Privacy Policy

Last Updated: May 1, 2009

The Zwinky.com website (the "Site") is owned and operated by Mindspark Interactive Network, Inc. ("we" or "us" or "Mindspark"). Internet privacy is an issue that we take very seriously. We provide this Privacy Policy so that our Site users ("you") will know what personally identifiable information is being collected about you, how that information is being used, and with whom it is being shared. This Privacy Policy addresses these issues as well as additional privacy-related issues that we believe may be of interest to you. This Privacy Policy does not govern our collection of information through any websites other than the Site, and does not govern the collection of information by our affiliates. This Privacy Policy describes the online privacy practices for the Site and the various services (collectively, the "Services") we provide on or through the Site. By using the Site or the Services or by providing any personally identifiable information using the Site or Services, you are agreeing to the collection and use of such information in the manner described in this Privacy Policy. Eligibility You must be 13 years of age or older to register or use the Site and the Services. If you are older than 13 but under 18 years of age, by using the Site and the Services you are telling us that you and your parent or guardian have reviewed and consent to the terms of this Privacy Policy. (Please see our Terms of Service located at http://info.zwinky.com/zwinkyinfo/tos.jhtml for further information.) Changes to this Privacy Policy The terms of this Privacy Policy may change from time to time. You should check back at the Site regularly to determine if any material changes have been made. You can determine when this Privacy Policy was last revised by referring to the "Last Updated" legend at the top of this page. We will prominently post material changes on the Site at least 14 days prior to the effective date of the change and will also attempt to provide you with an on-line notice informing you when such material changes have been made to this Privacy Policy. You agree that your continued use of the Site and Services following the effective date of any such changes will constitute your affirmative consent to the revised Privacy Policy. If you do not accept such revisions, you must remove the Zwinky/MyWebSearch toolbar (the "Toolbar") from your computer and cease all access to and use of the Site and Services hereunder. Information Collection We gather two basic types of information through the Site: "Anonymous Information" and "Personally Identifiable Information." Anonymous Information is information that does not personally identify you, such as IP address, other browser information, demographic information and information about your interests. Personally Identifiable Information is information you provide to us that specifically identifies you as an individual, such as your name, physical mailing address, email address and telephone number. Information identifying an entity other than an individual, (e.g., a corporation, partnership, joint venture and so forth), does not constitute Personally Identifiable Information and is treated as Anonymous Information. Anonymous Information We collect Anonymous Information when you visit and interact with the Site or the Services. Examples of ways in which we collect Anonymous Information include the following: Browser Information: Each time you come to the Site, we collect the limited Anonymous Information that your browser makes available whenever you visit any website. This information includes: (a) your Internet Protocol (IP) address; (b) your domain name (e.g. whether you logged on from compaq.com or whitehouse.gov); (c) the address of the last URL you visited prior to clicking through to the Site; (d) your browser and platform type (e.g., a Netscape browser on a Macintosh platform); (e) your browser language; and (f) the data in any undeleted cookies that your browser previously accepted from us (see "Cookies and Pixel Tags" below). IP Address Information: Your IP address is an identifying number that is automatically assigned to your computer by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). This number is identified and logged automatically in our server log files whenever you visit the Site, along with the time(s) of your visit(s) and the page(s) that you visited. Collecting IP addresses is standard practice on the Internet and is done automatically by many websites. IP address information, among other things, enables us to determine a user's Internet service provider and the geographic location of a user's point of connectivity. Cookies and Pixel Tags: The Site use cookies and other technologies such as pixel tags to track traffic flow and patterns of travel within and through the Site. Some types of software we distribute also use cookies to indicate the distribution source for the software (so we can appropriately compensate our distributors and to provide us retention and usage information) and to store user preferences. Cookies are a standard Internet technology that allow us to both store and retrieve login information on a user's system. Our Web server automatically asks a new user's browser whether it will accept our cookie file. If the user's browser accepts our cookie, our Web server will record the cookie's unique ID for our use in internal reporting. Every time the user returns to the Site, we will be able to read that cookie's ID number and, among other things, can customize the services we deliver based on the user's past preferences. If a user accepts our cookie, but would later like to remove it from his or her computer, he or she can delete it using the browser. (Consult your browser's "help" menu to learn how to delete cookies.) In the event a user indicates he or she is under 13 years of age when attempting to register with the Site, such user's user name, birthdate, and date of attempted registration will be stored in a file on the user's computer for a period of time to help prevent future registration by such user. Such personally identifiable information is not transmitted to us. Software Products: If you have installed one of our software products, your use of such software may send additional information to us, such as: your IP address, your browser type, your default language setting and an identification