Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 7, 2026

Last updated: October 7, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how VeryRite (“VeryRite”, “we”, “us” or “our”) collects, uses, discloses, stores and protects personal information when you visit veryrite.com (the “Site”), read our articles, comment, subscribe to our newsletter, contact us or buy from the VeryRite shop. It also explains the choices and rights available to you and how to exercise them.

We are based in Ontario, Canada. Our handling of personal information is governed primarily by the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Where we collect personal information from residents of Quebec, we also follow the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector, as amended by Quebec’s Law 25. Where foreign privacy laws, such as the European Union and United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), give visitors additional rights, we describe how we respect those rights below.

By using the Site, you acknowledge that you have read this Privacy Policy. Where we rely on your consent, we will ask for it in a clear and meaningful way, and you may withdraw it at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice.

1. Our Commitment: The Fair Information Principles

PIPEDA is built on ten fair information principles, and we have designed our practices around them:

1. Accountability. We are responsible for the personal information under our control and have designated a Privacy Officer who is accountable for our compliance with this policy.
2. Identifying purposes. We identify why we collect personal information at or before the time of collection. Those purposes are set out in this policy.
3. Consent. We obtain your knowledge and consent for the collection, use and disclosure of personal information, except where the law permits otherwise. We use express consent for sensitive information and for non-essential cookies and marketing emails.
4. Limiting collection. We collect only the personal information that is necessary for the purposes we have identified.
5. Limiting use, disclosure and retention. We use and disclose personal information only for the purposes for which it was collected, unless you consent otherwise or the law requires or permits it, and we keep it only as long as necessary.
6. Accuracy. We keep personal information as accurate, complete and up to date as is necessary for its purposes.
7. Safeguards. We protect personal information with security safeguards appropriate to its sensitivity.
8. Openness. We make information about our privacy practices readily available, including this policy.
9. Individual access. On request, we will tell you whether we hold personal information about you, give you access to it and let you challenge its accuracy.
10. Challenging compliance. You may raise concerns about our compliance with our Privacy Officer and, if you are not satisfied, with the relevant privacy regulator.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Information you give us

• Contact enquiries. When you use our contact form (powered by the Contact Form 7 plugin) or email us, we collect your name, email address, the subject and content of your message and any attachments you choose to send.
• Shop orders. When you buy from the VeryRite shop (powered by WooCommerce), we collect your name, billing and shipping address, email address, telephone number (if provided for delivery purposes), the items ordered, order notes and your order history. If you create a customer account, we also store your username, an encrypted password and your saved addresses.
• Payment information. Payments are processed by third-party payment processors. Your full card number is entered on, or transmitted directly to, the processor and is not stored on our servers. We receive limited information such as the payment status, the card type, the last four digits and the expiry date for order reconciliation and fraud prevention.
• Newsletter. If you subscribe to our newsletter, we collect your email address and, optionally, your first name, along with a record of when and how you gave consent.
• Comments. If you comment on an article, we collect the name, email address and optional website you provide, your comment, and your IP address and browser user-agent string for spam detection. If Gravatar is enabled for comments, an anonymized string created from your email address (a hash) may be sent to the Gravatar service to check whether you use it.
• Contributor pitches and partnership requests. If you pitch an article or propose a partnership, we collect the information you choose to share, such as your name, contact details, professional background, writing samples and company information.

2.2 Information collected automatically

• Server and security logs. Like most websites, our hosting environment records technical information when you visit, including your IP address, browser type, operating system, referring page, pages requested and the date and time of each request. Our security plugin, Wordfence, also records IP addresses, user-agent strings, login attempts and traffic patterns to detect and block malicious activity, such as brute-force login attempts and known attack signatures.
• Cookies and similar technologies. We use cookies to keep the Site and shop working, remember your preferences and consent choices, and, with your consent, measure how the Site is used. Full details are in our Cookie Policy.
• Analytics. We may use Google Analytics to understand how visitors use the Site, such as which articles are read, how long visits last and which pages lead readers to us. Analytics cookies are only placed after you consent through our cookie banner. Where available, we configure analytics to limit data collection, for example by not using it to identify individual visitors.

2.3 Information from third parties

We may receive limited information from service providers, such as payment confirmations and fraud screening results from payment processors, delivery status from shipping carriers, and aggregated, non-identifying statistics from advertising and affiliate partners.

