ATTIC

Not Just a Privacy Policy

Last modified: September 18, 2022

ATTIC collects minimal personal user data, avoids "dark patterns" and aims to improve the online shopping experience. By doing so, we also hope to promote healthier consumption habits. We genuinely respect you and your privacy. We want consumers and vendors to thrive, alike.

We wrote ATTIC's "(Not Just a) Privacy Policy" to help you understand what information we collect and how that information is used. We also thought it would be helpful to share a bit about about many consumer-focused websites handle your privacy, including some (not so cool) things they do.


Your Email Address, Stays Yours

Most consumer-facing websites want your email address, and they want it badly. It's incredibly valuable. At a minimum, stores and e-commerce websites will use your email to market themselves, sometimes relentlessly. Newsletters, announcements etc. Others will use it in the name of "improving your experience" and personalizing their offerings for you specifically. In the most egregious of situations, a store or marketplace might sell your email (and everything else they know about you) to a third party, who will in turn use your information to try and make a buck.

We made a conscious decision at ATTIC to build our site in a way that avoids collecting your identity. We neither offer nor require a log-in to use any of our services and therefore we cannot associate your behavior on our site with you specifically. Period. (Isn't that refreshing?) We don't have a website profile of you based on your email address (or IP address or anything else), and we don't manipulate the experience on our site thinking we know more about what you want than you do. Instead, we built ATTIC with features that use non-personally identifiable and ephemeral data.

The only time we collect your email is when you choose to give it to us for our opt-in email newsletter. That list is currently managed by MailChimp and your data resides on their servers. We do not attempt to merge that data with our website analytics data (see below). We also use great restraint in regards to when we use our mailing list. You will not receive daily or even weekly emails from ATTIC.


Cookies and Fingerprinting, No Thank You

But your email isn't the only (sneaky) way in which websites try to identify you. Some sites save small files (aka "cookies") to your computer and then allow others to read those files. This is most commonly used by companies that sell ads, so that they can track your behavior from site to site. The classic example is searching for a pair of shoes on one site and then seeing nothing but shoe ads on every other site you visit.

There are sites that try to be even sneakier still and directly try to thwart efforts you may take to remain anonymous. The practice is called "fingerprinting." They build up a profile of you by recording things like your IP address, device/computer type, operating system and version, screen size, geographic location, sites you regularly visit etc etc. Gather enough of these variables and they can get really close to being able to track or identify you specifically. Or they go a step further and merge what they have with a third-party database to find a likely match for you, your email, mailing address and all.

ATTIC does not use cookies to identify you and we do not use ad-services that track you. Cookies are saved to your computer when using ATTIC in only one situation: when you click a link or ad to visit a product's third-party point of sale. More information on this practice is provided below. ATTIC uses no fingerprinting technologies or techniques. Any and all ads for third-party services on ATTIC are managed by ATTIC and use no additional tracking technologies; ATTIC does not display ads from ad platforms or networks that track you.


Dark Patterns

Dark patterns are techniques used by websites to change your behavior, often to get you to do things that are in their interest, not yours. The list of techniques is long, and some are more shameful than others. One common example is the "Only one of X remains and three people have it in their cart." That's a website that is deliberately imposing stress on you and pushing you to buy, to consume. What's worse? Website researchers have shown that most of the information is fabricated -- that is, no one else actually has the item in their cart!

Another dark pattern is the use of "infinite scrolling". A site that uses infinite scrolling is one that automatically adds more content whenever you get near the bottom of the page. Its main purpose is to keep you on the site, to keep you shopping, or to keep you from putting down your phone — to keep you from moving on to something else you should be doing.

ATTIC's design team avoids dark patterns as a rule. We don't like when we fall prey to them in our own lives and therefore avoid them on ATTIC as well. Instead of infinite scroll, we require you to opt into showing more content. Even then we set a modest hard cap on the amount of content you can see on a single page. Across the board, we want to be there for you when you decide it's time to find great products from great stores. But when it's time to do something else, or you make a decision that "I really don't need/want this product; I should go get some sun!"" then we don't stand in the way.


For additional details about how ATTIC protects your privacy, the data we collect, and how to exercise your rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act, please continue reading. We apologize, but the information gets more technical and slightly less interesting :)

ATTIC is based in the United States and is intended for audiences and users based in the United States. Our practices and our privacy policy were designed to be in line with Federal, state and local statue for juridicitions within the United States. Our policies and practices are not currently designed for users outside of the United States. Users outside of the United States are advised to read our policies in full and discontinue use of ATTIC over concern for any policies that differ from their home state or region.