of any button or menu item you selected or activated. Your use of the Toolbar is governed by an End User License Agreement located at http://info.zwinky.com/zwinkyinfo/eula.jhtml. Information You Voluntarily Provide: We also collect Anonymous Information when you voluntarily provide such information to us. For example, you may choose to add information (such as interests, favorite weblinks, quotes and keyword tags) to your Profile Page. We may also ask you a series of questions, many of which are optional, regarding your interests that will allow other users to search for people with common interests. All such information about your interests is Anonymous Information, unless it is associated with your Personally Identifiable Information, in which case it will be treated as Personally Identifiable Information to the extent it is so linked. Miscellaneous: With the exception of your domain name (e.g., whether you logged on from compaq.com or whitehouse.gov), and the URL you visited prior to coming to our site, we do not automatically collect information about other websites you visit on the Internet. We also do not collect any data regarding your computer keystrokes (or other data) unrelated to the Services, the Site and the software. Personally Identifiable Information We also collect Personally Identifiable Information about you via the Site and the Services. We do not intentionally share such Personally Identifiable Information with third parties for the purpose of enabling them to send you information about their products or services. In general, the amount of Personally Identifiable Information that you choose to provide to us is completely up to you, although access to or use of some Services may be affected if such information is not provided. In order to order to access most features on the Site, you must become a registered user of the Site. In order to create an account, you must become a registered user of the Site. In order to register and create an account on this Site, you must first download the Toolbar. During registration for an account, Mindspark collects Personally Identifiable Information, including your email address, as well as other information such as your gender, password and birth date. Once you register and sign into our services, you are not anonymous to us. You may always choose not to provide such Personally Identifiable Information to us, however that may affect our ability to provide you with a specific service or particular content, including saving avatar settings, searching for other users, sending ZNotes, and ZChat and using Facebook Connect. Other Personally Identifiable Information you might provide to us could include your email address if you submit a help request to us via email or respond to employment opportunities posted on the Site. Information Use If we do associate Anonymous Information with Personally Identifiable Information, we will treat such Anonymous Information as Personally Identifiable Information to the extent so linked; if such information is no longer linked, we will resume treating it as Anonymous Information. For this reason, we do not consider your IP address to be Personally Identifiable Information (unless and until such an association is made, such as in response to a court order). Anonymous Information Because Anonymous Information does not personally identify you, we may use such information for any purpose. In addition, we reserve the right to share such Anonymous Information, which does not personally identify you, with third parties, for any purpose. For example, we collect the types of Anonymous Information described above to improve the overall quality of the online experience, including product monitoring, product improvement, saving avatar settings, and advertising. We may also use Anonymous Information to count, track, and aggregate our users' activities into our analysis of general traffic flows at the Site (e.g. tracking where traffic comes from, how traffic flows within the Site, etc.). In addition, we may use Anonymous Information we collect to ensure that these third-parties are appropriately compensating us and that we are appropriately compensating our distributors. All information about our users' activity is generally evaluated on an anonymous (and generally only on an aggregated) basis, except in situations such as a response to a customer service inquiry or to legal process. Additionally, we may use your IP address, and the IP addresses of other users, to calculate Site usage levels, to help diagnose problems with the Site's servers, and to administer the Site. In addition, we may merge Anonymous Information about you into group data, which may then be shared on an aggregated basis with our advertisers. If you provide us with answers to voluntary survey questions, we may present this information to our advertisers and partners in the form of grouped statistics compiled from our users' answers to such questions. Please note that this is not a complete list, but simply a few examples, of the ways in which we use and share Anonymous Information. Personally Identifiable Information We use your Personally Identifiable Information as described below: Provision of Services: We use your Personally Identifiable Information to provide you personalized service, to ensure the smooth operation of the Site and Services, to improve the Site and Services, and in connection with the enforcement of our Terms of Service for the Site and this Privacy Policy. We also may use your Personally Identifiable Information to send you a welcome email following registration, to send you a periodic newsletter, or to contact you to respond to a request or inquiry from you, to communicate with you about your account (including notifications related to friend requests, gifts and ZNotes, security alerts/updates, as well as periodic reminders or surveys if you haven't visited in some time, have cancelled your account or allowed your account to lapse), or to let you know about updates, new features or special offers (including events, new boutiques or games, sweepstakes, coupons or surveys from our marketing partners). If your Zwinky and Facebook accounts are linked via Facebook Connect, Zwinky may also send you periodic private emails through Facebook. Users have the option to 'opt out' of such emails on Facebook by choosing the appropriate settings in the