plasq LLC
Privacy Policy
So that our customers will understand our information practices, this Privacy Policy describes how we collect and use information. By registering, accessing or using the Skitch.com web site located at http://Skitch.com.com (the “Website”), the Skitch.com products (“Products”) and the Skitch.com suite of web facilities (the “Web Facilities”, and together with the Website and the Products, the “Skitch.com Facilities”) operated, developed or made available by and through plasq LLC (“plasq”), you consent to plasq’s collection and use of your personal information as described in this Privacy Policy, as altered and amended and in effect at the time of your use. The Privacy Policy in effect at the time of your access and use of the plasq Facilities may be accessed at http://Skitch.com.com/privacy.
1. Information Collected.
Users of the Skitch.com Facilities provide us with two types of information: personal information that the user chooses to disclose, and web site user information that we collect as you and others browse and use the Skitch.com Facilities.
A. Personal Information You Provide.
1. To take advantage of the Skitch.com Facilities, you must first complete the registration form, which requires that you provide us with your full true name, username [which you select], password [which you select] and email address (“Personal Information”). You may, at your option during registration or any later time, enter into your user profile useful information such as birth year, gender, ZIP / postal code, country of residence, occupation and personal interests, and URL links to other web sites of interest to you, such as your Facebook profile (“Sensitive Personal Information”). When you are registered with us you are not anonymous to us.
2. You must certify that you are at least 13 years of age, or have parental consent to open an account and use the Skitch.com Facilities.
3. We will use this Personal Information to:
a. efficiently provide services to you and those with whom you have chosen to share data, material and information;
b. perform quality assurance and other business analysis;
c. send you marketing materials, promotional information and advertisements concerning our products and, at your election, similar materials related to the products of third parties;
d. contact you about Skitch.com Facilities in which you have expressed interest;
e. authenticate your identity on subsequent visits to the Website;
f. as long as you have an active account with Skitch.com, send you important updates about Skitch.com, the Website and the Skitch.com Facilities;
g. respond to your questions and suggestions;
h. resolve issues related to your account;
i. provide other forms of customer support and services.
4. If any of your Personal Information or Sensitive Personal Information changes, or you no longer wish to use the Skitch.com Facilities, please correct, update or remove the personal data on your account page. Once you have taken these steps your outdated information will be removed from our system. Please be aware that Personal Information and Sensitive Personal Information stored in our backup files, including changes, will be maintained for a period of time after your removal as an active user. Information necessary for the purposes of maintaining business records regarding a cancelled account, including records of transactions and account ownership, will be retained in accordance with applicable law.
5. Users may choose to 'opt-in' to our use of Personal Information for marketing purposes. The registration form has an 'opt-in' mechanism so that users who register may receive our marketing materials, such as the Skitch.com Newsletter, and third party marketing material. If you initially choose not to receive these marketing materials but later wish to receive them, you can change the preferences on your personal account page, and after the change has been made your name will be added to marketing lists. Appropriate provision is made in our Newsletter and other periodic communications with our users allowing them to ‘unsubscribe’ to marketing materials.
6. We reserve the right to send you certain communications regarding service announcements and administrative messages, without allowing you to opt out of receiving them.
7. We reserve the right to contract with third parties to assist us with Website maintenance and communications with our users. Subject to contractual restrictions imposing confidentiality obligations and use restrictions on those third parties, these third parties may have temporary access to user information necessary to perform their contractual duties.
8. We never share with third parties your Sensitive Personal Information. However, this information may be aggregated and shared in an anonymous fashion with third parties.
B. User Information We Collect.
1. We collect information regarding your interaction with the Skitch.com Facilities (“User Information”).
2. We use web server logs to collect and count your IP address, user name, cookie information, and the Skitch.com Facilities accessed, allowing us to analyze trends, administer the Website, identify security threats, and gather broad demographic information. This information is automatically received and recorded on our web server logs.
a. An IP “internet protocol” address is a series of numbers, separated by periods, that uniquely identifies a computer connected to a network. When a web server log tracks IP addresses, it is essentially determining which computers are used to visit our Website.
b. IP addresses may reveal the physical location of the computer used to access our site, or the country or geographic region where that computer is or purports to be located.
