Legal

Privacy Policy

Effective Date: June 1, 2026 | Last Updated: June 1, 2026

1. Overview

This Privacy Policy explains how Open Shelf Reviews / Media Source, LLC (“Company,” “Open Shelf Reviews,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) collects, uses, discloses, stores, and otherwise processes personal information through www.openshelfreviews.com and any related websites, portals, content, functionality, products, and services that link to or reference this Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Website”). The Company operates the Website from the United States, but the Website may be accessed from other countries.

This Privacy Policy applies to personal information collected from:

visitors to the Website;
registered Authors;
registered Reviewers;
admin and other account users;
individuals who communicate with us, submit inquiries, or otherwise interact with us.

The Website is intended only for individuals who are 18 years of age or older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, and we do not intend for the Website to be used by anyone under 18.

This Privacy Policy is intended to be consistent with the Website Terms of Use and, where applicable, any separate Author Agreement, Contributor Agreement, or other written agreement between you and the Company. If you are an Author or Reviewer and have entered into a separate written agreement with us, that agreement may also govern certain role-specific uses or disclosures of information in connection with the review request, review process, submission intake, assignments, compensation, publication, confidentiality, and related services.

2. Scope and Applicability

This Privacy Policy addresses our privacy practices for individuals in the United States. The Website is operated from the United States and is intended primarily for users in the United States, although it may be accessible internationally. It is designed to apply across the U.S., including to the extent applicable under state privacy laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (“CCPA/CPRA”), and other U.S. state privacy laws that may provide rights to residents of certain states.

Certain sections of this Privacy Policy apply only where required by applicable law, including the section titled “U.S. State Privacy Rights.”

3. Important Platform Context

Open Shelf Reviews operates a platform through which:

Authors may submit manuscripts, book files, metadata, and related materials for review;
the Company may evaluate submissions and engage, screen, provide access to, or assign materials to independent-contractor Reviewers;
Reviewers may submit reviews, ratings, editorial comments, and related materials through reviewer-facing portions of the Website or related portals;
the Company may edit, prepare, publish, host, and distribute reviews; and
reviews may be made available on the Website for access by visitors and other third parties.

Because the Website is built around the preparation, publication, and hosting of reviews, some information submitted through the Website may be made available to other users or to the public, depending on the nature of the content, the applicable workflow, your role, your instructions where permitted, and the Company’s editorial and operational decisions.

4. Personal Information We Collect

We may collect personal information directly from you, automatically from your device or browser, from third-party service providers, and from other users where necessary to operate the Website and review platform.

4.1 Categories of Information We May Collect

We may collect the following categories of personal information, depending on how you interact with the Website:

Identifiers and contact information, such as name, pen name, username, display name, email address, mailing address, phone number, billing address, and account credentials.
Professional or profile information, such as biography, affiliations, reviewer profile details, qualifications, areas of expertise, public-facing profile information, reviewer byline or display information, and similar information you submit.
Author submission materials, such as manuscripts, advance review copies, book files, excerpts, cover images, book descriptions, synopses, metadata, publication details, promotional and marketing copy, and related materials.
Reviewer submissions and work product, such as draft reviews, final reviews, comments, notes, ratings, tags, editorial inputs, supporting materials, uploaded files, and submission metadata.
Account and portal activity, such as account creation details, review requests, login activity, assignments, order history, portal usage, administrative actions, file uploads, review workflow status, publication status, communications logs, and records of actions taken within the Website.
Payment and transaction information, such as purchase details, order value, transaction date, and limited billing information. Payment card information is typically collected and processed by third-party payment processors such as Stripe rather than stored by us, but we may retain order records, transaction history, invoices, billing-related details, and other financial records associated with your purchases.
Communications and support information, such as emails, contact forms, support requests, dispute-related communications, feedback, factual-error requests, account inquiries, and other correspondence.
Device, browser, and network information, such as IP address, browser type, operating system, device identifiers, language settings, referring URLs, approximate geolocation derived from IP, and similar technical information.
Usage and analytics information, such as pages viewed, clickstream information, timestamps, session behavior, feature usage, and interactions with the Website, emails, or communications.
Cookie and similar technology data, as described below.
Compliance, screening, and risk information, such as records relevant to fraud prevention, security monitoring, content moderation, legal compliance, conflict-of-interest screening, and enforcement of our terms or agreements.
Publicly available or third-party source information, such as information from public websites, social media profiles, publication sources, or business partners, where reasonably relevant to our services, reviewer profiles, publication activity, or compliance needs.

