friendsgossip Privacy Policy

This policy is effective as of December 12, 2008.

friendsgossip Principles We built friendsgossip to make it easy to share information with your friends and people around you. We understand you may not want everyone in the world to have the information you share on friendsgossip; that is why we give you control of your information. Our default privacy settings limit the information displayed in your profile to your networks and other reasonable community limitations that we tell you about.

friendsgossip follows two core principles:

1. You should have control over your personal information.
friendsgossip helps you share information with your friends and people around you. You choose what information you put in your profile, including contact and personal information, pictures, interests and groups you join. And you control the users with whom you share that information through the privacy settings on the Privacy page.

2. You should have access to the information others want to share.
There is an increasing amount of information available out there, and you may want to know what relates to you, your friends, and people around you. We want to help you easily get that information.

Sharing information should be easy. And we want to provide you with the privacy tools necessary to control how and with whom you share that information. If you have questions or ideas, please check out our privacy help page.

friendsgossip's Privacy Policy
friendsgossip's Privacy Policy is designed to help you understand how we collect and use the personal information you decide to share, and help you make informed decisions when using friendsgossip, located at www.friendsgossip.com and its directly associated domains (collectively, "friendsgossip" or "Website").

By using or accessing friendsgossip, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

This privacy statement covers the site www.friendsgossip.com and its directly associated domains. Because this Web site wants to demonstrate its commitment to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices.

If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact our privacy staff through the privacy@friendsgossip.com on our help page.
The Information We Collect

When you visit friendsgossip you provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected by us and Web Site use information collected by us as you interact with our Web Site.

When you register with friendsgossip, you provide us with certain personal information, such as your name, your email address, your telephone number, your address, your gender, schools attended and any other personal or preference information that you provide to us.

When you enter friendsgossip, we collect your browser type and IP address. This information is gathered for all friendsgossip visitors. In addition, we store certain information from your browser using "cookies." A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's computer tied to information about the user. We use session ID cookies to confirm that users are logged in. These cookies terminate once the user closes the browser. By default, we use a persistent cookie that stores your login ID (but not your password) to make it easier for you to login when you come back to friendsgossip. You can remove or block this cookie using the settings in your browser if you want to disable this convenience feature.

When you use friendsgossip, you may set up your personal profile, form relationships, send messages, perform searches and queries, form groups, set up events, add applications, and transmit information through various channels. We collect this information so that we can provide you the service and offer personalized features. In most cases, we retain it so that, for instance, you can return to view prior messages you have sent or easily see your friend list. When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information.

You post User Content (as defined in the friendsgossip Terms of Use) on the Site at your own risk. Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your pages, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other Users with whom you may choose to share your pages and information. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that User Content you post on the Site will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Site. You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored your User Content.

Any improper collection or misuse of information provided on friendsgossip is a violation of the friendsgossip Terms of Service and should be reported through the form on our privacy help page.

If you choose to use our invitation service to tell a friend about our site, we will ask you for information needed to send the invitation, such as your friend's email address. We will send your friend an email or instant message in your name inviting him or her to visit the site, and may send up to two reminders to them. friendsgossip stores this information to send invitations and reminders, to register a friend connection if your invitation is accepted, to allow you to see invitations you have sent, and to track the success of our referral program. Your friend may contact us through the form on our help page to request that we remove this information from our database.

friendsgossip may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the friendsgossip service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience.

By using friendsgossip, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed in Germany and the United States.

Children Under Age 14

friendsgossip does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to register. If you are under 14, please do not attempt to register for friendsgossip or send any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, or email address. No one under age 14 may provide any personal information to or on friendsgossip. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 14 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under 14, please contact us through the privacy@friendsgossip.com on our privacy help page.

Children Between the Ages of 14 and 18

We recommend that minors 14 years of age or older ask their parents for permission before sending any information about themselves to anyone over the Internet.

Use of Information Obtained by friendsgossip

When you register with friendsgossip, you create your own profile and privacy settings. Your profile information, as well as your name, email and photo, are displayed to people in the networks specified in your privacy settings to enable you to connect with people on friendsgossip. We may occasionally use your name and email address to send you notifications regarding new services offered by friendsgossip that we think you may find valuable.

