Updated September 24, 2009

Overview

Bleeping Computer is strongly committed to protecting the privacy of consumers of its services and of visitors to its site. We want to contribute to providing a safe and secure environment for our members and, in particular, ensure that children's information is protected.

BleepingComputer is dedicated to protecting your personal information and due to the rapidly evolving nature of the technologies BleepingComputer uses, we will sometimes update our privacy policy to accommodate this. Any comments or questions regarding our privacy practices should be submitted using this feedback form.

Overview of the information we collect.

BleepingComputer.com will collect personally identifying information during the following: (i) optional events, sweepstakes, contests or promotion registrations; (ii) member registration for certain interactive parts of our site where visitors can provide content and suggestions or participate in interactive discussions.

Each time a visitor connects to a page on the BleepingComputer.com site, that visitor's IP address will automatically be logged. This is standard policy with all sites and is used to track which pages visitors access and how long they spend there. This information will only be used internally to Bleeping Computer to allow us to find what content is relevant to our members. We will collect information that visitors provide to us through surveys and other submissions but will never share this information unless given permission by the member. BleepingComputer.com may retain information indefinitely.

Email addresses are collected when you register an account, contact the site administrators, or submit an entry into a contest. These email addresses are used for only the following purposes: (i) Validation of a member registration, (ii) Topic and forum subscription notifications, (iii) For the site administrator to contact the particular user, (iv) To notify the user that they won a contest. At no time will email addresses be provided to 3rd parties or be used for any other purposes.

BleepingComputer.com may at time allow user profiles to be visible to the public. These profiles may contain personally identifying information volunteered by its visitors. All information that is publicly visible is provided by the member and can be changed by the member when they edit their profile. Under no circumstances will unauthorized member information be shown to the public.

From time to time Bleeping Computer may offer surveys, sweepstakes, and promotions to visitors. Any information that is collected by these surveys, sweepstakes, or promotions will only be passed on to another company for the purposes of delivery a prize. Under no circumstances will we pass on this information without notifying you that this will be done at the beginning of the survey, sweepstake, or promotion. If you choose not to participate in these promotions then your information will never be released to any third-party organizations.

What does BleepingComputer.com do with the information it collects?

BleepingComputer.com uses the information in a myriad of ways. BleepingComputer may use the information to award prizes, for editorial and feedback purposes, and to track Rules of Use issues.

In addition, BleepingComputer has the right to disclose personally identifying information if BleepingComputer believes that such action is reasonably necessary to enforce its User Agreement, to comply with the law, to comply with the legal process, or to protect the property and rights of the site itself and its users.

Our third party partners, who advertise on our site or provide promotions, may collect information about you. BleepingComputer does not control the collection or use of this information and you should contact our partners directly if you have any issues on how they use this information.

As was stated above, from time to time Bleeping Computer will present to its visitors special sweepstakes and promotions. At the beginning of such sweepstake and promotion a user will be notified as to whether or not their information will be given to another party for prize delivery purposes. By completing the submission you acknowledge that Bleeping Computer has notified you and that you expressly agreed to the passing of your submitted information. If you choose not to participate in these surveys, sweepstakes, or promotions your information will never be given out.

How does BleepingComputer protect and secure my information?

BleepingComputer will make all means necessary to protect your sensitive information from unauthorized access. If you ever give credit card information on BleepingComputer.com, we will take commercially reasonable steps to establish a secure connection with your web browser.

How can I update my personal information?

You can update almost all information about your account by logging in and clicking on My Control Panel. From the control panel you can Edit your profile. If there is information that you can not change with this method, please send an e-mail to us using this feedback form with all relevant information.

Policies for individuals under 13 (COPPA)

BleepingComputer firmly believes that everyone can gain something from using our site, but we are a big believer in requiring the permission from parents for their children (anyone 13 years old or younger) to have access to our discussion boards.

We will not knowingly use information collected from visitors under 13 years of age for any marketing or promotional purposes whatsoever, either inside or outside BleepingComputer. Visitors' e-mail addresses are not posted on BleepingComputer, unless provided by a visitor as part of a user profile. In order for a user who is under 13 years old to become a member at BleepingComputer.com we require the parent to fill out a COPPA form giving us permission to allow the user to be validated as a member.

IP addresses and How we Use them

BleepingComputer collects IP addresses for the purpose of statistical reporting and to report statistical information to our advertisers. An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the web.

Information on the surveys shown at BleepingComputer.com

BleepingComputer.com uses Crowd Science to delivery surveys where we ask generic questions to our users. These surveys will be randomly shown to unregistered members as a small prompt at the bottom of the site. If you do not wish to take part in the survey you can either decline it, or ignore the message and it will go away shortly. These surveys allow us to collect non-personally identifiable information about our visitors in order to create interesting and quality content and advertising campaigns.

Under no circumstances will any personally identifiable information be asked during these surveys.

How BleepingComputer.com uses Cookies.

Cookies are small text files that a web site sets on your computer in your hard drive in order to recognize you in the future. Cookies make using our site easier, as they allow you to register an account and stay logged in as you traverse the site. If you do not allow cookies from BleepingComputer.com, then you will not be able to use certain features of the site, such as the forums. The use of cookies is an industry standard and you will find them at almost all major web sites.

BleepingComputer.com also uses cookies to save your password for future visits. At times we will use another company to handle our online commerce. When this is the case that company may use cookies to keep track of your shopping cart while you are shopping.

We do not use cookies to retrieve information from your computer that was not originally sent in one of our cookies, nor do we use cookies to track your movements on the Internet or any other information. We will not use any information transferred through cookies for any promotional or marketing purposes.

Certain web pages may contain images, sometimes called web beacons, that allow a web site to count users who have visited that page. BleepingComputer.com will only use web beacons within its web site for statistical purposes.

If you participate in a survey, you will be issued a cookie from Crowd Science so that you do not get prompted to participate in another survey for 3 months. This cookie will not be used for any other reason.

You may occasionally get cookies from our advertisers, such as Google. BleepingComputer.com does not control these cookies, and these cookies are not subject to the BleepingComputer.com cookies policy. Information about how our advertisers use cookies can be found in the next section.

How advertisers use cookies at BleepingComputer.com

We use third-party advertising companies, such as Google, to serve ads when you visit our web site. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you.

Google specific cookie information:

• Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on your site.
• Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to your users based on their visit to your sites and other sites on the Internet.
• Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

If you would like more information about Google's use of cookies and to know your choices about not having this information used by them, click here.

How to Unsubscribe from BleepingComputer.com

If you are a member of this site, and would like to unsubscribe, you can contact us and provide your login name and E-mail address. We will then verify via e-mail that you are indeed the owner of the account and remove or deactivate it as per your wish.

By using this web site, you signify your assent to the BleepingComputer Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use this site. We reserve the right, at our discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of this policy at any time . Please check this page periodically for changes that may have occurred. You continued use of this web site following the posting of these changes signifies that you accept those changes.

If at any time you would like to communicate with us about your privacy concerns, please e-mail us using this feedback form.