Information We Automatically Collect

Categories of Information. We and our third-party service providers (including any third-party content, advertising, and analytics providers) automatically collect certain information from your device or web browser when you interact with the Services to help us understand how our users use the Services and to target advertising to you (which we will refer to in this Privacy Policy collectively as “Usage Data”). For example, each time you visit the Services we and our third-party service providers may automatically collect your location, IP address, mobile device identifier or other unique identifier, browser and computer type, Internet service provider used, clickstream information, access time, the Web page you came from, the URL you go to next, the Web page(s) that you access during your visit and your interaction with content or advertising on the Services. We may contract with third parties to collect this information on our behalf for analytics purposes.

Purposes For This Information. We and our third-party service providers use such Usage Data for a variety of purposes including to diagnose problems with our servers and software, to administer the Services, to gather demographic information and to target advertising to you on the Services and elsewhere online. Accordingly, our third-party advertising networks and ad servers will also provide us with information, including reports that will tell us how many ads were presented and clicked on the Services in a manner that does not identify personally any specific individual. The Usage Data we collect is generally non-identifying, but if we associate it with you as a specific and identifiable person, we will treat it as Personal Data.

Cookies/Tracking Technologies

We use tracking technologies, such as cookies, local storage, and pixel tags.

Cookies and Local Storage

Cookies and local storage may be set and accessed on your computer. Upon your first visit to the Services, a cookie or local storage will be sent to your computer that uniquely identifies your browser. “Cookies” and local storage are small files containing a string of characters that is sent to your computer’s browser and stored on your device when you visit a website. Many major Web services use cookies to provide useful features for their users. Each Web site can send its own cookie to your browser. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. You can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent; however, if you reject cookies, you will not be able to sign in to the Services or take full advantage of our Services. Additionally, if you clear all cookies on your browser at any point after setting your browser to refuse all cookies or indicate when a cookie is being sent, you will have to again reset your browser to refuse all cookies or indicate when a cookie is being sent.

Pixel Tags

We also use “pixel tags,” which are small graphic files that allow us and third parties to monitor the use of the Services and collect Usage Data. A pixel tag can collect information such as the IP address of the device that downloaded the page on which the tag appears; the URL of the page on which the pixel tag appears; the time (and length of time) the page containing the pixel tag was viewed; the type of browser that retrieved the pixel tag; and the identification number of any cookie previously placed by that server on your computer.

We use pixel tags, either provided by us or by our third-party advertisers, service providers and ad networks, to collect information about your visit, including the pages you view, the links you click and other actions taken in connection with our sites and Services and use them in combination with our cookies to provide offers and information of interest to you. Pixel tags also enable ad networks to serve targeted advertisements to you when you visit the Services or other websites.

Log Files

A log file is a file that records events that occur in connection with your use of the Service, such as your service use data. We collect log files and other usage information when you access, use and interact with the Services (even if you have not created an account or logged into your account on the Services), including IP address, date and time that you signed up for an account, language setting, browser type, operating system type, internet service provider, referring/exit pages, page you requested, user agent, date and time stamps, clickstream data, and information about your search and click activity.

Device Fingerprinting

Device fingerprinting is the process of analyzing and combining sets of information elements from your device’s browser, such as JavaScript objects and installed fonts, in order to create a “fingerprint” of your device and uniquely identify your device and apps.

App Technologies, Customization, and Usage

There are a variety of tracking technologies that may be included in our apps that allow us to collect information about your installation, use, and updating of our apps as well as information about your device, including your unique mobile device identifier (“UDID”) and other technical identifiers. More specifically, these tracking technologies allow us to collect data about your device and your use of our apps, the pages, videos, other content, or ads you see or click on during your visit and when and for how long you do so, and items you download. These tracking technologies are not browser-based like cookies and cannot be controlled by browser settings. For example, our apps may include third party SDKs, which is code that sends information about your use to a server, and is in effect the app version of a pixel. These SDKs allow us to track our conversions and communicate with you across devices, bring you advertising both on and off the Services, customize the app to your interests and preferences and link such across platforms and devices, and provide you with additional functionality, such as the ability to connect our Service with your social media account.

Location-Identifying Technologies

GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, and other location-aware technologies may be used to collect location data when you enable location-based services through your device. Location data may be used for purposes such as verifying your device’s location and delivering or restricting relevant content and advertising based on that location.

