We recognize that privacy of your personal information is important. We do not sell any of your personal information to third parties.
There are many different ways you can use our services - to search for and share information, to communicate with other people or to create new content. When you share information with us, we can make those services even better by showing you more relevant search results and ads, by helping you connect with people or making sharing with others quicker and easier. As you use our services, we want you to be clear about how we are using information and the ways in which you can protect your privacy.
Our Privacy Policy explains what information we collect and why we collect it, how we use that information, and the choices we offer, including how to access and update information. We've tried to keep it as simple as possible, but if you're not familiar with terms like cookies, IP addresses, pixel tags and browsers, then read about these key terms first. Your privacy matters to us so please do take the time to get to know our practices and if you have any questions contact us.
We collect information to provide better services to all of our users - from figuring out basic stuff like which language you speak, to more complex things like which ads you'll find most useful.
We collect information in two ways:
Information you give us.For example, some of our services require you to sign up for an account. When you do, we'll ask for personal information, like your name, email address or telephone number. If you want to take full advantage of the sharing features we offer, we might also ask you to create a publicly visible profile, which may include your name and photo.
Information we get from your use of our services.We may collect information about services that you use and how you use them, like when you visit a website that uses our services or you view and interact with our ads and content. This information includes:
We may collect device-specific information (such as your hardware model, operating system version, unique device identifiers, and mobile network information including phone number). We may associate your device identifiers or phone number with your account.
When you use our services or view content provided by us, we may automatically collect and store certain information in server logs. This may include:
When you use a location-enabled service, we may collect and process information about your actual location.
We may collect and store information (including personal information) locally on your device using mechanisms such as browser web storage (including HTML 5) and application data caches.
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. We and our partners use various technologies to collect and store information when you visit our websites, and this may include sending one or more cookies or anonymous identifiers to your device. Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our site. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
We also use cookies and anonymous identifiers when you interact with services we offer for our partners, such as advertising services or features that may appear on our sites. Our partners may use information about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. We use the following cookies:
These are cookies that are required for the operation of our site. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to access your account on our site.
They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our site when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our site works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
These are used to recognise you when you return to our site. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by username and remember your preferences.
These cookies record your visit to our site, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our site and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.
Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this and other websites. Google's use of the DoubleClick cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to our users based on their visit to this site and other sites on the Internet. A number of information pages on this website display advertisements and these are selected based on the page they appear on and the user's browsing history as recorded by the DoubleClick cookies. On clicking the AdChoices link on each advertisement, users can opt out of any tracking by DoubleClick. Tracking and advertising cookies set by third-parties on our website include: id, _drt_ and DSID. See the Google advertising policies for more information about these cookies and how they are used. If you would like more information about this practice and your choices about not having this information used by our partners, please use the links below.
You may opt out of the use of the DoubleClick cookie and other third-party vendor cookies for interest-based advertising by visiting aboutads.info.
You can prevent your browser from accepting certain cookies, have the browser require your consent before a new cookie is placed in your browser, or block cookies altogether by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser's privacy preferences menu, however, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including strictly necessary cookies) you may not be able to access or use all or parts of our site.
You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them below. The aim of the list is to provide you with an understanding of the types of cookies we use on our site. If you do notice any discrepancies please be sure to contact us and let us know.
We use the information we collect from all of our services to provide, maintain, protect and improve them, to develop new ones, and to protect our websites and our users. We also use this information to offer you tailored content - like giving you more relevant content, search results and ads.
We may use the name you provide for your profile across all of the services we offer that require an account. In addition, we may replace past names associated with your account so that you are represented consistently across all our services. If other users already have your email, or other information that identifies you, we may show them your publicly visible profile information, such as your name and photo.
When you contact us, we may keep a record of your communication to help solve any issues you might be facing. We may use your email address to inform you about our services, such as letting you know about upcoming changes or improvements.
We use information collected from cookies and other technologies, like pixel tags, to improve your user experience and the overall quality of our services. When showing you tailored ads, we will not associate a cookie or anonymous identifier with sensitive categories, such as those based on race, religion, sexual orientation or health.
We may combine personal information from one service with information, including personal information, from other services - for example to make it easier to share things with people you know.
We will ask for your consent before using information for a purpose other than those that are set out in this Privacy Policy.
We process personal information on our servers in many countries around the world. We may process your personal information on a server located outside the country where you live.
People have different privacy concerns. Our goal is to be clear about what information we collect, so that you can make meaningful choices about how it is used. For example, you can:
You may also set your browser to block all cookies, including cookies associated with our services, or to indicate when a cookie is being set by us, however, it is important to remember that many of our services may not function properly if your cookies are disabled.
Some of our services let you share information with others. Remember that when you share information publicly, it may be indexable by search engines. Our services provide you with different options on sharing and removing your content.
