Who we are
Cates Family Farm is owned and operated by Elisabeth Cates and family in central Maine. Our website address is: https://catesfamily.farm. Our website and social media accounts are administrated and maintained by Margaret Cates, Media and Relations Manager at Cates Family Farm.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Analytics
We use secure third-party software to measure and analyze site visitor data.
Who we share your data with
If you choose to pay via our website, your information will be shared with a third-party payments platform. They will process your financial information and return it to us. If you choose to interact with us via Facebook or Instagram, or via the embedded Facebook Messenger app on our site, your information will be shared with Facebook.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment or a review, the text and metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
If you place an order, we obtain your contact information which we retain indefinitely via your invoice and packing slip.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
If you have interacted with us via social media sites, sent us payments via a web-based payments platform, or emailed us, we can delete conversations/emails upon request; however, we can only guarantee that there are no backups on our own hosting platform. You will want to connect with the third-party website’s support team to ensure that your data is fully purged.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service or shared with third-party payment platforms if electronic payments are made. Your interactions with us via Facebook Messenger, Facebook, or Instagram will be shared with Facebook. Your emails will be stored on Gmail.
Your contact information
Your contact information is stored on our server when you place orders or make comments on our website. Cates Family Farm values our customers’ privacy, and is only accessible via secure applications integrated into our website.
Additional information
How we protect your data
Dreamhost hosts our website on a secure PHP Server. Dreamhost maintains and regularly updates our security certificate and our PHP version to ensure your privacy. We will purge your data to the best of our ability upon request; however, we cannot guarantee that data on third-party platforms (such as payment platforms or social media sites, or Gmail) is not backed up by those companies.
What third parties we receive data from
We may receive data from Google (Gmail), Facebook or Instagram, or payment platforms.
Industry regulatory disclosure requirements
Cates Family Farm is certified to sell or resell nursery stock; our State of Maine nursery stock resale certificate is available upon request.