Privacy Policy and Cookies
PRIVACY POLICY
Penguin Group (USA), LLC (“Penguin,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) understands that privacy is important to you. This Privacy Policy governs your use of this website and any other website or online service that we operate that links to this Privacy Policy (the “Site”). By using this Site, you agree to our General Terms of Use and additional site- or program-specific terms of use, if any, and consent to the collection, use, and sharing of your information as described in this Privacy Policy.
For additional Information about your California privacy rights, please click here.
INFORMATION WE MAY COLLECT FROM YOU DIRECTLY
You may provide information directly to us in several situations, including when you create a user profile, subscribe to services or features, submit content on the Site, make online purchases, enter contests, or complete surveys. You are not required to provide information directly to us, but if you decide not to do so, you may limit the features that you are able to access through the Site.
The information that we may collect includes, but is not limited to:
- contact information, such as your name, address, email address, and telephone number; photographs;
- financial payment information, such as credit card or other payment information; geo-location information; and
- demographic information.
INFORMATION WE MAY COLLECT BY OTHER MEANS
We also may collect certain information by other means when you use the Site, including information about your computer or device, hardware, software, connection information, Internet Service Provider (“ISP”), browser type and language, clickstream data, operating system, Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, your interactions with email messages (such as whether a message was opened), and standard server log information.
The Site may use cookies, which are small data files that are stored on your computer’s hard drive, for a variety of purposes to personalize and improve your use of the Site. For example, we may use cookies to remember your username and password or collect information about your browsing activities in order to provide you with more relevant content and ads. Most Web browsers can be set to erase or block the acceptance of cookies or to inform you when a cookie has been sent so that you can refuse the cookie. However, please note that refusing a cookie may limit your access to certain areas and/or functions of the Site, such as your ability to view or post content, enter sweepstakes, and make purchases. By using the Site, you consent to our use of cookies in connection with this Site.
In addition, the Site may use Flash cookies, which are similar to the cookies discussed above but which cannot be managed via your browser settings, as with traditional cookies. Typically, users can manage Flash cookies through a Flash player if they have one installed on their computer. Like many companies, we also may use other technologies that are similar to or that work in conjunction with cookies to help us monitor your usage of the Site (e.g., Web beacons, site tags, clear GIFs, etc.). Without your express permission, we do not use such web beacons to collect personally identifiable information, such as names, email addresses and phone numbers, and we do not allow third parties to collect personally identifiable information through such web beacons.
USE OF INFORMATION
We may use information that we collect on the Site for a variety of purposes, including to:
- Provide you with the products, promotions, services, and information you request; Process your orders or transactions;
- Contact you via email and otherwise about products, services, and events that we think might be of interest to you;
- Maintain or administer the Site, perform business analyses, or for other internal purposes to improve the quality of our business, the Site, and the products and services we offer;
- Customize and personalize your use of the Site; and
- As otherwise described to you at the point of collection or pursuant to your consent. From time to time, we may match information collected from you through the Site (including both information that you provide directly and Site usage information), and use such information along with information obtained from other sources, including third parties.
SHARING OF INFORMATION
We may share information with other entities, including, but not limited to, the following:
Select Business Partners. With your permission, we may share your information with select business partners, including our authors or promotional partners so that they can provide you with special offers, promotional materials, advertisements, and other materials. Penguin is not responsible for the privacy practices of these business partners, which may use your information for their own purposes. If you opt in to this information sharing and later want us to stop sharing your information with our business partners, please follow the procedures outlined in the “Your Choices and Your Information” section below.
Corporate Parents and Affiliates. We may share your information with our corporate parent(s) and other affiliated entities for a variety of purposes, including business, operational, and marketing purposes.
Service Providers. We may share your information with service providers that perform certain functions or services on our behalf (such as to host the Site, manage databases, perform analyses, send communications for us, or provide certain other components of the Site).
Other Parties When Required By Law or as Necessary to Protect the Site. There may be instances when we disclose your information to other parties in order to:
- protect our legal rights or the users of our Site;
- protect the safety and security of our users;
- enforce our Terms of Use;
- prevent fraud (or for risk management purposes); or
- to comply with or respond to law enforcement or legal process or a request for cooperation by a government entity, whether or not legally required.
To Other Parties in Connection With a Transaction. Information may be transferred to one or more parties in connection with a transaction, including without limitation, a corporate acquisition, merger, restructuring, reorganization, sale, change of ownership or control, transfer of assets, bankruptcy or liquidation. In the event of such transfer, the company that acquires or controls your information may not have the same privacy practices or treat your information the same as described in this Privacy Policy.
Other Parties With Your Consent. We may share information about you with other third parties when you consent to such sharing. This may include when you submit or post information to a user profile or a public area of the Site, such as a chat room, bulletin board, discussion, blog or other community tool.
In addition to the disclosures above, we may disclose non-personal information to third parties, such as aggregate website usage data or demographic reports that do not describe or identify individual users.
