Privacy Policy for GeekWire.com and GeekWork.com

Last updated April 2, 2015.

GeekWire, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (“GeekWire”, “we” “us” or “our”) recognizes that privacy is important. This Privacy Policy (this “Policy”) sets forth the information collection and security procedures applicable to GeekWire.com and GeekWork.com (collectively, the “Website”), as well as all related applications, widgets, software, tools, and other services provided by us and on which a link to this Policy is displayed (collectively, together with the Website, our “Services”), and describes GeekWire’s collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information (defined below) in connection with providing the Services. This Policy is incorporated by reference into the GeekWire.com and GeekWork.com Terms of Use, (hereafter referred to as the “Terms of Use”) and is subject to the provisions of the Terms of Use.

Please review this document to understand:

What GeekWire considers Personal Information.
What Personal Information we collect.
How we use and disclose your Personal Information.
How you can access and change your account information.
What security procedures are in place to protect the information.
How to contact us if there are any problems or concerns.
How we can update this Policy.

Upon registering for or using the Services, you explicitly acknowledge and assent to the terms of this Policy. If you do not agree with the terms of this Policy, do not use the Services. It is GeekWire’s policy to comply with data protection legislation, which grants you certain rights related to your Personal Information.

The Services may contain links to other web sites, products, or services that we do not own or operate (collectively, “Third Party Sites”). The Services also may contain links to Third Party Sites such as social networking services. This Policy applies to information collected on or through the Services and not Third Party Sites referenced from our Services. We cannot control and are not responsible for the information use practices of Third Party Sites or others who may access your information on or through the Services. When you click on links to Third Party Sites, we encourage you to read their privacy policies. Their standards may differ from ours. Additionally, please be aware that the Services may contain links to web sites and services that we operate but that are governed by different privacy policies. We encourage you to carefully review the privacy policies applicable to any web site or service you visit other than the Services.

What is Personal Information?

“Personal Information” as used in this Policy, is information that specifically identifies an individual, such as an individual’s name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, resume or credit card information. Personal Information also includes information about an individual’s activities, such as information about his or her activity on our Services, and demographic information, such as date of birth, gender, geographic area, and preferences, when any of this information is linked to Personal Information that identifies that individual.

Personal Information does not include “aggregate” or other non-personally identifiable information. Aggregate information is information that we collect about a group or category of products, services, or users that is not personally identifiable or from which individual identities are removed. We may use and disclose aggregate information, and other non-personally identifiable information, for various purposes.

What information do we collect?

We try to collect only what we believe is reasonably necessary to help you get the most out of the Services and to connect with the community. We collect Personal Information that our users provide to us in a variety of ways on our Services. These include the following:

Registered Users, Accounts and Profiles: If you create an account to take advantage of all that the Services have to offer, we record Personal Information that you include in your user profile or account settings page. This includes, but is not limited to, your username, password, first and last name, email, street address, phone number, resume information, work opportunities, and related demographic information about you. Profiles may include user-submitted information such as resume data, self-assessed skills ratings, contact information, and portfolio submissions. We may indicate that some Personal Information is required for you to register for the account or to create the profile, while some is optional. If you complete a financial transaction on or through the Services, your payment information will be recorded securely by one or more of our third party e-commerce vendors, such as EventBrite or Shopify.

E–mail Newsletters: We offer e-mail newsletters on our Services. If you sign up to receive a newsletter from us, we collect your e-mail address.

Listings: We may offer you the opportunity to join various promotional lists or publications including, for instance, our “Geek of the Week” series or our database of start-ups (collectively, the “Listings”). We collect any Personal Information you supply when you apply to join these listings.

Integrated Services. You may be given the option to access or register for the Services through the use of your user name and passwords for certain services provided by third parties (each an “Integrated Service”), such as through the use of your Facebook credentials through Facebook Connect. By doing this, you authorize us to access and store the Integrated Services credentials you provide, your name, email address(es), date of birth, gender, current city, profile picture URL, and other information that the Integrated Service makes available to us, and to use and disclose it in accordance with this Policy. You should check your Facebook or other Integrated Service privacy settings to understand and change the information sent to us through Facebook Connect or other Integrated Services. Please review each Integrated Service’s terms of use and privacy policies carefully before using their services and connecting to our Services.

