Privacy Policy
Information Automatically Collected
General
As is true of many digital properties, we and our third-party partners may automatically collect information you provide to us and information about your device and use of the Service when you visit or interact with our Services. We, and our third-party partners, use cookies and other tracking technologies (e.g., pixels, SDKs, APIs, scripts, location-identifying technologies, and logging technologies) in connection with our Services to collect and store the information described in this section (and otherwise expanded upon in other sections) for our, and our third-party partners’, purposes.
The type of information automatically collected includes:
- Device data, including internet protocol (IP) address, operating system, device type and version, browser type and version, browser id, the URL entered, the referring page, date/time of visit, other user agent string data, the time spent on our Services, and any errors that may occur during the visit to our Services. Device data may overlap with the other categories of data listed below.
- Analytics/Usage data, including the path taken to our Services, through our Services, and when exiting our Services, usage and activity on or in connection with our Services (e.g., pages visited, links clicked, videos watched), metrics on how many emails we send are actually opened and which attachments or links are opened, clicked, or viewed (such as via pixels, as described further below). We may also use third-party tools to collect information you provide to us or information about how you use the Services, including mouse movements, scrolling, clicks, and keystroke activity on the Services and other browsing, search, or purchasing behavior. These tools may also record information you enter when you interact with our Services or engage in chat or other features through our Services.
- Location data, including geographic location we or our third-party providers may collect, such as via permissions within the app operating system or browser functionality.
- Advertising/Advertising measurement data, including data associated with your view of, or your clicks on, advertisements served on our Services, cookie IDs or other digital or proprietary identifiers (e.g., iOS IDFA, Google AAID) assigned to such device, and device metadata, analytics/usage data, and location data described above, in each case, for purposes of serving advertising (personalized or otherwise) or facilitating advertising measurement/attribution to better optimize or otherwise understand the effectiveness of ad campaigns.
- Other Users who Interact with our Services: We may receive your information from other users who interact with our Services.
- Business Partners: We may receive your information from our business partners, such as companies that offer their products or services on our Services or on other properties (e.g., digital properties, offline locations) or marketing/advertising and analytics partners, including third-party brands/agencies or other partners that facilitate the buying and selling of advertising inventory on our Services, measure of the effectiveness of those related ad campaigns, or inform business analytics (e.g., view rates, bounce rates, audience composition).
- Social Media Networks: When an individual interacts with our Services through various social media networks, such as when someone logs in through a social network, “Likes” us on Facebook, or follows us or shares our content on Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or other social networks, we may receive some information from those social networks including your profile information and any other information you permit the social network to share with third parties. We use this information to allow you to log into your account, to communicate or interact with individuals on the social network, to better understand the demographics of our visitors, and to personalize content and advertising. Individuals should always review and, if necessary, adjust their privacy settings on third-party websites and social media networks and services before sharing information or linking or connecting them to other services.
- Information We Receive From Authentication Services: Some parts of our Service may allow you to login through a third-party social network or authentication service such as Facebook or Google. These services will authenticate the individual’s identity and provide the option to share certain personal information with us, which could include a name, email address, address book and contacts, or other information. The data we receive is dependent on that third party’s policies and the individual’s privacy settings on that third-party digital property. We use this information to authenticate the individual’s account, to provide our Services, to communicate with our users, and for advertising and marketing purposes.
- Service Providers: Our service providers that perform services on our behalf, such as payment processors or survey and third parties who conduct marketing/advertising and analytics activities on our behalf, collect personal information and may share some or all of this information with us.
- Information Providers: We may from time to time obtain information from third-party information providers to correct or supplement personal information we collect. For example, we may obtain updated contact information from third-party information providers to reconnect with an individual or obtain demographic information (e.g., interests, preferences).
- Other Sources: We may also collect personal information about individuals that we do not otherwise have from, for example, publicly available sources, third-party data providers, brand partnerships, or through transactions such as mergers and acquisitions.
