Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

We take privacy seriously and respect the privacy concerns of our user community. This Privacy Policy (the “Privacy Policy”) describes how the GossipBlues Publishing Family and any other digital properties linked to this Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) collect, use, disclose, and otherwise process personal information in connection with our websites (the “Sites”), mobile applications (the “Apps”), and the related content, services, products, and other features offered on or through those Sites and Apps (collectively, the “Services”).

Information Collected Automatically
General
As is true of many digital properties, we and our third-party partners may automatically collect information you provide to us and information about your device and service usage when you visit or interact with our Services. We and our third-party partners use cookies and other tracking technologies (e.g., pixels, SDKs, APIs, scripts, location-identifying technologies, and logging technologies) in connection with our Services to collect and store the information described in this section (and otherwise discussed in other sections) for our purposes and those of our third-party partners.

The type of information collected automatically includes:

⠀⠀⠀● Device Data, including Internet Protocol (IP) address, operating system, device type and version, browser type and version, browser ID, URL entered, referring page, date/time of visit, other user agent string data, time spent on our Services, and any errors that may occur while visiting our Services. Device Data may overlap with the other categories of data listed below.

⠀⠀⠀● Analytics/Usage Data, including the path taken to our Services, through our Services, and when you leave our Services, usage and activity on or in connection with our Services (e.g., pages visited, links clicked, videos watched), metrics about how many emails we send are actually opened, and which attachments or links are opened, clicked, or viewed (e.g., through pixels, as described later). We may also use third-party tools to collect information you provide to us or information about how you use the Services, including mouse movements, scrolling, clicks, and keystroke activity on the Services and other browsing, searching, or purchasing behavior. These tools may also record information you enter when you interact with our Services or participate in chat or other features through our Services.

⠀⠀⠀● Location data, including geographic location, that we or our third-party providers may collect, for example through permissions in the application’s operating system or browser functionality.

⠀⠀⠀● Advertising measurement data, including data associated with your viewing of or clicks on advertisements served on our Services, cookie IDs or other digital or first-party identifiers (e.g., iOS IDFA, Google AAID) assigned to that device, and device metadata, analytics/usage data, and location data described above, in each case, for the purposes of delivering advertisements (personalized or otherwise) or facilitating advertising measurement/attribution to better optimize or understand the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. For more information about our online data collection and advertising practices and those of our third-party partners, please see the “What are our third-party data collection and online advertising practices?” section of this Privacy Policy.

Please note that we and our third-party partners may combine the information each of us collects automatically with other information about you, including information you choose to provide.

See the “What controls do I have over my information?” section below to learn more about how you can limit or disable cookies or certain other tracking technologies on your device. For more information about how we and our third-party partners use these technologies and data for advertising purposes, please see “What are our third-party data collection and online advertising practices?” below.

 

Third-Party Sources
We also obtain personal information from third parties, which we often combine with personal information we collect automatically or directly from an individual. For example, we may receive the same categories of personal information described above from the following third parties:

⠀⠀⠀● Other users who interact with our services: We may receive your information from other users who interact with our services.

⠀⠀⠀● Business Partners: We may receive your information from our business partners, such as companies that offer their products or services on our Services or on other properties (e.g., digital properties, offline locations) or marketing/advertising and analytics partners, including third-party brands/agencies or other partners that facilitate the buying and selling of advertising inventory on our Services, measure the effectiveness of those associated advertising campaigns, or inform business analytics (e.g., view rates, bounce rates, audience composition).

⠀⠀⠀● Social Media: When someone interacts with our Services through various social media networks, such as when someone logs in through a social network, “likes” us on Facebook, follows us, or shares our content on Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or other social networks, we may receive certain information from those social networks, including your profile information and any other information you allow the social network to share with third parties. We use this information to allow you to log in to your account, communicate or interact with people on the social network, better understand our visitor demographics, and personalize content and advertising. Individuals should always review and, if necessary, adjust their privacy settings on third-party websites and social media networks and services before sharing information or linking or connecting them to other services.

⠀⠀⠀● Information we receive from authentication services: Some parts of our Service may allow you to log in through a third-party social network or authentication service such as Facebook or Google. These services will authenticate the individual’s identity and provide the ability to share certain personal information with us, which may include a name, email address, address book and contacts, or other information. The data we receive depends on the policies of that third party and the individual’s privacy settings on that third-party digital property. We use this information to authenticate the individual’s account, to provide our Services, to communicate with our users, and for advertising and marketing purposes.

⠀⠀⠀● Service Providers: Our service providers who perform services on our behalf, such as payment processors or surveys and third parties who conduct marketing/advertising and analytics activities on our behalf, collect personal information and may share some or all of that information with us.

⠀⠀⠀● Information Providers: We may, from time to time, obtain information from third-party information providers to correct or supplement the personal information we collect. For example, we may obtain updated contact information from third-party information providers to reconnect with an individual or obtain demographic information (e.g., interests, preferences).

⠀⠀⠀● Other Sources: We may also collect personal information about individuals that we do not otherwise possess, for example, from publicly available sources, third-party data providers, brand partnerships, or through transactions such as mergers and acquisitions.