Interactive Features: Our Services may contain interactive functionality that allows you to engage with other users on the Services, post comments to forums, upload photographs, profiles, work opportunities and other content (the “User Materials”), participate in surveys, and otherwise interact with the Services and with other users. If you use any interactive functionality on our Services that request or permit you to provide us with Personal Information (including, for example, any services that allow you to post User Materials on any of our Services), we collect the Personal Information that you provide to us in the course of using these interactive features. Some interactive functionality on the Services is provided by third parties, which may also collect, use or disclose your Personal Information. Our Services may allow you to post comments and other User Materials to designated (for example, by the word “comments,” a blank text box, or other indicia) areas on the Services operated by Disqus, a third party service. Disqus’s collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Information is subject to the Disqus privacy policy. If you do not agree to the Disqus policy, do not post comments or other User Materials to or otherwise interact with these designated areas or any associated functionality.

Job Applications: If you upload a resume or apply for a specific position on or through the Services, you may be asked to provide information on your gender, race, or another personal characteristic that is a protected status under United States or other applicable law. Some employers are required by law to request this information from job applicants for meeting reporting and record-keeping obligations, but you are not required to provide this information to use the Services. Your provision of this information is strictly voluntary. GeekWire may disclose this information as further described in this Policy.

Questions and Feedback: If you contact us with feedback, questions, or other correspondence, we will record any Personal Information contained within or associated with your correspondence.

Contests and Sweepstakes. We or our advertisers and other business partners may conduct or sponsor special contests, sweepstakes, and other promotions that users may enter or otherwise participate in on our Services. Certain of these promotions may be co-branded with one of our advertisers or other business partners. In these instances, the collection of your Personal Information may occur directly by the third party partner on its website or other online service and may be shared with us. The promotion will state the privacy policy or policies governing the collection of such personal information.

Activity on the Services: We record information from your use of the Services, such as pages viewed, type of browser, IP address, the nature of the device from which you are visiting the Services (e.g., a personal computer or mobile device), the identifier for any handheld or mobile device that you may be using, the web site that you visited immediately prior to accessing the Services, the actions you take using the Services, the content, features and activities that you access and participate in on our Services, and timestamps for such activities. We may also collect information regarding your interaction with e-mail messages, such as whether you opened, clicked on, or forwarded a message.

Web Beacons: Like many websites and services, we use passive technologies such as standard server logs, cookies, clear GIFs and session variables (also known as “Web Beacons”). A cookie, for instance, is a small text file that our Service places on a user’s computer hard drive. Web Beacons enable GeekWire to deliver customized content to users, improve the effectiveness of advertising on the Services, and administer, operate and improve the Services. If we link or associate any information gathered through passive means with Personal Information, or if applicable laws require us to treat any information gathered through passive means as Personal Information, we treat the combined information as Personal Information under this Policy. We may use persistent cookies which may not have an expiration date but can be easily removed by following the instructions in your browser documentation. However, please be aware that you may not be able to access the Services or certain portions of the Services unless cookies are enabled. Also, please be aware that Third Party Sites linked to from the Services may set cookies on your hard drive or use other Web Beacons to passively collect information about your use of their services, Third Party Sites or content. We do not have access to, or control over, these third party means of passive data collection.

Other Sources: We may receive information about you, including Personal Information, from third parties, and may combine this information with other Personal Information we maintain about you. If we do so, this Policy governs any combined information that we maintain in personally identifiable format.

Children’s Privacy: GeekWire.com and Geekwork.com are general audience sites. Children’s safety is important to us, and we encourage parents and guardians to take an active interest in the online activities of their children. Our Services are not directed toward children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from users under 13 years of age without obtaining parental consent. If we learn that we have collected Personal Information from a child under the age of 13 on our services, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we may have collected any Personal Information from a child under the age of 13 on our Services, please notify us at support@geekwire.com.

How do we use and disclose Personal Information?