- For marketing purposes: We may send you communications about new features, updates, products, and special offers. We may also use your information to serve you ads about our products or other products or services we (or our advertising partners, such as other third-party brands/agencies) think you might find interesting. We may also use individual and aggregate information about you to inform our, and our third-party partners, marketing and advertising campaigns more broadly.
- To monitor, improve, and develop our products and services: We may use your information to understand our users and to tailor or optimize our Services. For example, we may analyze statistics and trends to make our Services better and to develop or better personalize the Services or new services or features.
- To protect the security and integrity of our business, comply with legal requirements and obligations, or as otherwise permitted by law: We may use your information to protect our company, our affiliates, including other Product Compare Reports brands, our customers, and our Services. We may also use information in order to comply with laws, regulations, court orders, or other legal obligations or to assist in an investigation, protect and defend our rights and property, or the rights or safety of third parties, enforce our Terms of Use, this Privacy Policy, or agreements with third parties, detect and prevent fraud or for crime-prevention purposes, or for any other reason permitted by law. We may take part in or be involved with a corporate business transaction, such as a merger, acquisition, joint venture, or financing or sale of company assets and may use information in connection with or as an asset in such a corporate business transaction. Personal information may also be used in the event of insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership.
- For any other purposes with your consent, at your direction, or where notice is provided: We may use your personal information for any other purposes with your consent, at your direction, or where notice is otherwise provided.
- Third Parties At Your Request: You may choose to share your activities on the Services with your friends through email, text, or on various social media networks.
- Promotional Partners: We may share information with third parties with whom we partner to provide contests, surveys, and sweepstakes, or other joint promotional activities.
- Marketing and Strategic Business Partners: We may share information with marketing/advertising, analytics, and other business partners (such as those that provide their own products or services on other properties) for purposes such as us or those entities providing you with information, undertaking marketing/advertising activities about products or services that may interest you, informing business analytics, or for other business or commercial purposes as may be further described in their privacy policies or our privacy policy.
- Online Advertising Partners: We may share information with third-party online advertising partners or permit these partners to collect information from you on our Services to facilitate online advertising and related measurement/attribution activities.
- The Public: When you provide feedback or post user content on our Services (e.g., if you post a comment on an article or comment on our social media sites), your information (e.g., your first name, last initial, state of residence, and your comments) may be displayed on our Services or on our social media pages. When you engage with us on social media, we may tag your social media account or the social media account of others (e.g., to give photo credit to another user).
- With Your Consent, At Your Direction, or Where Notice is Provided: In addition to the sharing described in this Privacy Policy, we may share information about you with third parties whenever you consent to or direct such sharing or where notice is otherwise provided.
- Law Enforcement, Regulators and Other Parties For Legal Reasons: Personal information may be disclosed to third parties, as required by law or subpoena, or if we reasonably believe that such action is necessary to (a) comply with the law and the reasonable requests of law enforcement, (b) to enforce our Terms of Use or to protect the security or integrity of our Services, or (c) to exercise or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of our organization, our visitors, or others.
- Access to, Modification of, or Deletion of Your Information: You have the right to request access to your personal information, amendment/correction of inaccurate/incomplete personal information, or deletion of your personal information. In order to better protect the security of your personal information, we will seek to confirm your identity as part of our processing of any request. Under certain circumstances, we may not fulfill your request, such as where we, in our discretion, deem that your identity has not been reasonably verified or that such information is subject to legal/regulatory, internal audit, record-keeping, or other requirements or legal exceptions such that the request should not reasonably be granted (or should be granted in part). In any event, we will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe. In order to make such a request of us, please contact us by using one of the following methods:
- for United States residents and for individuals located in the European Economic Area, Switzerland, or the United Kingdom, please email us at [email protected] and indicating in the subject line the type of request (e.g., Access, Modification, or Deletion)
- Marketing E-mail Preferences: You can manage your opt-out preferences for each of our brand’s marketing e-mails by:
- using the unsubscribe link at the bottom of such messages, or
- by visiting “E-mail Preferences” (to the extent offered by a brand) on our Services and updating your preferences.
- Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies: To manage cookies, an individual may have the ability to change their browser settings to (for example): (i) notify them when they receive a cookie, so the individual can choose whether or not to accept it; (ii) disable existing cookies; or (iii) automatically reject cookies (or certain types of cookies, such as cookies set by third parties). Note that similar controls may exist for other tracking technologies, such as pixels, SDKs, and localStorage. Please check your device or browser settings and related documentation for more information.
- Online Ads: To learn more about interest-based advertising and how you may be able to opt-out of some of this advertising (to the extent the advertising partner or other entity participates in such industry opt-out pages), you may wish to visit the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) resources at https://www.aboutads.info/choices (or https://www.youronlinechoices.eu/ or https://youradchoices.ca/en/tools for the EEA and Canada, respectively) or the Network Advertising Initiative’s (NAI) online resources at https://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/. You can also opt-out of receiving some interest-based advertisements on mobile apps by visiting https://www.aboutads.info/appchoices. You may also be able to opt-out of some interest-based advertising served by participating mobile ad networks by visiting https://youradchoices.com/appchoices and downloading the mobile AppChoices app.
- California, Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada, Utah, and Virginia: If you are a California, Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada, Utah, or Virginia resident, please see the ‘U.S. State Privacy Notice’ section below.
- European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or Switzerland: If you are located in the European Economic Area (“EEA”), United Kingdom (“UK”), or Switzerland, or otherwise engage with our European operations, please see the ‘European Privacy Notice’ section for additional European-specific privacy information, including what constitutes your personal data, the lawful bases we rely on to process your personal data, and your rights in respect of your personal data.
- Categories/Use of PI: In the last 12 months, please see the list below for the categories of personal information we have collected. Further, please see “How Do We Use Personal Information?” for the purposes for which such personal information is used.
- Identifiers, such as your name, email address, date of birth, online identifiers, or other similar identifiers.
- California Customer Records (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)), such as birth date, contact information, and payment information.
- Protected Classification Characteristics, such as age and gender.
- Commercial Information, such as payment and purchase history.
- Internet/Network Information, such as device information, logs, and analytics data.
- Geolocation Data, such as location information from your device or generated based on IP address or Wi-Fi.
- Profession/Employment Information, such as your employer, company, or school if your subscription is tied to an employer or school account.
- Other Personal Information, such as information you post on our social media pages or otherwise provide to us.
- Inferences, such as predictions about your interests and preferences.
- Sensitive Personal Information, such as account username and password or data that may concern your health or race/ethnic origin.
- “Sales” and “Shares”: In the previous 12 months, we may have “sold” and “shared” the following categories of personal information to our advertising/marketing and analytics partners for the purposes of advertising/marketing and analytics services, subject to your right to opt-out via our Your Privacy Choices link (found in the website footer): Identifiers, Commercial Information, Geolocation Data, Internet/Network Information, and data that may be considered “sensitive” personal information.
- Data Retention: We retain the categories of personal information above as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this notice, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law. In many situations, we must obtain all, or a portion, of your personal information to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, protect against fraudulent, deceptive, or illegal activity, or for another one of our business purposes.
- Notice of Financial Incentives: We may offer you financial incentives for the collection, sale, retention, and use of your PI as permitted by the CCPA that can, without limitation, result in reasonably different prices, rates, or quality levels. The material aspects of any financial incentive will be explained and described in its program terms. Please note that participating in incentive programs is entirely optional, you will have to affirmatively opt-in to the program and you can opt-out of each program (i.e., terminate participation and forgo the ongoing incentives) prospectively by following the instructions in the applicable program description and terms. We may add or change incentive programs or their terms by posting notice on the program descriptions and terms linked to above, so check them regularly.
- Each price or service difference related to the collection and use of personal information is based upon our reasonable, good-faith determination of the estimated value of such information to our business, such as by calculating the expense related to the offer, provision, or imposition of the financial incentive or price or service difference or revenue generation or expense related to the sale, collection, or retention of consumers’ personal information.
- to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
- for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
- for our legitimate interests or those of a third party;
- where you have given consent to our specific use.
