SolarByMe Privacy Policy

Last Updated: June 18, 2023

Our privacy policy has been updated to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which goes into effect in the EU on May 25th, 2018. The GDPR gives you additional protection and insight into how companies collect and use your personal data.

SolarByMe respects your privacy. In short, we collect only the minimal information we need to:

Fulfill your requests, such as an order, a request for quote, or a newsletter signup.
To better understand who is using our website and how we can better serve them.

We share this information only with the companies we use to handle transactions, such as our shopping cart and order processor (GoDaddy), our newsletter handler, and our web analysis processor (Google). We do not share your information with third parties not directly involved in helping us fulfill your requests.

Examples: We send anonymous browsing information to Google when you visit our website. If you place an order, we send your order details to GoDaddy for payment processing.

We never sell your information.

What information do we collect, and why?

Visits to our website

We use Google Analytics to measure our visitors’ activities on our website. This tells us basic, non-personally-identifiable information such as the kind of device and web browser you’re using, the page(s) you visit, the search terms used to find our website.

We use this data to better understand how visitors use our website and to respond to their needs accordingly.

Example: We see that a website visitor found us through a search for “DIY solar panels” and spent the next fifteen minutes browsing our website, looking for the right product(s) to purchase.

Personal information you voluntarily supply

If you engage in a transaction on our website such as placing an order, requesting a quote, or signing up for our newsletter, we use the information you provided to fulfill that request.

Where necessary, our online order processing company uses your billing information to process your payment, our shippers use your shipping address to deliver goods to you, and our newsletter system uses your email address to send you new issues.

Example: We receive an order for a on-grid solar kit, so we use that customer’s billing and shipping information to process payment and ship their goods. That same customer decides to also sign up for our newsletter, so we store their email address for future mailings.

A combination of the above

We may combine the above information to better understand the flow of our shoppers’ experiences on our website. We do not collect additional data for this, but we may correlate and cross-reference our existing data.

We do this to better understand the effectiveness of our website and advertising in matching the needs of our customers, and to more efficiently provide visitors with the information or products they’re looking for.

Example: We determine that a visitor who searched for “DIY solar panels” eventually purchased a specific type of solar panel, and that several other customers made the same purchase decision. We then use this combined knowledge to tailor our ads to mention this particular product, having learned that it’s a good match for customers who search for those keywords. This results in a easier, quicker experience for future customers.

When are we allowed to communicate with you?

We only process your info and communicate with you when we have a lawful basis to do so. A few examples where we would have a “lawful basis” to use your data:

Consent: You gave us explicit consent to communicate with you. For example, you filled out a form and checked an opt-in box to receive our newsletter.
Performance of a contract: If you buy from us, we access your data to send you a bill or ship your order to the address on file.
Legitimate interest: We send you relevant information when it is likely to be useful, based on our past interactions with you. For example, if you buy an on-grid system, we may send you a standard care and maintenance guide to care for your system.

We never contact you without lawful basis to do so. If you ever change your mind about receiving emails from us and want to revoke our consent to contact you, you can click the unsubscribe link located in the footer of every email we send or email us at info@solarbyme.com

How long do we retain your data?

We store your personal data for as long as necessary to perform legitimate and essential business purposes, such as honoring warranties, shipping replacement parts, making business decisions based on patterns in customer data, complying with our legal obligations, and resolving disputes.

At any time, you can request that we delete or anonymize your personally identifiable data. Please email us at info@solarbyme.com to request to have your information removed from our records.

We will comply with all requests, unless there is a legal reason to retain your data, such as:

There is an unresolved issue relating to your account, such as an outstanding payment or dispute
We need to retain the personal data for our legal, tax, and accounting obligations
We need to retain the personal data to protect against fraud and maintain the security of our users

Please note that when we delete your data, we retain anonymized records of your interaction with us – like how many pages you visited, or how long you spent on our website. This allows us to make informed business decisions based on the demographics and behaviors of our audience. Once your data is deleted, none of the analytical data we collect can be tied back to your personally identifiable information.

I don’t like this. How do I opt out?

While these practices are standard and common to most online retailers, we understand that not all visitors want to be a part of this process. In addition to requesting that we delete your data, you may completely opt out of Google Analytics by following Google’s instructions on their opt-out page. This will prevent us, and other Google Analytics-enabled sites, from collecting browsing information about you.

If you opt out of Google Analytics, the only information we collect about you is what you voluntarily and explicitly provide us during a transaction. And as above, we will only use this information to fulfill your requests.

How to contact us

If you have any questions or concerns about our Privacy Policy, please email us at info@solarbyme.com.

Thank you.

SolarByMe Privacy Policy

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