3. We use standard technology called “cookies” to keep track of how customers use the Website. Cookies are a feature of web browser software that allow web servers to recognize the computer with which a user accesses a site. Cookies are copies of information stored on the user’s hard drive (not on the site’s web server).
a. Cookies are valuable to our customers because they streamline subsequent interactions and simplify transactions on the Website. For instance, if a customer allows the Website to set a cookie on his or her computer’s hard drive, there will be no need to log in a password more than once, thereby saving time while on our Website. Customers who reject cookies can still access the Website, but their use is limited in some areas; for example, they cannot access their account page.
b. Cookies provide us with valuable information by tracking the paths taken by users as they move among the Website’s pages. This enables us to determine which times are popular to visit the Website, how long users typically spend on each page, and which sites they browse just before and after coming to ours.
c. We may allow third parties to post banners or other advertisements on some of our web pages. These third parties may use cookies to track your interaction with the third party website. The usage of cookies by these third parties is subject to their privacy policies, not ours. These third parties do not have access to the plasq cookies.
4. We use Session IDs to allow us to identify a particular user across multiple web page requests.
a. The Session ID is maintained within your cookie file, where possible.
b. If cookies are not enabled, or if the user's internet browser program does not support cookies, then we will place the Session ID in the requested web page. This allows the end user to avoid having to continually re-enter certain information such as account name and password for every web page request. This Session ID expires whenever the user closes their internet browser.
5. We use various web site tracking and reporting tools to gather information about our users experience. Many of our web pages contain special electronic images, called a "single-pixel gif" or "gifs", that allow us to gather non-personally identifiable traffic statistics and other aggregate information about visitors to our Website. We use this technology to collect and accumulate anonymous data that helps us understand and analyze the experience of users visiting our Website and, along with other information you provide, customize future visits and improve our Websites.
a. “Gifs” capture data on the type of browser used, operating system software, cookie preferences, and search engine keywords. They also record number of visits, paths taken, and time spent on sites and pages within the Website.
b. This information is not personally identifiable and we only distribute this information to internal staff and to partners that have signed confidentiality agreements with us.
c. We may use “clear gifs” in our HTML-based emails to let us know which emails have been opened by the recipients. This allows us to gauge the effectiveness of certain communications and the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns.
6. The Skitch.com Facilities may also include ad banners for the serving and/or targeting of ads, promotions, and other marketing messages. These ad banners may be provided by third party service providers. The provider may place or utilize their own unique cookie, and may use non-personally identifiable information about your visit to our Website, such as the number of times you have viewed the ad. We are not responsible for these cookies and we are not responsible for the privacy policies of these service providers.
7. To provide relevant advertising and monitor user bandwidth usage we may gather data from the referer logs that identify where and how frequently Skitch.com user information is being displayed on third party sites.
8. We will use the User Information to:
a. customize our advertising and the content which you see;
b. fulfill requests for products and services;
c. improve our services;
d. contact you;
e. conduct research;
f. provide anonymous reports and demographic information to our internal support team and external partners, so that they can tailor their advertisements and communications to an appropriate audience.
C. Invitations You Extend to Third Parties.
1. You may extend authorizations to third parties (“Invitees”) to access and share data, material and information you choose to make available.
a. Either you or the Invitee must provide an email address and a password to access the Skitch.com Website and view the shared data, material and information. This information is used to send your Invitees notification that you wish to share data, material and information with them.
b. We will not contact the Invitees for any other reason, nor will we sell or rent their contact information. We will store their contact information in your account to allow you to easily communicate with them in the future.
2. When you choose to share your data, material and information with Invitees, those individuals will be able to view your data, material and information. You will have the ability to track whether and when Invitees access the shared data, material and information. However, as with any email, your Invitees could forward the email invitation to others, who will then be able to click on the link to the data, material and information within the email. These materials are not stored or maintained in encrypted format, and it is thus possible for third parties, not authorized by you, to “hack” into the Website and storage facilities and obtain access to your data, material and information.
3. Our employees or employees of partner companies that provide services to us may see the data, material and information which you share or attempt to share with Invitees in order to evaluate, validate, or correct problems.
D. Demographic Information
1. From time to time, we may request, via the Website, demographic (i.e. zip code, country, age level) and other information from you as part of our on-going process of surveying the needs and desires of our users.
2. Participation in these surveys is completely voluntary, and survey information will be used only to monitor and improve use of and satisfaction with the Website and Skitch.com Facilities.
