Updated 2023 to reflect GDPR compliance standards

This privacy policy has been compiled to better serve those who are concerned with how their ‘Personally identifiable information’ (PII) is being used online. PII, as used in US privacy law and information security, is information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate a single person, or to identify an individual in context. Please read our privacy policy carefully to get a clear understanding of how we collect, use, protect or otherwise handle your Personally Identifiable Information in accordance with our website. We honor your right to privacy and will comply with your wishes to remove your data from our systems.

What Information Do We Collect About You? 

We collect personal details from you, but they vary depending on your interactions with our services and the information you freely provide. The process of collecting personal information could be directly from you or as a result of your use of our services, including:

• Contact Information: This involves your name, contact details (such as postal address and email address), event or conference registration details (including dietary preferences, photos, and event-related data), and your communication preferences.
• Account Information: This includes your account details like name, username, account ID, date of birth, contact information, profile data, saved or liked items (such as articles), payment history, subscription info, enrolled courses, and Stock Simulator outcomes.
• Inquiry Information: This covers data you submit via forms, surveys, emails, or phone calls. It also includes information provided when signing up for newsletters.
• Demographic Information: This pertains to factors like age, gender, race, income, occupation, marital status, and household/family status details.
• Financial Information: This consists of credit/debit card data, bank account, and routing number, and billing and shipping addresses.
• Health or Fitness Information: This includes exercise levels, weight-loss objectives, dietary preferences, and other health and wellness-related data.
• User-Generated Content: This involves personal information you decide to freely share in forums, discussions, comments, or reviews on our services.
• Contest, Survey, and Sweepstakes Information: This covers data submitted for participating in contests, surveys, or questionnaires.
• Behavioral Data and Interests: This covers information about your hobbies, interests, preferences, and behavioral data such as favorite foods, purchases, and health habits.

Automatically Collected Information 

Like many other online platforms, we and our third-party partners might automatically gather information about your device and usage through your interaction with our services. We use technologies such as cookies, pixels, SDKs, APIs, scripts, and location-identifying tools to gather and save this information for different purposes.

Automatically collected information includes the following:

• Device Data: This includes IP address, operating system, device type/version, browser type/version, URL, referring page, visit date/time, user agent data, time spent on our services, and errors encountered.
• Analytics/Usage Data: This encompasses the path taken within our services, usage patterns, activity metrics (e.g., pages viewed, links clicked), email open rates, attachments/links clicked, mouse movements, scrolling, and keystroke activity.
• Location Data: This covers geographic location collected through app permissions or browser functionality.
• Advertising Data: This involves information about ads viewed or clicked, cookie IDs, digital identifiers (like iOS IDFA or Google AAID), device metadata, and more used for advertising purposes.

We might combine automatically-collected data with other information about you, including the information you provide.

How We Use Cookies and Tracking Technologies 

In order to enhance your experience with our services, we and third-party partners may use tracking technologies, such as cookies and pixels, to collect information about your interactions with our content and ads. These technologies allow us to serve personalized content and ads based on your personal interests and activities. You can control or disable cookies and tracking technologies through your device settings.

Sharing Information from Third Parties

We also obtain personal information from third parties, which we might combine with data we collect directly. These third-party sources include:

• Other Users: Information shared by other users of our services.
• Business Partners: Data received from companies partnering with us, offering products/services on our platform, or assisting with marketing/advertising.
• Social Media Networks: Information from your interactions with our services on social media platforms.
• Authentication Services: Data from third-party authentication services are used to log in to our services.
• Service Providers: Information collected by third-party service providers performing tasks on our behalf.
• Information Providers: Data from third-party sources to correct or supplement collected information.
• Other Sources: Information obtained from publicly available sources or through transactions like mergers and acquisitions.

How We Use Your Personal Information 

We utilize your personal information for various purposes, including:

• Providing Our Services: Fulfilling requests, coordinating account access, responding to queries, processing payments, and delivering transaction-related messages.
• Personalizing User Experience: Offering content, products, or services based on your interests and optimizing content relevance.
• Marketing: Sending updates, offers, and ads about our products or services and analyzing data for marketing campaigns.
• Communication: Interacting with you through various channels and delivering notifications.
• Improving Our Services: Analyzing user data to enhance and develop our services.
• Security and Legal Compliance: Protecting our business, complying with legal obligations, and assisting investigations.
• Other Purposes: Utilizing data for purposes with your consent or as otherwise permitted by law.

Sharing Personal Information 

We may share personal information with companies in the Dotdash Meredith publishing family and third parties, such as:

• Promotional Partners: Sharing data with partners for joint promotional activities.
• Online Advertising Partners: Allowing partners to collect data for online advertising purposes.
• Marketing and Business Partners: Sharing information for marketing, advertising, and analytics.
• Service Providers: Sharing data with vendors performing services on our behalf.
• Public Display: Displaying user feedback or content on our services or social media platforms.
• Business Transactions: Disclosing data during mergers, acquisitions, or related transactions.
• Law Enforcement and Legal Parties: Sharing data as required by law or to protect rights and security.
• Consent and Notice: Sharing data with your consent or as notified.

