Privacy Statement

Effective May 21, 2016

We value your privacy, and we want to help make your experience with answerMug as satisfying and safe as possible. We have established this Privacy Policy to explain how answerMug collects Personal Information (as defined below) on the website, and how answerMug uses and discloses that Personal Information. "Personal Information," as used in this Privacy Policy, is information that allows a person to directly identify an individual, such as name or email address, and information that we combine directly with such identifying information. This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and is subject to the answerMug “Terms of Service”. Any capitalized terms not defined herein have the meaning set forth in the answerMug “Terms of Service”. By using answerMug, you expressly consent to the information handling practices described in this Privacy Policy.

1. How answerMug Operates

answerMug allows registered users ("Members" aka “Muggers”) to create, join our social network. answerMug also uses Third Party Application Developers and Third Party Applications on the site. answerMug Members who join a Network are "Network Members" of answerMug. The Network Creator, Moderators, and Administrators are also considered Network Members of the Networks they create.

In its operation of answerMug, and its provision of its services to Network Creators and Third Party Application Developers, answerMug collects, uses, and retains all information, including Personal Information and Network Member Data, that you disclose to the Network Creators in your use of Networks. When you sign up to become a member of answerMug, you are providing Personal Information to answerMug, as well as to answerMug’s Network Creator. answerMug 's use and disclosure of Personal Information is described in this Privacy Policy. Additionally, if you add a Third Party Application to your Network or your profile, answerMug may provide certain Personal Information to that Third Party Application Developer. answerMug's disclosures of Personal Information to Network Creators and Third Party Application Developers are described in greater detail under the "When answerMug Discloses Personal Information" heading below.

answerMug and Third Party Application Developers may also collect additional types of Personal Information, and may use and disclose Personal Information in accordance with this privacy policy. Additionally, for each Third Party Application that you add to answerMug or your profile, you should check with the Third Party Application Developer regarding its policies governing its collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information.

2. Collection of Personal Information

Personal Information You Provide

  • answerMug Member Data You must register for an answerMug ID to become an answerMug Member, sign up for the Network, or to sign up as a Third Party Application Developer. When you register for an answerMug ID, you are required to provide certain Personal Information, including your name, email address, date of birth, and a password that you select. You also may create an answerMug Profile and provide other Personal Information within your answerMug Profile, such as your gender, city, state, and country, and a photo. You may choose not to display some of this information, causing it not to be displayed to other Members. Please note, however, that even if you choose not to display Personal Information in your answerMug Profile, that information will be accessible by answerMug. When you sign up for the Network, you will be asked to sign in to the Network with your answerMug ID. The Personal Information in your answerMug ID (except for your password) is provided to the Network Creator. Certain Personal Information (your date of birth, name and email address) from your answerMug ID is pre-populated into your "My Profile" Page and your answerMug Profile upon sign in. Additionally, any Personal Information you choose to add to any answerMug Profile is pre-populated in your My Profile Page when you sign up for any new Networks. The Personal Information in your My Profile Page may be accessed by the Network Creator and all answerMug Members who browse the Network. You also may have other opportunities to voluntarily provide Personal Information to answerMug. For example, if you contact us to provide feedback or request support we collect your email address and other Personal Information that you provide. Another example is when you add an answerMug Application running on answerMug to a third party web site and you voluntarily input certain Personal Information.
  • Network Member Data Network Creators may also request additional Personal Information from answerMug Members who register for their Networks. Certain Personal Information collected from Network Members will be retained in the Network Member's My Profile Page for that Network. Network Creators may designate responses to some or all of the questions that they ask their Network Members to respond to as "private." Network Creators may also choose to change the settings on the responses to questions by their Network Members from "private" to "public" at a later date. If requests for additional information are marked "private," they will be viewable only by answerMug, the Network Creator, and administrators designated by the Network Creator. Network Creators may also designate the Networks that they create as private, limiting Network Members to those that they approve or specifically invite. Please note, however, that while the general public can not view private Networks, or your My Profile Page for private Networks, answerMug, Network Members of the Network, the Network Creator, and administrators designed by the Network Creator can view this information. Network Members also have access to answerMug's Address Book feature. The Address Book feature allows Network Members to input contact information for their friends, whether or not those friends have answerMug IDs, and to send event and other invitations to them. Network Members may use the Address Book by entering contact information for their friends manually or, alternatively, retrieving contact information from supported email service providers. To retrieve contact information from a third-party service provider, the Network Member must provide login credentials for the email service providers that he or she has selected. That information is used to retrieve the contact information from the selected third-party service providers and is not retained by answerMug. If you send out invitations to join a particular Network, the contact information that you enter for the friends that you have invited, including information that is imported into, or entered manually into, the Address Book, may be accessed by Network Creators and their designated administrators.