Facebook Applications Settings page. External Service Providers: We may use external service providers to facilitate operation of the Site and the Services, and to evaluate or provide other support in connection with the Site and the Services. This may require disclosure of your Personally Identifiable Information to these service providers. In some instances, such external service providers may collect information directly from you in connection with the Services. In all cases, we seek to have commercially reasonable contractual safeguards in place that require these external service providers to use any Personally Identifiable Information disclosed to them by us solely for the purpose of providing services to us. Credit Card Companies and Other Vendors: We note that your Payment Information may be disclosed by us to third parties in order to process or otherwise complete a transaction in which payment is by credit card. We note that such third parties may have privacy policies that differ significantly from this Privacy Policy. Third Parties: We do not intentionally rent, sell or otherwise provide a user's Personally Identifiable Information to third parties for such third parties' direct marketing purposes. Advertising: We use third party advertisement serving companies to serve ads when you visit the Site. These companies may use information about your visit to the Site in order to provide advertisements about goods and services that may be of interest to you. In the course of serving advertisements to the Site, these companies may place or recognize a unique cookie on your computer or use other technologies such as pixel tags in connection to the Site. Our Privacy Policy does not cover any use of information that a third-party ad serving company may collect from you. If you would like more information about this practice, or would like to know your choices about not having this information used by advertising companies, please click here: http://www.networkadvertising.org/ Invitations to Unregistered Users: If you choose to use our referral service to tell a friend about our Site or Services, we will ask you for your friend's name and email address. We will then send to your friend on your behalf a single email inviting him or her to visit the Site. Your friend may contact us at [email protected] to request that we remove this information from our database. Law Enforcement/Legal Requirements: Notwithstanding any other provision in this Privacy Policy, we reserve the right to disclose your Personally Identifiable Information if we believe we are required to do so (a) by law; (b) to comply with court orders or subpoenas; (c) in cooperation with a law enforcement or government request; (d) where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud or situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person; (e) to enforce our Terms of Service located at http://info.zwinky.com/zwinkyinfo/tos.jhtml; (f) as necessary to render or conduct a legitimate business activity related to a service we provide; (g) to protect our operations or those of our affiliates; (h) to permit us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain; or (i) to comply with legal or regulatory obligations. Corporate Restructuring: Notwithstanding any other provision in this Privacy Policy, we reserve the right to transfer your Personally Identifiable Information and other information to a third party if we or any of our affiliates are involved in a corporate restructuring (e.g., a sale, merger or other transfer of assets). Features Disclosing Information We note that your use of certain features in connection with the Site or Services may result in the public disclosure of certain Anonymous Information and/or Personally Identifiable Information to others. Examples of such features include the following: Profile Page: When you register for an account on the Site, a Profile Page will automatically be created for you and certain basic information from your registration form will automatically be pre-populated in your Profile Page, including information such as your user name, as well as other information such as the date you registered as a Zwinky, gender, age, location, and last log on date. Please note that your Profile Page (including any ZNotes that may have been left for you) may be viewed by the public (both registered and unregistered users), so you should neither (a) choose a user name that personally identifies you, nor (b) include any information in your Profile Page that you do not want others to see. We are not responsible for third parties' use of any information you make public in your Profile Page. For users who have told us that they are under 18, gender, age and location will not be filled in by default, and such users under 18 will not be permitted to display gender, age, location, interests or related tags on their Profile Pages. Profile Pages and Searching: Your Profile Page will be publicly posted and accessible to the public. Only registered users of the Site will be permitted to use the Site's search functionality to search for other registered users of the Site. Users who are 18 and older will be searchable by user name and other information posted on their Profile Pages. Users who have told us that they are under 18 will be searchable by user name and other information posted on their Profile Pages, but will not be searchable by age, gender, interests, related tags or location. ZNotes: Once you register, you will be able to leave messages for other registered users of the Site in the form of a ZNote. ZNotes will be posted on a user's Profile Page and may be viewed by the public. You should not include any information in a ZNote that you or the addressee do not want others to see or that would compromise your safety or that of the addressee. ZChat: During a chat session, your user name and Zwinky avatar will be visible to other registered users in the chat room. In addition, your chat room location at any particular time will be disclosed to other registered users. When using ZChat, you will have the ability to post Personally Identifiable Information about yourself in a chat room. Please note that any information you disclose in a chat room becomes public information, and may be available to not only registered Site users, but to visitors to the Site and to the general public, and may be used by other parties