classmates.com

Classmates Online, Inc.
Last Updated March 15, 2007

OVERVIEW

Classmates Online, Inc. ("Classmates") is committed to protecting the privacy of our members' personal information. The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to inform you of Classmates' information practices related to the personal information that you provide, when using our services ("Your Information"), including:

Collection and Use of Your Information Sharing Your Information Changing or Correcting Your Information Communications From Classmates The Security of Your Information A Note About International Users A Special Note About the Privacy of Minors Changes to Our Privacy Policy TRUSTe Privacy Certification

Please remember that this Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of companies that we don't own or control or to people that we don't employ or manage. We encourage you to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information about you. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information that Classmates collects about you as a user of the www.classmates.com website ("the site"). This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and subject to the terms of the Classmates Terms of Service. Each time you use the Site, you signify that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by the Terms of Service, which incorporate this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, you must discontinue using the services on our Site and terminate your membership.

COLLECTION AND USE OF YOUR INFORMATION

1. When You Register

During the process of registering on the Site (or co-registering for our services on one of our affiliate’s or marketing partner’s websites), you may be required to provide certain personal information, such as your name, maiden name (if applicable), mailing address, e-mail address, phone number, birth date, marital status, password, and a community affiliation (such as with a school, college, workplace or military assignment). Please keep in mind that, although most of your personal information will not be viewable by other members, once you are registered, your name, community affiliations and years attended will be displayed on the Site and you will no longer be anonymous to us or to other individuals who access the Site. In addition, because this information is publicly displayed on the Site, it may appear in the results of searches conducted on Internet search engines while you are a member of the Site and potentially for some time period after your membership is terminated, depending upon the search engine’s indexing practices. We may also publicly display your general geographic location, based upon the zip code that you provide to us, as another means of assisting members in finding each other. However, you have the option of opting out of having your general geographic location publicly displayed by accessing your "My Account" page on the Site and changing your preferences.

2. When You "Surf" the Site

Log Files

Like most standard website servers, we use and maintain the information that we obtain from your browser on our server logs. This information can include Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet service provider ("ISP"), and other data. We may use this information to analyze trends, administer the Site, track user movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. We may associate this information with your Personal Information to resolve technical issues and support security for our users.

Cookies

A cookie is a small piece of data that is sent to your browser from a web site's computers and stored in a browser-related file on your computer's hard drive. Cookies are uniquely assigned to your computer, and are read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you. We link cookies to your unique registration number and use them to enhance and personalize your experience on the Site, including helping authenticate you when you use the Site, remembering your preferences and registration information, and customizing the content and advertisments provided to you on the Site. For example, storing a cookie on your computer allows you to login without typing the registered e-mail address or registration number and password. We also use cookies to deliver information and fresh content specific to your interests. If you do not want these cookies stored on your computer you can reject cookies by modifying your browser setting accordingly (each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences). However, if you choose to reject cookies, you may not be able to access products and services that we offer that require you to "login" or "sign in". Please also note that certain types of emails available through the Site may automatically log you into the Site and/or set new cookies when you click on the links in the emails and that you may need to manually remove such cookies if you do not want them to be set on your computer. See section titled "Third Party Ad Servers" below for additional information about cookies.

Web Beacons

A web beacon (also known as a clear gif) is a tiny graphic with a unique identifier that is placed on a web page or within an email. It is similar in function to a cookie, and is used to collect a limited set of information, such as a cookie number, time and date of page view, and a description of the page on which the web beacon resides. Classmates and its third party advertisers may use web beacons to compile aggregate statistics about which advertisements and promotions users have seen and how users responded to them. This information helps us better manage content on the Site by informing us what content is effective. In addition, we may use web beacons in our promotional e-mail messages to count how many messages and which emails have been opened and acted upon. This use allows us to gauge the effectiveness of certain communications and our marketing campaigns. Classmates does associate web beacons to individual member personal information for internal purposes only, in an effort to understand our members individual preferences with our email products.

3. When You Sign-up for a Paid or Other Enhanced Product or Service From Classmates

If you choose to sign-up for a paid or other enhanced product or service beyond a basic registration, you may be required to provide us with certain contact information, such as your name, e-mail address and billing address. We may also require other information necessary to process any applicable payment, such as a credit card number and expiration date. We may use the information that you provide to us to bill you for products and services you request, or to notify you of additional products and services we may offer. When you purchase a product or service on the Site, you are consenting to our delivery of this information to our service providers, which may include banks and credit card companies that we use to process the transaction. For more information, please see the section below regarding "Service Providers". We may also show your membership status on the Site so that other members can see what options they have to contact or communicate with you.

