Mindspark Interactive Network, Inc. ("MINDSPARK"), respects the privacy of users of our home.Mindspark.com website and related services, and has developed this Privacy Policy to demonstrate its commitment to protecting your privacy. These privacy policies (the "Privacy Policy") are intended to describe for you, as an individual who is a user of the home.mindspark.com website or related application(s) or service(s) (hereafter, collectively, the "Mindspark Homepage Products," "Mindspark Homepage" or "Website") the information we collect, how that information may be used, with whom it may be shared, and your choices about such uses and disclosures.
We encourage you to read this Privacy Policy carefully when using any of our Mindspark Homepage Products or transacting business with us. By using any of the Mindspark Homepage Products, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy. Mindspark Interactive Network, Inc. is a part of the IAC family of businesses (www.iac.com), which includes Ask.com, iWon.com, Girlsense.com, Life123.com, Citysearch, Vimeo.com, Evite, Match.com, ServiceMagic, Gifts.com, Pronto, Shoebuy, College Humor, and many others.
If you have any questions about our privacy practices, please refer to the end of this Privacy Policy for information on how to contact us.
In General. We may collect personal information that can identify you, such as your name and email address, and other information that does not identify you. When you provide personal information through any of the Mindspark Homepage Products, the information may be sent to servers located in the United States and other countries around the world.
Use of cookies and other technologies to collect information. We use various technologies to collect information from your computer and about your activities on our site.
In General. We may use information that we collect about you to:
Please review "YOUR CHOICES ABOUT COLLECTION AND USE OF YOUR INFORMATION" below.
We want you to understand when and with whom we may share personal or other information we have collected about you or your activities on our Mindspark Homepage.
Personal information. We do not share your personal information with others except as indicated below or when we inform you and give you an opportunity to opt out of having your personal information shared. We may share personal information with:
Any third parties to whom we may disclose personal information may have their own privacy policies which describe how they use and disclose personal information. Those policies will govern use, handling and disclosure of your personal information once we have shared it with those third parties as described in this Privacy Policy. If you want to learn more about their privacy practices, we encourage you to visit the websites of those third parties. These entities or their servers may be located either inside or outside the United States.
Aggregated and non-personal information. We may share aggregated and non-personal information we collect under any of the above circumstances. We may also share it with third parties and our IAC sister companies to develop and deliver targeted advertising on our websites and on websites of third parties. We may combine non-personal information we collect with additional non-personal information collected from other sources. We also may share aggregated information with third parties, including advisors, advertisers and investors, for the purpose of conducting general business analysis. For example, we may tell our advertisers the number of visitors to our Mindspark Homepage, the number of users of particular widgets, and the most popular features or services accessed. This information does not contain any personal information and may be used to develop website content and services that we hope you and other users will find of interest and to target content and advertising.
We do not screen, filter or monitor user submissions made to or via the Website or any widget made available via the Website, nor do we scrape or glean personal information from any such submissions; however, to the extent that any video, comment or other user submission contains personal information (whether name, likeness, address, telephone number or otherwise, and whether such information pertains to the submitter or someone else), such personal information may be viewed by other users of the Website or relevant widget. See "USER SUBMISSIONS", below.
There are a number of places on the Mindspark Homepage where you may click on a link to access other websites that do not operate under this Privacy Policy. For example, if you use the functionality of certain widgets, or click on a news link, search result or advertisement, you may be taken to a website that we do not control. These third-party websites may independently solicit and collect information, including personal information, from you and, in some instances, provide us with information about your activities on those websites. We recommend that you consult the privacy statements of all third-party websites you visit by clicking on the "privacy" link typically located at the bottom of the webpage you are visiting.
If you have registered for the Mindspark Homepage and have an online account with us, you have the ability to review and update your personal information online by logging into your account and accessing the "My Account" tab. You can also review and update your personal information by contacting us. More information about how to contact us is provided below. If you close your account, we may still retain certain information associated with your account for analytical purposes and recordkeeping integrity, as well as to prevent fraud, collect any fees owed, enforce our terms and conditions, take actions we deem necessary to protect the integrity of the Website or our users, or take other actions otherwise permitted by law. In addition, if certain information has already been provided to third parties as described in this Privacy Policy, retention of that information will be subject to those third parties' policies.
We take appropriate security measures (including physical, electronic and procedural measures) to help safeguard your personal information from unauthorized access and disclosure. For example, only authorized employees are permitted to access personal information, and they may do so only for permitted business functions. In addition, we use encryption in the transmission of your sensitive personal information between your system and ours, and we use firewalls to help prevent unauthorized persons from gaining access to your personal information.
