Privacy Policy

At Group Nine Media, we take your privacy seriously, and have developed this Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) to explain what data we collect from our users, event attendees, and others who submit inquiries to us (“users” or “you”) and how we use and share this information. This Privacy Policy applies to your use of our websites, mobile websites, mobile applications, and any related services as described in our Terms and Conditions (collectively, the “Services”). The Terms and Conditions for Thrillist, The Dodo, NowThis and Seeker properties are available here, and the Terms of Service for our POPSUGAR properties are available here

We may change this policy from time to time and will notify you by revising the date at the top of the Privacy Policy. Please review this Privacy Policy whenever you access the Services to stay informed of our practices.

Who we are.

When we refer to “Group Nine”, “we” or “us” in this Privacy Policy, we mean Group Nine Media, Inc. and its subsidiaries, including NowThis Media, Inc., Seeker Media, Inc., TheDodo.com, Inc., Thrillist Media Group, Inc., POPSUGAR Inc. and Sugar Inc. UK Limited. Please note that as of the effective date of this Privacy Policy, POPSUGAR.com and POPSUGAR.co.uk are no longer governed by their own Privacy Policies and are now part of this Group Nine Privacy Policy.

The Service may contain hyperlinks to websites that are not operated by us. These hyperlinks are provided for your reference and convenience only and do not imply any endorsement of the activities of such third-party websites or any association with their operators. This Privacy Policy only applies to the user information that we collect or which we receive from third party sources, and we cannot be responsible for user information about you that is collected and processed by third parties. Third party websites have their own terms and conditions and privacy policies, and you should read these carefully before you submit any user information to these websites.

Who this policy applies to.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of any other company or individual that is not owned or controlled by Group Nine.

This policy applies to:

Visitors to our websites and mobile applications and users of our related Services; and
People who contact us with inquiries.

What information we collect.

Some user information you provide to us directly, some user information is collected automatically when you use the Services, and some user information we receive from third parties, such as our third-party vendors and publicly-available sources such as public websites.

Personal Data
When you use the Services or otherwise interact with us, we may collect Personal Data. When we refer to “Personal Data” in this Privacy Policy, we mean data that identifies or can be used to identify you as an individual, which is sometimes referred to as “personal data” or “personal information” under applicable privacy laws, such as your name, postal address, email address and phone number.

Usage Data
When you use the Services, we also collect or receive general information (“Usage Data”) about you, either from you or other sources, such as personal identifiers (for example, IP address and device identifiers), demographic information, information about your preferences, interests, search queries, and online activity (such as date and time of your access to the Services, referring URLs, and information about the usage of our Services). Usage Data may also contain Personal Data.

User Data
All Personal Data and Usage Data that we hold about you is referred to in this Privacy Policy collectively and generally as “User Data.”

How we collect information.

Information that you provide to us.

We collect User Data that you provide directly to us, including as follows:

Account data: You may provide certain User Data when you register or sign up for our Services (for example, name, username, display name, password, email address, age, date of birth, geographic location, zip code, and postal mail address).
Email subscriptions: If you sign up for an email subscription on our Services or otherwise opt-in to marketing communications, we collect your email address and may also collect other information about you, such as your subscription preferences and interests.
Phone numbers: For some of our Services, you may be asked to provide your mobile phone number in order to receive text messages containing information you have requested and other information, offers or promotions that we think may be of interest to you.
Promotions: We may collect or receive information about you when you sign up for a sweepstakes, contest, other giveaway or promotion, or sign up for or attend a virtual or in-person event offered by us and/or by our partners (“Promotions”).
Applications: We collect the information that you enter into our applications, which may be available on our Services or on third-party sites or platforms like Instagram (for example, our Sparkle application).
User Generated Content: We may collect your user-generated content when you provide it to us via the Services, via email, or on other platforms or websites, such as social media platforms (for example, photos or videos that you take, send or upload, comments that you provide, or URL links).
Purchases: When you make a purchase through our Services, we and/or our vendors may also collect your information described below in the section entitled What Information We Share with Third Parties.
Inquiries: When you send an email to us or fill out a request form on the Services, we will receive information associated with your request, such as your name and email address.
Polls, surveys, and quizzes: When you take a quiz or survey or respond to a poll on the Services, in addition to recording your responses, we record your IP address and/or other identifiers in order to provide an outcome (for quizzes), report and analyze your survey results, or record your vote as part of the final count (for polls). We may also use and disclose this information for advertising purposes as described in this Privacy Policy.
Special category data: When we conduct research or carry out surveys and you participate in our research or surveys, we may collect sensitive Personal Data about you, for example, information about your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life or sexual orientation. We will get your explicit consent for our collection, use, or sharing of this data where required by law
Other data you share: You may provide us with User Data when you fill in a form, conduct a search, update or add information to your account, respond to surveys, post to community forums, provide us with feedback, participate in promotions, or use other features of the Services.

