Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds Privacy Policy/Your California Privacy Rights
I. Introduction
The Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds is a group of Nickelodeon Kids and Family websites where the entire family can come and have online fun together. This Privacy Policy is to inform you what information the group of websites that comprise the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds collects from its users, how it is used and stored and your choices.
The privacy of all of our visitors is important to us. And, we recognize the need to provide additional privacy protection for children and younger visitors. For instance, we take efforts to prevent our younger users from posting any personal contact information through our Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds. We also do not ask users to disclose more personal information than is reasonably necessary for them to participate in the particular activity offered on the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds. We are committed to complying fully with the United States' Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, as well as data privacy laws in other applicable countries. Children and teenagers should check with their parents/guardians before entering information on any website. We also encourage parents/guardians to discuss with their children and teenagers family guidelines regarding the online release of personal information to anyone online.
Please be aware that by providing us with personal information, (1) you understand and agree that, due to our international operations, your personal information may be transferred and stored on servers located outside your resident jurisdiction and (2) to the extent you are a resident of a country other than the United States, you consent to the transfer of such data to the United States for processing in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you do not consent to the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds, and, if you have already provided personal information, please contact us about how you would like us to handle such information. See Section V(B) below for more information about how to contact us.
II. Information Collection and Use
A. Registration Information: To register, we require users to provide certain information, such as: (a) birth date; (b) gender; (c) country; (d) state (where applicable); and (e) email address except for visitors who self-identify as children who are asked to provide their parent's or guardian's email address. For certain countries, users or their parents will receive an activation email and must agree to the terms within the activation email be activating the account within a certain time period; if the account is not activated within that time period, the account will be erased. When a child provides a parent's or guardian's email address during the registration process that email address is not stored in a retrievable form in our system. After sending a one-time introductory and/or activation email, if the email is stored, we "hash" the email address, a process whereby it is translated into a long string of letters and numbers that don't identify the user and can only be used by the user to, for example, ensure that the account limit is not exceeded or to help retrieve forgotten passwords. In addition, parents/guardians may at any time review any identifiable information collected about their child (see Section V(A) below for more information about parental access).
We use registration information to enable you to take advantage of site offerings, respond to your requests, for game management purposes, to serve appropriate material and to provide you with opportunities to learn of additional products or services that we believe may be of interest to you.
We may combine information we collect through the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds sites with information we collect from other sources (e.g., offline records or publicly available information) to further tailor our products, programs and services.
B. Computer Information: When visitors come to our site, we also collect some "computer" information, such as the type of computer operating system (e.g., Windows XP or Mac OS), the visitor's "IP Address", the web browser (e.g., Netscape, Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome and Firefox) being used, information collected through the use of unique identifiers such as cookies (see below) and information regarding the Internet service provider ("Computer Information").
Unique identifiers such as cookies (which may be html files, Flash files, or other technology), web beacons, or similar technologies (collectively referred to as “Tracking Technologies”) are used to help tailor our content, allow users to move between associated websites without logging into each site, and other purposes related to our management of the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds. Cookies are small text files stored locally on your machine that help store user preferences. "Web beacons" or "clear gifs" are small pieces of code placed on websites used to collect advertising metrics, such as counting page views, promotion views, or advertising responses.
We may use Tracking Technologies to understand site and Internet usage and to improve or customize the content, offerings or advertisements on Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds. For example, we may use cookies to personalize your experience on the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds (e.g., to recognize you by name when you return to a site), save your password in password-protected areas, save your online game or video player settings, and enable you to use shopping carts on the site. We also may use cookies to help us offer you products, programs, or services that may be of interest to you and to deliver relevant advertising. By agreeing to this Privacy Policy, you are consenting to the use of Tracking Technologies as set forth in this Policy.
In many internet browsers, you can choose to delete, disable, turn off or reject most Tracking Technologies through the “Internet Options” sub-option of the “Tools” menu option of your browser or otherwise as directed by your browser’s support feature. Additional information on deleting, disabling, rejecting or turning off Tracking Technologies may be available through your browser’s support feature. Please consult the "Help" section of your browser for more information.
For more information about Flash cookies and how to remove them from your computer, please visit http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/526/52697ee8.html or http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/articles/lso/.
Please know that certain areas and features of Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds only can be accessed in conjunction with cookies or similar devices and you should be aware that disabling cookies or similar devices might prevent you from accessing some of our content.
Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds may additionally use a variety of third party advertising networks, data exchanges, traffic measurement service providers, marketing analytics service providers and other third parties (collectively, “Third Party Advertising Service Providers”) to, for example, serve advertisements on Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds, facilitate targeting of advertisements and/or measure and analyze advertising effectiveness and/or traffic on Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds (“Targeting Services”). These Third Party Advertising Service Providers may enable us to display advertisements based on your visits to Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds and other websites you have visited. Targeting Services enable us to, among other things, help deliver advertisements or other content to you for products and services that you might be interested in, to prevent you from seeing the same advertisements too many times and to conduct research regarding the usefulness of certain advertisements to you.
Although these Third Party Advertising Service Providers do not have access to Tracking Technologies set by Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds, the Third Party Advertising Service Providers, as well as advertisers, may themselves set and access their own Tracking Technologies and/or they may otherwise have access to information about you.
You should be aware that different rules might apply to the collection, use or disclosure of your information by third parties in connection with their advertisements, promotions and other websites you encounter on the Internet. The use of such technology by these third parties is within their control and not ours. Even if we have a relationship with the third party, we do not control those sites or their policies and practices regarding your information. This Privacy Policy does not cover any use of information that a Third Party Advertising Service Providers or advertiser may collect from you. We encourage you to investigate and ask questions directly of them in this regard. Use of a third party’s Tracking Technology is subject to their own privacy policies. For more information about these third party servers and how to "opt out" of the ad-serving cookie, please click here.
With respect to the serving of ads by DoubleClick to you, please visit http://www.doubleclick.com/us/about_doubleclick/privacy for your options and for further information on renewing your opt-outs or opting-out again if you subsequently delete the Tracking Technologies.
For information on how to manage or opt-out of Tracking Technologies set by Third Party Advertising Service Providers used by Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds in addition to DoubleClick, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp for your options and for further information on renewing your opt-outs or opting-out again if you subsequently delete the Tracking Technologies.
This Site adheres to the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising. Click here for more information about this Site and online behavioral advertising.
Log data collected on web servers supplies us with aggregate information about the number of visits to different pages on our site. We use such aggregate information to improve access to our content based on our visitors' browsers and operating system types to make our content available to as many users as possible. We do not link the "log data" collected to personally identifiable information submitted by users when participating in our activities. Third Party Advertising Service Providers may also collect aggregate log data independently from Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds.C. Contests and Sweepstakes:
The Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds may offer online contests and sweepstakes, which may be entered online. To participate in a contest or sweepstakes, a visitor may be asked to provide their first names and email addresses and/or additional information required for the management of the contest or sweepstakes. For certain contests or sweepstakes, if the visitor who wishes to enter the contest self identifies as a child, we also ask for the email address of the child's parent or guardian to inform them of their child's entry and give them the option to have the child's entry deleted.
D. Electronic Postcards and Messages:
Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds may provide users the opportunity to send electronic postcards to family or friends. Also, Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds may feature information about products that users we believe are interested in and from time to time will send, on behalf of users who request it, email messages to family and/or friends to let family and/or friends share their interest. In some cases, we may offer user an incentive (e.g., points to be used in an online game) for referring information about products to a user's family and/or friends. Please note that this feature may not be available to users who access the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds from some countries. We may ask for the user's first name, but we do not require users to submit personally identifiable information about them in order to use the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds to send email messages to family or friends. We do, however, ask users to submit the email address of the recipient of such electronic postcards or email messages. If a user sends an electronic postcard or email message to family or friends, the email addresses of the friends or family are only used to send the requested postcard or email message and are deleted from our system once the postcard or message is sent. We may collect email addresses where users send email to us (e.g., through a contact link or when requesting information about our products, services or offerings).
E. Electronic Newsletters:
At the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds, visitors can provide their email addresses to receive email newsletters and promotions from the Nickelodeon family of companies, including MTV Networks, and our business partners consistent with their preferences. If, at any time after sign up, users wish to change their preferences regarding emails, they can follow the unsubscribe link in the newsletters or log into their account and update your preferences accordingly. [For more information regarding Your Choices, see Section III below.]
When users who self identify as children ask to receive our email newsletter(s), the child is asked to provide his or her first name, email address and the email address of his or her parent/guardian. We send the child's parent/guardian a notification email informing him or her of the child's request to receive by email the newsletter on an ongoing basis and give the parent/guardian the option to have his or her child's information removed from our newsletter database. At any time after receiving this notification email, the child's parent/guardian has the opportunity to request that we stop sending the child the newsletter(s) and have the child's information removed from our newsletter database by following the "unsubscribe" instructions found in either their initial notification email or at the end of any of the newsletter emails. In addition, parents/guardians may at any time review any identifiable information collected online about their child. When a child provides a parent's/guardian's email address when signing up for newsletter(s), that email address is used to send the notification email message and is deleted from our system once the email is sent.
