Web service privacy policy

This privacy policy explains how Mollom BVBA ("we") processes your personal data. Please read it carefully, as it specifies which rights you have and how you can exercise your rights.

Our web service – We operate a web service that tries to determine the quality of messages posted to a website, and particularly tries to determine whether these messages are to be considered as unsolicited messages (also called "spam"). Nowadays, websites that allow visitors to contribute or post comments (such as blogs, discussion forums, wikis, etc.) are flooded with inappropriate commercial messages that are distracting for all visitors, and are sometimes even highly illegal. These commercial messages are often uploaded in an automatic way. Our service screens messages before they are posted to the website.

How it works – When you post a message on a website that uses our service (called "the website" in the remainder of this text), the website's server will first send your message – as well as some information about your identity (such as your IP address, name or nickname, e-mail address and OpenID) – to our server. Our server will then compare your message and your identity details with all elements in our database, and perform several complex statistical computations in order to assess the quality of your message (e.g., spam, abuse, etc.).

If our server then determines that the content of your message is of insufficient quality or constitutes spam or abuse, it will inform the website thereof. The website server may then decide to reject your message, or to provide you with an additional question to find out whether you are in fact a human being, and not a machine trying to send out as much commercial communications as possible. Also, in case the server is uncertain about the quality of the message, it may forward your message to a human moderator who will assess the quality of your message and act accordingly. Please note that it is sometimes possible that our server or moderators wrongfully determine the actual quality of the content of your message, or wrongfully consider your message as spam or abuse.

What we store about you – We store all information provided to us by the website. This will include, in particular, the following personal data about you (to the extent effectively provided to us by the website): the content of your message, your name or nickname, IP address, user ID, OpenID, e-mail address, URL of your website, and the date and time you post a message.

How long we store this data – Your data is stored in our databases for at most two months. After this period of two months, we can continue to store your data in anonymized way for a period of two years.

How we use your personal data – We use your personal data to assess the quality of your message, and to find out whether your message constitutes spam, by comparing your data with all other data of all other users in our databases. Afterwards, we also use your personal data to make similar assessments for all other websites that use our service, as the more information we store in our database, the better we can assess whether a message is genuine.

While we sometimes provide statistical information (trends, numbers, etc.) generated from our databases to third parties, please rest assured that you cannot be identified on the basis of this statistical information.

Note that we hate spam as much as you do – in fact, our service is specifically targeted at removing spam. So, we will never provide your email address to third parties, and we will never send any spam ourselves to you. In most cases, we will not even be aware of your e-mail address.

Also note that we can provide access to your personal data in case of illegal or abusive use, or in case we receive orders from a competent legal authority.

How we protect you – We are bound by the strict rules of Belgian and European data protection legislation, which prevents us from making unlawful use of your personal data. Please note that the website's operator may be bound by other rules, depending on his jurisdiction.

Your rights – You have the right to gain access to, correct and/or remove all personal data we store about you on our servers. All this is provided to you free of charge. In order to exercise your rights, please contact us.

Revision – From time to time, we change our products and services which may require us to update our privacy policy accordingly. Your continued use of the website using our service following the posting of any changes to this privay policy means you accept such changes. This policy was last updated on June, 19th 2013.

Summary

  • We process your personal data on the request of, and for the purposes of, the website you try to contribute to.
  • We are bound by the strict rules of Belgian and European data protection. We take all appropriate means to protect your data against unauthorised access and damaging.
  • We screen your message and identity (name, nickname, IP address, user ID, OpenID, email address and URL of your website) by making comparisons with other elements in our database, to determine the quality of the content of your message and to find out whether your message is spam.
  • Your message may be rejected by our service, and may subsequently also be rejected by the website you want to contribute to.
  • We store the content of your messages and other information about your identity during a period of two months. Afterwards, we store the same information in anonymized form for a period of two years, in order to provide our service to other websites.
  • We hate spam as much as you do. We will never provide your email address to third parties, or send spam ourselves.
  • We sometimes provide anonymous (statistical) information to third parties.
  • We can provide access to your personal data in case of illegal use, or when we receive orders from legal authorities.
  • You can gain access to, correct and/or remove all personal data we store about you – free of charge – by contacting us.