Please remember that any content (e.g., comments, photographs, information and other materials) that you post directly on our Services, including our social media pages, is public and can be read, collected or used by others. Please be cautious when disclosing any Personal Data through public activities or submissions.

Data that is automatically collected.

When you use the Services, we collect certain User Data about you automatically, including as described below.

Log data
We collect log files and other usage information when you access, use and interact with the Services (even if you have not created an account or logged into your account on the Services), including IP address, date and time that you signed up for an account, language setting, browser type, operating system type, internet service provider, referring/exit pages, page you requested, user agent, date and time stamps, clickstream data, and information about your search and click activity.

Cookies
Some User Data is collected on the Services by us and third parties with whom we partner through the use of Cookies. Cookies are small data file identifiers that are transferred to your device or browser that allow us, and third parties with whom we partner, to recognize your browser or mobile device and transfer information about you and your use of our Services. For example, Cookies that we use tell us how many times you have visited one of our websites, your search preferences, and if you have clicked on an advertisement that has been displayed to you.

We (and third parties with whom we partner) may also deliver a file known as a web beacon, pixel or pixel tag to you through our Services. “Web Beacons” are small, invisible graphic images that may be used on the Services interface or in emails relating to the Services to collect certain information and monitor user activity on the Services interface, such as to count visits, access Cookies, understand usage effectiveness and to determine if an email has been opened and acted upon. “Pixels” or “Pixel Tags,” also known as clear GIFs, beacons, spotlight, tags or web bugs, are a method for passing information from the user’s device to a third-party website (for example, information about a user’s browsing behavior, what links they click on, and purchases they have made on the Services).

We (and third parties with whom we partner) may deliver Web Beacons or Pixel Tags to you through our Services. Web Beacons allow ad networks, marketing partners and other service providers that we use to provide anonymized, aggregated auditing, research and reporting for us, for advertisers and our other partners. Web Beacons also enable ad networks and other partners to track your behavior for their own analysis and use, and to serve targeted advertisements to you on the Services or when you visit other websites or platforms. These Web Beacons enable third-party companies to view, edit, or set their own cookies when you visit the Services, just as if you had visited a web page from their site.

When we talk about “Cookies” in this Privacy Policy, we mean not just cookies, but web beacons and similar technologies. Please see our Cookie Policy for more information.

SDKs
We may also use a piece of software on our website known as a software development kit (or “SDK”) in order to collect the types of data described in this Privacy Policy to be stored and used by us and our vendors as described in this Privacy Policy.

Geo-location data
“Geo-Location Data” may be collected with your consent or inferred as you use the Services. Such information may include the location of the device used to access the Services, and may be derived from GPS or WiFi use or calculated based on your IP address.

Polls, surveys and quizzes
When you take a quiz or survey or respond to a poll on the Services, in addition to recording your responses, we record your IP address and/or other identifiers in order to provide an outcome (for quizzes), report and analyze your survey results, or record your vote as part of the final count (for polls). We may also use and disclose this information for advertising purposes as described in this Privacy Policy.

Information received from third-party sources.

We may receive User Data about you from third-party sources, including as follows:

Advertising and analytics data: We may receive various types of User Data from our third-party partners and vendors, such as analytics data about your visits to our sites, reporting information about ad campaigns, information about your browsing behavior, interests or preferences, and contact information (such as email address). For example, third parties who provide advertising and related services (such as analytics providers and ad networks) may provide us with User Data so that we can compare it to User Data we hold in order to determine if you are the same individual (one method of doing this is called “cookie-matching”).
Purchases: We may receive User Data about you from third parties when you buy things through our Services or when you buy things from a third party after clicking on an affiliate link in our content. This information may include your contact details (such as name and email address) and financial and other details related to the transaction (such as items purchased and purchase price) from providers of technical, payment and delivery services.
Referrals: Your Personal Data may be provided by other users of the Services (for example, if your email address is entered into the Services by a friend referring you to the Services).
Third-party connections: If you use a third-party connection or log-in (such as Facebook Connect or Google) in connection with the Services, we may receive your name, email address and/or profile photo from those third-party services or other information available about you or collected from you on those services. We will only use such information in accordance with the terms and policies of such third-party platforms.
Other sources: We may also supplement the User Data we collect from you with other information from third parties, including third-party vendors, affiliate network operators, referral sources, social networking sites or services (such as Facebook), and publicly-available sources.

How we use the information collected.