 

How do we use personal information?
We may use your information for various purposes, including:

⠀⠀⠀● To respond to your requests and provide you with our services. This includes:

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀● Make our services and GossipBlues products and services available to you;

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀● Coordinate access to your account

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀● Respond to requests, suggestions, questions and comments, and provide other types of user support;

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀● Make your payments and transactions;

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀● Send you service/transaction-related messages, such as changes to your account;

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀● Save your playlists, recipes or other searches; and

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀● Communicate about events, conferences, programs, contests, surveys, polls, panels, questionnaires and other offers or promotions, and manage your participation in these events.

⠀⠀⠀● Personalize your experience on our Services: This includes providing you with content or other products or services that may be of interest to you and highlighting content that you have already read or viewed.

⠀⠀⠀● For marketing purposes: We may send you communications about new features, updates, products, and special offers. We may also use your information to provide you with advertisements about our products or other products or services that we (or our advertising partners, such as other third-party brands/agencies) think may be of interest to you. We may also use individual and aggregated information about you to inform our marketing and advertising campaigns and those of our third-party partners more generally. For more information about your choices regarding marketing communications, see the “What controls do I have over my information?” and “What are our third-party data collection and online advertising practices?” sections of this Privacy Policy.

⠀⠀⠀● To communicate with you: For example, we may communicate with you about your account activities, such as by providing you with transaction confirmations or alerting you when a subscription is about to expire. If you register with us, we may enroll you in our email newsletters or other periodic electronic communications and may also send you user surveys and promotional communications. We may communicate with you by email, postal mail, telephone, SMS, or other means. We may use push notifications on applications on your mobile device. For more information about how to adjust your communication preferences, see “What controls do I have over my information?” below.

⠀⠀⠀● To monitor, improve, and develop our products and services: We may use your information to understand our users and to personalize or optimize our services. For example, we may analyze statistics and trends to improve our services and to develop or better customize services or new services or features.

⠀⠀⠀● To protect the security and integrity of our business, comply with legal requirements and obligations, or as otherwise permitted by law: We may use your information to protect our business, our affiliates, including other GossipBlues brands, our customers, and our services. We may also use information to comply with laws, regulations, court orders, or other legal obligations or to assist in an investigation, protect and defend our rights and property, or the rights or safety of others, enforce our Terms of Use, this Privacy Policy, or agreements with third parties, detect and prevent fraud or for crime prevention purposes, or as otherwise permitted by law. We may engage in or be involved in a corporate business transaction, such as a merger, acquisition, joint venture, financing, or sale of corporate assets, and may use information in connection with or as an asset in such a corporate business transaction. Personal information may also be used in the event of insolvency, bankruptcy or receivership.

⠀⠀⠀● For any other purpose with your consent, at your request or with notice: We may use your personal information for any other purpose with your consent, at your request or with notice.

 

How do we share personal information?
The personal information we collect from you is used by all companies and brands in the GossipBlues publishing family. We may also disclose personal information to third parties, including:

● Third parties at your request: You can choose to share your activities on the Services with your friends via email, SMS or on various social networks.

● Promotional Partners: We may share information with third parties with whom we collaborate to conduct contests, surveys and sweepstakes, or other joint promotional activities.

● Strategic Marketing and Business Partners: We may share information with marketing/advertising, analytics, and other business partners (such as those who provide their own products or services on other properties) for purposes such as providing us or those entities with information, undertaking marketing/advertising activities about products or services that may be of interest to you, informing business analytics, or for other business or commercial purposes as further described in their privacy policies or our Privacy Policy.

● Online Advertising Partners: We may share information with third-party online advertising partners or allow those partners to collect information from you on our Services to facilitate online advertising and related measurement/attribution activities.

● The Public: When you provide feedback or post user content on our Services (for example, if you post a comment on an article or a comment on our social media sites), your information (for example, your first name, last initial, state of residence, and your comments) may be displayed on our Services or our social media pages. When you interact with us on social media, we may tag your social media account or the social media account of others (for example, to attribute a photo credit to another user).

● With your consent, at your request, or when notice is provided: In addition to the sharing described in this Privacy Policy, we may share information about you with third parties whenever you consent to or direct such sharing or when notice is otherwise provided.

● Service Providers and Advisors: Personal information may be shared with third-party vendors and other service providers who provide services for us or on our behalf. This may include certain vendors and service providers who engage in marketing or advertising activities, analytics, or provide mailing or email services, tax and accounting services, product fulfillment services, delivery services, payment processing, data enhancement services, fraud prevention, web hosting, or analytics services.

● Purchasers and Third Parties in Connection with a Business Transaction: Personal information may be disclosed to third parties in connection with a corporate transaction, such as a merger, sale of all or a portion of our company’s assets or stock, reorganization, financing, change in control or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by an affiliate or third party, or in connection with bankruptcy or related or similar proceedings.

● Law enforcement, regulators, and other parties For legal reasons: Personal information may be disclosed to third parties as required by law or subpoena, or if we reasonably believe that such action is necessary to (a) comply with the law and the reasonable requests of law enforcement, (b) enforce our Terms of Use or protect the security or integrity of our Services, or (c) exercise or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of our organization, our visitors, or others.

In connection with any of the above, we may share information with others in an aggregated or otherwise anonymized form that does not reasonably identify you.