4.2 Sensitive Personal Information

Depending on your interactions with us, we may collect or process limited categories of information that may be considered “sensitive personal information” or similar under certain laws, such as:

account log-in credentials;
payment-related information handled in connection with transactions;
contents of communications you send to us or through the Website where those contents are not intended for public display;
other categories of information that may be considered sensitive under applicable law, if voluntarily embedded in materials you submit, although we ask that you not provide sensitive personal information unless it is reasonably necessary for your use of the Website or our services.

We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information to infer characteristics about you except as permitted by law and as reasonably necessary to provide the Website and services, process transactions, maintain accounts, detect security incidents, prevent fraud, comply with law, or for other permitted business purposes.

We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for purposes that would require us to offer a separate “Limit the Use of My Sensitive Personal Information” right, except to the extent applicable law requires otherwise.

5. Sources of Personal Information

We may collect personal information from the following sources:

Directly from you, including when you create an account, place an order, submit a review request, upload files, submit a review, complete forms, contact us, or otherwise use the Website;
Automatically from your device or browser, through cookies, logs, analytics tools, and similar technologies;
From service providers and vendors, such as payment processors, hosting providers, cloud storage providers, analytics providers, communications platforms, customer support tools, security providers, professional advisors, and other vendors we may engage from time to time, including vendors located outside the United States;
From other users, such as where an Author submits information needed for a Reviewer assignment, or where a Reviewer submits materials relating to an Author’s book;
From public sources, such as author websites, public book listings, publication databases, or professional profiles;
From affiliates, advisors, and transaction counterparties, including in connection with corporate administration or business transfers.

6. How We Use Personal Information

We may use personal information for the following business and commercial purposes:

to provide, operate, maintain, and improve the Website;
to create, administer, secure, and manage accounts and portals;
to process review orders, submissions, assignments, workflows, and related services;
to transmit manuscripts, advance review copies, book files, metadata, and related materials to Reviewers or internal personnel as necessary for review preparation and administration;
to receive, review, edit, manage, publish, host, distribute, or withhold reviews and related materials, and to share reviewer materials with Authors in our discretion where appropriate to the service or workflow;
to process payments, refunds, credits, transaction-related matters, and maintain related order, accounting, and financial records;
to verify identity, eligibility, authority, and compliance with the Website Terms of Use and any separate agreements;
to communicate with you regarding orders, submissions, assignments, publications, support, updates, disputes, factual-error requests, or administrative matters;
to personalize or improve user experience, Website functionality, analytics, and related business operations;
to monitor usage, analyze trends, perform analytics, and troubleshoot technical or operational issues;
to protect the security and integrity of the Website, systems, users, and the Company;
to detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, abuse, harassment, plagiarism, unauthorized AI use, conflicts of interest, attempts to manipulate review outcomes, or other prohibited conduct;
to enforce our Terms of Use, agreements, and policies;
to comply with legal obligations, lawful requests, court orders, subpoenas, or regulatory inquiries;
to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims;
to evaluate or complete mergers, acquisitions, financing transactions, reorganizations, asset sales, or similar corporate events;
for internal recordkeeping, audit, backup, quality control, and business administration;
for any other purpose disclosed at the time of collection or as otherwise permitted by law.

We may use artificial intelligence or automated tools to support submission intake, operations, administration, moderation, reviewer matching, quality control, analytics, communications, or service improvement. You should not submit confidential or highly sensitive information through AI-enabled features unless reasonably necessary for the service, and any such submission is at your own risk.

7. Public Reviews, Publication, and Hosted Content

A central feature of the Website is the preparation, publication, and hosting of reviews.

7.1 Publicly Accessible Review Content

Reviews published through the Website may be made available to:

Website visitors;
search engines;
syndication or distribution recipients;
business partners, licensees, or other third parties authorized by the Company;
members of the public who access or receive the published review.

Published reviews and related publication materials may include, as applicable:

the review text;
book title and related metadata;
author name or pen name;
cover image or other associated materials;
publication date;
tags, excerpts, related display information, and reviewer identification fields such as [reviewer name] / [pen name or pseudonym] / [first name and last initial] / [anonymous or staff designation], as determined by the Company or the applicable publishing format.

7.2 Author and Reviewer Expectations

If you are an Author or Reviewer, you acknowledge that information associated with reviews may be published, displayed, distributed, indexed, cached, archived, or otherwise retained by third parties after publication. Even if content is later removed from the Website, copies or references may remain elsewhere.

