Updated April 18, 2012-04-18

We take your privacy seriously. Please take a moment to read this privacy policy, which discloses the privacy practices of the About, Inc. ("About") websites, including About.com, AllExperts.com, Consumersearch.com, CalorieCount.com, and Netplaces.com, as well as our downloadable software applications for supported devices, including mobile devices (collectively, the "Services"). Specifically, the policy outlines the types of information that we gather about you while you are using the Services, and the ways in which we use and share this information.

The Types of Information We Collect

Information You Give Us

To enable you to enjoy certain features of our Services, we collect certain types of information, including personally identifiable information. For example, we collect information when you:

• Sign up to receive email newsletters. When we send newsletters to subscribers we may allow A company or organization that purchases advertising space on a website to provide information about their product or service, often to persuade potential customers to purchase or use more of it.'>Advertisers or A company or organization that has a business relationship with another company or organization involving the exchange of goods or services.'>Partners to include messages in those newsletters, or we may send dedicated newsletters on behalf of those Advertisers or Partners, but those A company or organization that purchases advertising space on a website to provide information about their product or service, often to persuade potential customers to purchase or use more of it.'>Advertisers or A company or organization that has a business relationship with another company or organization involving the exchange of goods or services.'>Partners will never have access to your Information such as your name, address, email address or Social Security number that personally identifies you and could compromise your privacy.'>personal information, including your email address. All newsletters will come directly from About, Inc. To unsubscribe from newsletters, click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email newsletter.
• Register. When you register to use forums or other Services, we ask you to provide certain information, which may include your email address, home address, birth year, gender, health conditions, credit card number and zip code, as well as a password for your account. A company or organization that purchases advertising space on a website to provide information about their product or service, often to persuade potential customers to purchase or use more of it.'>Advertisers or A company or organization that has a business relationship with another company or organization involving the exchange of goods or services.'>Partners will never have access to your Information such as your name, address, email address or Social Security number that personally identifies you and could compromise your privacy.'>personal information unless you agree in advance to provide such access.
• Engage in public activities on the Services. We offer you opportunities to engage in public activities on the Services that are designed to be visible to other users, including comments, recommendations, reader reviews, ratings or any other items that you submit. Any information you disclose in your public activities, along with your screen name or ID, or any image or photo, becomes public and may be used by us for online and offline promotional or commercial uses in any and all media. If you choose to engage in public activities, you should be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of these areas, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these forums and About.com has no responsibility to publish, take down, remove or edit any of your public activities or any of your submissions that are a result of your public activities. For more information, see the About.com User Agreement.
• Provide Us Your Credit Card and Billing Information. To enable payment for certain Services, we collect and store billing and credit card information. This information will only be shared with the third parties who we have hired to perform these tasks.
• Contests, Sweepstakes and Special Offers. We may sponsor contests, sweepstakes, or have special offers on the Service or on third party sites. If you elect to participate, we may require personal information from you, including, in most cases, your first and last name and e-mail address. If this information is also being collected by a third party, we will notify you at the time of collection. If you do not want any personal information shared, you may always decline to participate in the sweepstakes, contest or special offers.

Information We Collect Using Technology

• Device Information. We may collect information about the computer, mobile telephone, smartphone or other device you use to access the Services to measure the effectiveness of those Services.
• Cookies. We use cookies, pixel trackers, server logs, and any Internet technology in order to measure the effectiveness of the Services and any advertising campaigns, as well as to target meaningful content and ads to our users.
• Analytics. We may use third parties to provide us information, reports and analysis about the usage and browsing patterns of users of the Services. These reports contain aggregated data only, and do not identify individual users. Please read here for more information about these third parties and the information they may be collecting.
• IP Addresses. We log Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, or the location of your computer on the Internet, for systems administration and troubleshooting purposes. We use this information in an aggregate fashion to track access to our Web sites and mobile applications.
• Log Files. We may also automatically log certain usage information about your use of the Services. This information includes a reading history of the pages you view.

How We Use the Information We Collect

Information Collected by Third-Parties and Your Ad Choices

Third parties may collect information about you via the Services. In certain cases, we do not have access to, nor control over, these third parties' data collection practices and we do not assume any liability related to their collection or use.

In addition to our own systems, we use DoubleClick, DoubleClick Mobile, Google, Google AdMob, and other third-party A company that provides the technology to display advertisements on web sites and allows publishers and advertisers monitor ad performance.'>Ad Servers to serve and display Advertisements. You have options and choices about the collection and use of information by third parties on our Websites:

• For more information about these third-party Ad Networks and opting out of tracking, see: www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp
• For more information about interest-based advertising and opting out, see: www.aboutads.info/choices/
• For information about disabling and controlling third-party cookies in your browser, see: www.aboutcookies.org/Default.aspx?page=1

In addition to Ad Servers, other third parties, including analytics services providers, may collect information about you directly through the Services. They may use A small piece of text that is stored on your computer by the web browser. Cookies contain specific information about your activity on a website, such as your site preferences or the items in your online shopping cart. Cookies are neither spyware nor viruses, although sometimes they are detected by anti-spyware products because they can track your visits to various sites over time.'>cookies, A tiny, usually invisible graphic that is embedded on a web page that allows web publishers to track simple performance data, such as how many users have visited a web page in a given time period.'>pixel trackers, or other internet technology to collect non-personal information about your use of the Services.

In many cases, the information collected by these third parties is used to show you ads on other Web sites based on your demonstrated interests, or in some cases, your location. Please refer to the third party privacy policies for further details.

• Localytics: Privacy policy - www.localytics.com/privacy-policy
• Google Analytics: Privacy policy - www.google.com/intl/en/analytics/privacyoverview.html
• Shop Savvy: Privacy policy - shopsavvy.mobi/terms-of-service-3/
• iSpeech: Privacy Policy - www.ispeech.org/policies.php
• Shopping.com: Privacy Policy - www.shopping.com/sc/privacy-policy

Other Privacy Considerations

In the future, we may sell, buy, merge or partner with other companies or businesses. In such transactions, we may include your information among the transferred assets.

Contact Information

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please visit us at:

• www.about.com/gi/pages/pform.htm

Or you can contact us by mail at:

Customer Care
About.com, Inc.
249 West 17th Street
New York, NY 10011

Updated April 2012