We use the User Data we collect to provide, maintain, and improve our Services and those of our partners and for other purposes as described in this Privacy Policy. This includes use of the User Data to:

Allow you to set up an account and profile and log into your account on the Services and to access certain parts of the Services through such account;
Allow you to share certain information about yourself with other users through your account profile;
Personalize and improve the Services;
Connect you across multiple devices or platforms where you are accessing our content;
Customize the Services to provide advertisements, content, features or recommendations on the Services or on other platforms (for example, social media platforms) that match your interests or are otherwise tailored to you;
Send you free gifts or other promotions;
Send you notices, updates, security alerts and other support and administrative messages and respond to your comments, questions, and customer service or data access requests;
Process transactions and send you related information;
Send emails, newsletters or other communications to you, which may also offer or advertise Group Nine Services or third-party products and/or services;
Administer or communicate with you about Promotions, including to determine your eligibility, process your registration or entry, enforce the terms of the Promotion, and contact you about the Promotion you are participating in or other Promotions in the future;
Use submissions you send to us in connection with Promotions or otherwise on the Services or on other platforms, subject to the terms of such Promotions;
Link or combine information we receive from third parties to help provide you with better service;
Detect, investigate and/or prevent fraudulent, unauthorized, or illegal activity;
Maintain the security of our Services, including for age verification purposes;
Protect the rights, property, and/or safety of Group Nine, you, or others;
Monitor and analyze how our users utilize the Services;
With respect to User Data submitted to our POPSUGAR Voices platform, to determine what assignments or projects are a good fit for your skills and interests and to process payments for your services if you are selected for a paid assignment;
Comply with the law or with law enforcement requests and legal process, such as a court orders or subpoenas;
Enforce our Terms and Conditions (the Terms and Conditions for Thrillist, The Dodo, NowThis and Seeker properties are available here, and the Terms of Service for our POPSUGAR properties are available here); and
Carry out other purposes described in this Privacy Policy or at the time the User Data was collected.

We may use your User Data to contact or communicate with you, for example, by email, postal mail, notices on our websites or applications, newsletters or other means available through the Services, including push notifications and mobile text messages. Such communications may contain messages of a commercial or non-commercial nature, including but not limited to, messages necessary to provide the Services to you, responses to an inquiry that you submitted, marketing and promotional messages for our Services or the products and/or services of our partners and advertisers, messages sent for administrative purposes related to the Services, and other communications as needed to carry out other purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

When you receive email messages or newsletters from us, we may use Web Beacons, customized links, clear GIFs or similar technologies to determine whether the email has been opened and which links you click in order to provide you more focused email communications or other information, and/or aggregate such data with other data we collect for some or all of the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy.

We and our partners use Cookies and other tracking technologies to administer the Services, analyze trends, track users’ movements around the Services and on third party sites, devices and applications, and to gather demographic information about our user base.

We may also receive certain data (on an individual and/or aggregated basis) collected by our partners (including but not limited to e-commerce partners, affiliates, and analytics providers) through the use of Pixel Tags, e-tags, IP addresses, Local Shared Objects, Local Storage, and Browser cookies, which allows us to:

Analyze trends across our user base;
Collect and store information such as user settings;
Supplement our server logs and other methods of traffic and response measurement;
Track users’ location, movements and interactions around the Services and on third-party sites; and
Improve our understanding of traffic on the Services, visitor behavior, and responses to advertising and promotional campaigns.

Group Nine also works with third parties to provide analytics information regarding your usage of our Services or to help us track the advertisements that are delivered to you to determine the effectiveness of advertising on our Services.We may also link this information to User Data.

One example of an analytics provider used by Group Nine is Google Analytics. For more information on how to opt out of the processing of your data by Google Analytics, please see this page.

What information we share with third parties.

Affiliates

We share User Data within Group Nine (including our affiliates and subsidiaries) to fulfill our obligations to you and operate our business consistent with this Privacy Policy and applicable data protection laws.

Advertising and marketing

Certain third-party vendors and partners (including, but not limited to, advertisers, advertising agencies, ad networks, ad measurement providers, and other marketing and advertising service providers and partners) (“Advertisers”) may collect information about you on the Services in order to provide you with relevant advertising on the Services and on other websites, platforms and media channels, and to analyze the performance of advertising campaigns. These Advertisers may use tracking technologies such as Cookies, Web Beacons, and other similar technologies, and may collect many different kinds of data, such as your IP address, device ID, advertising ID, and precise location data where made available by your mobile device.

The specific Advertisers we work with are subject to change at any time. For a list of some of the applicable providers or for more details on opting out of tracking for certain advertising purposes, please see the section below entitled How you can change or control what is collected.

The Services may feature Nielsen proprietary measurement software. To learn more about the information that Nielsen may collect, or to opt out of collection of your information by Nielsen, please visit the Nielsen consumer opt out page located here.

The use of tracking technologies by these third parties is subject to their own privacy policies. Please review them carefully.

