Privacy Policy
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Introduction
This Privacy Policy statement applies only to information collected at the Pixton Comics Inc. ("Pixton" or "the Company") Website located at http://www.pixton.com ("the Website") and through its software and applications and other functionality (collectively, "Software"). The Company is incorporated in British Columbia, Canada, and is located at #304–2515 Ontario Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada. The Company respects each individual's right to personal privacy. The Company collects and uses certain types of information in order to provide products and services to users, through use of the Website and its Software. This Privacy Policy is to inform you how we collect, use and protect the information you provide us when using the Website and Software.
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Information Collection and Use by the Website
The Website collects the following kinds of information:
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Personally identifiable account and identification information including your name, email address, screen name and password, collected when you sign up for, verify or use your account. Account and identification information is used as permitted or necessary to:
- identify you as a registered user of the Website and authenticate your identity when you login to your account;
- determine your eligibility for products and services or provide you with customer or technical support; and
- customize content, advertising or marketing information delivered to you through the Website.
Your personally identifiable account and identification information will not be shared with third parties.
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Personally identifiable payment information including your name, physical address, email address, contact phone number, and credit card information, collected through your payment for Pixton products and services. This payment information is used as permitted or necessary to:
- process payment for your use of Pixton products and services; and
- provide confirmation or contact you regarding your payment for Pixton products and services.
Your payment information will only be provided to secure payment service providers for the purposes of processing your creditcard payments, including PayPal Inc., located at eBay Park North, 2211 North First Street, San Jose, CA, USA, 95131. After payments have been processed, the Company maintains records of transactions as required to comply with applicable laws and regulations, but does not store your credit card information.
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Non-personally identifiable demographic information, specifically collected for the creation of demographic profiles containing population characteristics including age, income, gender, occupation, marital or parental status, education, or areas of interest, and used as permitted or necessary to:
- customize content and advertising delivered through the Website;
- understand your needs;
- determine the suitability of our products and services for you; and
- determine your eligibility for our products and services.
Aggregate demographic information may also be shared with advertisers and/or other third parties for the purpose of providing you with targeted advertising.
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Non-personally identifiable usage information, including IP address (anonymized to identify only your city or town), internet service provider, browser type, operating system, the URL of the previous website you visited, and other information that relates to your use of the Website. This information is collected through registration forms, clickstream tracking, and automatic logging files, and used as permitted or necessary to:
- examine our traffic in aggregate to optimize your experience with the Website; and
- investigate use and misuse of the Website.
Aggregate information derived from non-personally identifiable usage information may also be shared with advertisers and/or other third parties for the purpose of providing you with targeted advertising.
The Company currently uses both non-personally identifiable usage and demographic information with Google AdSense and Google Analytics, located in the state of California, in the United States. Their privacy policies are available here: http://www.google.com/privacy.html http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/privacypolicy.html
In the future, the Company may use such non-personally identifiable usage and demographic information with other comparable services providers and you consent to the Company so doing.
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Additional Usage of Information
We may also use any of the above-described information collected through Pixton as permitted or necessary to:
- communicate with you by email, phone or other means, including, without limitation, with regard to the Website, Pixton Software, this Privacy Policy, or any other communication deemed important, at our sole discretion, to your usage of Pixton Software or for account maintenance;
- resolve any disputes that may occur through your use of the Website; and
- for other purposes which will be disclosed when you provide your information;
Information we collect on the Website may also be used to create customer profiles based on browsing or purchasing history. This information may be supplemented by information collected by Pixton Software and shared with third parties in a non-personally identifying and anonymous form.
In general, you can choose not to provide us with some or all of your personal information at any time. However, you must understand that if you make this choice, we may not be able to provide you with the product, service, promotion or information that you requested.
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User Profiles and User Interactivity
Publicly Available Profile
In addition to the information addressed above, the Website also creates user profiles that may or may not contain personal information, depending on what you choose to input in your profile. User profiles that are automatically displayed to the public contain the following information: 1) screen name; 2) profile picture; 3) the date you joined; 4) time since last log in; and 5) number of comics published. IF YOU WISH TO AVOID REVEALING PERSONALLY IDENTIFYING INFORMATION, YOU SHOULD NOT POST A PROFILE PICTURE, OR PROVIDE ANY OTHER PERSONAL INFORMATION, THAT CAN IDENTIFY YOU.