7.3 Reviewer Identity and Confidentiality

The Company may limit disclosure of Reviewer identities. We may share Author-submitted materials with Reviewers and internal personnel as needed to administer assignments and prepare reviews, and we may share certain Reviewer-submitted materials with Authors in our discretion, but we may restrict the information that Authors receive about Reviewers.

8. How We Disclose Personal Information

We may disclose personal information to the following categories of recipients, subject to applicable law:

8.1 Service Providers and Contractors

We may disclose personal information to vendors and service providers that perform services on our behalf, such as:

website hosting and cloud storage providers;
payment processors such as Stripe;
communications and email providers;
analytics, performance, advertising, and similar technology providers;
customer support and ticketing providers;
security, fraud-prevention, and monitoring providers;
document, workflow, productivity, automation, or AI-support service providers;
legal, accounting, insurance, and professional advisors; and
other service providers we may engage in the future, which may be located in the United States or other jurisdictions.

8.2 Authors, Reviewers, and Internal Personnel

We may disclose personal information among Authors, Reviewers, admins, editors, and internal personnel where reasonably necessary to:

administer review orders, review requests, submissions, and assignments;
facilitate the preparation, editing, and publication of reviews;
provide support, workflow management, and, in our discretion, share reviewer materials or related communications with Authors;
investigate disputes, factual-error requests, or policy concerns;
enforce agreements and confidentiality obligations.

8.3 Publication, Distribution, and Public Display

We may disclose information through publication or distribution of reviews and related materials on the Website or through other channels, including to visitors and third parties.

8.4 Legal and Compliance Recipients

We may disclose personal information to courts, law enforcement, regulators, government authorities, opposing parties, or other recipients where we believe disclosure is appropriate to:

comply with law, legal process, or lawful requests;
enforce our rights, agreements, or policies;
detect, investigate, or prevent fraud, security incidents, or unlawful activity;
protect the rights, safety, and property of the Company, users, or others.

8.5 Corporate Transaction Recipients

We may disclose personal information in connection with an actual or proposed merger, acquisition, financing, due diligence process, reorganization, bankruptcy, receivership, sale of assets, or similar transaction.

8.6 With Your Direction or Consent

We may disclose personal information with your consent or at your direction.

9. Cookies, Analytics, and Similar Technologies

We and our service providers may use cookies, pixels, local storage, log files, and similar technologies to collect information about Website use and device/browser activity.

We may use these technologies to:

operate the Website;
maintain sessions and account functionality;
remember preferences;
measure traffic and engagement;
analyze Website performance;
detect fraud and security incidents;
improve content and user experience;
support advertising or targeting activities, if any.

9.1 Types of Cookies and Similar Technologies

These technologies may include:

strictly necessary cookies for authentication, security, and Website operation;
functional cookies for preferences and usability;
analytics cookies for traffic measurement and performance analytics;
advertising or targeting cookies, if used.

9.2 Analytics

We may use analytics tools to better understand how users interact with the Website. We may use one or more analytics providers, such as Google Analytics and similar tools, if implemented.

9.3 Advertising and Targeted Advertising

We may use cookies and similar technologies, alone or through third parties, for analytics and targeted advertising or cross-context behavioral advertising.

9.4 Cookie Choices

Depending on the technologies we use, you may be able to control cookies through:

your browser settings;
cookie banners or consent tools made available on the Website;
opt-out tools provided by us or third parties;
privacy preference signals such as Global Privacy Control, where legally required.

Please note that disabling certain cookies may affect Website functionality.

10. Do Not Track, Global Privacy Control, and Similar Signals

Some browsers offer a “Do Not Track” setting. Because there is no universally accepted standard for responding to Do Not Track signals, the Website DOES NOT currently respond to browser-based Do Not Track signals.

Where required by applicable law, we may honor legally recognized opt-out preference signals, such as Global Privacy Control (“GPC”). For information about rights relating to sale, sharing, targeted advertising, and related opt-out choices, please see Section 15 (“U.S. State Privacy Rights”) and, for California residents, Section 16 (“California Privacy Notice”).

11. Payment Information

Payment transactions may be processed by third-party payment processors, such as Stripe. We do not control the privacy or security practices of those processors. When you make a payment, your payment information may be collected and processed directly by the processor under its own terms and privacy policy. We may retain order details, transaction confirmations, invoices, billing-related records, and other financial records relating to your transactions with us.

