Terms, Disclosures & Policies

Pretty Shiny Sparkly (the “Blog”) is a fashion & style blog written, designed and edited by Kristina (the “Author”). For questions about this blog, please feel free to contact us.

Comment Policy

  1. Names: Please leave a real name (first names are okay). If you must use a keyword, use “Name @ Blog Name”, for example.
  2. Links: Do not include a link to your blog in the comment text. Your name will be linked to your blog, and CommentLuv will add your blog to the bottom of your comment. It gets redundant!
  3. Self-Promotion: Do not advertise your blog, blog giveaway, contest, or other irrelevant content. Please stay on topic! We all love you for it!
  4. Be Courteous: Be polite. No name calling, rudeness, personal attacks and similar comments will be tolerated. If you’re unsure whether your comment falls under these limitations, just remember the Golden Rule. And remember that your comment will be visible worldwide, so don’t say anything you wouldn’t want your mother to see. Your opinion is welcome, even if it isn’t favorable or positive, just keep criticism to the constructive kind only.
  5. Spam & Ham: Spam is filtered and deleted. Sometimes genuine comments are marked as spam (termed “ham”) and slip through the cracks. While I make every attempt to scan the spammy comments for real ones, sometimes I just don’t catch them.
  6. Editing: I reserve the right to edit any comment. Your comments are not copyrighted, and I may edit them for spammy characteristics (see Rule #2), spelling, or other grammatical mistakes.
  7. Deleting: I reserve the right to delete or unapprove a comment for any reason, even other than the above stated terms.
  8. Sole Arbiter: I own this blog and my decision is final. I am the sole arbiter of whether a comment is libelous, hateful, hurtful, or otherwise inappropriate. This blog is my responsibility, and I take it and its contents seriously.

Users who violate this comment policy will be sent a warning email after the first violation. Those who continue to disregard or infringe upon the Comment Policy will, after two notifications, be banned from the site.

Disclosure Policy

COMPENSATION
One main form of financial compensation the Blog accepts is via sponsorship. The Blog does, on occasion and always with discretion, accept financial compensation for collaborations consisting of original posts written by the Author, in what may be termed an “advertorial”. Collaborations are only agreed to so long as the Author may maintain her own opinion, voice, content, and personality that her readers have come to love her by. The Blog does not accept compensation for product reviews or giveaways, but may accept products. Affiliate links, which provide a commission based on sale or click number, may be used in posts without being labeled as such, however every attempt will be made to maintain transparency. All editorial content is written without prejudice or bias, regardless of sponsor or affiliate associations. The Blog does not accept compensation for product reviews.  Any advertisements, advertorials, sponsored content, and the like will be clearly marked as advertising content and do not reflect the opinions of the Blog or its Author.

PRODUCT REVIEWS
In order to provide you with an accurate review on products, services, website, or various other topics, companies may provide the Author with a sample product, which the Author may choose to keep. The fact that the Author has received a complimentary item will never influence the content, topics or posts made on the Blog. Press samples submitted for review are For Consideration Only. The Blog and its Author do not provide any guarantee of review, positive or negative. If something doesn’t fit right, tastes funny, looks wonky, or is otherwise “not okay”, the Author will not claim it to be otherwise. The Blog and its Author may choose not to review an item, and the Author will never endorse or encourage the sale of a product that does not meet the Author’s standards or expectations. A review is nothing if it is not honest, and this is the motto the Blog and its Author stand by.

RELATIONSHIPS
The Blog and its Author would like to disclose the following existing relationships. These are companies, organizations or individuals that may have a significant impact on the content of this blog. I have a personal or financial interest in the following that is or may be relevant to my blogging: ShopBop.com, Amazon.com, and all other current sponsors and affiliates.

WARRANTY & CLAIMS
The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the Author’s own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question. The Author makes NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.  This Blog is provided “As Is,” without warranty of any kind, either express or implied.

