Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Effective date: July 14, 2026
Last updated: July 14, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how Smart SEO Beginner LLC, operating walshtbrian.com (“we,” “us,” or “our”), collects, uses, discloses, retains, and protects personal information when you visit this website, contact us, create an account, purchase a digital product, request support, or otherwise interact with us.

By using this website, you acknowledge the practices described in this Privacy Policy. This policy does not replace any rights or protections that cannot be waived under applicable law.

Questions or privacy requests may be sent to support@walshtbrian.com.

Contents

1. Scope

This Privacy Policy applies to personal information processed through:

  • walshtbrian.com and pages that link to this policy;
  • our WordPress and WooCommerce store, checkout, customer-account, and digital-download functions;
  • contact, support, and other communications with us;
  • emails relating to purchases, downloads, account administration, support, and—where you have opted in—marketing;
  • information we receive from service providers and marketplaces used to operate the website and fulfill purchases.

This policy does not govern a third party’s independent processing of information on its own website or service. For example, purchases made through Gumroad or payments processed through PayPal are also governed by those companies’ own privacy notices and terms.

2. Information We Collect

Information you provide directly

Depending on how you interact with us, we may collect:

  • Identity and contact information: name, email address, billing address, telephone number, business or organization name, and other contact details you provide.
  • Order and commercial information: products purchased, order number, purchase date, price, discounts, refund status, download entitlement, download activity, and transaction history.
  • Account information: username, account preferences, password-related data maintained by WordPress or WooCommerce, and account activity. Passwords are stored in hashed or otherwise protected form; we do not have access to your plain-text password.
  • Communications: messages, support requests, feedback, attachments, and information you submit through email or website forms.
  • Marketing preferences: whether you asked to receive or stop receiving promotional communications.
  • Content you submit: comments or other material you voluntarily submit to public or interactive portions of the website, if those features are enabled.

Payment information

Payments are processed by third-party payment providers such as PayPal or by a marketplace such as Gumroad. We may receive limited payment-related information, including payment status, transaction identifiers, payment method type, billing contact information, refund information, and fraud or risk signals.

We do not intentionally receive or store your complete payment-card number, card security code, PayPal password, or other full payment-account credentials.

Information collected automatically

When you visit or use the website, we and our service providers may automatically collect:

  • Internet Protocol (IP) address;
  • browser type, device type, operating system, language, and approximate location derived from IP address;
  • referring and exit pages, pages viewed, links clicked, date and time of access, and general interaction data;
  • cart, checkout, account-session, authentication, and download information;
  • cookie identifiers and similar online identifiers;
  • server, security, diagnostic, error, and performance logs;
  • information used to detect fraud, abuse, malicious activity, or technical problems.

Sensitive personal information

We do not intentionally request or collect Social Security numbers, government identification numbers, precise geolocation, biometric data, health information, racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or other legally protected sensitive or special-category information through the ordinary operation of this website.

Please do not send sensitive personal information through contact forms, support email, comments, or attachments unless it is strictly necessary and we have specifically requested it through a secure method.

3. Sources of Personal Information

We may collect personal information from:

  • you directly, including through checkout, account creation, forms, emails, and support requests;
  • your browser, device, and interactions with the website;
  • WordPress, WooCommerce, hosting, security, caching, backup, analytics, and website-performance providers;
  • payment processors such as PayPal;
  • third-party marketplaces such as Gumroad;
  • email, SMTP, and mailbox providers used to send or receive transactional and support messages;
  • fraud-prevention, security, legal, accounting, and professional-service providers;
  • publicly available sources when reasonably necessary to respond to an inquiry, prevent fraud, or protect our rights.

4. How We Use Personal Information

We may use personal information to:

  • operate, maintain, secure, troubleshoot, and improve the website;
  • process and fulfill orders and provide digital-download access;
  • create and administer customer accounts;
  • send receipts, order confirmations, download links, account notices, refund notices, policy updates, and other transactional communications;
  • respond to questions, support requests, complaints, and privacy requests;
  • verify purchases and enforce license, refund, support, and usage terms;
  • detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, abuse, security incidents, chargebacks, unauthorized access, and violations of our terms;
  • understand website traffic and performance, subject to applicable consent requirements;
  • maintain business, tax, accounting, compliance, and legal records;
  • establish, exercise, or defend legal claims and protect our rights, users, property, and services;
  • comply with applicable laws, court orders, lawful requests, and regulatory obligations;
  • send marketing communications when you have requested them or when otherwise permitted by law, with the ability to opt out.

We do not use personal information to make decisions based solely on automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects on individuals.

Where laws such as the GDPR or UK GDPR apply, we rely on one or more of the following legal bases:

  • Contract: processing necessary to take steps at your request, complete a purchase, deliver a product, administer an account, or provide requested support.
  • Legal obligation: processing necessary for tax, accounting, consumer-protection, fraud-prevention, recordkeeping, and other legal requirements.
  • Legitimate interests: operating and securing the website, preventing fraud, managing the business, improving products and services, responding to communications, and protecting legal rights, where those interests are not overridden by your rights.
  • Consent: where you consent to analytics, optional cookies, marketing communications, or another specific use. You may withdraw consent at any time, without affecting processing that occurred before withdrawal.