Operation of Services: We use Personal Information to provide services and information that you request; to enhance, improve, operate, and maintain our Services, our programs, services, web sites, and other systems; to prevent fraudulent use of our Services and other systems; to prevent or take action against activities that are, or may be, in violation of our Terms of Use or applicable law; to tailor advertisements, content, and other aspects of your experience on and in connection with the Services; to provide your information to prospective employers, employees, independent contractors, or others, as appropriate; to maintain a record of our dealings with you; for other administrative purposes; and for any other purposes that we may disclose to you at the point at which we request your Personal Information, and pursuant to your consent.

Communications: We will use your email to communicate with you. Registered users receive regular communications from the Services via our third party email service provider, MailChimp. MailChimp’s collection, use, and disclosure of your Personal Information is subject to the MailChimp privacy policy. If you do not agree to the MailChimp policy, do not register for the Services or, if you receive email communications from us, opt-out of such communications from us by clicking the “unsubscribe” link and following the subsequent instructions. We may also use Personal Information you provide to contact you with additional announcements regarding products, services, and offers, both from ourselves and from third parties, from time to time that we believe you may find of interest. Out of respect for the privacy of our users, we present the option to unsubscribe from these communications. We allow you to opt-out from receiving marketing communications as described in the “How can you access and change your Personal Information?” section below. Other users will also be able to view your publicly available information to better connect with you.

User Materials: We may publicly display Personal Information submitted in any User Materials. User Materials may include salary, start date, location, descriptions. Your User Materials are used to enrich the Services. PLEASE BE AWARE THAT USER MATERIALS YOU SUBMIT ARE PUBLICLY AVIALABLE AND THAT YOUR IDENTITY MAY BE DISCERNABLE FROM YOUR USER MATERIALS, EVEN WITHOUT YOUR NAME OR CONTACT INFORMATION

Applications: If you apply for a position via the Services, we may disclose to the employer any Personal Information about you that you have supplied to us.

Listings: GeekWire may sell, distribute, or make other uses of its Listings, including its database of information provided by start-ups, as long as GeekWire does not disclose users’ Personal Information.

Contests and Sweepstakes: If you enter a contest, sweepstakes, or other promotion sponsored by a third party offered on or through the Services, we may share the information collected for that promotion with the sponsor. If you do not wish to have your information shared with a sponsor, do not enter the particular contest, sweepstakes, or other promotion.

Analytics: We use Personal Information in conjunction with, for example, Google Analytics, to evaluate Service statistics as a whole and learn how to better serve public users and registered community users. We may also use your User Materials to contribute to the collective intelligence and offer aggregated data insights. These insights will not include Personal Information.

International: Our servers and data centers are located in the United States. If you choose to use the Services from outside the U.S., then you should know that you are transferring your Personal Information outside of your region and into the U.S. for storage and processing. By providing your Personal Information to us through your use of the Service, you agree to transfer, storage, and processing in the U.S. Also, we may transfer your data from the U.S. to other countries or regions in connection with storage and processing of data, fulfilling your requests, and operating the Services. Personal information and content posted to the Services may be available to be accessed by users in other countries. You should know that each region can have its own privacy and data security laws, some of which may be less stringent as compared to those of your own region. GeekWire implements certain safeguards to prevent unauthorized access and use by third parties; however, GeekWire is not responsible for their use of information posted on our site. Please do not post sensitive information to the Services.

Advertising: GeekWire uses Google DoubleClick to sell its advertising inventory on the Services. Google DoubleClick’s collection, use, and disclosure of your Personal Information is subject to Google’s Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this Policy, do not access the Services. Otherwise, [GeekWire does not disclose Personal Information to third parties for direct marketing purposes without the user’s prior affirmative agreement.] GeekWire also collects user data for purposes of conversion tracking and serving ads based on users’ interests.

Service Providers: We may disclose Personal Information to third party service providers (e.g., payment processing and data storage and processing facilities) that assist us in our work. We limit the Personal Information provided to these service providers to that which is reasonably necessary for them to perform their functions, and their privacy policies govern their collection, use, and disclosure of such Personal Information.

Business Partners: We may disclose Personal Information to third parties with whom we engage in business relationships, and who execute confidentiality agreements regarding the security of your Personal Information with restrictions no less stringent than this Policy (collectively, our “Business Partners”). Our Business Partners may include, for instance, persons or entities we engage in joint development agreements, joint marketing agreements or other arrangements.