3. Passive Data Collection

Like most web-based services, answerMug automatically receives and records information on our server logs from your browser when you use answerMug. answerMug may use a variety of methods, including clear GIFs (also known as "web beacons"), and "cookies" to collect this information. The information that answerMug collects with these automated methods may include, for example, your IP address, answerMug cookie information, a unique device or user ID, browser type, system type, the content and pages that you access on answerMug, and the "referring URL" (i.e., the page from which you navigated to answerMug).

We also use cookies to recognize your answerMug ID, and to store references to your answerMug ID and session validators on your hard drive. We also include clear GIFs in some of our email messages in order to learn whether the messages are delivered and opened.

We use passively-collected information to administer, operate, and improve answerMug and our other services and systems, and to provide services and content that are tailored to you, this includes providing customized advertisements and monitoring and reporting of the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. If we directly combine any information gathered through passive means with Personal Information, we treat the combined information as Personal Information under this Privacy Policy. Otherwise, we use information collected by passive means in aggregated or other non-personally identifiable forms.

Websites visited before visiting answerMug might place Personal Information within the URL of your browser during a visit to that previous website. answerMug may unintentionally collect that information as part of referring URL information that it collects.

Also, please be aware that third parties, including advertising servers, advertising networks, Third Party Application Developers, and Network Creators, may set cookies or use other means of passively collecting information about your use of their services. We do not have access to, or control over, these cookies or other means of passive data collection. You should consult the respective privacy policies of these Third Party Application Developers, Network Creators, advertising servers or advertising networks. This Privacy Policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers, Third Party Application Developers or websites.

4. Content and Use of Networks

When you send messages, make postings, or otherwise post or transmit any Content within answerMug, others who visit or use that Network may access any Personal Information within such Content. Within your Network Member settings, accessible at the "Settings" link, you may be able to modify your privacy settings for certain types of Content that you make available on that Network.

Some of this information, such as your latest activity on answerMug, and the most active members of answerMug, will be made available to Network Creators, and may also be made available to other members of, and visitors to, answerMug as well as to Third Party Application Developers.

Because you may voluntarily disclose Personal Information when you post or otherwise transmit Content, please be careful with the information that you choose to disclose.

5. Third Party Advertisers

answerMug allows other companies, called third-party ad servers or ad networks, such as Google AdSense and Taboola, to serve advertisements on answerMug These third-party ad servers or ad networks may use technology to send, directly to your browser, the advertisements that appear within answerMug and they automatically receive your IP Address and other log file information when this happens. Such third-party ad servers may also use other technologies (such as cookies, javascript, or web beacons) to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and to personalize their advertising content.

answerMug does not provide your Personal Information to these third-party ad servers or ad networks without your consent. However, please note that if an advertiser asks answerMug to show an advertisement to a certain audience or audience segment and you respond to that advertisement, the advertiser or ad-server may conclude that you fit the description of the audience that they were trying to reach.

You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers or ad networks. This Privacy Policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites. answerMug reserves the right to add or remove third-party ad networks or ad servers in its discretion and answerMug may not at all times list such updated ad network or ad server partners in this Privacy Policy.

