FinoLib is a free finance-education library at https://finolib.com, written by Sheeja Ananthakrishnan. This page explains, in plain language, what information the site collects when you visit it, why, and what choices you have. In this policy, “FinoLib”, “we” and “us” mean the people who run this website.
The short version
- You do not need an account to read FinoLib, and nothing on the site is sold, so we never ask for payment details.
- We collect only what the site needs to run, stay secure, and understand which chapters are useful.
- We do not sell your personal information.
- The site is funded by advertising, which is how it stays free to read. Ad partners may use cookies, and you can control that (see “Advertising” below).
Information we collect
Information you give us. If you leave a comment, we collect what the comment form asks for (your name, email address and, optionally, a website), along with the comment itself. If you email us or use the contact form, we keep your name, email address and message so we can reply.
Information collected automatically. Like almost every website, our web server records basic technical data when a page is requested: your IP address, browser and device type, the page you asked for, the page that referred you, and the date and time. We use this to keep the site secure, fix problems, and understand overall traffic. We may also use an analytics service (for example, Google Analytics or a similar tool) to see aggregate patterns such as which chapters are read most and which countries readers visit from.
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comment form, plus the visitor’s IP address and browser user-agent string to help detect spam.
An anonymized string created from your email address (called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to check whether you use it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available at https://automattic.com/privacy/. After your comment is approved, your profile picture (if you have one) is visible to the public alongside your comment.
Contact form
If you use the contact form on our Contact page, we collect the name, email address and message you type in. They are emailed to us so we can reply, and they are not saved in the website’s database. To limit spam, the form uses a hidden field and a signed, time-stamped token, and it counts how many messages one visitor sends in an hour using a salted hash of the visitor’s IP address. That hash is not kept beyond an hour. Your message passes through our email provider, and we keep it only as long as needed to reply and for a reasonable period afterward.
Cookies
Cookies are small text files that a website stores in your browser. FinoLib may use the following kinds:
- Essential cookies that keep the site working and secure. Visitors do not need to log in; login cookies are set only for the site’s administrators.
- Comment cookies. If you leave a comment, you may opt in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies so you do not have to retype them. These last one year.
- Analytics cookies from the analytics service described above, if enabled, to measure aggregate usage.
- Advertising cookies from our advertising partners, when ads are shown (see below).
You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings; the site will still be readable, though some features may behave differently. Where the law requires it, we will ask for your consent before setting non-essential cookies.
Advertising
FinoLib is free to read and is funded by advertising rather than by readers. When ads are shown, they are provided by third-party advertising networks such as Google AdSense. These vendors use cookies and similar technologies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this and other websites, and to measure how ads perform. Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to FinoLib and/or other sites on the internet.
You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings, or opt out of many third-party vendors’ personalized advertising at www.aboutads.info. We do not control the cookies set by advertising partners, and their handling of your data is governed by their own privacy policies.
Embedded content and links to other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (for example videos, images, charts or posts from other websites). Embedded content behaves exactly as if you had visited the other website: it may collect data about you, use cookies, add its own tracking, and monitor your interaction with it, including if you are logged in to that website.
FinoLib also links to outside sites. Once you leave FinoLib, the other site’s privacy policy applies.
Who we share your data with
We do not sell your personal information. We share data only with the service providers that help run the site, and only as needed: our web host and email provider, an automated spam-detection service that checks comments, our analytics provider (if enabled), and our advertising partners (when ads are shown). We may also disclose information if the law requires it or to protect the site and its readers from abuse.
How long we keep your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are kept indefinitely so that follow-up comments can be recognized and approved automatically. Emails you send us are kept for as long as needed to respond and for a reasonable period afterward. Server logs are kept for a limited period for security and troubleshooting. You can ask us to delete your comments or emails at any time (see “Your rights”).
Where your data is processed
FinoLib is read worldwide, and our hosting, analytics and advertising providers may process data in countries other than your own. Where we can, we choose providers that protect data to recognized standards.
Your rights
Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR in the EU and UK, the CCPA in California, or India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023), you may have the right to ask what personal data we hold about you, to receive a copy of it, to correct it, to have it erased, and to object to or withdraw consent for certain uses. This does not cover data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal or security purposes. To make a request, email us at the address below and we will respond within a reasonable time.
Children
FinoLib is an educational resource for a general audience and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
Security
We take reasonable technical and organizational steps to protect the data we hold. No website can guarantee absolute security, which is one reason we collect as little as we can.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the site grows. If we add a feature that collects new kinds of data, such as an email newsletter, we will update this page first. The “Last updated” date at the top always shows the current version.
Contact us
For any privacy question or request, email [email protected].