Privacy Notice
Cooking Together LLC (dba “Capital Cooks”), a private, educational and entertainment cooking school, presents this Privacy Notice in the interests of fairness, transparency, and accountability regarding the privacy of individuals whose personal data we collect and process (“data subjects” or “you”). Our collection and processing of your personal data is lawfully based on our legitimate interests as a private business.
Capital Cooks understands your use of our websites, online applications and application forms to indicate your consent to the collection, processing and use of your Personal Data as described in this Notice, except where we request active, express consent or where such consent is required by law.
Capital Cooks collects and processes Personal Data and Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) from and about data subjects, who may be prospective students and prospective employees, employees, patrons, food enthusiasts, private event clients, and other members of the public.
Our websites contain links to other sites which have their own privacy practices not under the control of Capital Cooks. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the privacy notices for those external sites.
1. General Practices
We will not sell your personal information. We will not disclose your personal information without your permission unless a legal exception applies (for example, in case of emergency, to protect safety in the cooking school, or in response to a valid subpoena or court order).
We retain your information for a period of time in accordance with our legitimate interests or as needed to comply with applicable law.
We may combine your personal data with device information and location information (with your consent, where required) to serve you specifically, such as to deliver a product to you according to your preferences or restrictions, or for advertising or advertising targeting purposes.
2. Information You Provide to Us Voluntarily
We may collect data about you when you provide it to us voluntarily, such as through your use of our websites and online applications; when you contact us directly by email, telephone, in person, or in writing; when you order goods and services; or any other means by which you voluntarily provide personal information to us.
Types of information we collect about you may include but is not limited to: name, email address, address, telephone number, payment information (for example, credit or debit card details), information about your computer (for example, your IP address and browser type), tracking information (for example, which pages you have viewed, the time you viewed them and what you clicked on), information about your mobile device (such as your geographical location), and any other information you provide when completing forms.
A. Financial Information
Capital Cooks recognizes the sensitivity of personal financial information and accords it the additional strict privacy and security safeguards appropriate to the classification of sensitive/highly confidential. Those CIA personnel who are involved in handling financial information do so on a strictly need-to-know basis.
Capital Cooks may collect and process personal financial information only in very limited contexts for the purposes of accepting or making payment lawfully based on its legitimate interests or in support of or preparation for an agreement. In terms of accepting payment, accepting payment for goods or services, such as a cooking class or private event. We may collect financial information from the credit or debit payment card if you choose to use this method of payment.
Capital Cooks also collects and processes nonpublic financial information from its employees for compensation, benefits and tax and purposes; and from independent contractors for payment and related purposes.
B. Electronic Communications
We offer various opportunities to subscribe to electronic communications. If you choose to subscribe, your email address, phone number, and/or cell phone number may be collected. With your consent, we may contact you at the telephone number that you provide to us by way of direct dial calls and text messages. Through these methods we may send you information relating to our products and services, including confirmations and updates, receipts, technical notices, updates, security alerts, and support and administrative messages; and/or communicate with you about contests, offers, promotions, rewards, upcoming events, and other news about products and services offered by Capital Cooks.
You may remove yourself from any public Capital Cooks contact list by unsubscribing on the email’s subscription management page via a link at the bottom of each email or a STOP code in text messaging. You must unsubscribe from each list you wish not to receive emails or text messages from.
C. Social Media
Capital Cooks uses social media, which may allow you to connect and share your actions, comments, content, and information publicly or with friends. Please remember that any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public and consider the privacy concerns of yourself and others when choosing what to share in social media. Our social media platforms contain their own privacy practices outside of the scope of this policy which we do not control. Please contact those sites and services directly to learn about their privacy practices. Use caution when deciding to disclose your personal information.
D. Surveys
We occasionally conduct optional surveys. We use the data from survey responses to better target content to our audiences.
E. Information Request Forms
We use information request forms that invite you to voluntarily provide personal information such as names, addresses, and telephone numbers. We may send text messages to cellular telephone numbers within our database so that interested individuals can be contacted by one of our representatives. By providing a cellular telephone number, you agree to be contacted by the CIA on your cellular telephone by such means. You may change your mind and decline to be contacted in this manner by contacting us at the information below.
F. Data from Third Parties
Where permitted or authorized by law, we may receive information about you from third-party databases or services that provide information about business people and companies, or from third parties from whom we have purchased information (including an individual’s name). We may combine this data with information we already have about you. This helps us to update, expand and analyze our records, identify new customers, prospective students or donors, and provide information about opportunities, products and services that may be of interest to you.