- To provide products and services you request: It is necessary for us to process your personal data in order to deliver the services and process transactions according to the applicable contract between us (or take necessary steps relating thereto).
- To respond to requests, questions, and comments, and provide other types of user support: It is necessary for us to respond to requests, questions, and comments, and provide other types of user support in order to take steps at your request or according to the applicable contract between us.
- To offer you products and services in marketing communications, or direct you to portions of this Site or other websites, that we believe may interest you: We may send electronic marketing communications to you if you have consented to these communications. It is in our legitimate interest to market out products and services to you by other means and to direct you to portions of this Site or other websites that we believe may interest you. We consider this use to be proportionate and will not be prejudicial or detrimental to your rights and freedoms.
- To communicate about, and administer your participation in, events, programs, contests, and other offers or promotions: We will send electronic communications to you if you have consented to these communications, where such consent is required by applicable law. With respect to other communications, it is in our legitimate interest to communicate to you and administer your participation in, our events, programs, contests, and other offers or promotions. We consider this use to be proportionate and will not be prejudicial or detrimental to your rights and freedoms.
- To carry out, evaluate, and improve our business (which may include developing new features for the Services; analyzing and enhancing the user experience on the Services; optimizing and assessing the effectiveness of our marketing and advertising; and managing our communications): It is in our legitimate interests to process your personal data to carry out these activities. We consider this use to be proportionate and will not be prejudicial or detrimental to your rights and freedoms.
- To perform data analytics regarding usage of the Services (including market and customer research, trend analysis, financial analysis, and pseudonymization or anonymization of personal data): It is in our legitimate interests to process your personal data to carry out these activities. We consider this use to be proportionate and will not be prejudicial or detrimental to you.
- To serve advertising, content, and offers to you based on your interests and online activities, from us or third parties: We will serve you advertising, content and offers to you based on your interests and online activities if you have consented to this processing.
- To enable our affiliates or service providers to perform certain activities on our behalf: It is necessary for us to process your personal data in this manner in order to deliver the services and process transactions according to the applicable contract between us. It is also in our legitimate interest to enable our service providers and affiliates to perform certain activities on our behalf. We consider this use to be proportionate and will not be prejudicial or detrimental to your rights and freedoms.
- To notify you of any changes to the Services that may affect you: It is necessary for us to process your personal data in order to deliver the services and process transactions according to the applicable contract between us.
- If we are required to do so by law, regulation, or legal process (such as a court order or subpoena); in response to requests from government agencies, such as law enforcement authorities, including to meet national security requirements; if we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to prevent physical harm or financial loss, or in connection with an investigation of suspected or actual illegal activity; and in the event we sell or transfer all or a portion of our business or assets (including a reorganization, dissolution, or liquidation). In such an event, we will seek to provide you with commercially reasonable notice, e.g., via email and/or notice on our Sites, of any change in ownership, incompatible new uses of your personal data, and choices you may have regarding your personal data: We conduct this processing to comply with our legal obligations and to protect the public interest.
- Guard against, identify, and prevent fraud and other criminal activity, claims, and other liabilities; and comply with applicable legal requirements, law enforcement requests, and our company policies: We conduct this processing to comply with our legal obligations and to protect the public interest.
- Right of access: You have the right to ask us for confirmation on whether we are processing your personal data, and access to the personal data and related information.
- Right to correction: You have the right to have your personal data corrected, as permitted by law.
- Right to erasure: You have the right to ask us to delete your personal data, as permitted by law.
- Right to withdraw consent: You have the right to withdraw consent that you have provided.
- Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority: You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority in the member state of your habitual residence.
- Right to restriction of processing: You have the right to request the limiting of our processing under limited circumstances.
- Right to data portability: You have the right to receive the personal data that you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, and you have the right to transmit that information to another controller, including to have it transmitted directly, where technically feasible.
- Right to object: You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data, as permitted by law, under limited circumstances.
- Submit a request through the European Rights Request Form. Please note that the above rights are not absolute and we may be entitled to refuse requests, wholly or partly, where exceptions under the applicable law apply.