We may also sell or transfer User Data to certain Advertisers who will use this data for their own purposes, including to serve ads that they believe are relevant to your interests. Some of these third parties may combine the User Data with their own data about you to form a more detailed picture. We may also share User Data with Advertisers for the purpose of allowing them or their vendors or clients to send you marketing communications related to your use of the Services, their services or programs featured and/or advertised on the Services (e.g., through ads or Promotions), or their products, services and/or programs generally.

Our third-party vendors and partners use your User Data to display ads on both the Services and on third party websites, applications, platforms and other media channels, including social media (collectively, “Channels”). For example, if you read content about a particular subject on the Services, we or our Advertisers may use Cookies to later serve you an advertisement for a particular product or service related to the viewed content. These third-party vendors may connect information about pages you visit on the Services with information about pages you visit on other Channels and show you advertising based on this combined information. These advertisements may appear when you are visiting a different section of the Services or on another Channel. Likewise, third-party vendors may serve you advertisements when you visit the Services based on your interaction with the Services and other Channels.

Some of our Services may use Facebook and Instagram features and tools, including Pixel Tags, which send data regarding your use of the Services to Facebook and/or Instagram for the purpose of tracking your interaction with the Services and with our brand on Facebook and Instagram, and to create custom audiences on the Facebook and/or Instagram platforms. Facebook and Instagram link the data collected on our Services with your account on their platforms and we and/or our Advertisers may use that data to serve you with advertisements both on and off of Facebook and Instagram.

We may provide certain Advertisers with information regarding your interactions with our emails and newsletters, other interactions or actions you take on our Services (such as clicks and purchases), or as to whether your information matches certain information held by the Advertiser and/or their customers. Those Advertisers may combine this data with information they collect for their own marketing purposes and in turn, may provide this information to their customers for their customers’ marketing purposes.

In order to help us sell advertising on the Services and otherwise publicize Group Nine and its products and services, we may also share aggregated statistics that describe our online audience. Those statistics are often based on the information you provide when you subscribe, register, browse the Services, and make purchases, and describe, among other things, the demographics of our visitors.

Sparkle application pages are developed and hosted by Group Nine and licensed to Advertisers. In connection with Sparkle, you may provide certain information to us in response to specific questions and prompts, such as providing your email address to sign up for marketing emails or newsletters, or tapping or clicking on an “Add to cart” feature for specific products. Information provided through Sparkle may be stored by Group Nine (such as which products are added to a cart) and may be shared with the Advertisers with whom we have partnered in connection with that Sparkle page. We may use your IP address to understand trends within a specific zip code or geographical area. Advertisers may use such information to complete your transaction or send you emails or other communications, including communications to market their products and/or services to you, or for other business uses, subject to the terms of that Advertiser’s privacy policy. When you enter information using a Sparkle “Add to cart” feature, we may share your information with a third-party retailer (who may in some cases also be an Advertiser) to complete your transaction, which is subject to such retailer’s terms and conditions and privacy policy.

Service providers

We employ or utilize the services of third-party vendors, consultants and service providers who need access to your User Data (such as your name, address, email, or other identifiers) in order to enable them to perform services on our behalf or to provide us with additional information necessary to provide you one of our Services to you (“Service Providers”). We use Service Providers for a variety of services across our Services, such as email message deployment, email address validation, subscription fulfillment, research and insights, statistical analysis, cross-device user tracking and targeting, data and website hosting, marketing, advertising, and other data and transaction processing.

We also engage Service Providers for the purpose of processing payments for purchases of content, subscriptions and physical goods through our Services, to fulfill your orders for product purchases, to honor your request to be removed from promotional mailings, and to monitor, analyze and prevent fraudulent traffic or other suspicious activities on our Services or on other services. For our Voices platform, we may also provide your User Data to Service Providers in order to process payments for services if you are selected for a paid assignment under those platforms.

In addition to receiving your User Data from us, our Service Providers may also:

Collect information directly from you and/or your device, such as your IP address, device ID, advertising ID, and information about your browser or operating system;
Combine User Data about you received from Group Nine with information about you from other Channels, if those Channels also use the same Service Providers;
Place or recognize a unique Cookie or other tracking mechanism on your browser; and
Use your User Data to perform the Services to Group Nine and to enhance tor improve their own products and services.

Third-party partners and websites

Our third-party partners may sell items or provide services to you through our Services (either alone or jointly with us). In some of these cases, you will be routed through to the third party’s website, where you will complete the purchase. In other cases, the services of those third parties are embedded into the Services. When you make a purchase or activate the partner’s service, we may share your User Data (such as an email address) with that partner, who may use this User Data in accordance with its own privacy policy. In some instances, the partner may share User Data about you back with Group Nine.

For example, portions of the Services utilize the YouTube API, through which Google collects, stores and processes certain user data as described in its Privacy Policy, available here. You may revoke Group Nine’s ability to access your user data through the YouTube API via the Google security settings page found here.