Advertising Policy

ADVERTISEMENT/SPONSORSHIP
All advertising is in the form of advertisements generated by a third party ad network, or via sponsored (monthly subscription) banner advertisements provided by select few, targeted official sponsors. Those advertisements will be identified as paid advertisements, or sponsors. Some links to retailers may not be disclosed as paid insertions, however I may receive compensation for linking to them in posts. I hope that if my post convinced you to purchase a product, that you will click on the (if applicable) affiliate link I provide, to help keep this blog running! If you are interested in sponsoring, click here.

GIVEAWAYS
Please note that due to market saturation with giveaways, and the time it takes away from truly original editorial content on the Blog, giveaways will not be guaranteed to any person, company, brand, or sponsor. Furthermore, to keep with the status of the Blog and the quality of its readers, giveaways will only be considered whose total value amounts to $500 or more. Additionally, giveaways may only be hosted on PSS by official sponsors, but does not guarantee or imply the right to host a giveaway on PSS. Giveaway proposals by sponsors are reviewed on a per-item basis. Click here for more information on how you can become an official sponsor.

TEXT LINKS/LINK EXCHANGES
The Blog DOES NOT participate in link exchanges. The Blog DOES NOT sell or exchange text links in posts, blogrolls or anywhere else on Pretty Shiny Sparkly.

BANNER ADVERTISING
Currently, banner ads targeting the areas of fashion and beauty are the only forms of advertising offered.

Editorial Policy

CONTENT
The Blog provides content, excluding comments, for general information purposes only.  The content constitute the opinions of the Blog and its author.  The Blog author is not a licensed medical professional nor certified expert in the beauty or fashion fields.  You should never substitute information from this Blog for information obtained from a licensed professional.  The information on the blog may be changed without notice and is not guaranteed to be complete, correct or up-to-date. The opinions expressed at or through the blog are the opinions of the Author.

COPYRIGHT
All content & images copyright © 2009–2011 Pretty Shiny Sparkly™. Reproductions are strictly prohibited without express written consent. The outfit credits coding and design are copyrighted and reproduction in any form is strictly prohibited.

TRADEMARK
Pretty Shiny Sparkly™ is a claimed trademark and may not be imitated or reproduced in any way.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to ask.

This policy is valid as of January 28, 2012. These policies & terms may be subject to change, and shall be updated accordingly.

Privacy Policy

Your privacy is important to me. Email addresses and names submitted in comment forms will never be sold, rented, or added to any mailing lists without your consent. If you have opted-in to a mailing list, I may send you announcements outside of the normal schedule, but this is rare and unlikely. In some instances, the Blog may use third-party advertising companies (such as Glam Network, and Google DoubleClick) to serve ads when you visit my website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.

If you require any more information or have any questions about our privacy policy, please feel free to contact us by email.

At prettyshinysparkly.com, the privacy of our visitors is of extreme importance. This privacy policy document outlines the types of personal information is received and collected by the Blog and how it is used.

Log Files
Like many other Web sites, prettyshinysparkly.com makes use of log files. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses, and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable.

COOKIES & WEB BEACONS
 The Blog does use cookies to store information about visitors preferences, record user-specific information on which pages the user access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors browser type or other information that the visitor sends via their browser.

DOUBLECLICK DART COOKIE
Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on the Blog & its affiliated websites. Google’s use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to your users based on their visit to prettyshinysparkly.com and other sites on the Internet. Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy at the following URL – http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html

Some of our advertising partners may use cookies and web beacons on our site. Our advertising partners include:

  • Google Adsense
  • Commission Junction
  • Adbrite
  • Clickbank
  • Linkshare
  • Amazon
  • Kontera
  • Glam

These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to the advertisements and links that appear on prettyshinysparkly.com send directly to your browsers. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies (such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons) may also be used by the third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and/or to personalize the advertising content that you see.

prettyshinysparkly.com has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.

You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. prettyshinysparkly.com’s privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites.

If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browsers’ respective websites.