You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may be unable to use some parts of our Websites.

When you access our Websites, we may use "cookies" (or similar tracking technologies). The use of cookies is a standard industry-wide practice. A "cookie" is a small piece of information that a website assigns and stores on your computer while you are viewing a website. Cookies are very helpful and can be used for various different purposes. These purposes include allowing you to navigate between pages efficiently, enabling automatic activation of certain features, remembering your preferences and making the interaction between you and our Websites quicker and easier. Cookies are also used to help customise your experience.

There are several types of cookies, among others:

• Essential, Functionality, Operation & Security cookies: These are essential for user movement, website function, and security (e.g., authenticating users, preventing fraudulent use, protecting user data). These cookies either cannot be disabled or, if disabled, may cause certain website features to not work.
• Analytic, Measurement & Performance cookies: These cookies collect data on how users interact with the websites to improve them and assess performance. Examples include assessing the number of users who viewed an article, their country of origin, and remembering user preferences like language.
• Preference, Targeting & Advertising cookies: These cookies are used for advertising across the Internet, displaying relevant ads tailored to users based on their website activity (e.g., showing ads related to a webpage previously visited).

Most browsers allow you to erase cookies, block their acceptance, or receive warnings. You can remove cookies by following your device preferences. However, blocking or erasing cookies may limit your online experience and cause some website features to not operate properly.

Our Websites are not intended for individuals under the age of eighteen (18). We do not knowingly solicit data from or market to children as defined under applicable law (e.g., thirteen (13) for US individuals and sixteen (16) for European Economic Area ("EEA") individuals). We request that such individuals do not provide personal data to us. We reserve the right to request proof of age. If you believe a child has shared data with us, please contact us at contact@thedatingcritic.com so that we can delete such data.

We will retain your personal data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, such as complying with our legal obligations, resolving disputes, and enforcing our agreements and policies.

We will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of our Websites, or we are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.

Your personal data may be stored or processed in the EEA or other countries. If you visit our Websites from outside the EEA, your data may be transferred to and processed in countries other than the country from which you access our Websites.

For EEA residents, we will take appropriate measures to ensure adequate data protection upon transfer of your personal data outside the EEA.

If your jurisdiction requires consent for data transfer, your consent to this Privacy Policy includes express consent for such transfer.

We take great care in implementing and maintaining the security of our Websites and your personal data. We employ industry-standard procedures and policies to ensure the safety of the information we collect and store, and use technical and administrative security measures to prevent unauthorized access or use. However, no data transmission over the internet or any wireless network can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. We cannot be responsible for unauthorized access or abuse, and we make no warranty that such access will be prevented.

We may adopt appropriate data collection, storage, and processing practices and security measures to protect against unauthorized access, in accordance with applicable law. If you feel that your privacy was not treated in accordance with our Privacy Policy, or if someone attempted to abuse our Websites or acted inappropriately, please contact us at contact@thedatingcritic.com.

We reserve the right to amend this Privacy Policy at our sole discretion and at any time. If we make changes, the updated Privacy Policy will be immediately posted on our Websites, and the relevant effective date will be updated. Changes will be effective immediately upon posting unless otherwise stated. Your continued use of our Websites after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of such changes.

We respect the confidentiality of your personal data and guarantee you can exercise your rights. You have the right under this Privacy Policy, and by law, if you are within the EU/EEA, to:

• Request access to your personal data. You have the right to access, update, or delete the information we have on you. You can obtain a copy of your personal data by contacting us at contact@thedatingcritic.com.
• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. You have the right to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
• Object to processing of your personal data. This right exists where we are relying on a legitimate interest as the legal basis for our processing and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to our processing of your personal data on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes.
• Request the erasure of your personal data. You have the right to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us to continue to process it.
• Request the transfer of your personal data. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
• Withdraw your consent. You have the right to withdraw your consent on using your personal data. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide you with access to certain specific functionalities of our Websites.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at contact@thedatingcritic.com.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

We may disclose aggregated data and personal data that we collect or you provide as described in this Privacy Policy:

• A. To subsidiaries and affiliates.
• B. To contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business and who are contractually bound to keep personal data confidential and use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them.
• C. To a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of the Company's assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal data held by the Company about our Website users is among the assets transferred.
• D. To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it.
• E. With your consent.

We may also disclose your personal data:

• A. To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request.
• B. To enforce or apply our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and other agreements.
• C. If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of the Company, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

The Websites contain links to websites operated and maintained by third parties over which the Company has no control. Any data you provide to third-party websites will be governed under the terms of use or privacy policy of those respective third parties. Accordingly, we strongly encourage you to investigate and ask questions before disclosing any data to the operators of third-party websites and to familiarise yourself with their privacy practices by reviewing their privacy notices and privacy policies.

The inclusion of third-party websites on or through our Websites in no way constitutes an express or implied endorsement of such websites' policies or notices.

We may use or disclose personal data we collect for "business purposes" or "commercial purposes" (as defined under the CCPA and CPRA), which may include the following examples:

• To operate our Websites.
• To provide you with support and to respond to your inquiries, including investigating and addressing your concerns and monitoring and improving our Websites.
• To fulfill or meet the reason you provided the data. For example, if you share your contact data to ask questions about our Websites, we will use that personal data to respond to your inquiry.
• To respond to law enforcement requests and as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.
• As described to you when collecting your personal data or as otherwise set forth in the CCPA and CPRA.
• For internal administrative and auditing purposes.
• To detect security incidents and protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, including, when necessary, prosecuting those responsible for such activities.
• To evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal data held by us about our Websites users is among the assets transferred.

If we decide to collect additional categories of personal data or use the personal data we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes, we will update this Privacy Policy.