6. Information Received From Third-Party Sources

We may also obtain information, including Personal Information, from third-party sources. This includes certain Personal Information that may be provided to us through the installation and use of answerMug Applications on third party web sites. If we directly combine information from other third parties with Personal Information that we collect on answerMug, we will treat the combined information as "Personal Information" and handle it in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

7. How answerMug Uses Personal Information

We may use Personal Information to operate, provide, improve, and maintain answerMug, and our other services and systems, and to develop new products and services; to prevent abusive and fraudulent use of answerMug and our other services and systems; to personalize and display advertisements (via our own advertising engine or server) and other content on answerMug; to send you administrative messages, and information about answerMug, content, and answerMug services in which we believe you may be interested; and for other administrative and internal business purposes.

8. When answerMug Discloses Personal Information

answerMug is not in the business of renting or selling email addresses and other information, and does not share Personal Information with third parties except in the limited circumstances described in this Privacy Policy. Please be aware, however, that any information that you voluntarily choose to display on any publicly available portion of answerMug, becomes publicly available and may be collected and used by Network Creators, answerMug or others without restriction.

  • answerMug Service Providers answerMug may provide Personal Information to third parties for their use in performing internal business functions (e.g., payment processing, maintenance, security, data analysis, or data hosting) on our behalf.
  • answerMug Applications As described in greater detail in the answerMug Application Terms, when a Network Member adds a Third Party Application to his or her Network profile, answerMug may disclose certain Personal Information in that Network Member's answerMug Profile and answerMug ID, and certain Network Member Data, to the Third Party Application Developer of the Third Party Application. Network Members and Network Creators may opt-out of having Personal Information from their answerMug Profile and answerMug ID shared with Third Party Application Developers, but will be prevented from adding Third Party Applications to their Profile Page and their Network. Additionally, Third Party Applications may require, or may otherwise allow Network Members to provide, other forms of Personal Information. Please see the answerMug Applications Terms for additional information regarding the provision of Personal Information to Third Party Application Developers.
  • answerMug Affiliates Although answerMug currently does not have a parent company or any subsidiaries, joint venture partners, or other companies that it controls or is under common control with (collectively, "affiliates"), it may in the future. answerMug may share some of all or your Personal Information with its affiliates, in which case we will seek to require those affiliates to honor this Privacy Policy.
  • Legal Requirements answerMug may disclose Personal Information if we have a good-faith belief that doing so is required by a subpoena or other judicial or administrative order or otherwise required by law. Additionally, answerMug may disclose Personal Information where we, in good faith, deem it appropriate or necessary to prevent violation of the answerMug Terms of Service, or our other agreements; take precautions against liability; protect the rights, property, or safety of answerMug, any individual, or the general public; maintain and protect the security and integrity of our services or infrastructure; protect ourselves and our services from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful uses; investigate and defend ourselves against third-party claims or allegations; or assist government enforcement agencies.

9. Change of Ownership

In the event of a change in ownership, or a merger with, acquisition by, or sale of assets to, another entity, we reserve the right to transfer all of your Personal Information, including email addresses, to that entity. answerMug will use reasonable efforts to notify registered users of such a transfer (by a posting on our home page, or by email to an answerMug Member's email address that was provided to us, as chosen by us in our discretion).

10. Security

We use industry standard security measures to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of Personal Information under our control. Although we make good faith efforts to maintain the security of such Personal Information, we cannot guarantee that it will remain free from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, or alteration. Further, while we work hard to ensure the integrity and security of our network and systems, we cannot guarantee that our security measures will prevent "hackers" or other unauthorized persons from illegally accessing or obtaining this information. We do not assume any liability to third parties whose information you include in your Address Book, or which you post or transmit in any Content on a Network. To help maintain the security of your answerMug ID, please keep your password secure.