F. Financial Information:
i. Arcades:
When customers make purchases at any of the game arcades available through the respective websites that comprise the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds ( e.g., games from "Nick Arcade"), they may be required to provide information to process the order including their full name, billing and/or shipping addresses, billing address, email address, credit card number, control payment number, PIN, card security code, expiration date and/or a phone number. After successfully entering a valid credit card number/expiration date and completing the order process, an account is created. We use this information to process the customer's order and to send order confirmations via email, as well as send information about products and services in which they may be interested. If you make purchases using our pre-paid card, we will not require you to enter any personally identifiable information in order to complete your purchase.
We may also enable customers to send to family and friends "wish lists" of items they want, as well as offer opportunities to send gifts. For wish lists, we ask customers to provide us with their family member or friend's first name and email address. For gifts, we may collect name, contact and shipping information of gift recipients. We use this information to send the gift recipient the item(s) the customer has requested their family or friend receive. During the checkout process, customers are provided the opportunity to receive newsletters and promotions from Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds. To be removed from the contact list at any time, customers can elect to unsubscribe in the next email they receive from Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds.
ii. Consumer Products:
Certain Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds sites may provide pages whereby users may purchase consumer products (the "Shops") where they may be requested to provide contact, shipping, billing and credit information. These pages may be hosted and operated by a third party that is independent and separate from Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds sites. This third party collects personal information about shop users and shares this information with us. At these pages, we encourage you to review the posted privacy policies which govern their use of your information as well, as they may be different than ours.
iii. Virtual Items/Memberships
Certain of the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds sites may offer memberships, online subscriptions and/or virtual items for license in conjunction with the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds' games. When you enter into a transaction for a membership, subscription, virtual item or similar transaction, you may be asked to provide the credit card and/or billing information and email address. We will use this information to fulfill your requests for the virtual items or membership, as well as to inform you about additional products or service opportunities. Please also see the information regarding payment processors in Section III(B) below.
A. Law Enforcement and Safety
You acknowledge, consent, and agree to the extent legally permissible in a jurisdiction that we may access, preserve, and/or disclose the information we collect pursuant to Section II or other information and/or content (e.g., information you may have posted on the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds' bulletin boards) to a law enforcement agency or another third party if required to do so by law or in a good faith belief that such access, preservation, or disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (a) comply with legal process; (b) enforce the Terms of Use; (c) respond to claims that any content violates the rights of third parties; (d) respond to your requests for customer service; or (e) protect the rights, property, or personal safety of the owners of the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds, any user of any of the websites that comprise the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds, and the public. We also may disclose user information whenever we believe disclosure is necessary to limit our legal liability; to protect or defend our rights or property; or protect the safety, rights, or property of our visitors or others.
If you have concerns about the conduct of a particular user, please send an e-mail to support@nickelodeonworlds.com. This email is not to contact support about the status of your account. To learn more about Safe Online Practices, please click here: http://www.neopets.com/safetytips.phtml.
B. Agents
The information collected at the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds may be transferred, disclosed or shared with third parties who are engaged by us specifically to handle and deliver certain activities (e.g., message boards, sweepstakes and contests, e-cards, payment processing, newsletters, advisory board, etc.) and perform other technical and processing functions (e.g., sending postal mail and email, removing repetitive information from registration lists, programming, providing user services to our users or otherwise operating any one websites that comprise the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds). They may have access to information collected in Section II as needed to perform their functions such as handle and manage fulfillment, processing payment and customer service, but they may not use it for other purposes and have agreed to maintain the confidentiality of such information. Some of these agents, such a payment processors, may request additional information during the course of offering their services. We encourage users to review the privacy policies and information collection practices of those agents.
C. Third Parties/Advertisers
From time to time, we may partner with outside third parties to provide you with additional content, products, or services that we believe may be of interest. For example, we may partner with a greeting card company, software manufacturer, or telephone provider to offer you electronic cards, games, or telephone messaging. These partners operate websites that are separate and independent from the websites that comprise the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds and, accordingly, have or follow their own privacy policies. If you choose to "opt-in" (click on a box to receive a third party's information), to register with one of our partners, or you choose not to "opt-out" (uncheck a checked box that will provide a partner with your information), that means you grant the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds permission to give your registration and other information, including e-mail address, to that third party. If you are located in the EU, we will not share your email address or other personal information with third parties for advertising purposes unless you have "opted-in."
