Doug Media ("we", "our", "us") is committed to protecting your privacy and handling your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose and safeguard your personal information when you visit our website at dougmedia.com.au.

Our website address is https://dougmedia.com.au. We are Doug Media, a digital marketing agency providing paid advertising, SEO, web design, email marketing, analytics and related services to businesses in Australia and internationally.

We are based in Perth, Western Australia and operate in accordance with Australian privacy law.

We may collect personal information directly from you, including but not limited to:

• Contact and enquiry information — name, email address, phone number and any details you provide when completing our contact or enquiry forms.
• Comment information — name, email address and any details provided when leaving comments on our website.
• Technical information — IP address, browser type, device type and operating system for security and spam detection purposes.
• File metadata — information embedded in files you upload, such as images (see Section 4).

We also collect non-identifiable information such as website usage data through cookies and analytics tools. This information does not identify you personally and is used to improve our website and services.

When visitors leave comments on our site we collect the information provided in the comment form, along with the visitor's IP address and browser user agent string to assist with spam detection.

An anonymised hash of your email address may be shared with the Gravatar service to determine if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available at automattic.com/privacy. Once your comment is approved, your profile picture (if available via Gravatar) may be visible to the public alongside your comment.

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS). Visitors to the website may be able to download and extract location data from uploaded images.

We recommend removing location data from images before uploading them to any website, including ours.

Our website uses cookies to improve your browsing experience and to support certain website functions. Cookies are small text files stored on your device. We use them in the following ways:

• Comment cookies — if you leave a comment, you may opt in to saving your name, email and website in cookies for convenience. These cookies last for one year.
• Session cookies — temporary cookies are set to check if your browser accepts cookies. These contain no personal data and are discarded when you close your browser.
• Login cookies — if you log in to our website, login cookies are set to save your login information. These last for two days, or two weeks if you select "Remember Me".
• Display preference cookies — these store your display preferences and last for one year.
• Analytics cookies — we use analytics tools (such as Google Analytics) to understand how visitors interact with our website. This data is aggregated and anonymised where possible.

You may disable cookies through your browser settings. Note that disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of our website.

Articles and pages on this site may include embedded content such as videos, images or articles from third-party websites. Embedded content behaves exactly as if you had visited those external websites directly.

These external websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed third-party tracking and monitor your interaction with their embedded content — including tracking your interaction if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

We recommend reviewing the privacy policies of any third-party providers whose content appears on our site.

We use your personal information only for legitimate purposes directly related to providing our services and operating our website. These purposes include:

• To respond to your enquiries, contact form submissions and service requests.
• To operate, maintain and improve our website and digital services.
• For security purposes, including fraud prevention and spam detection.
• To send service-related communications where you have engaged with us.
• To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations under Australian law.
• To analyse website usage and improve the user experience (using anonymised or aggregated data).

We do not use your personal information for purposes beyond those listed above without your consent.

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information to third parties.

We may share your information in the following limited circumstances:

• Service providers — trusted third parties that help us operate our website and deliver our services, such as hosting providers, spam detection services and analytics platforms. These parties are only permitted to use your information to provide services to us.
• Legal requirements — if required by law, regulation, court order or other legal process, we may disclose your information to the relevant authority.
• Business transfers — in the event of a merger, acquisition or sale of business assets, your personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you of any such change.

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email as a security measure.

We retain your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, or as required by law.

• Comments — comments and their associated metadata are retained indefinitely so we can recognise and approve follow-up comments automatically rather than holding them in a moderation queue.
• Registered user accounts — for registered users, we store the personal information provided in their user profile. Users can view, edit or request deletion of their personal information at any time (with the exception of their username). Website administrators can also view and edit this information.
• Enquiry and contact form data — retained for as long as required to respond to your enquiry and for a reasonable period thereafter for record-keeping purposes.

Under the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles, you have the following rights regarding your personal information:

• Right of access — you may request access to the personal information we hold about you at any time.
• Right to correction — you may request that we correct any personal information that is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date.
• Right to deletion — you may request that we delete your personal information, subject to our legal and administrative obligations.
• Right to withdraw consent — where we rely on your consent to process your information, you may withdraw that consent at any time.
• Right to complain — if you believe we have handled your personal information in breach of the Privacy Act, you may lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details in Section 13 below.

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. This involves transmitting comment data to an external service for analysis.

Some personal information may be stored or processed by third-party service providers located outside Australia — for example, cloud hosting or analytics providers. Where this occurs, we take reasonable steps to ensure your information is handled in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles and is afforded a comparable level of protection to that required under Australian law.

We take reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

These measures include secure website hosting, SSL encryption, access controls and regular security reviews.

However, no method of internet transmission or electronic data storage is completely secure. While we work hard to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. In the event of a data breach that is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify affected individuals and the OAIC in accordance with the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, wish to exercise your privacy rights, or have a concern about how we have handled your personal information, please contact us directly.

We will acknowledge your request promptly and respond within a reasonable timeframe — generally within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au or by calling 1300 363 992.