

A “breach of security safeguards” is defined as the loss of, unauthorized access to or unauthorized disclosure of personal information resulting from a breach of an organization’s security safeguards or from a failure to establish those safeguards. In case of a breach of security safeguards involving your Personal Information under our control, we will notify you and the appropriate Privacy Commissioner(s) if it is reasonable in the circumstances to believe that the breach creates a real risk of significant harm to you, including physical, financial or reputational harm. We will also notify any other organization or government institution that can reduce the risk or mitigate the harm from the breach.

ACCESS TO YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

You have the right to access and review the Personal Information we hold about you. We will endeavour to provide the information in question within a reasonable time. When we will not or cannot disclose information, we will provide the individual making the request the reasons for non-disclosure.

Further information concerning the MavenFair access policy and procedures may be obtained by contacting us as set out in the Contact Information section below.

Despite our efforts, errors sometimes do occur. If you identify any Personal Information that is out-of-date, incorrect or incomplete, please contact us and we will make the corrections promptly. We will also use every reasonable effort to communicate these changes to other parties who may have inadvertently received incorrect or out-of-date Personal Information from us.

We will not charge you for verifying or correcting your Personal Information.

COOKIES AND SIMILAR TECHNOLOGIES

COOKIES

In browsing the Internet, you will encounter a technology called “cookies”, which are small data files that are saved to your device when you visit our website(s). These are commonly used to provide you specific information from a website, and to provide the website’s operator information about you. We may use both session cookies and persistent cookies. A session cookie is a temporary file which is only active while you are on the website and is erased once you close your browser. Unlike a session cookie, a persistent cookie is not deleted when you close your browser and will remain on your device indefinitely.

These cookies are used to improve navigation on websites and to collect aggregate statistical information. This information may be used for advertising and marketing initiatives after you conclude your session on the MavenFair website. The cookies may also track your activity on other websites or social media platforms that you visit after leaving the MavenFair website. You may opt out of such tracking by adjusting the cookie settings on your browser.

ADJUSTING COOKIE SETTINGS ON YOUR BROWSER

Most Internet browsers are initially set to accept cookies. If you do not wish to accept cookies, you can set yours to refuse cookies or to alert you when cookies are being sent. However, doing so may prevent you from accessing all or part of our websites. If you wish to disable cookies on your browser, or be prompted prior to a cookie being loaded, you can do so by adjusting your browser’s settings. Consult each individual browser’s “help” feature for more information.

WEB BEACONS

Web beacons are small graphic images or other programming code (also known as “web bugs”, “1×1 GIFs” or “clear GIFs”) used to keep track of your navigation through the website(s) and your electronic communication with us. We may include web beacons in our web pages and email messages. Web beacons may be invisible to you, but any electronic image or other web programming code inserted into a web page or email can act as a web beacon. Web beacons or similar technologies may be used for a number of purposes including, without limitation, to count visitors to our website, to monitor how users navigate the website, to count how many emails that were sent were actually opened, or to count how many particular articles or links were actually viewed. Web beacons may be used to collect certain Personal Information (for example, the email address associated with an email message).

EMBEDDED SCRIPTS

An embedded script is a programming code that is designed to collect information about your interactions with our website(s), such as information about the links on which you click. The code is temporarily downloaded onto your device from our web server or a third party service provider. The code is active only while you are connected to our website, and is deactivated or deleted once you disconnect from the website.

LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

Our websites may contain links to other sites. This Policy only applies to Personal Information that we collect, use and disclose. We are not responsible or liable for the privacy practices of third parties, and we strongly recommend that you review their privacy policies before you disclose Personal Information to them.

DIGITAL MARKETING

From time to time, we may engage in digital marketing campaigns. These efforts may include using social media platforms to promote goods and services. You consent to us using your Personal Information to serve advertisements and other announcements. When we do so, we follow the protocols and procedures established by the social media platforms you use. You consent to us working with your social media platforms in this manner.

From time to time, we may use cookies to track MavenFair emails you are opening and reading. We may also track the email links you are opening and reading, and other related information. We may also use cookies in order to serve our advertisements to you on other websites you visit after leaving our website. This information helps us promote targeted goods and services to you. You may opt out of such tracking by adjusting the cookie settings on your browser. However, note that you cannot opt out of such tracking retroactively.

ADVERTISING ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND OTHER WEBSITES

We may also use social media cookies to identify our members who are Registered Users of the following social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn. We create custom audiences by matching our members with users of social media platforms in order to deliver more useful and relevant advertising content. (See Facebook’s Custom Audiences for more information.)

All data matching takes place using secure one-way hash functions, such that no Personal Information of our users is provided to the social media platforms if the user is not already registered with the social media platform.

You may opt out of advertisements via social media platforms by contacting us at the Contact Information below. Note, however, that you cannot opt out of receiving tailored advertisements retroactively. Note also that the following social media platforms allow their users to opt out of receiving third party advertisements:

ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

Email is our preferred method of communicating with you and others. Unless you object, we may use unencrypted plain text or HTML-based emails when communicating with you. These emails, and other electronic communications from us, may contain information that is confidential or privileged, unless you instruct us not to send such information electronically.

While we make every effort to secure all electronic communications within our control, there are inherent risks involved with exchanging information electronically. For example, third parties may accidentally or deliberately intercept this information. We are unable to accept responsibility or liability for any damages you may suffer as a result of the interception, alteration or misuse of information during electronic exchanges.

POLICY CHANGES

This Policy is in effect as of November 1, 2018. From time to time, we may review this Policy. We reserve the right to change this Policy, and any of our policies or procedures concerning our practices for handling Personal Information, at any time and without any prior notice.

In the event of changes to this Policy, we will post a notice on our website at MavenFair.ca. Policy changes will apply to the information collected from the date of posting to the MavenFair website, as well as to existing information in our records.

PRIVACY CONCERNS

We will promptly respond to questions and concerns relating to our Personal Information handling practices and this Policy, and do our utmost to resolve your concerns. In every instance, we will consider our obligations with respect to privileged information, as well as our separate obligations under applicable privacy legislation. We may need to ask you for Personal Information to verify your identity.

Please direct your questions or concerns to us at the Contact Information listed below.

If we are unable to resolve your concerns to your satisfaction, you may contact the Privacy Commissioner of Canada by writing to:

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada
30 Victoria Street
Gatineau, Quebec
K1A 1H3

CONTACT INFORMATION

In the event of questions about:
i. Access to your Personal Information;
ii. Our collection, use, management or disclosure of Personal Information; or
iii. This Policy

Please contact us by email at info@nullmavenfair.ca