2.4 Sensitive information

We do not ask for sensitive personal information, such as health, financial account (other than payment details processed by our processors), biometric, religious or political information. Please do not send us sensitive information unless it is genuinely necessary, for example as part of a confidential news tip, and tell us if you need it handled with particular care.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use personal information for the following purposes:

• to operate, maintain and improve the Site and its content;
• to process, fulfil and ship shop orders, send order confirmations and shipping updates, handle returns, refunds and exchanges, and provide customer support;
• to respond to your enquiries, tips, correction requests, pitches and partnership proposals;
• to send our newsletter and, where you have consented, information about new articles, shop products and offers;
• to publish and moderate comments and to prevent spam;
• to protect the Site, our readers and customers against fraud, abuse, security threats and unlawful activity;
• to understand, in aggregate, how readers use the Site so we can improve our coverage and user experience;
• to keep business and tax records, including records required by the Canada Revenue Agency for sales and GST/HST purposes; and
• to comply with legal obligations, respond to lawful requests from authorities and establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

We will not use your personal information for a new purpose without first identifying that purpose and, where required, obtaining your consent. We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it to make decisions about you based solely on automated processing.

4. Email Communications and Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation

We comply with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). We send commercial electronic messages, such as our newsletter and shop promotions, only where we have your consent. Express consent is obtained through an unticked sign-up box or a dedicated subscription form, and we keep records of when and how it was given.

Where CASL permits, we may rely on implied consent, for example for a limited period after you purchase from our shop. Implied consent based on a purchase generally lasts for two years from the date of the purchase, after which we will only continue to send you commercial messages if you have given express consent.

Every commercial message we send identifies VeryRite, includes our contact information and contains a working unsubscribe link. Unsubscribe requests are processed promptly and in any event within 10 business days. Transactional messages, such as order confirmations, shipping notices and responses to your enquiries, will still be sent after you unsubscribe because they are necessary to complete a transaction or respond to you.

5. How We Share Your Information

We share personal information only as described below, and only to the extent necessary:

• Service providers. We use trusted third parties to host the Site, process payments, deliver email, send newsletters, ship orders, provide security and spam protection, manage cookie consent (CookieYes) and, where you consent, provide analytics (such as Google Analytics). These providers may only use your information to perform services for us and are required by contract to protect it.
• Shipping carriers. We share your name, shipping address, and, where needed, your telephone number and email address with Canada Post or other courier services to deliver your order. For shipments to the United States, required customs information is shared with carriers and border authorities.
• Payment processors. Payment details are handled directly by our payment processors, which act under their own privacy policies and applicable payment card industry security standards.
• Legal and safety reasons. We may disclose personal information where required or permitted by law, for example in response to a court order, subpoena or lawful request by a government authority, or to protect the rights, property or safety of VeryRite, our readers or others.
• Business transfers. If VeryRite is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing or sale of assets, personal information may be disclosed to the parties involved as permitted by law, subject to confidentiality obligations, and the recipient will be required to protect it in accordance with this policy.

We do not share personal information with advertisers. Advertising and affiliate partners may receive aggregated, non-identifying statistics, such as total page views or click counts. If advertising cookies are used on the Site, they are only activated with your consent, as explained in our Cookie Policy.

6. International Transfers and Storage

Some of our service providers are located, or store information, outside Canada, including in the United States and the European Union. When your personal information is processed in another jurisdiction, it is subject to the laws of that jurisdiction and may be accessible to its courts, law enforcement and national security authorities.

We take reasonable steps, including contractual protections, to ensure that personal information transferred outside Canada receives a comparable level of protection. Where Quebec law applies, we assess the privacy implications before transferring personal information outside Quebec, taking into account the sensitivity of the information, the purpose of its use, the protection measures in place and the legal framework of the destination jurisdiction.

For visitors from the European Economic Area, the European Commission has recognized Canada as providing an adequate level of protection for personal information subject to PIPEDA. Where information is transferred onward to a country without an adequacy decision, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses.

7. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

We use CookieYes to manage cookie consent. Strictly necessary cookies, such as those that keep your shopping cart, process checkout and protect the Site, are always active. All other cookies, including functional, analytics and advertising cookies, are deactivated by default and are only placed if you choose to enable them. This approach reflects Quebec’s requirement that technologies capable of identifying, locating or profiling a person be turned off by default. You can change your choices at any time through the cookie settings link on the Site. See our Cookie Policy for a full description.

8. How Long We Keep Information

We keep personal information only for as long as needed for the purposes described in this policy, or as required by law. As a general guide:

Type of information	Retention period
Shop order and transaction records	Seven years from the end of the fiscal year in which the transaction occurred, to meet Canadian tax and accounting record-keeping requirements
Customer account information	Until you close your account, after which order records are kept as described above
Contact form submissions and email enquiries	Up to 24 months after the enquiry is resolved, unless needed longer for an ongoing matter
Newsletter subscription and consent records	Until you unsubscribe; consent and unsubscribe records are kept for up to three years afterwards to demonstrate compliance with CASL
Published comments	For as long as the comment remains published; you may ask us to remove it
Security and server logs (including Wordfence logs)	Typically up to 90 days, unless needed longer to investigate a security incident
Analytics data	No longer than 14 months, where analytics is used
Privacy request records	Up to two years after the request is resolved

When personal information is no longer needed, we securely delete it or anonymize it so it can no longer identify you. Where we have used personal information to make a decision about you, we keep it long enough for you to exercise your right of access.

