AppLounge - Privacy Policy

Effective March 13, 2008

This Privacy Policy (this "Privacy Policy") discusses the personally identifying information ("PII") that we collect about you when you visit or use our web site http://www.applounge.com  (the "Site") or use other AppLounge services, including AppLounge software applications, which can be downloaded from the Site or a third party site and/or embedded on a third party site (the “Apps”, together with the Site, the "Service").

Your privacy is important to us and, as described in this Privacy Policy, we have designed the Service to protect information about you from unauthorized disclosure to others. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use and, in certain circumstances, share your PII. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully, and if you have any questions, feel free to contact us at privacy@applounge.com.

The Term “User” refers to a Visitor or a Member. A "Visitor" is someone who simply browses the Site, including through a mobile device, or otherwise uses the Service without being registered. A "Member" is someone who registers with the Site.
The Site is a general audience site and AppLounge does not knowingly collect PII from children under 13 years of age.

If Users located in the European Union choose to provide information that will be publicly disclosed, they are responsible for ensuring that such information conforms to all local data protection laws. AppLounge is not responsible under the European Union local data protection laws for User provided information.

By using the Service, you consent to the collection and use of your personal information as outlined in this Privacy Policy. From time to time AppLounge may modify this Privacy Policy to reflect industry initiatives or changes in the law, our PII collection and use practices, the features of the Service, or technology, and such modifications shall be effective upon posting by AppLounge on the Site.  Your continued use of the Service after AppLounge posts a revised Privacy Policy signifies your acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy. It is therefore important that you review this Privacy Policy regularly to ensure you are updated as to any changes. If AppLounge materially changes its practices regarding collection or use of your PII, your PII will continue to be governed by the version of the Privacy Policy under which it was collected unless you have been provided notice of, and have not objected to, the change. 

Types of Information We Collect

Registration Information. Our account registration process requires that you provide us with your Member name, birthday and email address, and that you create and provide us with a password. We may also request other information, including but not limited to, your actual first and last name, gender and zip code.

Profile Information and User Content.   Please keep in mind that certain information can be accessed and used by the general public whenever you voluntarily provide such information in public areas of the Site or Service.  These areas include without limitation:

• Member profile pages;
  
• Member forums, message boards and blogs; and
  
• User content contained in the Apps.

We therefore advise you not to disclose personal contact information that you do not wish to share, such as your phone number, email address, street address or instant messenger address (within these public areas). We are not responsible for PII you choose to submit in these public areas.

Cookies. Like many web sites and services, we use "cookies." Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer's hard drive through your web browser to enable our systems to recognize your browser. We use persistent, identifying cookies to remember your information and to link your activities to you. While you can take steps to turn off, block or disable cookies, such actions may cause the Service to function improperly. Nonetheless, if you want to take these steps, you can do so by following the instructions associated with your browser. Any information collected by third party cookies is subject to the privacy policy of the third party, not AppLounge’s Privacy Policy. Our cookies do not collect PII that you provide to us during the registration process, but they may collect other information such as, but not limited to the following:

• the domain name and host from which you access the Internet and the Internet address of the site from which you direct-linked to our Site;
  
• the date and time you access the Site and pages you visit;
  
• your computer's IP address and information about its operating system, platform and the web browser type and version you use;
  
• demographic and other non-personally identifiable profile information about you; and
  
• information to combat fraud or misuse.
  

Clear Pixels. When you use the Service, we may employ clear gifs (a.k.a. web beacons or clear pixels) which are used to track the online usage patterns of our Users anonymously. No PII from you is collected using these clear pixels. In addition, we may also use clear pixels in HTML-based emails sent to our Users to track which emails are opened by recipients. The information is used to enable more accurate reporting, improve the effectiveness of our marketing, and make the Service better for our Users.

Social Networking Information. When you install an App on your page or use an App on someone else's page on a third party social networking web site, we may collect or record information regarding the use of that App, and we may collect other information that is visible on your social network account in accordance with the relevant terms of use and privacy policy governing that third party web site. When you invite new members into your AppLounge network or send messages through the Service, we collect and maintain on secure servers the information associated with those messages, including email addresses and content.

Third Party Advertisers. Some of the advertisements that appear on the Service may be delivered to you by third party Internet advertising companies. These companies utilize certain technologies to deliver advertisements and marketing messages and collect non-PII about your visit to the Site or use of the Service, including information about the ads displayed, via a cookie placed on your computer that reads your IP address. To opt out of information collection by these companies, or to obtain information about the technologies they use or their own privacy policies, please visit: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.

Promotions, Sweepstakes, and Contests. From time to time, we may host promotions, sweepstakes, or contests as part of the Service. We may ask you to provide personal information or permit the transfer to a third party of your personal information in connection with such promotions, sweepstakes or contests. We will disclose at the point of collection or transfer the collecting party and whose privacy statement applies, and it will be your choice whether or not you wish to permit the collection of personal information by a third party.

Use and Retention of Your Information

Providing the Service. We do not sell or rent your PII to any third party. However, we may use your PII to make the Service more useful to our Users.  We respond to User requests, monitor and moderate the public areas of the Service, maintain Member accounts, facilitate communication between our Users, and email updates and newsletters regarding the Service to Members.

We also use non-PII to make the Service more useful to our Users.  We measure the number of Visitors to sections of our Site, provide Users with advertising and non-advertising content that we believe would be of interest, analyze aggregate User traffic trends, track User movement, and gather broad demographic information.

Retention of Information. We retain information for as long as required, allowed or we believe it useful, but do not undertake retention obligations. We may dispose of information in our discretion without notice, subject to applicable law that specifically requires the handling or retention of information. You must keep your own, separate back-up records.
 
Sharing of Information.  AppLounge shares information with third parties, but only for the purposes stated in this Privacy Policy. We share non-PII with advertisers, service providers, and other persons with whom we conduct business. Conversely, these advertisers, service providers, and other persons may share with us non-PII about you that they have independently developed or acquired. We contract with affiliated and non-affiliated third parties to provide services to us or to you on our behalf in order to make the Service more useful to our Users. Examples include providing marketing assistance, providing customer service, sending AppLounge email newsletters to you, removing repetitive information from customer lists, and analyzing data. These third parties have access to PII needed to perform their functions.

Transfer of Business. As we develop our business, we might sell or buy businesses or their assets, or engage in acquisitions, mergers, restructurings, changes or control, or similar transactions. In such transactions, customer information generally is one of the transferred business assets, and your PII is subject to such a transfer. Also, in the unlikely event of a bankruptcy, customer information may be transferred to a bankruptcy trustee or debtor in possession and then to a subsequent purchaser.

Affiliates. We may share PII, non-PII and other information with our corporate affiliates. Corporate affiliates are those entities that we control, are controlled by us, or are under common control with us and any joint venture in which any of the controlled entities may participate from time to time. Any use of your information by our corporate affiliates is subject to this Privacy Policy or another policy no less protective of your privacy. Likewise, we may obtain information about you from our corporate affiliates or from your visits to other web sites that we or our corporate affiliates control. We may share information about you with our corporate affiliates and our corporate affiliates may share information with us using cookies or any other available technology.

Compliance and Safety. We may release User information, including PII, when we believe release is appropriate to:

• comply with applicable law, and to respond to legal process, including subpoenas, search warrants and court orders, and to respond to or otherwise address written complaints of copyright infringement;
  
• make disclosures under programs intended to prevent potential crimes or investigate persons;
  
• enforce or apply agreements, including the Terms of Use [link]; or
  
• protect the rights, property, or safety of AppLounge, our Users, or others, including exchanging information with other companies for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
  

Controlling Your Personal Information

Be advised that if you send messages or post material containing personal information, that information may be collected and used by others.  The Service provides a number of privacy tools that you can use to control the availability and disclosure of your profile information and User content. You can edit your content and other information at any time through the AppLounge Service. You can also adjust your profile and the privacy settings of each App you create using the Service. Moreover, if you “embed” or install an App on another web site, it will be visible to the general public and governed by the policies of that web site, regardless of whether you have restricted access to that App on the Site. We take no responsibility if you allow others to view your content or make any information available to the public.

You can terminate your account at any time which will remove your profile and other personal information from view. However we may, but are not obligated to, keep information about you that is on our system following your termination.

Others' Information

You may decide to provide us with another person's email address so that person may be invited to join AppLounge. We use this information to contact and, if necessary, remind that person that he or she has been invited to join AppLounge. All invitees are provided with the option not to receive further invitations from AppLounge. We may disclose such information if required to do so in order to comply with legal process, as described above.

Third Party Sites

 The Site may contain links to other web sites, carry advertisements from other web sites, and content contained in the Apps may be hosted by other web sites. These other sites maintain their own policies regarding cookies and the collection and use of personal information. It is up to you to review those policies.

Security

We use commercially reasonable administrative, technical, personnel and physical measures to safeguard PII against unauthorized use, disclosure or modification.  In addition, we use reasonable methods to make sure that PII is accurate, up-to-date and appropriately complete. If you have any questions regarding which measures and techniques we use, feel free to contact us at privacy@applounge.com.

Additional Questions

Again, feel free to contact us by sending an email to privacy@applounge.com, any time, if you have further questions about AppLounge or this Privacy Policy.
Please contact privacy@applounge.com if you would like to receive a copy of this document showing changes from previous versions.