Profile information is used by friendsgossip primarily to be presented back to and edited by you when you access the service and to be presented to others permitted to view that information by your privacy settings. In some cases where your privacy settings permit it (e.g., posting to your wall), other friendsgossip users may be able to supplement your profile.

Profile information you submit to friendsgossip will be available to users of friendsgossip who belong to at least one of the networks you allow to access the information through your privacy settings (e.g., school, geography, friends of friends). Your name, network names, and profile picture thumbnail will be available in search results across the friendsgossip network and those limited pieces of information may be made available to third party search engines. This is primarily so your friends can find you and send a friend request. People who see your name in searches, however, will not be able to access your profile information unless they have a relationship to you (friend, friend of friend, member of your networks, etc.) that allows such access based on your privacy settings.

friendsgossip may send you service-related announcements from time to time through the general operation of the service. For instance, if a friend sends you a new message or poke, or someone posts on your wall, you may receive an email alerting you to that fact.

Generally, you may opt out of such emails from the Notifications page, though friendsgossip reserves the right to send you notices about your account even if you opt out of all voluntary email notifications.

friendsgossip may use information in your profile without identifying you as an individual to third parties. We do this for purposes such as aggregating how many people in a network like a band or movie and personalizing advertisements and promotions so that we can provide you friendsgossip. We believe this benefits you. You can know more about the world around you and, where there are advertisements, they're more likely to be interesting to you. For example, if you put a favorite movie in your profile, we might serve you an advertisement highlighting a screening of a similar one in your town. But we don't tell the movie company who you are.

We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services, friendsgossip Platform developers and other users of friendsgossip, to supplement your profile. Where such information is used, we generally allow you to specify in your privacy settings that you do not want this to be done or to take other actions that limit the connection of this information to your profile (e.g., removing photo tag links).

Sharing Your Information with Third Parties

friendsgossip is about sharing information with others - friends and people in your networks - while providing you with privacy settings that restrict other users from accessing your information. We allow you to choose the information you provide to friends and networks through friendsgossip. Our network architecture and your privacy settings allow you to make informed choices about who has access to your information. We do not provide contact information to third party marketers without your permission. We share your information with third parties only in limited circumstances where we believe such sharing is 1) reasonably necessary to offer the service, 2) legally required or, 3) permitted by you. For example:

- Your News Feed and Wall may aggregate the information you provide and make it available to your friends and network members according to your privacy settings. You may set your preferences for your News Feed and Wall on your Privacy Settings page.
- Unlike most sites on the Web, friendsgossip limits access to site information by third party search engine "crawlers" (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask). friendsgossip takes action to block access by these engines to personal information beyond your name, profile picture, and limited aggregated data about your profile (e.g. number of wall postings).
- We may provide information to service providers to help us bring you the services we offer. Specifically, we may use third parties to facilitate our business, such as to host the service at a co-location facility for servers, to send out email updates about friendsgossip, to remove repetitive information from our user lists, to process payments for products or services, to offer an online job application process, or to provide search results or links (including sponsored links). In connection with these offerings and business operations, our service providers may have access to your personal information for use for a limited time in connection with these business activities. Where we utilize third parties for the processing of any personal information, we implement reasonable contractual and technical protections limiting the use of that information to the friendsgossip-specified purposes.
- If you, your friends, or members of your network use any third-party applications developed using the friendsgossip Platform ("Platform Applications"), those Platform Applications may access and share certain information about you with others in accordance with your privacy settings. You may opt-out of any sharing of certain or all information through Platform Applications on the Privacy Settings page. In addition, third party developers who have created and operate Platform Applications ("Platform Developers"), may also have access to your personal information (excluding your contact information) if you permit Platform Applications to access your data. Before allowing any Platform Developer to make any Platform Application available to you, friendsgossip requires the Platform Developer to enter into an agreement which, among other things, requires them to respect your privacy settings and strictly limits their collection, use, and storage of your information. However, while we have undertaken contractual and technical steps to restrict possible misuse of such information by such Platform Developers, we of course cannot and do not guarantee that all Platform Developers will abide by such agreements. Please note that friendsgossip does not screen or approve Platform Developers and cannot control how such Platform Developers use any personal information that they may obtain in connection with Platform Applications. In addition, Platform Developers may require you to sign up to their own terms of service, privacy policies or other policies, which may give them additional rights or impose additional obligations on you, so please make sure to review these terms and policies carefully before using any Platform Application. You can report any suspected misuse of information through the friendsgossip Platform and we will investigate any such claim and take appropriate action against the Platform Developer up to and including terminating their participation in the friendsgossip Platform and/or other formal legal action.
- We occasionally provide demonstration accounts that allow non-users a glimpse into the friendsgossip world. Such accounts have only limited capabilities (e.g., messaging is disabled) and passwords are changed regularly to limit possible misuse.
- We may be required to disclose user information pursuant to lawful requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. We do not reveal information until we have a good faith belief that an information request by law enforcement or private litigants meets applicable legal standards. Additionally, we may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law, to protect our interests or property, to prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through the friendsgossip service or using the friendsgossip name, or to prevent imminent bodily harm. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies.
- We let you choose to share information with marketers or electronic commerce providers through on-site offers.
- We may offer stores or provide services jointly with other companies on friendsgossip. You can tell when another company is involved in any store or service provided on friendsgossip, and we may share customer information with that company in connection with your use of that store or service.
- If the ownership of all or substantially all of the friendsgossip business, or individual business units owned by gossip media GmbH i.G., were to change, your user information may be transferred to the new owner so the service can continue operations. In any such transfer of information, your user information would remain subject to the promises made in any pre-existing Privacy Policy.
When you use friendsgossip, certain information you post or share with third parties (e.g., a friend or someone in your network), such as personal information, comments, messages, photos, videos, Marketplace listings or other information, may be shared with other users in accordance with the privacy settings you select. All such sharing of information is done at your own risk. Please keep in mind that if you disclose personal information in your profile or when posting comments, messages, photos, videos, Marketplace listings or other items , this information may become publicly available.

