Information Collected From or About You
What kinds of information does Hulu collect from or about me and my activities?
Generally speaking, we may collect the following information from or about you and your activities when you use the Hulu Services:
- information you give us, including your name, email address, birth date, gender, and -if you subscribe to Hulu Plus - your credit card information;
- information automatically collected when you use the Hulu Services, such as your location, your activity on the Hulu Services, and information collected via cookies, web beacons, or other technologies;
- information from other commercially available sources, such as data aggregators and public databases, or our business partners, which may include your interests, purchasing behavior and your activities online, such as websites visited and advertisements viewed; and
- if you connect your social networking account with your Hulu account, information from your social networking account as described below.
We may combine all of the information we collect from or about you and use it in the manner described in this Privacy Policy.
Are there other parties collecting information from or about me that I should be aware of while using the Hulu Services?
- Service Providers. Companies that provide services to us - including companies that assist with payment processing, website, user, and business analytics, data processing, account management, advertising, and other services - may collect information on the Hulu Services. However, our agreements with these service providers limit the types of information these companies collect, how they may collect it, and how they may use it.
- Other Websites and Platforms. The Hulu Services may be provided through Internet websites or other platforms operated by other companies. For example, you can access the Hulu Services currently on our partners’ websites and using Internet connected devices such as your Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Roku Streaming Player, iPad or iPhone. Websites and platforms like these may be co-branded with our name or logo, but they are not operated or maintained by us, and we are not responsible for the privacy practices of the websites or platforms operated by third parties. If you are using the Hulu Services on another website or platform, you should check the privacy policy of the other website or platform to determine how it handles any information it collects from or about you.
- Social Networking Services. You can use the Hulu Services with social networking services, such as Facebook and connect your Hulu account with your social networking account. With your consent, Hulu may send information about you to these services, including information about your use of the Hulu Services. Social networking services also may collect certain technical information about you, such as the IP address of the device you are using to access the Hulu Services and the URL of the page you are viewing. For more information about how Hulu works with social networking services such as Facebook, please click here.
- Advertisers. Hulu places advertisements both on and off the Hulu Services and also carries advertisements from other companies, often with the ability to click through to websites or properties run by these other companies. Companies that help deliver these ads (including ad networks), and advertisers themselves, may use cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to collect information about your use of the Hulu Services in order to deliver advertisements to you, measure their effectiveness, and personalize advertising content. For more information about third-party advertising and Hulu, please click here.
How We Use This Information
How does Hulu use information it collects from or about me?
- Payment Information. We only use payment information, such as credit card numbers, as necessary for completing a particular transaction or fulfilling a service (for example, processing payments from our Hulu Plus subscribers) and to prevent abuse of the Hulu Services.
- Other Information. We use the other information we collect from or about you in order to establish and enhance our relationship with you and to help deliver a first-class user experience. Hulu's use of this information includes the following general purposes: contacting you; customizing the content and advertising you view; fulfilling your requests for products or services; identifying content you share when you use the Hulu Services; improving our services; conducting research; compiling aggregate data for internal and external business purposes; preventing potentially illegal activities; protecting our rights; other uses in accordance with our Terms of Use; and for any other purpose disclosed to you at the time we collect your information.
- Promotional Communications. We may use your information to:
- provide you with promotional information about Hulu's features, services, and other offerings that may be of interest to you; or
- provide information or offers to you that are related to the Hulu Services on behalf of Hulu's business partners.
Information about your choices regarding promotional communications you receive from Hulu are described in the “
Your Choices” section of this Privacy Policy.
- Recommendations and Advertising. We (and service providers acting on our behalf) may use information about you, including your use of Hulu, to provide recommendations and advertisements on the Hulu Services and elsewhere on the web.
How We Share This Information
With whom does Hulu share the information it collects from or about me?
- Other Hulu Users. The Hulu Services include social features that let you interact with other people who use them. Information that you voluntarily make public on the Hulu Services will be shared with other Hulu users. For example, if your Hulu username includes your real name, when you post a comment it will be associated with your real name. You can control the sharing of certain information contained in your Hulu profile or about your activities on the Hulu Services with others on the Privacy and Settings page.
- Business Partners. Except when they are acting on our behalf or when you have provided your information as part of a co-branded promotion, we will obtain your consent before we share your contact information with advertisers, business partners, or other entities that are not affiliated with Hulu so that they may send you promotional information about their products and services directly.
- Social Networking Services. You can use the Hulu Services on other social networking services such as Facebook, and connect your Hulu account with your social networking account. With your consent, Hulu may send information about you to these social networking services, including information about the videos you watch and your activities on the Hulu Services. For more information about how Hulu works with social networking services such as Facebook, please click here.
- Service Providers. We may also share your information with companies that provide services to us, including companies that assist with payment processing, website, user, and business analytics, data processing, account management, advertising, and other services. Similarly, we may share your information with other people or entities in order to provide goods or services that you have requested or to complete a transaction at your request. We may also enter into agreements with outside companies that possess the technology that allows us to customize the advertising and marketing messages you receive while using the Hulu Services. Your information, including clickstream data about your use of the Hulu Services and other online activities, may be shared with these companies so this customization can be accomplished. However, our agreements with these service providers limit the types of information these companies collect, how they may collect it, and how they may use it.