to send you unsolicited messages. Once you have posted information in a chat room, you will not be able to edit or delete such information. We urge you to exercise discretion and caution when deciding to disclose your Personally Identifiable Information, or any other information, in any chat room. We will not use any information posted in a chat room for marketing purposes. Please note that the Site is a public space and you should refrain from posting anything in a chat room that is private or would compromise your safety. We also encourage parents to monitor and participate in their children's activities on the Internet. Facebook Connect: If you choose to link your Facebook profile to your Zwinky account via the Facebook Connect feature, your name and profile picture from Facebook will be visible on Zwinky.com to Zwinky users who are already your Facebook friends. Please note the use of Facebook and Facebook's collection of information practices are governed by the separate Facebook Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, respectively. If you wish to disable your Facebook profile from your Zwinky account, you should go to your Zwinky.com profile page, select "Edit Profile" and select the "Disable Account" option next to the Facebook Connect category.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PRIVACY POLICY DOES NOT APPLY TO INFORMATION POSTED IN A ZCHAT CHAT ROOM, IN A ZNOTE OR IN ANY OTHER INTERACTIVE FORUMS AVAILABLE ON OR THROUGH THE SITE OR THE SERVICES THAT ARE ACCESSIBLE TO OTHER REGISTERED SITE USERS, VISITORS TO THE SITE OR THE GENERAL PUBLIC. In our efforts to keep the Site safe and pleasant for all of our users, we may record and store transcripts of communications exchanged during a particular ZChat session if a user has reported to us an occurrence of abusive conduct during such ZChat session. Children Under the Age of 13 As a matter of policy, visitors known to be under the age of 13 are prohibited from registering for or using the Site or Services. In accordance with the Federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 ("COPPA"), we also do not knowingly collect Personally Identifiable Information from anyone under the age of 13. For information on how to protect the privacy and safety of children online, we recommend that you visit our Safety Tips at http://info.zwinky.com/zwinkyinfo/safety.jhtml, which contains information and links to other resources on this subject. Other Websites/Links We do not control the information collection and distribution policies on Internet domains other than the Sites. When you are on the Site, you may be directed to other websites that are beyond our control. For example, if you "click" on a banner advertisement or a search result, the "click" may take you off of the Site. These other websites may independently collect data, solicit personal information, or send their own cookies to you. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of such websites and any use of the information including click-stream data, which you may create when using such third party sites. We also offer you access to "co-branded" services that are jointly provided by us and selected third parties. In many cases, these co-branded services will contain the Site's branding, but might not be hosted by us. You may notice that you are on a co-branded site if the pages say "provided by," if our standard branding is not displayed on the top of the page, or if you are asked to subscribe for any service or provide additional information. In such cases, you should follow the privacy link on the page to determine which party's privacy policy protects the information you enter on the page. Even if the page is governed by a separate privacy policy, we might be entitled to receive about what you do when using that service. If you elect to provide additional Personally Identifiable Information using a co-branded service, the Personally Identifiable Information you provide may be shared or jointly retained by the third party provider of that service in accordance with that provider's privacy policies and terms of service. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of these third parties and to contact such third parties directly if you have any questions about their use of this information. When we enter into co-branding service relationships, we generally require the third party service provider to include a link to its applicable privacy policies and terms of service on the co-branded pages. Please note that our use of any Personally Identifiable Information received by us from these services will be governed by this Privacy Policy. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS POLICY DOES NOT ADDRESS THE PRIVACY PRACTICES OF ANY THIRD PARTIES. Security We have security measures in place intended to assist in preventing unauthorized access to and in safeguarding Personally Identifiable Information we collect online. We seek to limit access to your Personally Identifiable Information to employees and representatives who we believe reasonably need access to that information to provide products or services to you or in order to perform their jobs. Each of these people has been informed of the need to maintain the security and confidentiality of such information. Unfortunately, no security system can be 100% secured; accordingly, we cannot guarantee the security of any information provided to us in connection with the information that we collect online. Reviewing, Editing, or Deleting Personally Identifiable Information To review, revise or delete the Personally Identifiable Information that we have collected about you online that we maintain, please log in to your profile and edit accordingly (http://registration.zwinky.com/registration/profile.jhtml). However, please understand that although this information, once deleted, is not available on the Site, that information may remain stored indefinitely in our backup and archival records. We also reserve the right, from time to time, to re-contact former users of the Site. Finally, we are not responsible for removing information from the databases of third parties with whom we have already shared your Personally Identifiable Information. Please note that information posted in a chat room cannot be edited or deleted. Questions? Questions regarding this Privacy Policy should be directed to [email protected].