We may receive limited transaction details, such as:

confirmation of payment;
transaction identifier;
payment status;
partial payment method details;
billing-related metadata.

12. Data Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information appropriate to the nature of the information and the risks involved.

However, no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is completely secure. Therefore, we cannot guarantee absolute security, and you transmit personal information to us at your own risk.

13. Retention of Personal Information

We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including to:

provide the Website and services;
maintain accounts and business records;
process transactions;
administer reviews, submissions, publication, and distribution;
comply with legal, tax, accounting, and reporting obligations;
resolve disputes;
enforce agreements and policies;
protect against fraud or misuse.

Retention periods may vary based on the type of information, your role, legal requirements, and business needs.

We may retain different types of personal information for different periods depending on the nature of the information, the role of the individual involved, the status of an account or transaction, whether content has been published, legal or contractual requirements, dispute resolution needs, security and fraud-prevention purposes, backup and archival practices, and our legitimate business needs.

14. Your Choices

Depending on your relationship with us and applicable law, you may have the following choices:

Account Information: You may update certain account information through your portal or by contacting us.
Marketing Communications: We may send you promotional, marketing, or newsletter emails where permitted by law, and you may opt out by using the unsubscribe mechanism in the message. We may still send transactional or administrative communications.
Cookies and Analytics: You may manage cookies as described above.
Account Deletion: You may be able to delete your account through self-service account settings or by contacting us by email. Deleting your account will not remove reviews or other content that has already been published, which may remain publicly available in accordance with our Terms of Use and any applicable agreements.
Published Review Use: Authors and Reviewers remain subject to the Terms of Use and any separate agreements regarding permitted use, reposting, attribution, and review content restrictions.
State Privacy Rights: Residents of certain states may have additional privacy rights described below.

15. U.S. State Privacy Rights

This section supplements the rest of this Privacy Policy and applies to residents of states that provide consumer privacy rights, to the extent applicable to our processing and legal obligations.

15.1 Rights That May Be Available

Depending on your state of residence and subject to exceptions under applicable law, you may have the right to:

know or access the personal information we collect about you;
obtain information about the categories of personal information collected, sources, purposes, and disclosures;
access the specific pieces of personal information we hold about you, where required by law;
request deletion of personal information;
request correction of inaccurate personal information;
opt out of the sale of personal information;
opt out of the sharing of personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising;
opt out of targeted advertising;
opt out of certain profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects, where applicable;
limit certain uses or disclosures of sensitive personal information, where applicable;
appeal a denial of your privacy rights request, where applicable;
be free from unlawful discrimination or retaliation for exercising privacy rights.

15.2 How to Submit a Request

You may submit privacy rights requests by contacting us at:

Email: legal@openshelfreviews.com

We may need to verify your identity before processing your request. Verification may require us to match information you provide with information in our records. We may deny a request if we cannot adequately verify the requestor’s identity or authority.

15.3 Authorized Agents

If permitted by applicable law, you may designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf. We may require proof of the agent’s authority and may also require you to verify your identity directly with us.

15.4 Appeals

If we deny your request, you may have the right to appeal that decision, depending on your state of residence.

To appeal, please contact us at legal@openshelfreviews.com with the subject line: Privacy Rights Appeal and describe why you believe the decision should be reconsidered.

If your appeal is denied, we will provide information about any further recourse available to you where required by applicable law.

16. California Privacy Notice

This section provides additional disclosures for California residents and is intended to operate as our California notice at collection, California privacy policy disclosure, and related California rights notice, to the extent required by applicable law.

16.1 Categories of Personal Information Collected

In the last 12 months, we may have collected the following categories of personal information:

Category	Examples	Collected?
Identifiers	Name, email address, username, IP address, account ID	Yes
Customer records / contact information	Billing address, phone number, transaction-related details	Yes
Commercial information	Order history, services purchased, transaction details	Yes
Internet or electronic network activity	Portal activity, browsing behavior, device/browser data, logs	Yes
Geolocation data	Approximate geolocation derived from IP address	Yes
Professional or employment-related information	Reviewer qualifications, biography, professional profile details	Yes
Audio, electronic, visual, or similar information	Communications, uploaded files, support correspondence	Yes
Inferences	Limited inferences drawn from activity or preferences for internal operations and service administration	Yes
Sensitive personal information	Log-in credentials, certain payment-related details, communication contents, other limited data as applicable	Yes

16.2 Categories of Sources

We collect personal information from the sources described in Section 5 above, including:

directly from you;
automatically from your device or browser;
from service providers and vendors;
from other users where operationally necessary;
from public sources.