4. When You Use the Message Center

We have developed a Message Center that uses a "double-blind" e-mail system, which hides the email addresses to protect the privacy of both the sender and receiver. When using the Message Center, it is up to you to choose when you are comfortable disclosing your e-mail address, or any other contact information, to others. Classmates respects the privacy of member communications sent through the Message Center and does not read or disclose those communications unless we believe it is necessary to share information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of Classmates Terms of Service, or as otherwise required by law enforcement.

5. When You Use Message Boards and Group Photo Albums

Information submitted to message boards and group photo albums is displayed publicly, so please exercise care in deciding what information you wish to disclose. Information posted in private groups is viewable by only those who are invited to participate by the owner of the group. Please note however that, although private, these communications and postings are subject to the same disclosures as stated above in "When You Use the Message Center". To protect the privacy of our members, Classmates does not allow the public posting of personal contact information. We have the right, but not the obligation, to monitor any activity and content associated with the public and private forums and interactive areas on the Site. Please review our Community Guidelines for more information regarding your appropriate use of these areas.

6. When You Use "Invite-A-Friend", "Email this Page" or Other Referral Services

If you elect to use any of our referral services for informing a friend about our Site or any portion thereof, you will be asked to provide your friend's name and e-mail address. We will then automatically send the friend a one-time e-mail (usually including your name and email address) inviting them to visit the Site. We ask for this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time e-mail and tracking the success of our referral program.

7. When You Build a Personal Profile

Classmates has created tools to enable our members to not only see what their old friends have been up to, but also find new friends with common interests. You can use these tools to build a personal profile to share as much information about yourself as you wish.  Except as otherwise noted when you use a specific profile tool, all information that you add to your profile is publicly viewable by other members of the Site and may be included in the Site "search" tool. For this reason, please use care in providing information that you may not want to publicly disclose. To protect the privacy of our members, Classmates does not allow the public posting of personal contact information. Additionally, please see our Community Guidelines for more information regarding the limitations on the types of information that you may post on your personal profile and elsewhere on the Site. As provided in our Terms of Service, Classmates may use the information you provide in your profile in a variety of Classmates products and features, such as affiliation-specific e-mails. This enables us to provide you with information in a more personalized fashion.

8. When You View Other Members’ Profiles

Classmates gives you the ability to find other members by browsing the affiliation lists or using the search functionality on the Site. When you find other members, you can view their personal profiles to find out more about them based on the information they have decided to share on the Site. Every time that you visit another member’s profile, your name and the date of your visit will be viewable by that member as someone who visited that member’s profile unless you opt out of having your name automatically left on other members’ profiles, which you can do by accessing your "My Account" page on the Site and changing your preferences. If you opt out of automatically having your name left on other members’ profiles, you will still have the ability to leave your name on specific members’ profiles on an individual basis.

9. When You Participate in Surveys

From time-to-time, we may request information from our users via surveys relating to our services or on behalf of our affiliates or third-party advertisers. When you participate in a survey, we may request contact information (such as your name and e-mail address) or demographic information (such as your zip code, age or income level). Classmates conducts surveys in order to target advertising and content and to better understand members’ needs and opinions. Classmates may share, in aggregate form, information it collects from these surveys with its advertisers, partners, affiliates and the general public, but will not share survey information containing personally identifiable information with any third party without your prior consent. Participation in these surveys is completely voluntary, such that you have the choice of whether you wish to disclose the requested information. However, we encourage our members to participate in these surveys as they provide us with important information that helps us to improve our services or services that may offered on our Site or via email by our affiliates or third-party advertisers.

10. When You or Third Parties Contact Us

If you contact Classmates by phone, email or letter, we may keep a record of such correspondence. Thus, if you report an issue with the Site, we may collect such information in a file specific to you.  Moreover, if you contact us through our feedback area, we require your name and email address in order to send you a reply. Additionally, if other users or third parties send us correspondence about your activities or postings on the Site, we may keep the information in a file specific to you.

11. How We May Supplement Your Information

In order for us to properly fulfill our obligations to our members, it may be necessary for us from time to time to supplement the information we receive through your use of the Site with information from third party resources. For example, we may obtain updated email address information from email-change-of-address vendors or purchase third party marketing data and address information and add it to our existing database to better target our advertising and provide pertinent offers we think you would be interested in.

SHARING YOUR INFORMATION

1. Confidentiality

Classmates only shares Your Information with others when we have your permission or under the types of circumstances described in this Privacy Policy. In addition, we limit access to Your Information to only those employees who we believe reasonably need to come into contact with that information to provide products or services to you or to do their jobs.

