Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and disclose information about you. This Privacy Policy applies when you use our websites, mobile applications, and other online products and services that link to this Privacy Policy, contact our customer service team, engage with us on social media, or otherwise interact with us.
We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the date at the top of this policy and, in some cases, we may provide you with additional notice (such as adding a statement to our website or providing you with a notification). We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy regularly to stay informed about our information practices and the choices available to you.
We collect information you provide directly to us. For example, you share information directly with us when you create an account, fill out a form, submit or post content through our Services, or otherwise communicate with us. The types of personal information we may collect include your name, display name, username, email address, business information, your content, including your avatar image, photos, posts, responses, and series published by you, and any other information you choose to provide.
In some instances, we automatically collect certain information, including:
- Activity Information: We collect information about your activity on our Services, such as your reading history and when you share links, follow users, and like for posts.
- Device and Usage Information: We collect information about how you access our Services, including data about the device and network you use, such as your hardware model, operating system version, mobile network, IP address, unique device identifiers, browser type, and app version. We also collect information about your activity on our Services, such as access times, pages viewed, links clicked, and the page you visited before navigating to our Services.
- Information Collected by Cookies and Similar Tracking Technologies: We use tracking technologies, such as cookies and web beacons, to collect information about you. Cookies are small data files stored on your hard drive or in device memory that help us improve our Services and your experience, see which areas and features of our Services are popular, and count visits. Web beacons (also known as “pixel tags” or “clear GIFs”) are electronic images that we use on our Services and in our emails to help deliver cookies, count visits, and understand usage. We also work with third party analytics providers who use cookies, web beacons, device identifiers, and other technologies to collect information about your use of our Services and other websites and applications, including your IP address, web browser, mobile network information, pages viewed, time spent on pages or in mobile apps, and links clicked. This information may be used by us and others to, among other things, analyze and track data, determine the popularity of certain content, deliver content targeted to your interests on our Services, and better understand your online activity. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, see Your Choices below.
We obtain information from third-party sources. For example, we may collect information about you from social networks, accounting services providers and data analytics providers. Additionally, if you create or log into your account through a third-party platform (such as Google), we will have access to certain information from that platform, such as your name, and profile picture, in accordance with the authorization procedures determined by such platform.
We may derive information or draw inferences about you based on the information we collect. For example, we may make inferences about your location based on your IP address or infer reading preferences based on your reading history.
We use the information we collect to provide, maintain, and improve our Services, which includes publishing and distributing user-generated content, personalizing the posts you see and operating our metered paywall. We also use the information we collect to:
- Create and maintain your account;
- Process transactions and send related information, such as confirmations, receipts, and user experience surveys;
- Send you technical notices, security alerts, and support and administrative messages;
- Respond to your comments and questions and provide customer service;
- Communicate with you about new content, products, services, and features and provide other news and information we think will interest you (see Your Choices below for information about how to opt out of these communications at any time);
- Monitor and analyze trends, usage, and activities in connection with our Services;
- Detect, investigate, and prevent security incidents and other malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity and protect the rights and property of us and others;
- Debug to identify and repair errors in our Services;
- Comply with our legal and financial obligations; and
- Carry out any other purpose described to you at the time the information was collected.
We share personal information in the following circumstances or as otherwise described in this policy:
- We share personal information with vendors, service providers, and consultants that need access to personal information in order to perform services for us, such as companies that assist us with web hosting, storage, and other infrastructure, analytics, payment processing, fraud prevention and security, customer service, communications, and marketing.
- We may disclose personal information if we believe that disclosure is in accordance with, or required by, any applicable law or legal process, including lawful requests by public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements. If we are going to disclose your personal information in response to legal process, we will give you notice so you can challenge it (for example by seeking court intervention), unless we are prohibited by law or believe doing so may endanger others or cause illegal conduct. We will object to legal requests for information about users of our Services that we believe are improper.
- We may share personal information if we believe that your actions are inconsistent with our user agreements or policies, if we believe that you have violated the law, or if we believe it is necessary to protect the rights, property, and safety of us, our users, the public, or others.
- We share personal information with our lawyers and other professional advisors where necessary to obtain advice or otherwise protect and manage our business interests.
- We may share personal information in connection with, or during negotiations concerning, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company.
- Personal information is shared between and among us and our current and future parents, affiliates, and subsidiaries and other companies under common control and ownership.
- We share personal information with your consent or at your direction.
- We also share aggregated or de-identified information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you.
You may access, correct, delete and export your account information at any time by logging into the Services and navigating to the Settings Page. Please note that if you choose to delete your account, we may continue to retain certain information about you as required by law or for our legitimate business purposes.
Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can usually adjust your browser settings to remove or reject browser cookies. Please note that removing or rejecting cookies could affect the availability and functionality of our Services.
You may opt out of receiving certain communications from us, such as digests, newsletters, and activity notifications, by following the instructions in those communications or through your account’s Settings page. If you opt out, we may still send you administrative emails, such as those about your account or our ongoing business relations.
With your consent, we may send push notifications to your mobile device. You can deactivate these messages at any time by changing the notification settings on your mobile device.
When we process your personal data, we will do so in reliance on the following lawful bases:
- When we have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data to operate our business or protect our interests (e.g., to provide, maintain, and improve our products and services, conduct data analytics, and communicate with you).
- To comply with our legal obligations (e.g., to maintain a record of your consents and track those who have opted out of non-administrative communications).
- When we have your consent to do so (e.g., when you opt in to receive non-administrative communications from us). When consent is the legal basis for our processing your personal data, you may withdraw such consent at any time.
We store personal data associated with your account for as long as your account remains active. If you close your account, we will delete your account data within 14 days. We store other personal data for as long as necessary to carry out the purposes for which we originally collected it and for other legitimate business purposes, including to meet our legal, regulatory, or other compliance obligations.
Subject to certain limitations, you have the right to request access to the personal data we hold about you and to receive your data in a portable format, the right to ask that your personal data be corrected or erased, and the right to object to, or request that we restrict, certain processing. To exercise your rights:
- If you sign up, you may at any time request an export of your personal information from the Settings page.
- You may withdraw consent by deleting your account at any time through the Settings page, or by going to Settings and then selecting Account within our app (except to the extent us is prevented by law from deleting your information).
- You may object at any time to the use of your personal data by contacting us from the Contact Page.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us directly from the Contact Page.