In addition, our third party advertising service providers may use aggregate, non-personally identifiable information about your visit to the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds and other sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services that may be of interest to you. You may also get cookies from our advertisers. The use of these technologies by these third parties is subject to their own privacy policies and is not covered by this privacy statement. The use of these technologies by these third parties is subject to their own privacy policies and is not covered by this privacy statement. For more information about third-party ad servers and to exercise your choices regarding their practices, please click here www.networkadvertising.org.
For more information on our use of third party advertisers and the self-regulation principles, please go here: http://srp.mtvn.com/sitefaq.html.
D. Business Transfer
In the event that assets relating to one or more of the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds are transferred or sold to another entity, information collecting at the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds may be transferred to the acquiring company.
IV. Your Choices Regarding Special Offer and Promotions
Consistent with your preferences, we also may use information collected at the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds for the following purposes:
· Notification regarding special offers and promotions from companies within the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds, the Nickelodeon family of companies and on behalf of selected third parties in the fields of entertainment, consumer products and other offers of interest;
· Sharing information with non-affiliated companies in the fields of entertainment, consumer products and other fields of interest to our audience so they may offer products or services to you.
Receiving marketing communications is voluntary. If at any time you wish to change your marketing preferences or opt out entirely from receiving further marketing information from us, you can log into your account if you have registered at one of our Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds, follow the unsubscribe instructions in our e-mail communications, or contact us at privacy@nickelodeonworlds.com or abuse@viacom.com.
The Site is designed and targeted to U.S. audiences and is governed by and operated in accordance with the laws of the U.S. We make no representation that this Site is operated in accordance with the laws or regulations of, or governed by, other nations. By participating in our Site activities, you certify that you meet the age and other eligibility requirements for this Site as set forth in our Terms of Use Agreement. If you do not meet the age and other eligibility requirements, please discontinue using the Site immediately as your continued use of the Site indicates that you are agreeing to the collection, use, disclosure, management and storage of your Information as described in this Privacy Policy.
Please be advised that your personal information may be transferred to and processed by our affiliates in the United States. These affiliates comply with the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor. Please see the Safe Harbor Privacy Policy http://www.viacom.com/privacypolicy/Documents/VIACOM-610657-v1-Safe_Harbor_Policy.pdf for detailed information on these affiliates' privacy practices.
Information collected at the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds sites will not be stored for longer than is necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, or to otherwise meet legal requirements.
VII. Accessing and Correcting Information
A. Reviewing Your Information
You have the right to access, update and correct factual inaccuracies in personally identifiable information that we collect online at our Sites, subject to certain exceptions. To do so, you should log into your account or you may e-mail us at privacy@nickelodeonworlds.com. To protect your privacy and the security of your personally identifiable information, we will take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access.
B. Parental Access
Parents/guardians can print out and mail or fax us a signed form that allows them to review any identifiable information collected about their child, have this information deleted, and/or request that there be no further collection or use of their child's information You can download the form here. We will take steps to verify the identity of anyone requesting information about a child and to ensure that the person is in fact the child's parent or legal guardian.
We have take appropriate technical and organizational steps to ensure that information collected in the future is secure, including limiting the number of people who have physical access to our database servers as well as electronic security systems and password protections which guard against unauthorized access. We also take reasonable steps to make sure our third party agents also protect the security of your personal information.
All of the websites that comprise the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds offer you and your child an online safety guide which we encourage you to use as an entrée into discussing safety and privacy concerns with your child. The various guides are available here:
http://www.neopets.com/safetytips.phtml
The websites that comprise the Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds may contain links to other sites, including those of sponsors, advertisers and survey companies. These other websites are governed by their own privacy policies or information collection practices, which may be substantially different from ours. We encourage visitors to other websites to review the privacy policies and information collection practices of those websites.
X. Your California Privacy Rights
California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits our visitors who
are California residents to request certain information regarding its
disclosure of
personal information to third parties for their direct marketing
purposes. To make such a request, please send an email to or write us:
privacy@nickelodeonworlds.com
email, or you may contact us via regular mail at:
Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds Group
P.O. Box 4687
Glendale, CA. 91222-0687
Attn: Your California Privacy Rights
c/o Privacy Administrator
This Privacy Policy was last updated on September 14, 2010. In interpreting this Agreement, the English version governs the interpretation and meaning of the obligation set forth herein. To the extent there is an ambiguity or conflict with the Agreement in other languages, the Agreement in English governs.