Industry standard technical information when you use our services and products

When you use a website, mobile application, or other Internet service, there's certain information that almost always gets created and recorded automatically. The same is true when you use our services and products. Here are some of the types of information we collect:

Log data. When you use ATTIC, our servers automatically record information (“log data”), including information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website. This log data may include your Internet Protocol address, the address of the ATTIC web pages you visited, and the type of browser you used to view our site.

Session and Multi-Session data. In order to offer certain features on our website, we save basic search parameters to your browser so that we can re-use them throughout your visit. For example, if you use one of our filters to narrow down the products we show on our site, we save the filter you applied so that we can re-apply it for you as you navigate between pages or on a return to our site. These features are implemented in a way that is 100% anonymous to us and is not stored or saved outside of your computer.


When you give it to us or give us permission to obtain it

When you sign up for or use our services/products (e.g., our email newsletter), you voluntarily give us certain information. This can include your name, the email address you used to sign up, and any other information you provide us. However, we do not use this individual information in combination with any other collected data. That is, we do not attempt to align these data with other data we collect about usage of our services (e.g., attributing search terms entered to you or your name). We do not sell any personal information that you provide to us.


Analytics

We use privacy-focused analytics software. It uses no cookies and and is fully compliant with GDPR, CCPA and PECR. We use it to analyze our website traffic and to optimize the site's performance.


How do we use the information we collect?

We use the information we collect to make our products better, to develop new products and features, and to protect ATTIC and our users.

If you contact us directly or subscribe to our newsletter by providing your email address, we may use the information we collect to:

  • Send you updates, newsletters, marketing materials and other information that may be of interest to you. For example, depending on your email notification settings, we may send you occasional updates that include new products from stores you may like. You can decide to stop getting these updates by updating your account settings (or through other settings we may provide).
  • Respond to your questions or comments.

Our partners and advertisers may share information with us

We participate in affiliate marketing networks. When you follow a link to a third-party website from ATTIC, your browser may save a cookie to your browser. That cookie allows the affiliate network to record whether or not a sale is executed on the third-party website. The affiliate network service provider and/or the third-party website may collect additional information about your usage of the third-party website such as which products were viewed and purchased. When applicable, these technologies allow ATTIC to collect a commission for the sale of products on the third-party website. However, we neither request nor accept personally indentifiable information from such marketing networks. We use aggregated data as well product specific data that is sanitized of personal information to track the effectiveness of our site and services.

We participate in the Awin and ShareASale affiliate marketing networks (Awin). Awin may collect personal information when you interact with our site. The collection and use of this information is subject to the privacy policy located at https://www.awin.com/us/legal/privacy-policy.

We participate in the eBay affiliate marketing network (eBay). eBay may collect personal information when you interact with our site. The collection and use of this information is subject to the privacy policy located at https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/member-behaviour-policies/user-privacy-notice-privacy-policy?id=4260.

We participate in the Ascend by Partnerize affiliate marketing network (Partnerize). Partnerize may collect personal information when you interact with our site. The collection and use of this information is subject to the privacy policy located at https://partnerize.com.


What choices do you have about your information?

You may have choices available to you through the device or software you use to access ATTIC. For example:

  • The browser you use may provide you with the ability to control cookies or other types of local data storage.
  • Your mobile device may provide you with choices around how and whether location or other data is shared with us.

To learn more about these choices, please see the information provided by the device or software provider.


How and when do we share information?

The limited instances where we may share your personal information include:

  • If we believe that disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with a law, regulation or legal request; to protect the safety, rights, or property of the public, any person, or ATTIC; or to detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues.
  • We may share the information described in this Policy with our wholly-owned subsidiaries and affiliates. We may engage in a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, dissolution, reorganization, or similar transaction or proceeding that involves the transfer of the information described in this Policy.
  • We may share aggregated or non-personally identifiable information with our partners, advertisers or others.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Requests

Under CCPA, residents of California have the right to request access to their personal information stored by websites like ATTIC. We can assist with and execute the following requests:

  • If you are subscribed to our email newsletter, you may request access to the profile tied to your email address in our email marketing system. This data will include any data you provided to us when you subscribed (e.g., name, city), as well as logs of your engagement activity related to our emails (e.g., opens and clicks).

Under the CCPA, residents of California have the right to request that their persistent data be removed. We can assist with the following requests:

  • If you are subscribed to our email list, we can unsubscribe you and remove your information from our email marketing system

To make any of the requests outlined above, contact [email protected] and use the subject line "CCPA Data Request". For requests related to our email marketing list, please email us from the address subscribed. Please allow us 10 business days to respond to and fulfill your request.


How do we make changes to this policy?

We may change this policy from time to time, and if we do we'll post any changes on this page. If you continue to use ATTIC after those changes are in effect, you agree to the revised policy. If the changes are significant, we may provide more prominent notice or get your consent as required by law.

Have questions?

You may contact ATTIC by email at [email protected].