9. How We Protect Your Information

We use administrative, technical and physical safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information, including encrypted HTTPS connections across the Site, firewall and malware scanning through Wordfence, limited administrative access protected by strong authentication, regular software and plugin updates, and contractual security requirements for service providers. Card payments are handled by payment processors that maintain payment card industry security standards.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. If a breach of security safeguards involving your personal information creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will notify you and report the breach to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as required by PIPEDA. Where Quebec law applies, we will notify the Commission d’accès à l’information and affected individuals of any confidentiality incident presenting a risk of serious injury. We keep a record of all breaches of security safeguards, as the law requires.

10. Your Privacy Rights

10.1 Rights under Canadian law

Subject to limited exceptions set out in law, you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you and learn how it has been used and to whom it has been disclosed;
• Correct personal information that is inaccurate or incomplete;
• Withdraw consent to our collection, use or disclosure of your personal information, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice. We will explain the likely consequences of withdrawing consent, for example that we cannot process an order without a shipping address;
• Ask us to delete personal information that is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected, or that we no longer have a legal reason to keep; and
• Challenge our compliance with this policy and with applicable privacy law.

10.2 Additional rights for Quebec residents

If you are a resident of Quebec, you also have the right to:

• receive computerized personal information you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used technological format, and to have it sent to a person or organization you designate (data portability);
• ask us to stop disseminating your personal information, or to de-index any hyperlink attached to your name that provides access to your information, where its dissemination contravenes the law or a court order, or causes you serious injury in the circumstances set out by law;
• be informed of the personal information used to make a decision based exclusively on automated processing, if we ever make such a decision; and
• file a complaint with the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec.

10.3 Visitors from the EU and UK (GDPR)

If the GDPR or UK GDPR applies to our processing of your personal information, our legal bases are: performance of a contract (for shop orders and accounts), consent (for newsletters, non-essential cookies and analytics), legitimate interests (for Site security, fraud prevention, spam protection, responding to enquiries and improving our content) and legal obligation (for tax and accounting records). In addition to the rights described above, you may object to processing based on legitimate interests, ask us to restrict processing, and lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

10.4 Visitors from California and other US states

If you are a resident of California or another US state with a consumer privacy law that applies to us, you may have the right to know what personal information we collect, use and disclose; to access and delete it; to correct inaccurate information; and to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. We do not sell personal information. Where advertising cookies are used, they are only activated with your consent, and you can turn them off at any time through our cookie settings. We honour browser-based Global Privacy Control signals as an opt-out of non-essential tracking where technically supported. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

10.5 How to make a request

To exercise any of these rights, email our Privacy Officer at [email protected]. Please describe your request and include enough information for us to locate your records, such as the email address you used with us or an order number. To protect your information, we may need to verify your identity before responding, and we will only ask for the information needed to do so.

We will respond within 30 days of receiving your request. If we need more time, or if we cannot fulfil your request (for example, because providing the information would reveal personal information about another person or is prohibited by law), we will tell you why in writing. Access requests are free of charge in most cases; if a fee is ever necessary, we will tell you the amount in advance. You may also use an authorized agent, who will need to show written permission from you.

11. Children’s Privacy

The Site is intended for a general adult audience and is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 14 (the age below which Quebec law requires parental consent) or under 13 (the threshold under the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act). Purchases from the shop must be made by an adult or with the involvement of a parent or guardian. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact [email protected] and we will delete it.

12. Third-Party Links and Embedded Content

Our articles may link to other websites and may include embedded content, such as videos or social media posts, from third parties. Embedded content behaves in the same way as if you had visited the other website directly, and that website may collect data about you, use cookies and track your interaction with the embedded content. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party websites, and we encourage you to read their privacy policies.

13. Our Privacy Officer

VeryRite has designated a Privacy Officer, who is responsible for our compliance with this policy and applicable privacy laws, including the role of the person in charge of the protection of personal information under Quebec law. You can reach the Privacy Officer by email at [email protected].

If you have a concern about how we handle your personal information, please contact us first so we can try to resolve it. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact:

• the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada;
• if you live in Quebec, the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec; or
• if you live outside Canada, your local data protection or consumer protection authority.

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, the services we use or the law. Canada’s federal government has introduced legislation to replace the privacy portion of PIPEDA, and we will update this policy if and when new federal privacy legislation comes into force. When we make changes, we will revise the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. If a change is significant, or affects how we use personal information we have already collected, we will provide more prominent notice, such as a notice on the Site or an email to affected customers, and obtain your consent where required.

15. Contact Us

For questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, email [email protected]. For all other enquiries, email [email protected] or visit our Contact Us page.