Links

friendsgossip may contain links to other websites. We are of course not responsible for the privacy practices of other web sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by friendsgossip.

Third Party Advertising

Advertisements that appear on friendsgossip are sometimes delivered (or "served") directly to users by third party advertisers. They automatically receive your IP address when this happens. These third party advertisers may also download cookies to your computer, or use other technologies such as JavaScript to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content. Doing this allows the advertising network to recognize your computer each time they send you an advertisement in order to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content. In this way, they may compile information about where individuals using your computer or browser saw their advertisements and determine which advertisements are clicked. friendsgossip does not have access to or control of the cookies that may be placed by the third party advertisers. Third party advertisers have no access to your contact information stored on friendsgossip unless you choose to share it with them.

This privacy policy covers the use of cookies by friendsgossip and does not cover the use of cookies or other tracking technologies by any of its advertisers.

Changing or Removing Information

Access and control over most personal information on friendsgossip is readily available through the profile editing tools. friendsgossip users may modify or delete any of their profile information at any time by logging into their account. Information will be updated immediately. Individuals who wish to deactivate their friendsgossip account may do so on the My Profile page. Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but will not be generally available to members of friendsgossip.

Where you make use of the communication features of the service to share information with other individuals on friendsgossip, however, (e.g., sending a personal message to another friendsgossip user) you generally cannot remove such communications.

Security

friendsgossip takes appropriate precautions to protect our users' information. Your account information is located on a secured server behind a firewall. When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number or your password), we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). (To learn more about SSL, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Sockets_Layer). Because email and instant messaging are not recognized as secure communications, we request that you not send private information to us by email or instant messaging services. If you have any questions about the security of friendsgossip Web Site, please contact us through the form on our help center page.

Terms of Use, Notices and Revisions

Your use of friendsgossip, and any disputes arising from it, is subject to this Privacy Policy as well as our Terms of Use and all of its dispute resolution provisions including arbitration, limitation on damages and choice of law. We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use at any time. Non-material changes and clarifications will take effect immediately, and material changes will take effect within 30 days of their posting on this site. If we make changes, we will post them and will indicate at the top of this page the policy's new effective date. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or through notice on our home page. We encourage you to refer to this policy on an ongoing basis so that you understand our current privacy policy. Unless stated otherwise, our current privacy policy applies to all information that we have about you and your account.

Contacting the Web Site
If you have any questions about this privacy policy, please contact us by sending an email to privacy@friendsgossip.com. You may also contact us by mail at friendsgossip, Max-Herz-Ring 46, D-22159 Hamburg, Germany.