Public Areas: Some features on our Services may allow you to upload, post, or otherwise transmit User Materials to public areas of the Services, such as content that you post in a public profile on the Services. Please be aware that any Personal Information that you include within any User Materials will be made available to other users of the Services who view it. You include Personal Information in User Materials at your sole risk. Additionally, even after information posted on the Services is removed, caching and archiving services may have saved that information, and other users or third parties may have copied or stored the information available on the Services. We cannot warrant or guarantee that any Personal Information that you provide on and in connection with the Services will not be accessed, viewed, or used by unauthorized persons.

Business Transfers: Information about our users, including Personal Information, may be disclosed and otherwise transferred to an acquirer, or successor or assignee as part of any merger, acquisition, debt financing, sale of company assets, or similar transaction, as well as in the event of an insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership in which Personal Information is transferred to one or more third parties as one of our business assets.

To Protect our Interests: We also disclose Personal Information if we believe that doing so is legally required, or is in our interest to protect our property or other legal rights (including, but not limited to, enforcement of our agreements), or the rights or property of others, or otherwise to help protect the safety or security of our Services and other users of the Services.

How can you access, delete or change your Personal Information?

How can you access, change or delete your Personal Information?
If we offer the ability to create user accounts or profiles on our Services, users may access and change their own Personal Information by logging into their account and changing the information. Users may access, amend or delete their Personal Information from our database by emailing us at support@GeekWire.com. If you request that we delete you account on any of our Services (via a user settings page, by e-mail, or otherwise), we will do so within a reasonable period of time, but we may need to retain some of your Personal Information in order to satisfy our legal obligations, or where we reasonably believe that we have a legitimate reason to do so. To request deletion of your data, please contact us at support@geekwire.com.

How can you change your communication settings

If you receive commercial e-mail from us provided by our third party service, MailChimp, you may unsubscribe at any time by following the instructions contained within the e-mail (see “Communications” above). Separately, you may unsubscribe from event notifications you receive from Eventbrite as a result of your registration with us by following the “unsubscribe” instructions in any notifications.

Please be aware that if you opt-out of receiving commercial e-mail from us, it may take up to ten business days for us to process your opt-out request, and you may receive commercial e-mail from us during that period. Additionally, even after you opt-out from receiving commercial messages from us, you will continue to receive administrative messages from us regarding our Services.

How can you opt-out of tracking services?

We use Google Analytics to track website visits and behaviors, including remarketing, demographics and interest reporting features. You may opt out of interest-based ads by Google through Ads Settings and opt-out of Google Analytics tracking here.

We may opt-out of interest-based Twitter ads here.

What security procedures are in place to protect your Personal Information?

We use reasonable security measures that are designed to protect personal information from accidental loss, disclosure, misuse, and destruction. Please be aware, however, that no data security measures can be guaranteed to be completely effective. Consequently, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information that you provide to us. You transmit information to us at your own risk. To help secure your information, access to your GeekWire data is password-protected. Moreover, we do not see your passwords for our third party authentication methods as you authenticate access to the third party website outside the Services. You are responsible for establishing a secure password and maintaining the confidentiality of log-in credentials.

Notice to California Residents

We do not respond to “do not track” signals or other similar mechanisms. We will not share your information with any third parties for that third party’s marketing purposes.

How can you contact us if there are any problems or concerns?

If problems arise or if you have any questions or comments about this Policy, you may contact GeekWire by email and we will make reasonable efforts to respond promptly and resolve any concerns.

Email: support@GeekWire.com

How can we update this Policy?
We may occasionally update this Policy. When we do, we will also revise the “last updated” date at the beginning of the Policy. If we change this Policy in a manner that is materially less restrictive of our use or disclosure of your Personal Information, we will use reasonable efforts to notify you of the change, for example by posting a prominently displayed notification on the Services, to obtain your consent prior to applying the change to any Personal Information that we collected from you prior to the date the change becomes effective. If you continue to use the Services after changes made to this Policy have been sent to you or published on our site, you hereby provide your consent to the changed practices and your continued use of the Services after such changes will be subject to the then-current policy. We encourage you to periodically review this Policy to stay informed about how we collect, use, and disclose Personal Information.