If we learn of a security breach, we may attempt to notify you electronically so that you can take appropriate protective steps. By using answerMug or providing Personal Information to us, you agree that we can communicate with you electronically regarding security, privacy, and administrative issues relating to your use of answerMug. If a security systems breach occurs, answerMug may post a notice on the answerMug homepage, or elsewhere on answerMug and may send email to you at the email address you have provided to us.

11. Children

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA") protects the online privacy of children under 13 years of age. answerMug does not knowingly collect or maintain personal information from anyone under the age of 13, unless or except as permitted by law. Any person who provides Personal Information through answerMug represents to us that he or she is 13 years of age or older. If answerMug learns that Personal Information has been collected from a user under 13 years of age on or through answerMug, then answerMug will take the appropriate steps to cause this information to be deleted.

If you are the parent or legal guardian of a child under 13 who has become an answerMug Member, please contact answerMug at answerMugger at gmail.com to have that child's account terminated and information deleted.

The following are some resources that may help parents and legal guardians in monitoring and limiting your children's access to certain types of material on the Internet. While answerMug does not endorse these products, we provide information about them as a public service to our community.

12. Your Choices

You may, at any time, update, correct, or delete certain categories of Personal Information that you have provided to answerMug by logging in to answerMug and updating the Personal Information. Additionally, you may update, correct, or delete certain categories of Personal Information within your Profile Pages.

You may also, at any time, elect to deactivate your membership within answerMug by visiting the Settings page while logged in to a Network. The Network Creator may still maintain and use Personal Information that you have provided in accordance with the Network Creator's privacy policies. Additionally, you may terminate your answerMug ID account and end your use of the answerMug at any time and for no reason by  contacting us at answerMugger at gmail.com.

Additionally, even if you update or remove Personal Information that you have provided to answerMug or any Network Creator, your Personal Information may be retained in our backup files and archives for a reasonable period of time for legal purposes.

13. Email Communications and Unsolicited Commercial Email

We may send you administrative messages, and updates regarding your answerMug ID account, answerMug, and answerMug's services, by email, as well as administrative or promotional messages to the extent permitted by applicable law and the answerMug Terms of Service. When you are logged in to answerMug, you may indicate your preferences regarding certain administrative email messages. Additionally, if you receive an email invitation from answerMug to join and do not wish to receive any future messages for this Network, you can choose to opt-out of receiving future messages from this Network by following the directions on the bottom of the email message you receive. You do not need to sign up to a Network to block all future emails from the Network.

14. Third-Party Service

answerMug may contain links to websites and services provided by third parties. Any Personal Information you provide on third-party sites or services is provided directly to that third party and is subject to that third party's policies governing privacy and security. We are not responsible for the content or privacy and security practices and policies of third-party sites or services to which links are displayed on answerMug. We encourage you to learn about third parties' privacy and security policies before providing them with Personal Information.

15. International Users

answerMug is hosted in the United States. If you use the answerMug from the European Union, or any other region with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from U.S. law, please note that you are transferring your personal data to the United States. The United States does not have the same data protection laws as the European Union and other regions. By providing Personal Information under this Privacy Policy, you consent to the use of Personal Information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and the transfer of your Personal Information to the United States.

16. Changes and Updates to This Privacy Policy

We may occasionally update this Privacy Policy. If we do, we will update the "effective date" at the top of the Privacy Policy. We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy to stay informed about our collection, use, and disclosure of Personal Information on answerMug. Your continued use of answerMug constitutes your agreement to this Privacy Policy and any updates.

17. Contacting answerMug

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, you may contact us at answerMugger at gmail.com.

 

18. Notice Regarding Online Behavioral Advertising.


We allow third-party companies to serve ads and/or collect certain anonymous information when you visit our Web site. These companies may use non-personally identifiable information (e.g., click stream information, browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over) during your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. These companies typically use a cookie or third party web beacon to collect this information. To learn more about this behavioral advertising practice or to opt-out of this type of advertising, you can visit www.networkadvertising.org.