Optional Detailed Profile Information
You may, but are not required to, choose to share additional profile data ("Profile Data") with: i) fellow Website users (denoted on the Website as "Friends"); ii) Friends and fellow Website users who are also your fans (denoted on the Website as "Faves"); iii) account holders only; or iv) to the public generally (e.g. anyone visiting the website), if you are 18 years of age or older. This Profile Data, should you choose to provide same, currently includes the following information: name, country, occupation, date of birth, gender, likes and dislikes. IF YOU WISH TO AVOID REVEALING PERSONALLY IDENTIFYING INFORMATION, YOU SHOULD NOT POST ADDITIONAL PROFILE DATA. Profile Data is not personal information collected or retained by Pixton.
You may change or remove your Profile Data at any time by logging into your account and deleting or amending the information, except for the basic publicly available profile information as described above.
Featured Authors
Users that may be identified by Pixton as "Featured Authors" are invited, but not required to, answer the following questions, which may contain personal information: i) Where do you get ideas for your comics? ii) What's unique about the place where you live? iii) What do you really enjoy doing, and why? iv) Where in the world would you most want to live? v) What 3 possessions would you take to a desert island? vi) What props or attributes would you like to see in Pixton™? and vii) How can we make Pixton™ better? Questions may be changed, deleted or added from time to time. The answers provided by Featured Author users are made available on their profile in accordance with the Profile Data sharing setting as described above. The information provided in these answers is not collected or used by the Company beyond profile posting, EXCEPT FOR THE ANSWERS TO vi) and vii) which the Company may use to improve its service. IF YOU WISH TO AVOID REVEALING PERSONALLY IDENTIFYING INFORMATION, YOU SHOULD NOT PROVIDE ANSWERS THAT ARE PERSONALLY IDENTIFYING.
User Interaction
Account holders may communicate on the Website by posting a comment or a user submission or by sending a private message to a fellow account holder. As an account holder, you may choose to permit or prohibit the receiving of private messages entirely, or to limit your acceptance of them to Friends only, or Friends and Faves collectively. These communications may contain personal information but the Company does not collect or use any of the personal information that may be included in these materials.
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Cookies
The Website employs the use of cookies. Cookies are small text files that your Web browser stores on your hard drive to recognize you as a repeat user of our Website, track your use of our Website, target advertising, and personalize certain aspects of your visit. If you do not want a cookie or stored on your computer, the Company recommends that you consult with your internet browser instructions to remove or prevent the storage of such cookies. Please note that if you choose to disable the use of cookies on your browser, some of the Company's products or services may not be available to you.
The Website may also from time to time use cookies from a third party. These cookies may be used to track and analyze usage and volume statistical information from visitors to the Website to help us continue to improve its quality and service to users. These third party cookies do not collect statistical information that may be unique to the individual, but is not personally identifying.
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Transfer, Storage and Processing of your Personal Information
The Company may transfer your personally identifiable information for the purposes of and as necessary to:
- allow our subsidiaries and related companies, agents and/or contractors to provide you with the Company's products and services;
- in the event the Company goes through a business transition such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, your personal information will likely be among the assets transferred. You acknowledge that such transfers may occur, and that any acquirer of the Company or its assets may continue to use your personal information as set forth in this Privacy Policy; and/or
- in the case of your user profile information, to transfer such information to our marketing and advertising partners in order to provide you with the Company's services and products;
Your personally and non-personally identifiable information may be stored and processed by third parties, including contractors and service providers in the United States and other countries. By using the Company's products, services (including Pixton Software) or Website, you consent to any such transfer of personal information outside of your country. You also understand that the governments, courts, or law enforcement or regulatory agencies of those countries may be able to obtain disclosure of your information through their applicable laws.
The Company is committed to require that all of its marketing and advertising partners, related companies, agents and contractors who receive any of your personal information will take appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure the security of your personally identifiable information.
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Public Forums and User Submissions
The Company is not responsible for any material submitted by users to the public areas of the Website, including any "Submissions" as defined by the "Terms and Conditions". User-submitted materials are not endorsed, reviewed or approved by the Company, and the Company does not collect or use any personal information that may be included in these materials. The Company reserves the right to remove any material submitted or posted by users in the public areas, without notice to users, if it becomes aware and determines, in its sole and absolute discretion, that users have, or there is the likelihood that users may, do any of the following:
- defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the rights of other users or any third parties;
- publish, post, distribute or disseminate any defamatory, obscene, indecent or unlawful material or information;
- post or upload files that contain viruses, corrupted files or any other similar software or programs that may damage the operation of the Company's and/or a third party's computer system and/or network;
- violate any copyright, trademark, other applicable North American or international laws or intellectual property rights of the Company or any other third party; or
- submit content containing marketing or promotional material which is intended to solicit business.