6. How We Disclose Personal Information

We may disclose personal information only as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this policy, including to the following categories of recipients:

  • Website and e-commerce providers: WordPress, WooCommerce, Automattic, and related plugins or service providers used to operate the website and store.
  • Hosting and infrastructure providers: Bluehost and providers supporting hosting, domain services, databases, backups, caching, content delivery, security, and performance.
  • Payment providers: PayPal and other payment processors displayed at checkout.
  • Marketplaces: Gumroad when you purchase through or interact with the Gumroad listing.
  • Analytics and technical providers: Google Analytics, Google Site Kit, or similar services when enabled, subject to applicable consent choices and provider settings.
  • Email and communications providers: Bluehost email, cPanel/Roundcube, SMTP services, Gmail, and related providers used to send, forward, receive, or store communications.
  • Security and fraud-prevention providers: services used to detect malicious activity, spam, unauthorized access, fraud, or abuse.
  • Professional advisers: accountants, lawyers, consultants, insurers, and other advisers who need information to provide services or protect our legal interests.
  • Governmental and legal recipients: courts, regulators, law enforcement, tax authorities, and other parties when disclosure is required or permitted by law or reasonably necessary to protect rights and safety.
  • Business transaction recipients: prospective or actual buyers, successors, lenders, advisers, or counterparties in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, sale of assets, or similar transaction, subject to appropriate confidentiality protections where applicable.

Service providers may process information under their own contracts, terms, privacy notices, and legal obligations. We encourage you to review the privacy notices of any third-party service you use.

7. Payments and Third-Party Marketplaces

Direct website purchases

Orders placed directly on walshtbrian.com are managed through WooCommerce. WooCommerce may store order, account, billing, download, and technical information on our website and hosting environment so that we can fulfill the purchase, provide download access, address refunds or support, and maintain required records.

Payment details are transmitted to the payment provider selected at checkout. The payment provider may collect payment credentials, billing information, device information, IP address, fraud-prevention information, and transaction details under its own privacy notice.

Gumroad purchases

When you purchase through Gumroad, Gumroad independently processes the checkout and payment. We may receive information needed to identify the purchase, deliver or support the product, manage refunds, enforce license terms, and maintain records, such as your name, email address, product purchased, transaction identifier, purchase date, amount, tax information, and refund status.

Information you provide directly to Gumroad is subject to Gumroad’s privacy notice and terms.

8. Cookies and Similar Technologies

The website uses cookies and similar technologies such as local storage, pixels, tags, and server logs. Cookies are small files placed on your browser or device.

Categories of cookies

  • Strictly necessary cookies: required for core website functions, security, login, shopping-cart, checkout, order, customer-account, and digital-download features. These cannot always be disabled without affecting the service.
  • Preference cookies: remember choices such as display, session, or consent preferences.
  • Analytics and performance cookies: help us understand aggregate website traffic, page performance, and user interactions when enabled and permitted.
  • Third-party and embedded-content cookies: may be set when a page loads content, tools, media, or links supplied by another service.

WooCommerce may use necessary cookies to keep track of cart contents, customer sessions, account status, and checkout activity. WordPress may use cookies for authentication, preferences, and administrative functions.

Where required by law, non-essential cookies will be used only after you make an applicable consent choice. You can also control cookies through your browser settings. Blocking or deleting necessary cookies may prevent cart, checkout, account, or download features from working properly.

9. Sale, Targeted Advertising, and Automated Signals

We do not knowingly sell personal information for money. We do not currently disclose personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising or use the website to provide targeted advertising based on activity across unrelated websites.

We do not currently use ad networks or retargeting platforms on this website. If our practices change, we will update this policy and provide any opt-out mechanisms required by applicable law.

Because we do not currently sell or share personal information for targeted advertising, a Global Privacy Control signal does not change our current practices. If we later engage in processing subject to legally required opt-out signals, we will implement and honor those signals as required.

Other browser “Do Not Track” signals are not currently handled through a uniform industry standard. We therefore do not separately respond to those signals except where required by applicable law.

10. Data Retention

We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this policy, including providing products and support, maintaining records, preventing fraud, resolving disputes, enforcing agreements, and meeting tax, accounting, and legal obligations.

Typical retention periods or criteria include:

Category Typical retention period or criterion
Orders, billing, refunds, and tax records Generally up to seven years after the transaction, or longer if required by law, an audit, dispute, chargeback, or legal claim.
Customer accounts While the account remains active and for a reasonable period afterward, unless deletion is requested or continued retention is required.
Download-access records For as long as needed to provide the purchased access, prevent abuse, and enforce license and refund terms.
Support and contact communications Generally up to two years after the last interaction, unless a longer period is needed for an order, dispute, legal requirement, or ongoing relationship.
Marketing records Until you unsubscribe or withdraw consent, plus a limited suppression record to ensure we honor the opt-out.
Analytics information According to the configured analytics-retention settings and applicable consent choices, generally no longer than reasonably necessary for trend and performance analysis.
Security, fraud, and technical logs For the period reasonably needed to detect incidents, troubleshoot problems, investigate misuse, and protect the service.
Backups Until overwritten or deleted through the normal secure backup cycle, subject to legal holds or disaster-recovery needs.