How We Handle Data Collection and Online Advertising

Together with our partners, we use the information received about you to serve relevant ads, optimize marketing campaigns, and provide analytics. Data for these purposes is collected through tracking technologies and shared with advertising networks, measurement companies, and others. You can manage your online ad preferences through provided options.

Please refer to the Privacy Policy's respective sections for full details, including your choices and controls.

Additional Information Related to Social Media Platforms and Advertising 

Our offerings may incorporate social media functionalities, like the Facebook "Like" button, widgets from Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and others. These social media entities might identify you and gather data about your interactions with our services. They may deploy tracking tools, such as cookies. Your engagement with these features is regulated by the privacy policies of the respective platforms.

We present tailored ads to you via social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and others. For example, these platforms provide interest-based ad programs that enable us to display ads to users who have shown interest in our services while on the platform or to groups with shared characteristics like commercial interests and demographics. As we noted before, we might share a unique identifier, such as a user ID or encrypted email, with these platforms, or they might gather data from our website visitors through mechanisms like pixels. This data is used to direct customized advertising to you or a similar audience on the social media platform. The privacy policies of these platforms govern these ads. If you wish to avoid receiving targeted ads, you can likely adjust your preferences within your network settings.

User Control Over Information 

You can manage your data in the following ways:

1. Access, Modification, or Deletion: You can request access to your personal information, request corrections, or ask for deletion. We'll confirm your identity before processing such requests. However, we might not fulfill requests due to legal, regulatory, or other requirements.
2. Marketing Email Preferences: You can control marketing email preferences by using unsubscribe links or preferences within the services.
3. Postal Mail: To prevent your information from being sold or used for direct marketing, you can use opt-out forms or write to us.
4. Cookies and Tracking Technologies: You can manage cookies and other tracking technologies through browser settings.
5. Online Ads: You can learn about and opt out of interest-based advertising through various industry opt-out pages.
6. LiveRamp: You can withdraw consent or opt out of LiveRamp's data processing.

Protection of Personal Information 

We maintain safeguards to protect your data, but no system is entirely secure.

Third-Party Links and Services 

Our services may contain links to third-party sites with their own privacy policies.

Children's Personal Information 

Our services are not intended for children under 18, and we do not knowingly collect their information.

Policy for International Users 

Your data may be stored, processed, and transferred internationally.

Region-Specific Disclosures

Different disclosures may apply based on your location.

Updates to the Privacy Policy 

We may update the Privacy Policy, and such changes will be indicated at the top.

Contact Information

If you have questions, you can contact us using the provided email addresses or mailing addresses. Regional-specific contact information is also provided.

California Resident Collection Notice 

Additional information for California residents covered by the CCPA is provided below.

• Categories and Use of Personal Information: In the past year, please refer to the list below for the types of personal information we've gathered. Additionally, refer to the "How Do We Use Personal Information?" section for the purposes of using this information.

• Identifiers, like name, email, birthdate, and online identifiers.
• California Customer Records, such as birthdate, contact details, and payment information.
• Protected Classification Characteristics, like age and gender.
• Commercial Information, such as payment and purchase history.
• Internet/Network Information, like device data, logs, and analytics.
• Geolocation Data from device or IP address.
• Profession/Employment Information, if tied to employer/school.
• Other Personal Information, like social media posts.
• Inferences, like predictions about preferences.
• Sensitive Personal Information, such as health or race data.
• "Sales" and "Shares": Over the last year, we might have "sold" or "shared" certain personal information categories to advertising/marketing and analytics partners for those respective services. You can opt out via the Your Privacy Choices link.
• Data Retention: We keep personal info as needed for purposes stated here unless the law requires longer retention. We might need this info for legal compliance, disputes, agreements, protection against illegal activity, or business goals.
• Financial Incentives

Notice: We might offer incentives for collecting, selling, retaining, and using your personal info as permitted by the CCPA. Participating is voluntary, and you can opt-in/out following the program terms.

Nevada Resident Opt-Out Notice

As per Chapter 603A of the Nevada Revised Statutes, residents can opt out of certain future sales of collected information. To opt-out, use the provided link.

European Privacy Notice 

This notice applies to individuals in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland and services available there.

• Data Controller: Dotdash Meredith is the controller.
• Legal Basis: We process your data based on legal obligations, contracts, legitimate interests, or consent.

Purposes and Legal Basis:

• Providing products/services: Process based on applicable contracts.
• User support: Process based on contract or request.
• Marketing: Legitimate interest, consent.
• Event communication: Legitimate interest, consent.
• Business improvement: Legitimate interest.
• Data analytics: Legitimate interest.
• Personalized advertising: Consent.
• Affiliates/service providers: Legitimate interest, contract.
• Service changes: Based on contract.
• Legal obligations: Compliance.
• Fraud prevention, legal compliance: Legal obligations, public interest.

International Transfers: Some processing involves transferring data outside the EEA, UK, and Switzerland. Safeguards are in place.

Data Retention: Data is kept as long as necessary, considering legal and business needs.

Data Subject Rights: Rights include access, correction, erasure, consent withdrawal, a complaint to authority, data portability, objection, and more. Contact local authority for help.

To exercise rights, use the European Rights Request Form. Rights aren't absolute; exceptions apply under the law.

Lodge a complaint with the local data protection authority if needed. More info at https://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/bodies/authorities/index_en.htm