Please note that your interactions with these third-party services and any data or other information (including Personal Data) that you provide to such third parties is subject to the terms of the applicable third-party terms of service and privacy policies. We are not responsible for any such third-party terms or policies and you should review them carefully.

Social plug-ins and embeds

We may use social plugins on our Services, for instance, plugins of social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and may feature icons, like the “thumbs up” icon or text like “Recommend”, “Share”, “Like” or “Comment”. We also feature certain embedded content on our Services such as text and video content embedded from social networks and other third-party platforms including, but not limited to, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, and Vimeo. Your browser may create a connection to the servers of such social networks and other third parties and/or transmit data to such third-party servers when you view a page on our Services. This Privacy Policy does not cover the practices of these third-party social networks.

User profiles and submissions

Certain User Data from your profile such as your user name, display name, biographical information, or any comments or video or image content that you have uploaded to the Services may be displayed to other users to facilitate user interaction within the Service or address your request for Services. In some applications, information you share in your profile will be publicly available to other users.

Promotions

We may collect and share User Data you provide in connection with a Promotion with an advertiser who sponsors the Promotion and/or with other partners who participate in the Promotion. In addition, our Service Providers may collect your information in connection with such Promotion on our behalf. In the event that your User Data is shared with a sponsor or other third-party, it would also be subject to the sponsor’s or such other third party’s privacy policy, and it may be used by Group Nine, the sponsor(s) or partner(s), and our Service Providers, for follow-up or other marketing purposes. For all Promotions, please read the official rules, event terms, and/or any other applicable terms and conditions for that Promotion carefully before you submit your User Data or otherwise participate in the Promotion.

Text message services

By signing up for our text messages services such as POPSUGAR Must Have It, you expressly agree that we may share your mobile phone number and the contents of any message you send or receive through such Service with our third-party partner, Twilio. For more information regarding how Twilio may store or use your information, please review Twilio’s Privacy Policy.

Payment card information

To use certain aspects of our Services, such as participating in our POPSUGAR Must Have It Service, we may require you to submit credit or debit card account information. By submitting your credit or debit card account information or other financial information through the Services, you expressly consent to the sharing of this information with third-party retailers, subscription and billing processors, and payment processors.

Certain areas of the site may use third-party payment processors to enable purchases. If you make a purchase via one of these third-party payment processors, the payment processor may store your credit or debit card account information and other financial information so you can use our Services in the future. We do not have access to your complete credit or debit card account information, social security number, or other financial information. We do not store or have direct control over or responsibility for your credit or debit card account information, social security number, or other financial information as transmitted to such third-party payment processors. We cannot guarantee that transmissions of your credit or debit card account information or other financial information, or other Personal Data will always be secure or that unauthorized third parties will never be able to defeat the security measures taken by us or our third-party service providers.

We assume no liability or responsibility for disclosure of your information due to errors in transmission, unauthorized third-party access, or other causes beyond our control.

Twinning and Aura by POPSUGAR

For our Twinning and Auraby POPSUGAR Services, we collect photos you submit and may provide them to our third-party service providers for analysis and, in the case of Twinning, matching with similar-looking celebrities or public figures. When you submit your photo to Twinning, you agree that your photo may be shared with Clarifai, and when you submit your photo to Aura by POPSUGAR, you agree that your photo may be shared with Microsoft, and that their respective uses of your photo is subject to their separate privacy policies. The Clarifai privacy policy may be found here, and the Microsoft privacy policy may be found here. Any information about your photo that is provided by Microsoft is used by Group Nine only to provide the results and is not stored by Group Nine.

When you submit a photo to Twinning, we post a composite image of your photo and your celebrity look-a-likes on a public URL for you to reference and share with your friends. When you submit a photo to Aura by POPSUGAR, we post an image of your photo with your aura reading results on a public URL. For both Twinning and Aura by POPSUGAR, while we only provide this unique URL to you, the URL is public and may be viewed by anyone who has the link. You can request removal of any unique URL created in connection with your photos through Twinning or Aura by POPSUGAR by contacting us at privacy@groupninemedia.com.

International partners

On some occasions, we may host websites that are operated by international partners. We may share your User Data with these partners in order for them to provide the Services on those international websites, and may receive certain User Data from such partners. This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of our international partners and each international website is subject to its own posted privacy policy.

Business transfers

If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, financing due diligence, reorganization, bankruptcy, receivership, sale of company assets, or transition of service to another provider, your User Data may be disclosed in connection with the negotiation of such transaction, and/or sold or transferred as part of such a transaction as permitted by law and/or contract.

Enforcement of terms and policies

We may share your information to enforce or apply our Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions (the Terms and Conditions for Thrillist, The Dodo, NowThis and Seeker properties are available here, and the Terms of Service for our POPSUGAR properties are available here) or our other policies or agreements.