2. Third Party Offers

We allow other companies, such as our marketing partners and companies that are affiliated with our parent company, United Online, Inc., to offer their products and services to you, to co-register you on their website, or to communicate with you about their products and services at a future date, through our Site, co-branded pages hosted by the third party, or email. Whether or not you decide to participate in such an offer is up to you. If you purchase a product or service from a third party agree to co-register on a third party’s website, or agree to allow a third party to communicate with you in the future through an offer on our Site that requires you to submit financial and personal information, you are also consenting to our delivery of this information to that party. The offer will notify you if any financial or personally identifiable information will be shared. Such third party will be authorized to use this information in keeping with our contractual relationship with them and in accordance with their own privacy policy and information practices. We do not control these third parties and you agree that Classmates is not liable for their acts or any failure to act on their part.

3. Third Party Advertising

The advertisements that appear on the Site are generally delivered through internal software operated by Classmates. As noted above, we may use Your Information to provide you with advertisements that are targeted to your specific needs and interests. These advertisements link directly to third party websites. Classmates has no control over the content or privacy policies of such sites, and therefore we encourage you to review such content and policies prior to submitting any personal information to them. We do share certain aggregate information, such as demographic information and the number of times that our members have viewed an advertisement, with our third party advertisers. This information is not linked with any personally identifiable information, and we do not provide any such information to third party advertisers.

Classmates may use aggregated, statistical information to describe our membership and to establish advertising and other business relationships with third parties. Classmates may serve you with targeted advertisements based on your personal and/or profile information, but Classmates does not provide any of this personal and/or profile information to an advertiser or any third party with the exception of those uses expressly disclosed in this policy. However, if you click or view an ad on our site then you consent to the likelihood that the advertiser will assume that you meet the targeting criteria, if any, used to display such ad and, as described above, you will be subject to the advertiser's privacy policy and information collection practices (if any).

4. Third Party Ad Servers

Most of the online banner advertisements you see on the Classmates Site are delivered by Classmates. Classmates does allow other companies, called third party ad servers or ad networks, to display advertisements on the Classmates Site. Some of these ad networks may place a persistent cookie on your computer. Doing this allows them to recognize your computer each time they send you an online advertisement. In this way, ad networks may compile information about where you, or others who are using your computer, saw their advertisements and determine which ads are clicked on. This information allows an ad network to deliver targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you. Classmates does not have access to or control over the cookies that may be placed by these parties on your computer, and has no control over these parties' privacy policies or information collection practices (if any).

5. Contests and Sweepstakes

Classmates may run contests, sweepstakes and other promotions on the Site in which we may request entrants to provide personal or contact information. In some cases, entrants may be required to answer survey questions about a range of topics. Classmates uses the information collected in the entry form to verify the entrant’s identity and age and to communicate with entrants. Classmates will not share any of the entrant’s personal or contact information with any third party except to service providers (if any) as described below, as disclosed at the time of entry, if you are a contest winner, or as may be required by law. Classmates may make information about entrants available in aggregated form to advertisers, partners and the general public.

6. Service Providers

We may sometimes use a third party to provide specific services on our behalf, including sending e-mails to our members, conducting member surveys, processing transactions or performing statistical analysis of our services. In these cases, we may provide certain personal information, such as your name and e-mail address and other financial information necessary for the service to be provided. However, these third parties are required to maintain the confidentiality of this information and are prohibited from retaining, sharing, storing or using this information for any other purposes.

Classmates may provide certain portions of Your Information, such as your email address or name, back to your ISP if we have an existing advertising relationship with them. This is done to allow them to target or discontinue your exposure to our advertisements, once you have become a participating member of our Site. As part of our agreement with your ISP, they will be required to maintain this information in a confidential manner and use it solely for the purpose described in this Policy.

7. Affiliates and Business Transitions

Classmates may share Your Information with its affiliates that are subject to privacy policies that protect your personally identifiable information from disclosure to third parties in a manner similar to this Privacy Policy. In the event that Classmates (or its parent corporation) goes through a business transition, such as a merger, acquisition, liquidation or sale of all or a portion of its assets, our members personal information will, in most instances, be part of the assets transferred. Members may be notified of any such business transition via e-mail and/or prominent notice on the Site.