When information is no longer needed, we may delete, anonymize, aggregate, or securely isolate it. Deletion from backups may occur through the normal backup-rotation cycle rather than immediately.

11. Data Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal information. Depending on the information and service, these measures may include HTTPS encryption, access controls, password protection, software updates, backups, spam and malware controls, limited administrative access, and use of established hosting, payment, and service providers.

No website, email system, transmission, or storage method can be guaranteed to be completely secure. You are responsible for protecting your account credentials and should not send passwords, complete payment-card information, or other sensitive credentials by email.

If you believe your account or information may have been compromised, contact support@walshtbrian.com.

12. International Data Transfers

We are based in the United States. If you access the website from another country, your information may be processed in the United States and in other countries where our service providers operate. Those countries may have data-protection laws that differ from the laws where you live.

Where required, we rely on legally recognized safeguards or service-provider mechanisms for international transfers. You may contact us for additional information about applicable safeguards.

13. Your Privacy Rights and Choices

Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have the right to:

  • request access to personal information we hold about you;
  • request correction of inaccurate personal information;
  • request deletion of personal information, subject to legal and operational exceptions;
  • request restriction of or object to certain processing;
  • request a portable copy of certain information;
  • withdraw consent where processing is based on consent;
  • opt out of marketing communications;
  • opt out of sale, sharing, or targeted advertising if we engage in such activities and applicable law provides that right;
  • appeal a denial of a privacy request where applicable law provides an appeal right;
  • complain to an applicable data-protection or consumer-protection authority.

How to submit a request

Email support@walshtbrian.com with the subject line Privacy Request. Describe the right you wish to exercise and provide enough information for us to identify the relevant records.

We may need to verify your identity before completing a request. We will use information supplied for verification only for verification, security, fraud-prevention, and request-administration purposes. We may deny or limit a request when permitted by law, including when we cannot verify the request, the request is fraudulent or excessive, or retention is required for a transaction, legal obligation, security purpose, or legal claim.

An authorized agent may submit a request where permitted by law. We may request evidence of the agent’s authority and may verify the request directly with you.

We will not unlawfully discriminate against you for exercising a privacy right. Even where a particular privacy law does not apply to us or to your request, we may choose to honor reasonable requests at our discretion.

Marketing choices

You may opt out of promotional emails by using the unsubscribe link in the message or contacting us. You may still receive transactional or service messages relating to orders, downloads, accounts, policy updates, security, or support.

14. California and Other U.S. State Privacy Disclosures

California and certain other U.S. state laws may provide residents with rights relating to access, correction, deletion, portability, sale or sharing, targeted advertising, sensitive information, and non-discrimination. These rights apply only when the relevant law applies to the business, consumer, information, and processing activity.

During the preceding twelve months, the categories of personal information we may have collected are described in Section 2 and may include identifiers, customer-record information, commercial information, internet or network activity, approximate location derived from IP address, and inferences limited to website, purchase, or support interactions.

The business purposes for collection and the categories of recipients are described in Sections 4 and 6.

We do not knowingly sell personal information. We do not currently share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct-marketing purposes.

California residents may submit a request using the method in Section 13. If applicable law requires an additional opt-out link or process because our practices change, we will provide one.

15. EEA, United Kingdom, and Switzerland

If applicable data-protection law in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or Switzerland applies to our processing, you may have rights to access, correct, erase, restrict, object, withdraw consent, and receive certain data in a portable format.

You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority where you live, work, or believe a violation occurred. We encourage you to contact us first so that we can attempt to address your concern.

Smart SEO Beginner LLC is the controller of personal information processed for its own business purposes through this website. Some third-party providers may act as processors, service providers, or independent controllers depending on the service and circumstances.

16. Children’s Privacy

This website and its digital products are intended for adults, professionals, and business users. They are not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Purchases should be made only by individuals who are legally able to enter into a binding transaction or by an authorized parent, guardian, or organization representative. If you believe a child has provided personal information without appropriate authorization, contact us so that we can review and delete it where required.

The website may link to or embed content from third-party websites, platforms, documents, social networks, videos, analytics services, marketplaces, or other services. Those third parties may collect information when you interact with their content or follow a link.

We do not control and are not responsible for a third party’s privacy, security, content, or data practices. Review the applicable third party’s privacy notice before providing information.

18. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our products, website, providers, business practices, or legal obligations. The “Last updated” date identifies the current version.

Material changes may be communicated through a prominent website notice, checkout notice, email, or another reasonable method where appropriate. Your continued use of the website after an update is subject to the revised policy, except where applicable law requires additional notice or consent.

19. Contact Us

Smart SEO Beginner LLC
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Website: walshtbrian.com
Email: support@walshtbrian.com

For privacy requests, use the subject line Privacy Request.

© Copyright 2025 Brian Walsh

Privacy Policy