Protection of Group Nine and others

We may access, read, preserve, and disclose any User Data where we reasonably believe a disclosure is necessary to comply with law or court order; or protect the rights, property, or safety of Group Nine, our employees, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

With your consent

We may share your User Data in other circumstances with your consent, for example when you have chosen to link an account with our Services with a social media network like Facebook or Google.

How you can change or control what is collected.

Changing your account settings

You may add, update or delete information through your user account settings, which limits the ability of other users to see the information in your user profile. The information you can view, update, or delete may be different depending on which area of the Services you are using and may also change as the Services change.

If you have any trouble accessing, correcting or deleting any of your information, please contact us at privacy@groupninemedia.com and we will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe.

Browser settings

You can usually instruct your browser by changing its settings to stop accepting Cookies or to prompt you before accepting a Cookie from our websites that you visit. If you choose to disable Cookies, you may not be able to use all portions of the Services or all functionality of the Services.

Opting out of tracking

The specific Advertisers we work with are subject to change at any time. For a list of some of the applicable providers or for more details on adjusting your cookie settings, including opting out of tracking for advertising purposes, please click on the Cookie Settings button in the footer of every page on the Services. Please note that if you intend to opt out of tracking for advertising purposes, you will need to adjust your Cookie Settings separately for each brand.

California residents can opt out of the sale of their personal information, as “sale” is defined in the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) by filling out the form here, or by clicking on the “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link in the footer of every page on the Services.

Some of the trusted third parties collecting data on our Services via tracking technologies may also be members of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) or the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA). For an explanation of that technology and how to control the tracking from those providers that participate in the DAA program, the consumer awareness section of the DAA’s website (www.aboutads.info/consumers) provides a good overview. You may also use the DAA’s opt-out option available at http://www.aboutads.info/choices/. For more information about targeted advertising and the opt-out procedures of NAI members, see http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/.

Please note that cookie-based opt-outs are not effective on mobile applications. Users may opt out of certain advertisements on mobile applications or reset advertising identifiers via their device settings. To learn how to limit ad tracking or to reset the advertising identifier on your iOS device, click here, and on your Android device, click here.

You may also download and set your preferences on the DAA’s App Choices mobile application(s) available in Google Play or the Apple App stores.

More information about opting out on mobile devices is available here.

Precise location data

You may opt out of having your precise location data collected by us at any time by editing the appropriate setting on your mobile device (which is usually located in the Settings area of your device).

Newsletter and email subscriptions

If you do not want to receive promotional emails from us, please indicate your preference by changing your account settings, contacting us at privacy@groupninemedia.com, or by clicking the “unsubscribe” link in an email we send to you. You may also submit an unsubscribe request using our request form here. If you do not wish to receive email or other mail from Advertisers, or other third-party partners, please refer to the applicable third-party privacy policy and request an opt-out directly from the Advertiser or other third-party partner.

Deactivating your account

You can always choose not to disclose information to us or delete information, but keep in mind some information may be needed to register with us or to take advantage of some of our special features. You may request deactivation of your account by contacting us at privacy@groupninemedia.com.

De-linking your account

In order to de-link your Group Nine account(s) from an account on another service such as a social media account, you must adjust your account settings with the third-party application. For example, if you want to de-link your Facebook account with Group Nine, you must de-link your accounts in both your Group Nine account settings and in your Facebook application settings.

Push notifications

You may adjust the “Settings” on your mobile device settings (or within the “profile” tab of certain applications) to disable push notifications for any of our mobile applications for which you would like to stop receiving such notifications. You may adjust the “Notification” settings usually found in your browser “Preferences” or “Settings” to block or remove certain browser-based push notifications.

Text messages

If you no longer wish to receive text messages from our POPSUGAR Must Have It Service, you can reply “STOP” to any text message sent by us through such Service or text “STOP” to 441-76. For our POPSUGAR Must Have It Service, if you have a POPSUGAR Must Have It account linked to the phone number you provided for the POPSUGAR Must Have It Service, you can also visit the “Account Settings” page in your POPSUGAR Must Have It account and change the POPSUGAR Must Have It Phone Number settings from “on” to “off.”

Do Not Track

We currently do not participate in any “Do Not Track” frameworks that would allow us to respond to signals or other mechanisms from you regarding the collection of your information. We may engage third parties, such as marketing or analytics partners, who may collect information about your online activities over time and across different websites when you use our website.

Privacy information for California residents.

If you are a California resident, you may be entitled to additional rights with respect to your personal information pursuant to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). For more information about these rights and how to exercise them, please see our California Privacy Notice here, which is hereby incorporated by reference into this Privacy Policy.

In accordance with the California Online Privacy Protection Act (see California Civil Code Sections 1798.83-1798.84), California residents are entitled to ask us for a notice identifying the categories of certain Personal Data that we share with our affiliates and/or third parties for marketing purposes, and providing contact information for such affiliates and/or third parties. If you are a California resident and wish to make such a request, please submit your request in writing to privacy@groupninemedia.com.

