This agreement was adapted from Google.com's privacy policy. It was written in English (US).
Date of Last Revision: 4/4/2016
When you use Scigine services, you trust us with your information. This Privacy Policy is meant to help you understand what data we collect, why we collect it, and what we do with it. This is important; we hope you will take time to read it carefully. And remember, you can find controls to manage your information and protect your privacy and security at My Profile.
Privacy Policy
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, for example by creating a Scigine Account, we can make those services even better – to show you more relevant search results and ads, to help you connect with people or to make sharing with others quicker and easier. As you use our services, we want you to be clear how we’re using information and the ways in which you can protect your privacy.
Information we collect
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, the people who matter most to you online, or which methods you might like.
We collect information in the following ways:
- Information you give us. For example when you sign up. When you do, we’ll ask for personal information, like your name, email address, telephone number or credit card to store with your account. If you want to take full advantage of the sharing features we offer, we might also ask you to create a publicly visible Scigine Profile, which may include your name and photo.
- Information we get from your use of our services. We collect information about the services that you use and how you use them, like when you look up a method, visit a website that uses our advertising services, or view and interact with our ads and content. This information includes:
Device information
We collect device-specific information (such as your hardware model, operating system version, unique device identifiers, and mobile network information including phone number). Scigine may associate your device identifiers or phone number with your Scigine Account.
Log information
When you use our services or view content provided by Scigine, we automatically collect and store certain information in server logs. This includes:
Details of how you used our service, such as your search queries.
Internet protocol address.
Device event information such as crashes, system activity, hardware settings, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and referral URL.
Cookies that may uniquely identify your browser or your Scigine Account.
Location information
When you use Scigine services, we may collect and process information about your actual location. We use various technologies to determine location, including IP address, GPS, and other sensors that may, for example, provide Scigine with information on nearby devices, Wi-Fi access points and cell towers.
Local storage
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.
Cookies and similar technologies
We and our partners use various technologies to collect and store information when you visit a Scigine service, and this may include using cookies or similar technologies to identify your browser or device. We also use these technologies to collect and store information when you interact with services we offer to our partners, such as advertising services or Scigine features that may appear on other sites.
Information we collect when you are signed in to Scigine, in addition to information we obtain about you from partners, may be associated with your Scigine Account. When information is associated with your Scigine Account, we treat it as personal information. For more information about how you can access, manage or delete information that is associated with your Scigine Account, visit your Account Profile.
How we use information we collect
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 Scigine and our users. We also use this information to offer you tailored content – like giving you more relevant search results and ads.
We may use the name you provide for your Scigine Profile across all of the services we offer that require a Scigine Account. In addition, we may replace past names associated with your Scigine 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 Scigine Profile information, such as your name and photo.
If you have a Scigine Account, we may display your Profile name, Profile photo, and actions you take on Scigine or on third-party applications connected to your Scigine Account (such as +1’s, reviews you write and comments you post) in our services, including displaying in ads and other commercial contexts. We will respect the choices you make to limit sharing or visibility settings in your Scigine Account.
When you contact Scigine, we 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 may combine personal information from one service with information, including personal information, from other Scigine 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.
Scigine processes 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.
Transparency and choice
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:
Review and control certain types of information tied to your Scigine Account by using Scigine Dashboard.
If and when we allow advertisements, you can view and edit your preferences about the Scigine ads shown to you on Scigine and across the web, such as which categories might interest you, using Ads Settings. You can also opt out of certain Scigine advertising services here.
Adjust how the Profile associated with your Scigine Account appears to others.
Control who you share information with through your Scigine Account.
Take information associated with your Scigine Account out of many of our services.
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’s important to remember that many of our services may not function properly if your cookies are disabled. For example, we may not remember your language preferences.
Information you share
Many of our services let you share information with others. Remember that when you share information publicly, it may be indexable by search engines, including Google. Our services provide you with different options on sharing and removing your content.
Accessing and updating your personal information
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.
Information we share
We do not share personal information with companies, organizations and individuals outside of Scigine unless one of the following circumstances applies:
With your consent
We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Scigine when we have your consent to do so. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information.
For external processing
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.
For legal reasons
We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Scigine if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:
- Meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.
- Enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations.
- Detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues.
- Protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Scigine, our users or the public as required or permitted by law.
- We may share 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 Scigine is 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.
Information security
We work hard to protect Scigine and our users from unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of information we hold. In particular:
We review our information collection, storage and processing practices, including physical security measures, to guard against unauthorized access to systems.
We restrict access to personal information to Scigine employees, contractors and agents who need to know that information in order to process it for us, and who are subject to strict contractual confidentiality obligations and may be disciplined or terminated if they fail to meet these obligations.
When this Privacy Policy applies
Our Privacy Policy applies to all of the services offered by Etch A Deal LLC. and its affiliates, and services offered on other sites (such as our advertising services), 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 Scigine services, or other sites linked from our services. Our Privacy Policy 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.
Compliance and cooperation with regulatory authorities
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 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.
Changes
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.