What Sleep Balance Academy PC sets on your device and what it is for, the advertising and analytics technology we run on the public store, and how to refuse it.
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1What a cookie is, and the words used here
Cookie
A small file a website asks your browser to keep, and which your browser sends back on your next request. It is how a site remembers that you are signed in, or that you put something in your bag, from one page to the next.
First-party cookie
One set by the site you are actually visiting. Ours are first-party.
Third-party cookie
One set by a different company through a piece of code embedded in the page. This is how advertising networks recognize people between unrelated websites. We use these on our public store when you allow it, and never on a clinical page.
Local storage
Another way a browser keeps information for a site. We use a small amount of it for the same reasons we use cookies, such as remembering a choice you made on a page.
Pixel or tag
A small piece of code from another company that reports what you did on a page back to that company. Section 3 names the ones we use and what they receive.
2The cookies we actually set
There are three purposes, all of them first-party, and all of them necessary for the site to work as you expect.
Purpose
What it does
How long it lasts
If you block it
Signing in and staying signed in
Keeps you signed in as you move between pages, so you are not asked for your details again on every page, and signs you out when you ask to be signed out.
Until you sign out, or until the session expires.
You cannot sign in, and the patient portal will not work.
Security
Confirms that a form or an action came from you and from our site rather than from somewhere else, and helps us detect and stop abuse.
The length of your visit, or a short fixed period.
Signing in, checkout and forms stop working.
Your bag and your preferences
Remembers what you put in your bag and the choices you made, such as a shipping estimate, so they survive a page reload and a return visit.
Long enough to finish an order, and you can clear it whenever you like.
Your bag empties when you leave the page.
None of these is used for advertising, and none of them follows you to another company's website. They exist so the site works.
3The advertising and analytics we run
On our public store we use advertising and analytics technology from Google and from Meta. It runs only if you allow it, and never where your care happens.
This is code on our public pages that reports your visit back to those companies. We use it to see whether our advertising is working and to reach people who might want what we sell. It means Google and Meta receive a record of what you looked at on our store and can connect it to what they already know about you. That is the part worth understanding before you decide.
We name every company we use. If we add another, this notice is updated before the code goes on the site rather than after, and you are asked again.
We do not use a session recorder, so nothing here records your mouse movements or replays your visit.
4Our own measurement of how the store is used
On the public store we keep a first-party count of how the store is being used: which pages were opened, which step of checkout was reached, and whether something failed. We use it to find the places where the store is broken or confusing. It is written by us, for us.
Two things have to be true before a single line of it is recorded. The page has to be one where measurement is permitted, and you have to have allowed it. Both start as no, so nothing is recorded until you say yes.
A check runs before anything can be recorded that keeps personal details out: names, email addresses, order numbers and anything else that identifies you. What is left is a count of steps, not a record of a person.
One honest caveat. On a store that sells sleep and airway products, the name of a page can suggest a health interest all by itself. That is one reason this measurement stays with us instead of going to another company, and one reason none of it runs anywhere near your care.
5Nothing runs where your care happens
No advertising or analytics technology runs on the patient portal, the doctor portal, or a consult session. Not ours, and not anyone else's.
The only cookies in those places are the ones that sign you in and keep the session secure. There is no measurement of what you read in your chart, no record of which part of a visit you spent time on, and nothing that could be handed to a company whose business is advertising.
This is the rule we hold ourselves to, and it is the one we would least tolerate being broken. If you ever believe something is running on a clinical page that should not be, tell us at support@sleepbalanceacademy.com and we will look at it.
6Selling and sharing
We do not sell your personal information for money. We do share it for advertising.
Both phrases have specific meanings in state privacy law that are broader than the everyday ones. Sharing means handing your information to another company so that advertising can be aimed at you across other companies' websites and apps. That is what the technology in section 3 does when you allow it, and in some states it counts as a sale even though no money changes hands.
You can refuse, and refusing is already the default. The advertising choice is switched off unless you turn it on, and Privacy choices in the footer reopens it on any page.
Health related information gets stricter treatment again, and none of this reaches it. Our Consumer Health Data Privacy Notice explains why, including the separate written authorization the law would require before any sale of health data, which we do not ask anyone for and do not do.
7What you can do right now
7.1 Your browser
Every major browser lets you see the cookies a site has set, delete them, block them for one site or for all sites, and clear everything when you close the window. Those controls are in your browser's privacy or site settings, they work whether or not a site cooperates, and they apply to us like anyone else.
A private or incognito window discards cookies when you close it, which is a simple way to browse the store without anything persisting on your device.
7.2 Global Privacy Control
Some browsers and extensions can send a Global Privacy Control signal, which tells every site you visit that you do not want your information sold or shared. We treat it as a valid opt-out request and act on it. If you send one, the advertising technology in section 3 does not run, and you do not have to tell us again through the banner.
7.3 Do Not Track
There is no agreed industry standard for what a Do Not Track header means, so we do not claim to act on it. Use Global Privacy Control instead, or the advertising choice on our banner. Both of those we do act on.
8The rules we hold ourselves to
We will not quietly add advertising technology to these sites, or quietly widen what the technology we already run is allowed to do. All of the following hold, in this order.
This notice is updated first. It names the technology, says what it collects and who receives it, and is published before anything is switched on.
We ask you before it runs. Continuing to browse is not treated as agreement, refusing is offered in the same place as agreeing, and nothing is ever pre-selected on your behalf.
Anything you refuse does not run. Not in a reduced form, and not until you are asked again on a later visit.
You can change your mind afterwards. Privacy choices in the footer is where you do it, on any page.
None of it goes on the patient portal, the doctor portal, or a consult session. That rule does not have an exception waiting for a good enough reason.
9How this fits with our other documents
Privacy Policy. Everything else we collect from everyone, and what we do with it.
Consumer Health Data Privacy Notice. Health related information that HIPAA does not reach, including what browsing our store can suggest about you, and the rights you have over it.
Notice of Privacy Practices. Your health information as our patient, and your rights over it. This is the strongest of our privacy documents and nothing in this notice reduces it.
10Changes to this document
We update this document when what we do changes, when the law changes, or when we find wording that is unclear. Every version is kept, and each one records the date it took effect.
How you find out depends on how much changed. A correction that does not change your rights is simply published. A change that does affect your rights is announced before it takes effect. A change that materially alters what you agreed to is not applied to you by silence: we ask you to accept it, and continuing to browse the site is not treated as acceptance.
If you want a copy of an earlier version, or want to know what changed and when, write to support@sleepbalanceacademy.com and we will send it to you.
If you have a question about anything in this notice, or you believe something is running on our site that this notice does not describe, tell us and we will look at it and answer you.