We want you to feel confident using our Website. However, no system can be completely secure. Therefore, although we take steps to secure your information, we do not promise, and you should not expect, that your personal information, searches, or other communications will always remain secure. Users should also take care with how they handle and disclose their personal information and should avoid sending personal information through insecure email. Please refer to the Federal Trade Commission's website at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/menus/consumer/data.shtm for information about how to protect yourself against identity theft.
We may provide areas on the Website or via one or more widgets where you can post information about yourself and others and communicate with others; upload content (e.g. pictures, videos, audio files, etc.); and post comments or reviews of content found on the Website. Such postings to or via the Website are governed by our Terms of Use; such postings to or via any third party-provided widget are governed by the relevant widget's terms of use. In addition, such postings may appear on other websites or when searches are executed on the subject of your posting. Also, whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information on publicly-viewable web pages, that information will be publicly available and can be collected and used by others. For example, if you post your email address, you may receive unsolicited messages. We cannot control who reads your posting or what other users may do with the information you voluntarily post, so we encourage you to exercise discretion and caution with respect to your personal information. Once you have posted information, you may not be able to edit or delete such information.
Our website is a general audience site, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13.
This Privacy Policy is intended to cover collection of information on or via the Mindspark Homepage from residents of the United States. If you are using the Mindspark Homepage from outside the United States, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our central database is operated. The data protection and other laws of the United States and other countries might not be as comprehensive as those in your country. Please be assured that we seek to take reasonable steps to ensure that your privacy is protected. By using our services, you understand that your information may be transferred to our facilities and those third parties with whom we share it as described in this privacy policy.
This Privacy Policy does not create rights enforceable by third parties or require disclosure of any personal information relating to users of the website.
We will occasionally update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices and services. When we post changes to this Privacy Policy, we will revise the "Last Updated" date at the top of this Privacy Policy. If we make any material changes in the way we collect, use, and/or share your personal information, we will notify you by sending an email to the email address you most recently provided us in your account, profile or registration (unless we do not have such an email address), and/or by prominently posting notice of the changes on the Mindspark Homepage. We recommend that you check our website from time to time to inform yourself of any changes in this Privacy Policy or any of our other policies.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our information-handling practices, or if you would like to request information about our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes, please contact us by email or postal mail as follows:
Mindspark Interactive Network, Inc.© 2009 Mindspark Interactive Network, Inc. All rights reserved.
A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user's computer for record keeping purposes. Cookies can be either session cookies or persistent cookies. A session cookie expires when you close your browser and is used to make it easier for you to navigate our website. A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time.
For example, when you sign in to the Website, we will record your user or member ID and the name on your user or member account in the cookie file on your computer. We also may record your password in this cookie file, if you indicated that you would like your password saved for automatic sign-in. For security purposes, we will encrypt any usernames, passwords, and other user or member account-related data that we store in such cookies. In the case of sites and services that do not use a user or member ID, the cookie will contain a unique identifier. We may allow our authorized service providers to serve cookies from our website to allow them to assist us in various activities, such as doing analysis and research on the effectiveness of our site, content and advertising.
You may delete or decline cookies by changing your browser settings. (Click "Help" in the toolbar of most browsers for instructions.) If you do so, some of the features and services of our website may not function properly.
We may allow third-parties, including widget providers, IAC companies, advertising companies, and ad networks, to display advertisements on our site. These companies may use tracking technologies, such as cookies, to collect information about users who view or interact with their advertisements. The Website does not provide any personal information to these third parties, but they may collect information about where you, or others who are using your computer, saw and/or clicked on the advertisements they deliver, and possibly associate this information with your subsequent visits to the advertised websites. They also may combine this information with personal information they collect from you. The collection and use of that information is subject to the third-party's privacy policy. This information allows them to deliver targeted advertisements and gauge their effectiveness. Some of these third-party advertising companies may be advertising networks that are members of the Network Advertising Initiative, which offers a single location to opt out of ad targeting from member companies (www.networkadvertising.org).
Web beacons (also known as clear gifs, pixel tags or web bugs) are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of web users or to access cookies. Unlike cookies which are stored on the user's computer hard drive, web beacons are embedded invisibly on the web pages (or in email) and are about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
Web beacons may be used to deliver or communicate with cookies, to count users who have visited certain pages and to understand usage patterns. We also may receive an anonymous identification number if you come to our site from an online advertisement displayed on a third-party website.