Whenever you use our services, we aim to provide you with access to your personal information. If that information is wrong, we strive to give you ways to update it quickly or to delete it - unless we have to keep that information for legitimate business or legal purposes. When updating your personal information, we may ask you to verify your identity before we can act on your request.
We may reject requests that are unreasonably repetitive, require disproportionate technical effort (for example, developing a new system or fundamentally changing an existing practice), risk the privacy of others, or would be extremely impractical (for instance, requests concerning information residing on backup systems).
Where we can provide information access and correction, we will do so for free, except where it would require a disproportionate effort. We aim to maintain our services in a manner that protects information from accidental or malicious destruction. Because of this, after you delete information from our services, we may not immediately delete residual copies from our active servers and may not remove information from our backup systems.
We do not share personal information with companies, organizations and outside individuals unless one of the following circumstances applies:
We will share personal information with companies, organizations or outside individuals when we have your consent to do so. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information.
We provide personal information to our affiliates or other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
We will share personal information with companies, organizations or outside individuals if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:
We may share aggregated, non-personally identifiable information publicly and with our partners - like publishers, advertisers or connected sites. For example, we may share information publicly to show trends about the general use of our services.
If we are involved in a merger, acquisition or asset sale, we will continue to ensure the confidentiality of any personal information and give affected users notice before personal information is transferred or becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
We work hard to protect our users from unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of information we hold. In particular:
Our Privacy Policy applies to all of the services offered by us and our affiliates, including services offered on other sites, but excludes services that have separate privacy policies that do not incorporate this Privacy Policy. Our Privacy Policy does not apply to services offered by other companies or individuals, including products or sites that may be displayed to you in search results, sites that may include our services, or other sites linked from our services. Our Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by this website and does not cover the information practices of other companies and organizations who advertise our services, and who may use cookies, pixel tags and other technologies to serve and offer relevant ads.
We regularly review our compliance with our Privacy Policy. We also adhere to several self regulatory frameworks. When we receive formal written complaints, we will contact the person who made the complaint to follow up. We will work with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of personal data that we cannot resolve with our users directly.
Our Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will not reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. We will post any privacy policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice (including, for certain services, email notification of privacy policy changes). We will also keep prior versions of this Privacy Policy in an archive for your review. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our Privacy Policy, please contact us.
An anonymous identifier is a random string of characters that is used for the same purposes as a cookie on platforms, including certain mobile devices, where cookie technology is not available.
An application data cache is a data repository on a device. It can, for example, enable a web application to run without an internet connection and improve the performance of the application by enabling faster loading of content.
Browser web storage enables websites to store data in a browser on a device. When used in local storage mode, it enables data to be stored across sessions, so that the data can be retrieved after the browser has been closed and reopened. One technology that facilitates web storage is HTML 5.
A cookie is a small file containing a string of characters that is sent to your computer when you visit a website. When you visit the website again, the cookie allows that site to recognize your browser. Cookies may store user preferences and other information. You can set your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some website features or services may not function properly without cookies.
A device is a computer that can be used to access our services. For example, a device could be a desktop, tablet or smartphone.
You may access some of our services by signing up for an account and providing us with some personal information (typically your name, email address and a password). This account information will be used to authenticate you when you access our services and protect your account from unauthorized access by others. You can edit or terminate your account at any time through account settings.
An HTTP referrer is information transmitted to a destination webpage by a web browser, typically when you click a link to that webpage. The HTTP referrer contains the URL of the last webpage the browser visited.
Every computer connected to the Internet is assigned a unique number known as an Internet protocol (IP) address. Since these numbers are usually assigned in country-based blocks, an IP address can often be used to identify the country from which a computer is connecting to the Internet.
This is information that is recorded about users so that it no longer reflects or references an individually identifiable user.
This is information which you provide to us which personally identifies you, such as your name, email address or billing information, or other data which can be reasonably linked to such information by us.
A pixel tag is a type of technology placed on a website or within the body of an email for the purpose of tracking activity on websites, or when emails are opened or accessed, and is often used in combination with cookies.
An advertising category may be sensitive if it relates to topics such as race, religion, sexual orientation or health. When showing you tailored ads, we may associate a cookie or anonymous identifier with interests such as "Scholarships" or "Nursing Exam" but not with sensitive categories. We impose a similar policy on our advertisers.
This is a particular category of personal information relating to confidential medical facts, racial or ethnic origins, political or religious beliefs or sexuality.
Like most websites, our servers automatically record the page requests made when you visit our sites. These server logs typically include your web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser.
A unique device identifier is a string of characters that is incorporated into a device by its manufacturer and can be used to uniquely identify that device (for example an IMEI-number of a mobile phone). Different device identifiers vary in how permanent they are, whether they can be reset by users, and how they can be accessed. A given device may have several different unique device identifiers. Unique device identifiers can be used for various purposes, including security and fraud detection, syncing services such as a user's email inbox, remembering the user's preferences and providing relevant advertising.
Last modified: October 28, 2015