Privacy Policy

Effective date: August 3, 2026
Previous versions effective July 31, 2026 and January 25, 2019.

The Savings Guide ("we", "us", or "our") operates https://www.harrisburgsavingsguide.com, including our online store at https://www.harrisburgsavingsguide.com/shop/ (together, the "Service"). This policy explains what information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the choices you have — including how to control the cookies we set.

Summary

  • We collect the information you type into our ad, contact, and delivery forms, plus basic technical data your browser sends.
  • We use one analytics tool, Google Analytics. It does not run until you accept analytics cookies.
  • Google Analytics is the only tracking tool running on the site. There are no other advertising or retargeting pixels in our pages.
  • Google's advertising features are switched on for our analytics property. They only engage if you accept the advertising category as well — accepting analytics on its own does not turn them on.
  • We never see or store your full payment card number.
  • You can change your cookie choices at any time using the button in the Cookies section below.

Information We Collect

Information you give us

Depending on which part of the Service you use, we collect:

  • Contact and representative enquiries. Name, email address, phone number, subject, and message.
  • Classified and auction ad submissions. Name, email address, phone number, mailing address, the ad copy and any images you upload, the category and run dates you select, and — for auction ads — your auctioneer license number.
  • Delivery requests and questions. Name, email address, phone number, mailing address, the publication concerned, and your message.
  • Editorial submissions. Name, email address, and the material you submit.
  • Store orders. Name, email address, phone number, billing and shipping address, and order details. If you create a store account, we also keep your username and password (stored in hashed form).

Information collected automatically

  • Submission metadata. When you submit an ad, editorial item, or delivery request, we record the IP address the submission came from, and in some cases your browser user-agent string, together with the date and time. We keep this to help resolve billing questions and to investigate fraudulent or abusive submissions.
  • Server logs. Our web server records requests in standard access logs, including IP address, date and time, the page requested, referring page, and browser type.
  • Analytics data. Only if you consent — see below.

Cookies are small files stored on your device by your browser. We use a consent management platform, CookieYes, to ask for your permission before any non-essential cookie is set and to record your answer.

We set nothing but the strictly necessary cookies below until you choose "Accept". If you dismiss the banner without choosing, or choose "Reject All", analytics stays switched off. The one exception is not ours to set: the Google Drive viewer embedded on our publication and auction pages, described below.

Cookies we set

Cookie Category Purpose Typical duration
PHPSESSID Strictly necessary Keeps your session together as you move through a multi-step ad submission or payment form. Until you close your browser
cookieyes-consent Strictly necessary Remembers your cookie choices so you are not asked on every page. Stores a consent ID and which categories you allowed. 1 year
woocommerce_cart_hash, woocommerce_items_in_cart, wp_woocommerce_session_* Strictly necessary Set in our online store only. Keep track of the contents of your cart and your checkout session. Session to 2 days
wordpress_logged_in_*, wp-settings-* Strictly necessary Set only if you log in to a store account. Keep you signed in and remember your screen preferences. Session to 1 year
_ga, _ga_Y8697Q6P9K Analytics — consent required Google Analytics. Distinguishes one visitor from another and maintains the analytics session so we can see which pages are used and where visitors arrive from. Up to 2 years

Cookies set by Google Drive

Our digital editions and auction flyers are hosted on Google Drive and displayed on our publications and auction pages inside an embedded Drive viewer. When one of those pages loads, your browser connects to Google to fetch the document, and Google may set its own cookies through that viewer — particularly if you are signed in to a Google account and your browser allows third-party cookies. This happens as part of displaying the publication you asked to see, and it is not controlled by the cookie banner, because blocking it would stop the edition from loading at all. These are Google's cookies, not ours: we do not set them, cannot read them, and receive nothing from them.

If you would rather not load the Drive viewer, you can block third-party cookies in your browser, or read the printed edition.

The banner also offers an advertising category. Accepting it does not place any additional cookie on this site — we run no advertising or retargeting pixels. What it changes is whether Google may use our analytics data for advertising purposes, as described under Analytics below.

Strictly necessary cookies are exempt from consent because the Service cannot function without them — ad submission, checkout, and login all depend on them. You can still block them in your browser settings, but parts of the site will stop working.

Changing your mind

You can review or change your cookie choices at any time:

The same panel can be reopened from the small consent icon that floats at the edge of the page. Withdrawing consent stops further collection; it does not delete data already gathered, though you may ask us to do that using the contact details below.

Browser signals

We do not respond to Do Not Track (DNT) browser signals. We do not act on Global Privacy Control (GPC) signals either. Use the cookie controls above to set your choice; they work regardless of your browser settings.

Analytics

Google Analytics 4 (property G-Y8697Q6P9K) is the only analytics service on the Service. It reports aggregated statistics such as page views, approximate location at city level, referral source, and device type. The Google Analytics script is held back until you accept the analytics category — before that it is not loaded and no analytics cookies are set.