3. You do not need to provide your name in order to participate in a survey, and your responses will not be linked with your account or your computer’s IP address.
2. Ownership of Information.
A. plasq is the sole owner of all Personal Information, Sensitive Personal Information and User Information (collectively “Information”).
B. We may transfer Information if we are acquired by or merge with another company, in connection with the sale of the assets of plasq, in connection with a reorganization proceeding, or in certain other business circumstances. Such a transaction may involve the disclosure of Personal Information and User Information to prospective or actual purchasers, or receiving it from sellers. It is our policy to seek appropriate protection for this information in these types of transactions
3. Sharing of Information.
A. Personal Information will be not be sold, rented or made available to third parties, except to provide products or services you have requested, when we have your permission, or:
1. to our business partners who have executed confidentiality agreements and who will use that information only to communicate offers of products and services which we or our partners believe may be of interest to you. Our partners do not have the right to share this information with others.
2. to respond to governmental requests for information pursuant to applicable laws or in response to court orders.
3. to establish our legal rights or defend against legal claims.
4. when in our judgment it is necessary to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving threats to persons, property or the public, suspected violations of our Terms of Service, or as otherwise required by law.
B. We will use Personal Information to notify you about important changes to the Website or Skitch.com Facilities and new services and other special offers.
C. We share aggregated demographic information with our partners and advertisers.
4. Information Security.
A. No data transmission over the Internet or any wireless network can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. While we endeavor to protect your Personal Information and take all commercially reasonable efforts to do so, plasq cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us. You do so at your own risk.
B. If you are using a public computer (public library, school computer, etc.) or a shared computer (family computer, roommate's computer, etc.), we strongly recommend that you sign out of your account and close your browser before getting up and moving away from the computer. This will prevent others from accessing your account and Personal Information.
C. We will take reasonable business steps to protect your information off-line. All of our users' information, not just the Personal Information mentioned above, is maintained in restricted areas on our servers. Password information is not available to anyone at the company. All employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices and every quarter, as well as any time new policies are added, our employees are notified and/or reminded about the importance we place on privacy, and what they can do to ensure our customers' information is protected. Access to Personal Information is restricted to employees who we reasonably believe need to come into contact with that information to provide products or services to you or to perform their job responsibilities.
D. The servers on which we store Personal Information, Confidential Personal Information, and User Information, are kept in a secure environment, in a locked cage, at secure locations in the United States.
1. If you are not a resident of the United States, you understand and agree that plasq stores and processes your information on computers located in the United States, and that by providing data to plasq you consent to the transfer of such information to, and storage of such information in, the United States.
2. The Skitch.com Website is hosted in the United States, and we make no representation that the practices described in this Privacy Policy are compliant with laws outside of the United States that apply to the collection, security, use and disclosure of Personal Information, Sensitive Personal Information or User Information
3. The United States may not offer a level of privacy protection for Personal Information or Sensitive Personal Information as great as that offered in other jurisdictions. Therefore the disclosure of Personal Information or Sensitive Personal Information pursuant to this Privacy Policy is at your own risk.
E. plasq backs up all information from its databases. These backup facilities are maintained in secure locations, and are used and accessed only for support functions. They cannot be accessed by our employees unless special steps are taken, and then only as authorized by the Chief Technology Officer of the company.
5. Other Web Sites Linked to the Skitch.com Site.
A. As a convenience to our users, some pages on the Website link to other web sites. You should understand that if you use these links to jump to other web sites, our Privacy Policy will no longer be in effect.
B. plasq is not and cannot be responsible for other sites’ privacy practices.
C. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of each web site you visit. plasq’s Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected on our Website.
6. Notice of Privacy Policy Changes.
A. plasq will post notice of changes or updates to this Privacy Policy on the Website’s homepage. By continuing to use the Website and/or Skitch.com Facilities after such a notice is posted, you signify your consent to the revised Policy.
B. This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and subject to the Plasq Terms of Service. http://Skitch.com.com/ToS
C. Please contact us at any time in order to: (i) request that we delete your Personal Information from our systems; (ii) update Personal Information that you have provided to us; and, (iii) change your preferences with respect to marketing materials. If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy, our Products or the security practices of our Website or Skitch.com Facilities, please email us at .