Privacy information for Nevada users.

If you are a Nevada resident, you have the right to request that we do not sell your covered information (as those terms are defined in N.R.S. 603A) that we have collected, or may collect, from you. We do not sell your covered information, however, if you would like to make such a request you may do so by contacting us at privacy@groupninemedia.com.

Privacy information for UK and EEA users.

The information below applies to users located in the United Kingdom (“UK”) or the European Economic Area (“EEA”) only.

Legal bases of processing Personal Data

When you access or use the Services, we collect, use, share and otherwise process your Personal Data as described in this Privacy Policy. In processing your Personal Data in connection with the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, we may rely on one or more of the following legal bases, depending on the circumstances:

Consent:
We may process some of your Personal Data in some cases on the basis of your consent, which you may withdraw at any time after giving it. Please see the section above entitled How you can change or control what is collected for more information.
Necessary to perform a contract:
We may process your Personal Data where it is necessary to use such Personal Data in order to perform our obligations under any contract with you (for example, to comply with our Terms and Conditions, which you accept by browsing our website and/or in order to provide the Services to you). The Terms and Conditions for Thrillist, The Dodo, NowThis and Seeker properties are available here, and the Terms of Service for our POPSUGAR properties are available here).
Legitimate interests:
We may process your Personal Data where we or one of our Advertisers or partners has a legitimate interest in carrying out the processing for the purpose of managing, operating or promoting our businesses, and that legitimate interest is not overridden by your interests, fundamental rights, or freedoms. These legitimate interests include:
running, growing and developing our business;
operating and improving our Services;
developing new products and services;
providing customer service to our users;
marketing, market research and business development;
understanding advertising campaigns on the Services; and
keeping our Services secure, preventing fraud, harm or crime, enforcing or defending legal rights, or preventing damage.
Compliance with applicable law:
We may process your Personal Data where it is necessary to process such Personal Data in order to comply with a legal obligation.
Vital interests:
We may process your Personal Data where such processing is necessary to protect the vital interests of any individual.

Legal rights of UK and EEA users

How to exercise your rights.

You may exercise any of the rights described in this section. If you would like further information in relation to these or would like to exercise any of them, please contact us using the contact details in the section below entitled How to contact us. Please note that we may ask you to verify your identity before taking further action on your request.

We will consider all such requests and provide our response within a reasonable period (and in any event within one month of your request unless we tell you we are entitled to a longer period allowed by applicable law). Please note, however, that certain User Data may be exempt from such requests in certain circumstances, for example if we need to keep using the information to comply with our own legal obligations or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

If an exception applies, we will tell you this when responding to your request.

You have the following rights:

Right of access

You have a right of access to any Personal Data we hold about you. You may access and update some of your Personal Data through your user account settings on the applicable Services. You may add, update or delete information, which limits the ability of other users to see the information in your user profile. You can ask us for a copy of your Personal Data; confirmation whether your user information is being used by us; details about how and why it is being used; and details of what safeguards are in place if we transfer your information outside of the EEA or UK, as applicable.

In order to de-link your Group Nine account from your account on Facebook or Google, you must adjust your account settings with the third-party application. For example, if you want to de-link your Facebook account with Group Nine, you must de-link your accounts in your Facebook application settings.

Right to update your information

You have the right to ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete Personal Data concerning you that we hold.

Data portability

You have a right to ask us to provide your Personal Data to a third-party provider of services. This right only applies where we use your Personal Data on the basis of your consent or performance of a contract; and where our use of your Personal Data is carried out by automated means.

Data retention and erasure

You have a right to ask us to delete any Personal Data which we are holding about you in certain specific circumstances. If you no longer want us to use your Personal Data to provide Services to you, you can request that we erase your Personal Data and close your user account(s).

We will pass your request onto other recipients of your Personal Data unless that is impossible or involves disproportionate effort. You can ask us who the recipients are using the contact details in the section below entitled How to contact us.

Please note that if you request the erasure of your Personal Data:

We may retain some of your Personal Data as necessary for our legitimate business interests, such as for safety or security purposes as well as fraud detection and prevention.
We may retain and use your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations. For example, we may keep some of your information for tax, legal reporting and auditing obligations.
Information you have shared with others may continue to be publicly visible on the Services, even after your user account deleted. However, attribution of such information to you will be removed. Additionally, some copies of your User Data (such as log files) may remain in our database after deletion of your account, but are disassociated from personal identifiers like name and email.
We maintain back-up copies of our database to prevent accidental loss of data. Because of this, residual copies of your Personal Data may not be removed from our backup systems.

Withdrawing consent and restriction of processing

(a) Withdrawing consent.