The above list is not exhaustive and the Company reserves the right to remove any material that it deems, in its sole and absolute discretion, is comparably harmful. If you are the owner of any material submitted inappropriately to the public areas of the website and wish to have it removed, or wish to notify the Company of any user-submitted material in violation of the above guidelines, please contact us.
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Personal Information of Children
Minors under the age of 13 are not entitled to use the Website or establish an account. The Company does not knowingly collect personal information of persons under the age of 13. If the Company becomes aware of anyone under 13 having opened an account, it will delete the account. If you are aware of any such person, please let the company know by contacting its privacy officer at privacy@pixton.com.
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Access and Rights to Information
Users may access their own personal information and contact us about inaccuracies they may find. If you wish to review, revise, verify or delete your personal information, revoke, at any time, your consent that your personal information be used by the Company for a certain purpose, submit complaints about the collection and use by the Company of your personal information, or have questions regarding to whom we may have disclosed your information as permitted by this Privacy Policy, please contact us. You may be asked to provide information that verifies your identity.
You may also or object to or oppose the collection, processing and use of your personal information by the Company by contacting the Privacy Officer. However, in this case, you understand that the Company may not be able to provide you with certain products, services, promotions or information you may have requested.
In general, you can choose not to provide us with some or all of your personal information at any time. However, you must understand that if you make this choice, we may not be able to provide you with the product, service, promotion or information that you requested.
In certain instances, we will not be able to provide the personal information we hold about you that you request. Some of these instances include:
- information that contains references to other persons, or that may be shared by multiple individuals and is not specific to you.
- information that is subject to solicitor-client or litigation privilege.
- information that contains proprietary information that is confidential to the Company.
- information that has been destroyed due to legal requirements or because we no longer needed it for the purposes set out in this Policy.
- information that cannot be disclosed for legal reasons.
In all cases we will provide access to your information, except on certain reserved grounds detailed above, and/or if and to the extent permitted by applicable law or statute. The Company will comply with the laws and lawful, suitably authorized orders of the courts or governments in the jurisdictions in which it operates. The Company may be required to retain and/or disclose personal information, usage information or payment information of users in order to comply with applicable laws or lawful, suitably authorized court orders in such jurisdictions.
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Retention of Information
The Company will maintain records of information collected as described above for as long as is necessary to provide you with the products, services and information you request from time to time (including the use of the collected information as described in this Privacy Policy), and as required to comply with relevant laws and regulations.
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How We Protect Your Personal Information
The Company takes appropriate measures to protect personal information collected through the Website and Pixton Software from any disclosure or use except as authorized by this Privacy Policy, and to keep all personal information accurate and up-to-date. Our security measures include:
- technological measures, including encryption of certain personal information such as Payment information collected through the Website or Pixton Software, and the use of user account authentication by means of unique usernames and non-obvious passwords or other identifiers;
- physical measures, such as storing your personal information in restricted access facilities; and
- organizational measures, such as appointing a Privacy Officer to respond to questions and requests regarding personal information and privacy.
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Jurisdiction
The terms and conditions under which you use the Website and Pixton Software (including as it relates to this privacy policy) are governed by and interpreted solely in accordance with the laws of the Province of British Columbia and Canada, as it applies. You are responsible for informing yourself of the laws of the jurisdiction and complying with those laws. Any claims, action, complaints, or litigation relating to the terms and conditions of use of this Website (including as it relates to this privacy policy) shall be brought solely within the Province of British Columbia and shall be within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts within the Province of British Columbia.
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Notification of Changes
The Company reserves the right to modify or supplement this Privacy Policy at any time. If we change this Privacy Policy, we will post notice of the changes on the Website. Changes will be effective 30 days from posting.
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Questions or Concerns
If you have any questions, comments or concerns arising from the Website, Pixton Software, the Privacy Policy or any other relevant terms and conditions, policies and notices or the way in which we are handling your personal information, submit an information request to the Privacy Officer or contact us by mail at:
Attn: Privacy Officer
Pixton Comics Inc.
Clive Goodinson
privacy@pixton.com304-2515 Ontario Street
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada V5T 4V4Telephone: +1 (888) 7-PIXTON
Last update: September 9, 2008