H. Use of Personal Data
We may use your personal information for the following purposes: to provide you with the opportunities, information, services, products, and functionality offered on our websites; to fulfill your requests, including but not limited to making reservations, paying for services, joining email lists, sending Capital Cooks gift cards to recipients that you designate; to communicate with you about your account or your use of our websites and online applications, services, products and/or functionality; to respond to, or follow up on, your comments and questions; to provide customer service otherwise; to communicate with you about special offers and other marketing communications; to communicate with you about employment opportunities; to operate and improve our websites and online applications, products, services, and functionality; to process and deliver contest entries and rewards; to authenticate your credit or debit card account information, if applicable; to personalize your experience on our websites and online applications; in combination with other information we may get from third parties, to help understand your needs and to provide you with better service; to perform statistical analysis; to protect, investigate, and deter against fraudulent, unauthorized, or illegal activity; to comply with our policies, procedures and legal obligations; to support our education mission and administrative operations; and as otherwise consented to by you and as required or permitted by applicable law.
3. Information Automatically Collected from Use of Our Websites
A. Cookies
A text file called a “cookie” may be placed in the browser files of your computer when you visit our websites or online applications. Although cookies themselves do not contain personal information, they provide information about your user session, including site interaction and your general geographic area. Cookies tell us about how people use the site and help us make it better, for example, by counting the number of visitors to our websites to see how visitors move around when they are using it to help us improve the way our site works. Or cookies can remember your preferences or whether you are logged into the site. Cookies can be stored for varying lengths of time on your device’s browser. Session cookies are deleted from your computer or device when you close your web browser. Persistent cookies will remain stored on your device until deleted by you or until they reach their expiry date.
A cookie file cannot read data off a hard disk or read cookie files created by other websites.
Cookies set by the website you are visiting are called “first-party cookies.” Cookies may be set by parties other than us. These “third-party cookies” may, for example, originate from websites such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, or other sites Capital Cooks partners with for services such as recruiting, marketing, advertising, social media, etc. You may block the placement of cookies by changing your browser setting pertaining to cookies. This setting can also be changed to provide a notification when a cookie file is placed. Our website may require some cookies to be accepted in order for certain forms and account logins to function. In those cases, third party cookies may be blocked, but you may encounter problems if all cookies are blocked. We understand that you consent to the placement of cookies on our website if you do not change your browser settings as described above. You may change your browser settings to block cookies at any time.
B. Aggregated Tracking Information
We may gather anonymous statistics using Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. Google Analytics uses cookies to help us analyze the use of our site. We do not correlate this information with identifiable data about you. We use aggregated tracking information to determine which areas are preferred by users and to tailor our content to users’ needs. This may include some website search terms entered, the city associated with user IP addresses, and actions taken, but this tracking information is not associated with individual website and online application users.
Cookies and pixel tags may be set by third-party vendors we partner with to collect anonymous user behavior statistics about users who came from their platforms or used embedded features (such as viewing videos) and engaged in activities on our website. We may also include tracking in emails to understand whether messages have been opened, acted on, or forwarded.
We do not share aggregated tracking information with any third party, with the following exceptions: to a contractor engaged to conduct collection or processing for our legitimate interests; in accordance with the law or valid legal process; or to protect the personal safety of our websites and online application users or the public.
C. Advertising
Some of our websites use Google Ads conversion tracking, Google remarketing and Google Signals. These services also use cookies and similar technologies to measure the performance of advertisements on Google and the websites that participate in the Google Display Network. Google allows for the creation of custom audience lists for advertising based on the geographic, demographic, and interest-based reports of our website visitors, however the users remain anonymous. Google Signals collects visitation information and associates it with Google account information from signed-in users who have consented to this association for ad personalization. Google information is used for cross-device reports that provides aggregated and anonymous insights into users’ cross-device behaviors.
Our websites may also use advertising cookies and tools to provide analytics data on users who visit our websites from ads served from their platforms, such as Bing, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok and other media partners.
Users can opt out of third-party interest-based advertising by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative’s deactivation website at www.networkadvertising.org/choices/.
4. Communication Preferences and Opting Out
You may at any time change your preferences about which if any email communications you would like to receive.
Upon receipt of an opt-out request, we will update our records as promptly as practical. Note, however, that you may receive additional communications after requesting removal while we process your request. Additionally, information may exist in multiple lists within our system, and our technology limits the processing of opt-out requests to the specific list source. For this reason, we recommend that you adjust your email preferences within the unsubscribe list which you will be directed to after choosing the “Manage your preferences” link, rather than opting out completely. We will continuously assess our responsiveness to opt-out requests with respect to new technologies, business practices and our visitors’ needs.
To opt out from Capital Cooks communications and unsubscribe from an email list, you may choose from the following methods:
Choose the “Manage your preferences” link at the bottom of any Capital Cooks email; or
Send an email to hello@capitalcooksny.com and specify which type of communication you wish to discontinue.