Where you have provided your consent to the processing of your Personal Data by Group Nine, you may withdraw your consent at any time. Please see the section above entitled How you can change or control what is collected for more information.

Please note that the withdrawal of your consent does not affect the lawfulness of any processing activities based on such consent prior to your withdrawal of consent.

(b) Restriction of processing.

Additionally, you have the right to limit the ways in which we use your user information in certain specific circumstances. You can ask us for further information on these specific circumstances by contacting using the contact details in the section below entitled How to contact us.

We will pass your request onto other recipients of your Personal Data unless that is impossible or involves disproportionate effort. You can ask us who the recipients are by contacting us using the contact details in the section below entitled How to contact us.

Objection to processing

You are also entitled to require that we not process your Personal Data for certain specific purposes where such processing is based on legitimate interest. If you object to such processing, we will no longer process your user information for these purposes unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for such processing or such processing is required for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims.

Right to stop marketing

Where your user information is processed for direct marketing purposes, you may, at any time, submit a request asking us to cease processing your data for these direct marketing purposes by contacting us using the contact details in the section below entitled How to contact us.

Complaints.

In accordance with Article 77 of the General Data Protection Regulation, you have the right to lodge complaints about the data processing activities carried out to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, or the data protection regulator in the country where you usually live or work, or where an alleged infringement of the General Data Protection Regulation has taken place. Alternatively, you may seek a remedy through the courts if you believe your rights have been breached.

Other useful information regarding your privacy.

Security

We use commercially reasonable safeguards to preserve the integrity and security of information collected and maintained through our Services. However, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you provide to us or guarantee that information on the Service may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by unauthorized persons or hardware or software failure.

The main risk of our processing of your User Data is if it is lost, stolen or misused. This could lead to your User Data being in the hands of someone else who may use it fraudulently or make public information that you would prefer to keep private. For this reason, we take reasonable precautions to safeguard the confidentiality of your user information, including through use of appropriate organizational and technical measures.

In the course of provision of your User Data to us, your User Data may be transferred over the internet. Although we make reasonable efforts to protect the User Data which you provide to us, the transmission of information over the internet is not completely secure. As such, you acknowledge and accept that we cannot guarantee the security of your User Data transmitted to our website and that any such transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your User Data, we will use strict procedures and security features designed to prevent unauthorized access to it.

Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access your online account, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you that you create a strong, unique password that you do not use on other sites and that you do not share your password with anyone. You are ultimately responsible for the security of your email address and password.

Children

We especially care about the privacy of young children. Most of our Services are not directed to children under the age of 16 and except as set forth below, we do not knowingly collect Personal Data from children under the age of 16 on such Services. If we learn that we have collected Personal Data from a user under 16 years of age on such Services, we will promptly delete any Personal Data that the individual has provided to us.

A few of our Services are clearly identified as being marketed directly to children under the age of 16 (such as our Dodo Kids channel on YouTube). In connection with such child-directed Services, we do not knowingly collect any Personal Data from users under the age of 16 without complying with applicable legal requirements and making appropriate disclosures.

International transfer

Your User Data may be used, stored, accessed, transferred to and maintained on devices, servers located outside the territory in which you reside, including to servers and staff located in the United States. Data stored in the United States may be subject to lawful requests by the courts or law enforcement authorities in the United States. If we provide any User Data about you to any other third parties, we will require the recipient protects your User Data in accordance with applicable law.

To the extent that Group Nine is deemed to transfer any Personal Data of UK or EEA users outside of the UK or EEA, we rely separately, alternatively, and independently on certain transfer mechanisms to transfer such Personal Data as described below. We will provide further information on the means to ensure an adequate level of data protection for your Personal Data upon your request, which can be directed to us using the contact details in the section below entitled How to contact us.

Standard contractual clauses
The European Commission has adopted standard contractual clauses (also known as model clauses), which provide safeguards for user information that is transferred outside of the EEA or UK. We often use these standard contractual clauses when transferring User Data outside of the UK or EEA, as applicable.

Adequacy decisions
In some cases, we may transfer your User Data to certain third-party service providers and partners of Group Nine based on an adequacy decision of the UK or European Commission confirming an adequate level of data protection in the country of the receiving party.

Data retention

The time period for which we keep User Data varies according to the information’s use. In some cases, there are legal requirements to keep data for a minimum period. Unless there is a specific legal requirement for us to keep the information, we plan to retain it for no longer than is necessary to fulfill a legitimate business need.

How to contact us.

If you have questions or concerns about the information in this Privacy Policy, our handling of your Personal Data more generally, your choices and rights regarding such use, or wish to exercise your rights under applicable law, you may submit a request using our request form here, or may contact us at the contact information below:

Group Nine Media, Inc.
568 Broadway, 10th Floor
New York, NY 10012
United States
privacy@groupninemedia.com