We may disclose your personal data to third parties for business purposes or sell your personal data, subject to your right to opt out of the sale of personal data. When we disclose personal data for business purposes, we enter a contract that describes the purpose and requires the recipient to both keep that personal data confidential and not use it for any purpose except performing the contract. The CCPA, CPRA, and Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act ("VCDPA") prohibit third parties from reselling personal data unless you have received explicit notice and an opportunity to opt out of further sales.

We may share your personal data with the following categories of third parties:

• Service providers;
• Data aggregators;
• Google;
• Third-party vendors to whom you or your agents authorize disclosure of personal data in connection with products or services provided.

We may have used or disclosed the following categories of personal data for business or commercial purposes in the last twelve (12) months:

• Category A. Identifiers.
• Category B. Personal data categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)).
• Category D. Commercial data.
• Category F. Internet or other similar network activity.

Please note that the categories listed above are those defined in the CCPA and CPRA. This does not mean that all examples of that category of personal data were, in fact, disclosed, but reflects our good faith belief, to the best of our knowledge, that some of that information from the applicable category may have been disclosed.

As defined in the CCPA and CPRA, "sell" and "sale" mean the transfer or communication of a consumer's personal data to a third party for monetary or other valuable consideration. While we may have received a benefit, it may not necessarily be monetary.

We may have sold the following categories of personal data in the last twelve (12) months:

• Category A. Identifiers.
• Category B. Personal data categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)).
• Category D. Commercial data.
• Category F. Internet or other similar network activity.

Please note that the categories listed above are those defined in the CCPA and CPRA. This does not mean that all examples of that category of personal data were, in fact, sold, but reflects our good faith belief, to the best of our knowledge, that some of that information from the applicable category may have been shared for value.

We do not knowingly collect personal data from minors under 16 through our Websites. However, third-party websites that are linked to our Websites may collect personal data from minors under 16. We encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children's Internet usage and instruct their children never to provide personal data through our Websites without their permission.

We do not sell the personal data of consumers we actually know are less than 16 years of age, unless we receive affirmative authorization (the "right to opt-in") from either the consumer who is between 13 and 16 years of age, or the parent or guardian of a consumer less than 13 years of age. Consumers who opt-in to personal data sales may opt out of future sales at any time. To exercise the right to opt out, you (or your authorized representative) may submit a request to us by contacting us at contact@thedatingcritic.com.

If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 13 (or 16) has provided us with personal data, please contact us with sufficient detail to enable us to delete that information.

The CCPA and CPRA provide California residents, and VCDPA provides Virginia residents with specific rights regarding their personal data. If you are a resident of California and/or Virginia, you have the following rights:

• The right to notice. You have the right to be notified of which categories of personal data are being collected and the purposes for which the personal data is being used.
• The right to request. Under CCPA, CPRA, and VCDPA, you have the right to request that we disclose data to you about our collection, use, sale, disclosure for business purposes, and sharing of personal data. Once we receive and confirm your request, we will disclose to you:
  • The categories of personal data we collected about you.
  • The categories of sources for the personal data we collected about you.
  • Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal data.
  • The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal data.
  • The specific pieces of personal data we collected about you.
  • If we sold your personal data or disclose your personal data for a business purpose, we will disclose to you:
    • a) The categories of personal data sold;
    • b) The categories of personal data disclosed.
• The right to say no to the sale or sharing of personal data (opt out) for California residents. California residents have the right to direct us not to sell or share their personal data. To submit an opt-out request, please contact us at contact@thedatingcritic.com.
• The right to opt out of the processing of the personal data for Virginia residents for purposes of (i) targeted advertising, (ii) the sale of personal data, or (iii) profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects concerning the consumer. Virginia residents have the right to opt out of personal data processing for targeted advertising, data sale, or profiling that leads to significant legal or similar effects. To submit an opt-out request, please contact us at contact@thedatingcritic.com.
• The right to correct inaccuracies. Under CCPA, CPRA, and VCDPA, you have the right to request correction of inaccurate personal data maintained by us, considering the nature of the personal data and the purposes of the processing.
• The right to limit the use and disclosure of sensitive personal data. Under CPRA, you have the right to direct us to limit the use of your sensitive personal data to only what is necessary to perform the services. To submit a request, please contact us at contact@thedatingcritic.com.

You have the right to request the deletion of your personal data, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your request, we will delete your personal data from our records unless an exception applies. We may deny your deletion request if retaining the data is necessary for our service providers or us:

• To complete the transaction for which we collected the personal data, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
• To detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
• To debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
• To exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
• To comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et. seq.).
• To engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws when the data's deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research's achievement if you previously provided informed consent.
• To enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
• To comply with a legal obligation.
• To make other internal and lawful uses of that data that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

You have the right not to be discriminated against for exercising any of your consumer rights, including by:

• Denying goods or services to you.
• Charging different prices or rates for goods or services, including the use of discounts or other benefits or imposing penalties.
• Providing a different level or quality of goods or services to you.
• Suggesting that you will receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.

Our Websites do not respond to do not track ("DNT") signals. However, some third-party websites do keep track of your browsing activities. If you are visiting such websites, you can set your preferences in your web browser to inform websites that you do not want to be tracked. You can enable or disable DNT by visiting the preferences or settings page of your web browser.

Our Websites do not address anyone under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable data from anyone under the age of 13. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with personal data, please contact us. If we become aware that we have collected personal data from anyone under the age of 13 without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from our servers.

If we need to rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your information and your country requires consent from a parent, we may require your parent's consent before we collect and use that information.

California's "Shine the Light" law (Civil Code Section § 1798.83) permits users of our Websites who are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal data to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send us an email at contact@thedatingcritic.com.