SOCIAL MEDIA SERVICES
Penguin has worked with certain third-party social media services to offer you their services through the Site. For example, you can use third-party social media services, including but not limited to Facebook, Twitter, and others to share information about your experience on the Site with your friends and followers on those services. These social media services may be able to collect information about you, including your activity on the Site. These other services also may notify your friends, both on the Site and on the services themselves, that you are a user of this Site or about your use of this Site, in accordance with applicable law and their own privacy policies.
You also may be able to link an account from another website or service (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) to the Site. This may allow you to use your credentials from the other site or service to sign in to certain features on our Site. If you link your account from a third party site or service, we may collect information from those third party accounts, and any information that we collect will be governed by this Privacy Policy.
YOUR CHOICES AND YOUR INFORMATION
Commercial Email Messages and Third Party Marketing
You may be able to opt in to receiving promotional emails from us. If you opt in, you may later opt out of receiving these promotional e-mails by clicking on an opt-out or “unsubscribe” link within the promotional e-mail you receive. Penguin also might offer you opportunities on the Site where you can opt out of receiving promotional emails or having your information shared with third parties for direct marketing purposes. Please note that if you use these Site-based opt-out methods, it may be necessary for you to opt out on more than one Penguin site in order to avoid receiving all promotional email messages from Penguin. Please note that opt-out requests may take up to 10 days to be effective. Your request not to receive unsolicited commercial emails from us will not apply to messages that you request or that are not commercial in nature. For example, we may contact you concerning any purchases you have made with us, even if you opt out of receiving unsolicited commercial messages.
Your California Privacy Rights
If you are a California resident and request information about how to exercise your third-party disclosure choices, you must send a request to the following address with a preference on how our response to your request should be sent (e-mail or postal mail). You may contact us in two ways. Send e-mail to privacy.online@us.penguingroup.com, with the statement “California Residents’ Privacy Rights” in the subject field of your e-mail. Alternatively, you may contact Penguin at:
Penguin Group (USA)
375 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
Attn: California RESIDENTS’ Privacy Rights c/o Legal Department
For offline requests, please include your name, postal address, city, state, and zip code. We will not accept requests via telephone or facsimile.
DO NOT TRACK PRACTICES
As of the date of this privacy policy listed above, we cannot honor web browser “do-not-track” signals because we use third party vendors who do not honor such signals. While we collect personally identifiable information from you as described earlier in this privacy policy, we do not collect personally identifiable information from you to monitor your online activities across third party websites or online services and over time (also known as behavioral advertising or interest-based advertising). We do not use or allow third parties to collect personally identifiable information from you on the Sites in order to monitor your online activities across third party websites or online services and over time (also known as behavioral advertising or interest-based advertising). For more information about behavioral advertising or interest-based advertising and for further information on how to opt out from such advertising (and what “opting-out” does and doesn’t do), click www.networkadvertising.org/choices
CHILDREN’S PRIVACY
Penguin respects the privacy of children and we are committed to complying with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). This Site does not knowingly collect, use, or disclose personal information from children under the age of 13 without prior parental consent, except as permitted by COPPA. By providing your consent, you agree that we may collect, use, and disclose your child’s personal information consistent with this Privacy Policy.
If you have questions concerning our information practices with respect to children, or if you would like to review, have deleted, or stop the further collection of your child’s personal information in connection with the transaction for which it was originally collected, you may email us at privacy.online@us.penguingroup.com.
Please note that the Site may link to other websites and online services operated by third parties, including authors whose books we publish. These websites and applications operate independently from us, and we do not control their privacy practices. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party sites or applications to which your child provides personal information. For tips on protecting your child’s privacy online, please see the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s brochure on this topic: www.onguardonline.gov
SECURITY
We maintain reasonable security procedures to help protect against loss, misuse or unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or destruction of the information you provide through the Site. However, no data transmission over the Internet or stored on a server can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your information and privacy, we cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information you disclose or transmit to us online and cannot be responsible for the theft, destruction, or inadvertent disclosure of your information. In the event that we believe that the security of your information may have been compromised, we will endeavor to give you appropriate notice as quickly as possible, including by email. You consent to our use of e-mail for such notification.
You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account password and for any access to or use of the Site via your password, whether or not authorized by you. Please notify us of any unauthorized use of your password or account or any other breach of security.
NON-U.S. USERS
By using this Site, you consent to the collection, storage, processing, and transfer of your information in and to the United States, or other countries and territories, pursuant to the laws of the United States.
THIRD PARTY WEBSITES
The Site may link to other websites and online services operated by third parties. These websites and applications operate independently from us, and we do not control their privacy practices. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party sites or applications to which you provide information. Likewise, other than our service providers (which operate under contract with us), we do not control the privacy practices of any third parties with which we share information as described in this Privacy Policy.
CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time. Such changes will be effective immediately upon posting to this Site. Your continued use of this Site after any modification to the Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such modification. If we make any material revisions to this Privacy Policy, we will provide prominent notice by additional reasonable means.
CONTACT US
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you may contact us as follows:
By mail:
Privacy Online
Attn: Consumer Engagement Group
Penguin Group (USA) LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
Phone:
(800) 631-8571
Email:
privacy.online@us.penguingroup.com
Effective Date: December 20, 2013