16.3 Business and Commercial Purposes

We collect and use personal information for the purposes described in Section 6 above, including to:

operate the Website;
manage accounts and portals;
provide review-related services;
process payments and transactions;
publish and host reviews;
perform analytics and maintenance;
ensure security and compliance;
communicate with users;
comply with law.

16.4 Categories of Personal Information Disclosed for Business Purposes

In the last 12 months, we may have disclosed the following categories of personal information for business purposes to the recipient categories described in Section 8:

Category	Recipient Categories
Identifiers and contact information	Service providers, payment processors, internal personnel, Authors/Reviewers as needed, legal/compliance recipients
Submission materials and review-related content	Reviewers, Authors, internal personnel, publication recipients, hosting providers, distribution recipients
Account and portal activity	Service providers, internal personnel, security providers, legal/compliance recipients
Payment and transaction information	Payment processors, accounting providers, internal personnel, legal/compliance recipients
Device/browser and usage data	Analytics providers, hosting providers, security providers
Communications and support information	Internal personnel, communications providers, service providers, legal/compliance recipients
Professional/profile information	Internal personnel, publication recipients, visitors, other users as applicable

16.5 Sale / Sharing / Targeted Advertising Disclosures

We do not sell personal information for money, but we may share certain identifiers, device data, and internet activity information with advertising or analytics partners in a manner that may constitute “sharing” for cross-context behavioral advertising under California law.

If we engage in activity that constitutes sale, sharing, or targeted advertising under applicable law, you may have the right to opt out. To exercise this right, please contact us at legal@openshelfreviews.com or use any opt-out mechanisms made available on the Website.

16.6 Sensitive Personal Information

We may collect sensitive personal information as described above. We use sensitive personal information only for limited purposes reasonably necessary to provide the Website and services, maintain accounts, process transactions, ensure security, detect fraud, comply with law, and other permitted purposes.

We do not offer a separate “Limit the Use of My Sensitive Personal Information” right because we do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for purposes that would require that right under California law, except to the extent applicable law requires otherwise.

16.7 California Rights

California residents may have the following rights, subject to exceptions:

right to know/access;
right to delete;
right to correct;
right to opt out of sale;
right to opt out of sharing for cross-context behavioral advertising;
right to limit certain uses of sensitive personal information;
right to non-discrimination.

California residents may also use an authorized agent where permitted by law.

17. State-Law Applicability and Thresholds

Some U.S. state privacy laws apply only if a business meets certain statutory thresholds or engages in certain processing activities.

This section applies only to the extent that applicable U.S. state privacy laws apply to our processing activities, and nothing in this Privacy Policy is intended to represent that any particular law applies if its statutory thresholds or other applicability requirements are not met.

Nothing in this Privacy Policy is intended to waive any limitation, exemption, or exception available under applicable law.

18. Non-Discrimination

We will not unlawfully discriminate against you for exercising any privacy rights granted by applicable law. However, we may still offer different services, functionality, or experiences where permitted by law and reasonably related to the value provided, the nature of the service, or the impossibility of fulfilling certain requests.

19. Deidentified and Aggregated Information

We may create, use, and disclose aggregated, anonymized, or deidentified information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you, subject to applicable law. We may use such information for lawful business purposes, including analytics, reporting, service improvement, and operational planning.

20. Children

The Website is intended only for individuals who are 18 years of age or older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13, we will take reasonable steps to delete the information or deactivate the associated account. In either case, we may retain information to the extent required by applicable legal obligations.

If you believe a person under 18 has provided personal information to us, please contact us at legal@openshelfreviews.com and include sufficient detail for us to investigate and process a deletion request as appropriate.

21. External Sites and Third-Party Services

The Website may link to or integrate with third-party websites, platforms, tools, or services. This Privacy Policy does not apply to third-party sites or services that we do not control. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of those third parties.

22. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes will become effective when we post the updated Privacy Policy on the Website, unless a later effective date is stated. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.

Your continued use of the Website after an updated Privacy Policy becomes effective constitutes your acknowledgment of the updated Policy, to the extent permitted by law.

23. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices including how we process information please contact us at:

Open Shelf Reviews / Media Source, LLC
Website: www.openshelfreviews.com
Email: legal@openshelfreviews.com
Mail: 7001 Discovery Boulevard, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017