Google's advertising features are switched on for this property. Whether they engage depends on the advertising category in the cookie banner, which is separate from analytics:

  • Analytics accepted, advertising declined. Google Analytics runs and reports the statistics above. We instruct Google not to use the data for advertising purposes, and nothing is sent to Google's advertising domain.
  • Analytics and advertising both accepted. Google Analytics additionally transmits data to Google's advertising domain (stats.g.doubleclick.net), and Google may combine it with your Google account activity to build audience and demographic reports for us and to personalise the advertising it shows you elsewhere on its network.

We do not receive your identity from Google, and we do not use this data to target you with advertising ourselves. If you would rather none of this happened, decline the categories you object to using the controls above, or adjust your Google account settings at My Ad Center.

Google's handling of this data is governed by its own policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy. You can also install Google's opt-out browser add-on.

How We Use Your Information

  • To produce, schedule, place, and proof the advertising you order
  • To process payments and issue receipts and invoices
  • To answer your questions and provide customer support
  • To deliver our publications and handle delivery problems
  • To operate, maintain, and secure the Service, and to detect and prevent fraud and abuse
  • To understand which parts of the site are used, so we can improve them (only with your analytics consent)
  • To meet our legal, tax, and accounting obligations

Advertising copy, images, and auction details you submit are intended for publication and will appear in print and, where applicable, online.

How We Share Your Information

The details you submit through our forms — your name, address, phone number, ad copy, and order history — go to the service providers listed below, who use them only to carry out the work we have engaged them for. We do not pass them to anyone else to use for their own marketing.

One thing to be aware of: Google's advertising features are switched on for our analytics property. If you accept both the analytics and the advertising categories, the analytics data Google collects may be used by Google to personalise the advertising it shows you on its own network. You can prevent this by declining the advertising category — see Cookies and Consent above.

  • 1stPayGateway — card processing for classified and auction ad payments.
  • PayPal — payment processing in our online store.
  • Mailgun — delivery of transactional email such as submission confirmations and receipts.
  • Google — analytics, including its advertising features as described above (only with your consent), and web font delivery.
  • CookieYes — cookie consent banner and consent record-keeping.
  • Google Drive — hosting and display of our digital editions and auction flyers, which are embedded on our publications and auction pages. See Cookies and Consent above.
  • Our web host and IT providers — server hosting, backups, and maintenance.
  • Content delivery networks (jQuery, cdnjs, Bootstrap CDN, Google Fonts) — these serve fonts and shared code libraries. Because your browser fetches files from them directly, they receive your IP address as part of delivering those files. They do not set cookies on our site.

We may also disclose information where we are required to by law or valid legal process, to enforce our terms, to investigate suspected fraud or wrongdoing, to protect the safety of any person, or in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

Payments

Card payments are handled by our payment processors. Card numbers are captured and tokenized in your browser by the processor and are transmitted directly to them — we do not receive or store your full card number or security code. Our records show only whether an order was paid, when, and the associated order details.

Data Retention

We keep ad submissions, order records, and the related billing information for as long as needed to run the campaign and afterwards to meet accounting, tax, and legal requirements. Contact and delivery enquiries are kept while we deal with them and for a reasonable period afterwards for reference. Consent records are kept for as long as required to demonstrate that consent was given. Server logs are rotated on a routine schedule. When information is no longer needed, we delete it or render it non-identifying.

Security

The Service is served over HTTPS, access to submission records is restricted to authorized staff, and account passwords are stored hashed. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so while we use commercially reasonable measures to protect your information, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Your Rights and Choices

Whatever your location, you may ask us to:

  • tell you what personal information we hold about you, and provide a copy;
  • correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete;
  • delete information we no longer have a legal or business need to keep;
  • stop sending you marketing email — you can also use the unsubscribe link in any such message.

We offer these choices to anyone who asks, wherever you live. Depending on where you live you may also have additional rights under local law; if you believe you do, tell us what you are asking for and we will work through it with you.

To stop Google using our analytics data to personalise the advertising it shows you, decline the advertising category with the Manage Cookie Preferences button above. That takes effect immediately.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the details below. We may need to verify your identity before acting, and we will respond within the timeframe the applicable law allows.

International Transfers

We are based in the United States and our servers are located there. If you access the Service from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, where data protection law may differ from that of your own country.

Children's Privacy

The Service is not directed to anyone under the age of 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.

Links to Other Sites

The Service contains links to sites we do not operate, including advertisers' own websites. We have no control over their content or privacy practices, and this policy does not apply to them. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of any site you visit.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will post the revised version on this page and update the effective date above. If the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice on the Service. Please review this page periodically.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise any of your rights: