Legal:Privacy Policy
PRIVACY POLICY
Smashball Labs LLC (“Smashball”) and its subsidiary companies respect the privacy rights of our online visitors and recognize the importance of protecting the information collected about you. We have adopted a corporate Privacy Policy that guides how we collect, store and use the information you provide online. Please note that this policy applies only to sites maintained by Smashball and its subsidiaries, and not to web sites maintained by other companies or organizations to which we link. If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact the Smashball Privacy Policy Administrator at privacy@smashball.tv.
Third Party Sites
If you click on a link to a third party site, including on an advertisement, you will leave the Smashball site you are visiting and go to the site you selected. Because we cannot control the activities of third parties, we cannot accept responsibility for any use of your personal information by such third parties, and we cannot guarantee that they will adhere to the same privacy and security practices as Smashball. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any other service provider from whom you request services. If you visit a third party website that is linked to a Smashball site, you should consult that site’s privacy policy before providing any personal information.
What is personal information and when does Smashball collect it?
Personal information is information that identifies you and may be used to contact you on-line or off-line. Smashball may collect personal information from our online visitors during (1) contests (registration or claiming a prize), (2) warranty registration and/or during customer support or technical service requests, (3) player match up or other online services, (4) registration for games or special game-specific event participation, (5) newsletter subscriptions, referral services, and other marketing surveys and email campaigns, (6) registration for membership on our sites, (7) when you order products or subscriptions from us online, or (8) when you request services from third party service providers on our site or (9) through use of our software or online services.
Information collected will vary depending upon the activity and may include your name, e-mail address, phone number, mobile number, home address, birth date, and credit card information. In addition, we may collect demographic information such as gender, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, media, Internet IP address and connection, information about online activity such as feature usage, game play statistics and scores, user rankings and click paths and other data that you may provide in surveys or online profiles, for instance. We may combine demographic information with personal information, such as email address, to tailor our offerings or web pages to your preferences or interests. Prize winners may also be required to provide Social Security or Social Identification Number for tax purposes. We do not require personal information to obtain access to any of our sites; however, you will not be able to access areas that require registration.
If you wish to subscribe to our newsletter(s), we will use your name and email address to send the newsletter to you. Out of respect for your privacy, we provide you a way to unsubscribe. Please see the “Choice and Opt-out" section below.
If you choose to use our referral service to "tell a friend" about a Smashball product or site, we will ask you for your friend’s name and email address. We will send your friend an email on your behalf inviting him or her to visit the site or check out our product. Smashball stores your friend's name and email for a short period for the sole purpose of sending this email and for redundancy checking, to be sure that your friend does not receive multiple copies of the same email message. We do not keep or use this information for any other purpose. Whatever the purpose may be, we will only collect information to the extent reasonably necessary to fulfill your requests and our legitimate business objectives.
Smashball's Online Store
Visitors purchasing goods and services through our online store may need to provide a valid credit card number and expiration date, in addition to name, mailing address(es), phone number and e-mail address. Smashball’s online store may employ third-party contractors whose opt-out instructions for promotional or marketing communications may vary from our own. Please see the Smashball online store for more information.
Online Chat Rooms and Profiles
You may choose to disclose information, including personal information, about yourself in our online chat rooms, message boards, user “profiles” for public view or in similar forums on our sites. Information that you disclose in any of these forums is public information, and there is no expectation of privacy or confidentiality there. You should be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of these forums, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these forums. Please see our Terms of Use (http://guide.smashball.tv/index.php/Legal:Terms_of_Use) on this point and for other guidelines about posting content on our web sites.
Statistical and Usage Data
When you play our games on your PC, we may retrieve information about your hardware system and how your game is used, including your Internet Protocol Address. We use this information to enable you to play your game over the Internet. We also use this information to better understand the behavior and preferences of our customers, so that we can improve our products and services. We will never use this information to personally identify you without your knowledge or consent.
In-Game Advertising
Our games may incorporate dynamic advertisement serving technology offered by TechConnect B.V. or another ad serving technology provider (“Ad Providers”), which enables advertising to be temporarily uploaded into the game on your PC, and replaced while you play online. We or our Ad Providers will only log information that is needed to measure presentation of, and serve advertising to, the appropriate geographic region, and to the right location within the game. Logged data may include Internet Protocol Address or player’s user name, in game location, length of time an advertisement was visible, size of the advertisements, and angle of view. Your game may be assigned an id number, which is stored on your PC, and used by Ad Providers to calculate the number of unique and repeat views of dynamic in game advertising. The id number is not associated with any personal data. No logged information is used to personally identify you. The servers used by the Ad Providers may be located outside your country of residence. If you reside in a Member State of the European Union, the servers may be located outside of the European Union. This ad serving technology is integrated into the game; if you do not want to use this technology, do not play the game while connected to the Internet. For more information concerning TechConnect B.V., please visit http://www.techconnect.nl.
Public Data
Your participation in tournaments or other online game events, is conditional upon you agreeing to us collecting, using, storing, transmitting and publicly displaying statistical data (such as your scores, rankings and achievements) generated through your participation.
A Special Note about Children
Smashball does not knowingly collect data from anyone under the age of 13. Once a person states that his/her age is under 13, we do not collect or store any personally identifiable information such as name, address, or email address.
Note to Parents
We recognize a special obligation to protect personal information about young children. We urge parents to instruct their children to never give out their real names, addresses, or phone numbers, without permission, when on-line. Teenagers under the age of 17 and over the age of 12 should encourage their parents to review this policy and to contact us if they would like to evoke our opt-out policy or to raise any concerns.
What about cookies and other technologies?
We use cookies and other technologies to passively collect demographic information, personalize your experience on our site and monitor advertisements and other activities. Cookies are small files downloaded to your computer to track movements within web sites. We may link cookie information to personal information. Cookies link to information regarding what items you have selected for purchase at our store, pages you have viewed, or games you have played. This information is used to keep track of your shopping cart and make sure you don't see the same ad repeatedly. Also, we use cookies to deliver content specific to your interest and to monitor website or game usage. We collect information on what games are played, how much time is spent playing the games and which ads or links are clicked. Some of our sites use an outside ad company to display ads. These ads may contain cookies. Cookies received with banner ads are collected by our ad companies, and Smashball does not have access to this information. Most browsers are automatically set to accept cookies whenever you visit a website. You can disable cookies or set your browser to alert you when cookies are being sent. However some areas of our sites will not function properly if you do so. For more information concerning how to disable your cookies, please visit http://guide.smashball.tv/index.php/Support. Please note that this privacy policy covers the use of cookies by Smashball only and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.
TechConnect B.V., the company that serves many of the ads that appear on the smashball.tv site, may also collect information regarding your activities online, including the sites you visit. Other ad serving companies may also collect similar information. For more information on TechConnect's services, please visit TechConnect's website at http://www.techconnect.nl/privacy. For more information about the practices of some of the other large ad serving companies that may collect information on your use of the site, you should visit Atlas DMT, Eyeblaster, Klipmart, Tacoda, Inc; Advertising.com and PointRoll to view their privacy statements and opt out policies.
Other technologies we may use include clear GIFs and IP address logging. Clear GIFs (a.k.a. web bugs, beacons or tags) are small graphic images placed on a web page, web-based document, or in an e-mail message. Clear GIFs are invisible to the user because they are typically very small (only 1-by-1 pixel) and the same color as the background of the web page, document or e-mail message. We do not use clear GIFs to collect personal information about you. However, we may use clear GIFs capture statistical usage information for our web pages, features or other elements on a web page. We may correlate this information to a user to personalize user experience and for statistical analysis of user experiences on our web pages.
Smashball also maintains log files which contain Internet Protocol ("IP") addresses. An IP address is a numeric address that is assigned to your computer by your Internet Service Provider. In general, we only use log files to monitor traffic on our Web sites, to report aggregate information to our advertisers and to troubleshoot technical problems. In the event of user abuse of our websites, however, we may block certain IP addresses provided by our licensed hardware manufacturers. IP addresses may be used to personally identify you in order to enforce our Terms of Use.
What happens to the information provided?
Smashball does not disclose any personal information about children under 18 years of age who have registered on any of our websites to third parties, or share or disclose personal information other than as set forth in this policy, provided however, that in the event of a merger, acquisition, or the unlikely event of bankruptcy, management of Smashball’s customer information may be transferred to its successor or assign.
The personal information you provide will allow us to alert you to new products, features and enhancements; special offers; upgrade opportunities; and contests and events of interest. You may opt in to allow Smashball to share your personal information with companies and organizations that provide products or services that we believe may be of interest to you. For example, we may share your personal information with a sport licensor or sponsor of our service on our site. You would be asked at that time if you wish to participate. We see this as a value-added service helping you to find useful products or services. We strive to limit use of the information you provide to those offers that we think you would appreciate receiving. To opt out of further communications from a marketing partner or sponsor with whom your information has been shared, please contact that partner directly. You may also later opt out of this service from Smashball. See the "choice and opt-out" section below. We may send Smashball emails that may contain information regarding third-party products or services; however, this doesn’t mean that we’ve traded your personal information to any party.
We may use survey information in marketing surveys to select and direct advertising that is more likely to be of interest to a particular member. This information may be transmitted to an ad server owned by the advertising company (for example, BannerConnect) to match members with ads that they are more likely to be interested in. However, we do not disclose any member's personal information to our advertisers without the member's consent. Participation in member surveys is entirely optional. We may share aggregated consumer data (which does not contain personal information) with the advertising companies.
From time to time, Smashball may employ third-party contractors to collect personal information on our behalf to provide email delivery; product, prize or promotional fulfillment; contest administration; credit card processing; shipping or other services on our sites. When requesting these services, you may be asked to supply your name, mailing address, telephone number and email address to our contractors.
We may use third party contractors, such as credit agencies or market research firms, to supplement personal information that you provide to us for our own marketing and demographic studies, so that we can consistently improve our sites and related advertising to better meet our visitors' needs and preferences. To enrich our profiles of individual customers, we tie this information to the personally identifiable information they have provided to us.
When our third-party contractors collect and/or have access to the personal information you provide to Smashball, Smashball requires that they adhere to our stated privacy policies and protect the confidentiality of personal information they collect or have access to in the course of their engagement by Smashball. These third parties are prohibited from using your personally identifiable information for any other purpose without your specific consent.
You will be notified when your personal information is collected by any third party that is not our agent/service provider, so you can make an informed choice as to whether or not to share your information with that party. If you do share your information, to opt-out from receiving further communications from any third party that is not our agent/service provider, please contact that marketing partner or affiliate directly. To enforce legal rights and comply with the law, or to comply with an order from a government entity or other competent authority, or when we have reason to believe that a disclosure is necessary to address potential or actual injury or interference with our rights, property, operations, users or others who may be harmed or may suffer loss or damage, we may also disclose personal information to law enforcement, or the appropriate civil authorities when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our site.
Products Offered in Partnership with Third-Party(s)
Members may register for other services from our site(s). Certain products and/or services available on our site are provided to you in partnership with third party(s) and may require you to disclose personally identifiable information in order to register for and access such products and/or services. Such products and/or services shall identify the third party partners at the point of registration. If you elect to register for such products and/or services your personally identifiable information will be transferred to such third party(s) and will be subject to the privacy policy and practices of such third party(s). We are not responsible for the privacy practices and policies of such third party(s) and, therefore, you should review the privacy practices and policies of such third party(s) prior to providing your personally identifiable information in connection with such products and/or services.
Where is the information held?
The computer systems on which Smashball collects, stores, and uses the information it collects or receives are based in the United States. Your personal information may be transferred to, used, processed or held by Smashball in the United States and in other countries, including countries both in and outside the European Union, and used for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.
Choice and Opt-out
When we first collect information about you, we will offer you the opportunity to opt-out of having your personal information shared with parties outside of Smashball or its subsidiaries (except to the extent required by law, court order, or as requested by other government or law enforcement authority). In addition, if you do not want Smashball to send you e-mail or postal mail about our products and services, you can opt out at the time of registration or information collection. If, at a later date, you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and marketing communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication, visiting the site in which you provided your information and changing your preferences, or by contacting the Privacy Policy Administrator at privacy@smashball.tv.
Safeguarding Your Personal Information
The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or social security number) on our registration or order forms, we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. If you have any questions about security on our Web site, you can contact the Privacy Policy Administrator at privacy@smashball.tv.
Review, Correction of Your Information and Requesting Removal from Mailing Lists and Deactivating Your Account
You can correct or update your account information at any time by logging on our site and navigating to “My Account.” Should you be unable to log in or wish to have your account(s) deactivated contact the Privacy Policy Administrator at privacy@smashball.tv. We will be happy to review, update or remove information as appropriate. We may still retain your information in our files however, to resolve disputes, enforce our user agreement, and due to technical and legal requirements and constraints related to the security, integrity and operation of our websites.
By using this site, you signify your assent to the Smashball Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use any Smashball site. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on our home page. If you choose to opt-out of our changed practice, our e-mail will contain instructions on how to opt-out. Your continued use of our site will signify your acceptance of the changes to our Privacy Policy.
For more information and updates to our Privacy Policy, visit http://guide.smashball.tv/index.php/Legal:Privacy_Policy.
From Guide