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The Huffington Post, a wholly-owned subsidiary of AOL Inc., which owns and operates the website www.huffingtonpost.com (the "Site"), takes your privacy very seriously. This privacy policy is intended to inform you about the information that is collected from you when you visit the Site; how this information may be used and disclosed; how you can control the use and disclosure of your information; and how your information is protected. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, please contact our privacy team at privacy@huffingtonpost.com.
This privacy policy applies only to the Site. This policy does not apply to information collected through any other website or to the practices of companies that the Huffington Post does not control. Please note that the Site may contain links to other websites. For example, if you click on an advertisement on the Site and link to another website, then this privacy policy will not apply to any information collected on that website. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other websites, and we recommend that you read the privacy policies of each website that you visit.
Information you provide directly to us:
You are not required to provide information directly to us in order to view the Site. However, when you use certain Site functions, such as when you register for certain services, access certain content or features, or directly contact the Site, we may ask you to provide information, including:
Information automatically collected when you visit and interact with the Site:
When you visit and interact with the Site, certain information may be collected automatically, including:
Information we collect from other sources:
We may access information about you from third-party sources and platforms (such as social networking sites, databases, online marketing firms, and ad targeting firms), including:
Please note that the Site may combine the information that we collect with information we obtain from third-party sources.
Email Communications:
We may use the information that we collect to send you e-mail communications, such as editorial updates, information about your account or changes to the Site, and promotional messages about our own or our marketing partners' products and services. If you signed up for one of our email newsletters, we also will send you the newsletter that you requested.
Mobile Communications:
With your consent, we may use your mobile number to send you promotions, notifications, or other services.
Advertising:
In order to provide our readers with free access to our content, we display advertisements on the Site, many of which are targeted based on information about you. For example, using information collected through cookies, web beacons, and other sources, we may use demographic data or information about your online activities or interests to display targeted advertising that may be relevant to your preferences. Through this process, advertisers reach Site visitors who are most interested in their products, and you see advertising for products or services in which you may be interested. For more information on how cookies and other technologies work, please see our discussion of cookies and other technologies.
Third-party advertisers and advertising platforms also may serve targeted ads on the Site. For more information, please see our section on third party advertising. Please remember that the information practices of third-party advertisers or platforms collecting data on our site are not covered by this privacy policy.
User Accounts:
To provide you with an open,
but also civil, discussion forum, we track user involvement in our community
discussions. For example, we keep track of the ratio of how many flagged
comments are eventually deleted in order to award badges to our most
effective comment moderators. For more information on this process,
please see our FAQ
section about comment
moderation guidelines.
Request Fulfillment:
We may use the information that we collect to fulfill your requests for products, services, and information. For example, we may use your contact information to respond to your customer service requests or to enable you to participate in features on the Site such as surveys, polls, sweepstakes, and message boards.
Statistical Analysis:
In order to learn more about
how our Site is used, we aggregate and analyze the data that we collect.
We may use this information, for example, to monitor and analyze use
of the Site, to increase our Site's functionality, and to better tailor
our content and design to suit our visitors' needs.
Enforcement:
We may use the information
that we collect to prevent illegal activities, to enforce the Site's Terms and Conditions, and to otherwise protect our rights
and the rights of our users.
In addition to the uses identified above, we may use the information that we collect for any other purposes disclosed to you at the time we collect your information or pursuant to your consent.
The Huffington Post values your privacy, and shares information about our users only under certain circumstances. We will make information about you available to other companies, applications, or people in the circumstances listed below:
Please note that third parties may independently collect data about you, including your IP address and information about the websites you visit and the links you click, through cookies, clicks on links, or other means when you visit or view ads on the Site. For more information, see our section on cookies and other technologies and third party advertising.
To customize your experience on the Site and to simplify the Site's registration process, we provide you with the opportunity to access or interact with third-party services, such as Facebook and Twitter. When you connect to the Site through these third-party services, we may share information about you with these third-party service providers and they may share data about you with us.
When you allow us to access your data through a third-party service to create a Site profile, we may use this data for several purposes, including:
In addition, if you connect to a Facebook account, your experience on the Site may be personalized. For example, you may automatically see what stories are popular in your network, and what your friends are saying about particular stories.
Please note that you may disconnect third party accounts at any time. Click here for a link to your social profile, where you may set your privacy preferences or disconnect all of your third-party service accounts. You also may be able to modify your privacy settings directly with the third-party service. To modify your Facebook privacy settings, click here. To modify your Twitter privacy settings, click here.
Please remember that we do not control the privacy practices of these third-party services. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of all third-party service providers.
Deactivating your account
You can deactivate your account at any time by visiting the preferences page for your profile. When you deactivate your account, your user profile will be disabled, but your public comments will remain on the site. The Site has no responsibility to take down, remove, or edit any of your public activities or any submissions that are a result of your public activities. For more information, please review our Terms and Conditions.
Cookies and other technologies
As discussed in the sections on cookies and other technologies and third party advertising, some information is collected about you automatically through cookies and other technologies.
If you opt out of these technologies, you will continue to see advertising displayed on the Site, but the advertising may not be targeted to your interests.
Please remember that we do not have access to, or control over, advertisers' or service providers' cookies, and the information practices of third parties are not covered by this privacy policy. For more information on the use of cookies in online advertising, please see the section on third party advertising and visit the NAI's website.
If you choose to share contact information with us, you may update or amend this information by contacting us at privacy@huffingtonpost.com.
We limit access to contact information about you to employees or service providers who we believe reasonably need to come into contact with that information to provide products or services to you or in order to do their jobs. We also have adopted commercially reasonable technical, physical, and administrative procedures to help protect information about you from loss, misuse, and alteration.
Please note that no data transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. We want you to feel confident using the Site, but we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us.
The Site's offices are located in the United States. If you visit the site from another country, please be aware that information you provide to us or that we obtain as a result of your use of the Site may be processed in and transferred to the United States and will be subject to U.S. law. U.S. privacy and data protection laws may not be equivalent to the laws in your country of residence. By using the Site or providing us with your information, you consent to the collection, transfer, storage, and processing of information to and in the United States. European Union Residents: AOL adheres to the EU-US Safe Harbor Privacy Principles of Notice, Choice, Onward Transfer, Security, Data Integrity, Access and Enforcement, and is registered with the U.S. Department of Commerce's Safe Harbor Program.
We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that we have collected any personal information from a child under the age of 13 without verifiable parental consent, we will delete that information from our database as quickly as possible. If you believe that we may have collected information from a child under 13, please contact us at privacy@huffingtonpost.com.
We may update this privacy policy at any time to reflect changes in our practices and service offerings. If we modify this privacy policy, we will update the "Effective Date." We will notify you of any material changes in the way we treat your information by placing a prominent notice on our site or sending a notice to the primary email address specified in your account.
If you have questions about this privacy policy, please contact our privacy team at privacy@huffingtonpost.com.
Effective Date: May 15, 2012