In addition, we use a variety of other technologies that collect similar information for security and fraud detection purposes essential to the operation of our sites and business.

Information You Choose To Submit

You can visit the Services without telling us who you are or revealing any information by which someone could identify you as a specific, identifiable individual (which we will refer to in this Privacy Policy collectively as “Personal Data”). If, however, you wish to register to become a member of the Services, you are required to provide certain Personal Data (for example, your name and email address), and you must also provide a username and password. We use your Personal Data to fulfill your requests for products and services, to improve our Services, to contact you from time to time about us and our products and services, and as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy.

We refer collectively to all information we collect that is not Personal Data, including Usage Data, demographic data and de-identified Personal Data, as “Non-Personal Data”. If we combine Non-Personal Data with Personal Data, we will treat the combined information as Personal Data under this Privacy Policy.

Personal Data, Non-Personal Data, and User Submissions are referred to in this Privacy Policy collectively as “User Information.”

You may choose to enter contests, sweepstakes, competitions, participate in surveys, subscribe to newsletters, comment articles, use message boards, chat rooms, reader photo upload areas, reader ratings and reviews, save articles or other content on our Services, reader-created content upload areas, contact us and customer support areas, and areas that allow you to register for SMS text messaging and mobile alerts, or otherwise interact with us in similar ways (“Interactive Areas”). These Interactive Areas may require that you provide Personal Data corresponding with the activities. You understand and agree that the Interactive Areas are voluntary and that your’re providing Personal Data for those activities will be collected and used by us to identify and communicate with you. In certain circumstances, we may share that Personal Data with sponsors, advertisers, affiliates or other partners. When you take a quiz or survey or respond to a poll on the Services, in addition to recording your responses, we may record your IP address and/or other identifiers in order to provide an outcome (for quizzes), report and analyze your survey results, or record your vote as part of the final count (for polls). We may also use and disclose this information for advertising purposes as described in this Privacy Policy.

In addition, you are required to provide certain Personal Data when you submit a job application and supporting materials. You can also choose to submit or we may collect additional information about yourself, such as demographic information (for example your gender, birth date, or zip code) and information about your preferences and interests. Failure to provide any required Personal Data will prevent us from being able to provide the Services you request (e.g., member registration or submission of job application) or otherwise inhibit our ability to provide the Services.

Here are examples of User Information we may collect:

• Contact Data – your first and last name, email address, postal address, phone number, and other similar contact data.
• Credentials – passwords, password hints, and other information for authentication and account access.
• Demographic Data – demographic information including your age, gender, and country.
• Payment Data – data necessary to process your payment if you make a purchase, including your payment instrument number (such as a credit card number), and the security code associated with your payment instrument. With the exception of partial data such as the last four digits of your credit card, Payment Data will be collected directly by our third-party payment processors, and we will never collect, store, or otherwise process this information.
• Profile Data – your username, interests, favorites, and other profile data.
• Contacts – any contact information that you specifically choose to provide us in order to fulfill a request by you. For example, you may provide us with another person’s name and address in order to fulfill a gift subscription for that person. Such functionality is only intended for United States residents. By using this functionality, you acknowledge and agree that both you and your contacts are based in the U.S. and that you have your contacts’ consent for us to use their contact information to fulfill your request.
• Content – the content of messages you send to us, such as feedback and product reviews you write, or questions and information you provide to customer support. We also collect the content of your communications as necessary to provide you with the services you use.
• Resume Data – to consider you for a job opening if you submit an application to us, including your employment history, writing samples, and references.
• Survey Data – we may also survey visitors about various topics, including events and experiences, media consumption preferences and how we can improve our Services. Response to our surveys is entirely voluntary.
• Public Postings – information when you submit something to be displayed on our Services. Any communication you submit or that may be posted to a publicly viewable area of our Services, such as a comment on an article or a review, is a public communication and may be viewed by the general public. Therefore, you acknowledge and understand that you have no expectation of privacy or confidentiality in the content you submit to such areas via our Services, whether or not your submission includes Personal Data. These submissions would include newsletter sign-ups and any area of our Service that requires a login or registration prior to use. If at any time you display your Personal Data in any communication submitted to such areas, other individuals may collect and use your Personal Data. We are not responsible for, nor can we guarantee the protection of, any Personal Data you disclose in a communication submitted to such areas for posting or contained in an email or other communication submitted to us for such posting, and thus, you acknowledge that if you disclose Personal Data in any such material, you do so at your own risk.