- Other Parties When Required By Law or When Necessary to Protect Your Rights or Ours. There may be instances when we may disclose your information without providing you with a choice in order to protect the legal rights of Hulu or its affiliates, and each of their respective investors, directors, officers, employees, agents, and suppliers; to protect the safety and security of users of the Hulu Services or to enforce our Terms of Use; to protect against fraud or for risk management purposes; or to comply with or respond to the law or legal process or a request for cooperation by a government entity, whether or not legally required. If you notify us that you believe your legal rights have been violated by Hulu or another user of the Hulu Services, we may provide the information that you provide to us to others to the extent that we believe it is necessary to evaluate and respond to your complaint. For instance, if you submit a notice of copyright infringement to us, we may send a copy to the person or entity who uploaded, stored, or transmitted the material addressed by the communication.
- Other Parties In Connection With a Transfer of Assets. If we sell all or part of our business, or make a sale or transfer of assets, or are otherwise involved in a merger or business transfer, or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy, we may transfer your information to one or more third parties as part of that transaction.
- Other Parties With Your Consent. In addition to the sharing described in this Privacy Policy, and only with your consent, we may share personally identifiable information about you, for example, your name, address, telephone number, or email address, with other parties.
How does Hulu use and share aggregate or non-personally identifiable information?
- In addition to the specific data use and sharing practices described in this Privacy Policy, we may use or share information collected through the Hulu Service for other purposes in aggregated or non-personally identifiable ways. This means that we will combine information about individuals together, or otherwise anonymize the information, so that no individual person is identifiable.
- We may use information in these forms for a variety of purposes, including for research or analysis, website administration, advertising, and promotional purposes. We also may share it with various affiliated and unaffiliated entities. For example, we may share aggregate information with advertisers about the volume of use on the Hulu Services, the specific Hulu videos in which users are most interested, and the effectiveness of advertisements viewed on the Hulu Services (as measured by the number of users who clicked on a particular advertisement). Also, we use independent third parties to help measure viewing of our content, and these third parties may report statistics about viewing in an aggregate or other non-personally identifiable form.
Do I have choices about Hulu's use and sharing of the information it collects from or about me?
You have choices about our use and sharing of certain information that we collect from or about you.
- Other Hulu Users. Hulu’s Privacy and Settings page gives you the option to control how certain information in your profile (other than your first and last name) and your activities are shared when you use the Hulu Services. Please note that when you choose to connect your Hulu account with a social networking account such as Facebook you may choose to share your information and activities with other users of Hulu and that particular social network. You can change your privacy settings at any time on the Privacy and Settings page.
- Business Partners: Except as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy, we will obtain your consent before we share your contact information with advertisers, business partners, or other entities not affiliated with Hulu so that they may send you promotional emails. We also may offer co-branded promotions with these business partners. If you request information about or otherwise interact with one of these promotions (such as by entering a contest), we may share your contact information with the business partners identified in the promotion.
- Social Networking Services. Hulu’s Privacy and Settings page allows you to control whether your profile information (other than your first and last name) and your activities on the Hulu Services are published to other social networks such as Facebook.
- Hulu’s Use of Your Information to Send You Promotional Materials. By visiting the Privacy and Settings page, you may opt out of receiving alerts or email updates from Hulu promoting our site or the products or services of our business partners, or notices about your queues or subscribed content. We updated these settings on November 19, 2010. If you affirmatively instructed us not to send you promotional materials prior to that date, we maintained that preference following the change. But if you didn’t give us an affirmative instruction and want to change your preference, you can do so on the Privacy and Settings page. Regardless of your choices with respect to promotional communications and updates regarding content, we may send you administrative messages, service announcements, terms and conditions of your account, or other similar communications, without offering you the opportunity to opt out of receiving them.
- Terminating Your Hulu Account. You may terminate your Hulu account, in accordance with our Terms of Use, via the link accessible on the Account page, or here. Hulu Plus subscribers should review our Terms of Use for our policies on cancellations and refunds. Please note that, if you terminate your account, we may retain some information about you.
Security, Kids, and Other Information
How does Hulu protect the information it collects from or about me?
We use reasonable physical, technical, and administrative measures to safeguard information in our possession against loss, theft and unauthorized use, disclosure, or modification. For example, passwords and other sensitive information are encrypted in transit. We also take steps to ensure that only those Hulu employees, agents, and contractors who have a legitimate business reason to obtain access to your information are granted access.
When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card information on our order forms), we encrypt that information using secure sockets layer technology (SSL), an industry standard protocol for billing transmission in order to help protect the financial information you send us.
Despite these efforts, please note that no data transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. We want you to feel confident using the Hulu Services but we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us. Please refer to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's website for information on how to protect yourself from identity theft.
Does Hulu collect information from children under the age of 13?
Hulu prohibits registration or subscription by, and will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from, anyone under 13 years of age.
Hulu is an online video service based in the U.S., and our offices are headquartered in the U.S. Please be aware that information you provide to us or that we obtain as a result of your use of the Hulu Services may be processed and transferred to the U.S. and be subject to U.S. law. The privacy and data protection laws in the U.S. may not be equivalent to such laws in your country of residence. By using our website, participating in any of the Hulu Services, or by providing us with your information, you consent to this collection, transfer, storage, and processing of information to and in the U.S.