8. Legal Matters; Protection of Rights, Property and Interests; Safety

We may, without your consent, access and disclose Your Information, any communications sent or received by you, and any other information that we may have about you or your account: as may be permitted or required by law, regulation, rule or court order; pursuant to requests from governmental, regulatory or administrative agencies or law enforcement authorities; or to prevent, investigate, identify persons or organizations potentially involved in, or take any action regarding suspected fraud, violations of our Terms of Service, or activity that appears to us to be illegal or may expose us to legal liability. Additionally, we may disclose Your Information in situations that we believe to be emergencies involving potential threats to the physical safety or any person or property if we believe that Your Information in any way relates to that threat.

CHANGING, CORRECTING OR REMOVING YOUR INFORMATION

Classmates provides you with ways in which you can update Your Information. To make changes to Your Information, please login to the Site and go to your "My Account" area. Here you may change such information as your name, birth date, mailing address, e-mail address, password and payment information. In addition, you can go to the "My Profile" page on the Site. From this page you can edit various pieces of information or content that you submitted to the Site. If you have questions about updating Your Information, please visit the Help section on the Site at http://www.classmates.com/help/index.tf.

If you wish to have your membership removed from the Site for any reason, simply use our online registration removal process at http://www.classmates.com/cmo/user/remove.  If you have any problem removing your membership, please request assistance from Member Care. Upon removal of membership from the Site, we may retain Your Information for a period of time in our internal databases and systems.

COMMUNICATIONS FROM CLASSMATES

As a member of Classmates, you will receive our customary business communications (e.g., email address confirmation, renewal notifications, new product offerings, administrative messages, other offline communications, etc.) at your email address or street address. We may also send such communications to you through the Message Center. In addition, you may be automatically enrolled in one or more of our email subscription programs, such as "Classmates Connections". While we reserve the right to send you our customary business communications without offering you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving them, we do provide you with the opportunity to select whether or not you wish to continue to receive our subscription-based emails. You can update your email preferences by logging onto your "My Account" page on the Site. In addition, each subscription-based email communication from us contains instructions on how you can remove yourself from the mailing list for that specific email subscription program. In such a case, you will continue to receive our customary business communications, as well as communications for other email subscription programs that you have not previously opted-out of.  Please keep in mind that any changes that you make to your email preferences may take up to ten (10) business days to process. If you have questions about changing your email preferences, please visit the Help section on the Site at http://www.classmates.com/help/index.tf.

THE SECURITY OF YOUR INFORMATION

We have instituted physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to store and maintain Your Information in a secure environment. For example, when highly confidential information, such as a credit card number, is transmitted through our website, it is encrypted by using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) software. You may also be required to use a password to access certain pages on the Site where certain types of Your Information can be changed or deleted. It is therefore important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password, emails which we may send you and to your computer. You take full responsibility for maintaining the confidentiality of your password. Furthermore, while we have implemented safeguards, you should be aware that Internet security technology rapidly changes. We cannot guarantee that the safeguards we employ today can protect Your Information from the threats of tomorrow. You should also be aware that despite our efforts, factors beyond our control may result in disclosure of Your Information. Accordingly, we are not in a position to guarantee that Your Information will be secure under all circumstances.

A NOTE ABOUT INTERNATIONAL USERS

We collect, process and maintain Your Information in the United States, where privacy laws may not be as protective as in your home country. If you are using the Site from outside of the United States, by providing Your Information to us you are consent to the transfer of Your Information to the United States for processing and maintaining in a manner consistent with this Privacy Policy.

A SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT THE PRIVACY OF MINORS

In compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and fair information practices, we will not knowingly allow children under the age of 13 to become members.  If we later learn that a child under the age of 13 is a member, then that child’s membership will be terminated. We collect, use and disclose information about minors aged 13 to 17 in the same manner as we do for adults.  Classmates believes that it is especially important to protect children’s privacy online and encourages parents and guardians to spend time online with their children to participate and monitor their Internet activity.  If you are under 18, we require that you get your parent’s permission before disclosing any information about yourself to anyone on the Site. We do not filter advertisements or other content that children may receive, such that they could receive content and materials that are inappropriate for children.

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

Classmates may update this policy from time to time as our information practices are modified or changed. If we make any material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email (sent to the primary e-mail address specified in your account) or by means of a notice on the Site for a period of not less than thirty (30) days prior to the change. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.

TRUSTe PRIVACY CERTIFICATION

Classmates is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to build trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices. Classmates has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe. If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy you should contact us at: Classmates Online, Inc. Attention: Privacy Policy Issues, 2001 Lind Avenue S.W. Suite 500, Renton, WA 98055, or e-mail us at privacy@corp.classmates.com. If you do not feel as though your question or concern has been addressed, or we do not provide you with an acknowledgement of your issue, you should contact TRUSTe through their TRUSTe Watchdog Dispute Resolution Process at: (http://www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php).