Information We Receive From Other Sources

We may supplement the information we collect with outside records in order to learn more about our users, to better tailor the content and offers we show you, and for other purposes. We may receive this information about you from public sources or third parties, including without limitation consumer data resellers, social networks, and advertisers. We may combine the information we receive from those other sources with information we collect through the Services. In those cases, we will apply this Privacy Policy to the combined information. Information from public sources or third parties may include, without limitation:

• Advertising and analytics data: We may receive various types of Personal Data and Usage Data from our third-party partners and vendors, such as analytics data about your visits to our Services, reporting information about ad campaigns, information about your browsing behavior, interests or preferences, and contact information (such as email address). For example, third parties who provide advertising and related services (such as analytics providers and ad networks) may provide us with information that we can compare it to Personal Data we hold in order to determine if you are the same individual (one method of doing this is called “cookie-matching”).
• Purchases: We may receive Personal Data about you from third parties when you buy things through our Services or when you buy things from a third party after clicking on an affiliate link in our content. This information may include your contact details (such as name and email address) and financial and other details related to the transaction (such as items purchased and purchase price) from providers of technical, payment and delivery services.
• Referrals: Your Personal Data may be provided by other users of the Services (for example, if your email address is entered into the Services by a friend referring you to the Services).
• Third-party connections: If you use a third-party connection or log-in (such as Facebook Connect or Google) in connection with the Services, we may receive your name, email address and/or profile photo from those third-party services or other information available about you or collected from you on those services.
• Other sources: We may also supplement the Personal Data we collect from you with other information from third parties, including third-party vendors, affiliate network operators, referral sources, social networking sites or services (such as Facebook), and publicly-available sources.

Information Use

We use the information we collect, including Personal Data and Usage Data:

• to enable you to use our Services, to process information you provide via our Services (including verifying that your email address is active and valid), and to process your transactions;
• to create an account or profile and share certain information about yourself with other users through your account or profile;
• connect you across multiple devices or platforms where you are accessing our content;
• to provide related customer service and care, including responding to your questions, complaints, or comments, and sending surveys and processing survey responses;
• to send you notices, updates, security alerts, and other support and administrative messages, including SMS text message mobile alerts for specific purposes;
• process transactions and send you any related information;
• to provide you with information, products, or services that you have requested;
• to offer a feature that allows visitors to send a link to another person to inform them about an article or feature on the Services. We do not retain telephone numbers or email addresses collected for these purposes after sending the SMS text message or email;
• to receive and process job applications for jobs with us;
• to provide you with information, products, or services that we otherwise believe will interest you, including special opportunities from us and our third-party partners;
• to personalize the Services and tailor content, recommendations, and advertisements we and third parties display to you, both on the Services and elsewhere online;
• for internal business purposes, such as to improve our Services and content;
• to monitor and analyze how our Services are used;
• to administer and process contests, sweepstakes, promotions, conferences and special events (collectively “Events”), and communicate with you about such Events. Information collected through our Services in conjunction with such Events is also used for marketing additional products, services and events by us and/or by our advertisers, sponsors, and marketing partners. Please see the rules of each individual Event and any applicable privacy policies for those Events for additional information on the choices you may exercise with respect to the use of your Personal Data collected in connection with that Event. To the extent there is a conflict between this Privacy Policy and the rules or policies applicable to an Event, the rules and policies associated with the Event shall govern;
• to detect, investigate and/or prevent fraudulent, unauthorized, or illegal activity; maintain the security of our Services, including for age verification purposes; enforce the various terms and conditions for our Services; and protect the rights, property, and/or safety of you, us, or others;
• to contact you with, in our discretion, changes to our Privacy Policy, any terms and conditions, or any of our other policies;
• to comply with regulatory and legal obligations; and
• for purposes as disclosed at the time you provide your information and as further described in this Privacy Policy.

Social Network and Platform Integration

The Services contain integration with social networks and other platforms in which information is shared between us and such platforms. For example, if you create or log into your account through a third-party social media site, we may have access to certain information from that site, such as your name, email address, account information, photo and friends lists, and other information in accordance with the authorization procedures determined by such social media site. If you don’t want a social network to collect the information about you as described above, or you don’t want a social network to share it with us, please review the privacy policy, privacy settings and instructions of the applicable social network before you visit and use our Services.