This Privacy Policy (this
"Policy") explains how personal information is safely handled by www.VirtualPups.com.
VirtualPups.com provides a fun and safe virtual experience for everyone.
If you have questions or concerns
regarding this statement, you should first contact a Virtual Pups Support
Representative at webmaster@VirtualPups.com.
Personal information specifically
identifies an individual with a name, address, city, state, zip code, telephone
number, e-mail address, passwords, credit card or other account
number—and may include information about that individual's Virtual Pups
activities and account. Personal information also includes demographic data,
such as date of birth, gender, geographic area and preferences when linked to
other personal information that identifies an individual.
Personal information does not
include "aggregate" information. Aggregate information is data
collected about a group or category of products, services or customers from
which individual customer identities have been removed. In other words,
information about how you use a service may be collected and combined with
information about how others use the same service, but no personal information
will be included in the resulting data.
When individuals register and
create a Virtual Pups account, we collect a set of information. For those
registering on Virtual Pups, we will collect and protect the following personal
information:
Upon completion of a registration,
information submitted will be used by Virtual Pups to create an account and
will allow the registered user to participate on the VirtualPups.com website,
which contains a variety of interactive and community features.
When completing a financial
transaction on Virtual Pups.com, for parents and those 18 and older, we will
collect and protect the following information:
Important Note: Any child, can be
identified by their Screen Name within the Virtual Pups community. As such, it
is advised that children (and all Virtual Pups members) do not use their real
name as their Screen Name or publish their real name anywhere on their profile
or in the Forums. Additionally, real names should not be used in any public
communication area where identity can be disclosed in connection with a
member's information, comments, passwords, etc. If real names are used (or
Screen Names include any personally identifying information as part of a
"nickname" or anywhere on your profile) that information will be
publicly displayed on our site. Therefore, please use caution in determining
your Screen Name and identity on the site.
We do not collect "sensitive
data" that pertains to racial or ethnic origins, political or religious
beliefs, or health or sex life.
We enable you to invite your
Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, LinkedIn, and other contacts to join Virtual Pups.com.
We will display your contacts from any address book(s) of your choice. You can
also text input addresses. We will send out the invitations on your behalf.
However, we do not store these email addresses in any database or repository.
Children Under The Age Of 13
Virtualpups.com does not knowingly
collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13 or
knowingly allow such persons to register. If you are under 13 and do not have
parental consent, please do not attempt to register for Virtual Pups or send
any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone
number, or email address. No one under age 13 may provide any personal
information to or on Virtual Pups. In the event that we learn that we have
collected personal information from a child under age 13 we will delete that
information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any
information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at webmaster@virtualpups.com.
Children Between The Ages of 13
and 18
We recommend that minors over the
age of 13 ask their parents for permission before sending any information about
themselves to anyone over the Internet.
Parents and legal guardians of
children under 13 who are members of Virtual Pups.com have certain rights under
COPPA, and Virtual Pups recognizes those rights. Parents/guardians can consent
to collection and use of a child's personally identifiable information (PII)
without consenting to the disclosure of information to third parties. If a
parent does not provide consent, we will not grant that child access to social
and communication features on Virtual Pups.com.
Parents/guardians can review
information their children have contributed to VirtualPups.com, by accessing
their child's account. Parents can also request that Virtual Pups delete that
information and refuse to allow Virtual Pups to collect further information
from their children by contacting our Customer Service department by email at webmaster@Virtualpups.com.
Parents should include their children's Screen Name and the registered
(parent's) email address in the email so we can better assist them with their
inquiry or request. Virtual Pups may ask additional questions or take other
steps to verify the identity of parents/guardians before responding to a
request to review or delete their child's information, or a request to refuse
further collection from children.
A child's participation or access
to an activity on Virtual Pups cannot be conditioned on her providing more
information than is reasonably necessary for that activity, or any personally
identifiable information. Virtual Pups does not collect personally identifiable
information from children under 13, without a parent or guardian's consent.
Virtual Pups is an interactive
gaming and social networking application and requires a valid email address
correlated with the user name(s) in order to become a Virtual Pups owner. We
use this information to send you pet related notifications and alerts, and links
that can be used to activate your account. We also send a weekly newsletter to
update you on our latest offerings, promotions and news. You can opt-out of any
or all emails at any time on your preferences page.
We authenticate with email
addresses, usernames and passwords to enable proper access to users' accounts.
We also monitor usage to make sure Virtual Pups owners are following the Terms
and Conditions of our site. Monitoring in this manner is intended to protect
our community members and preserve a safe, fair, and positive experience for
everyone. We may use an email address to temporarily or permanently ban a
person from playing on Virtual Pups if inappropriate and disruptive conduct
ensues.
As mentioned above, we request
additional personally identifiable information from members wanting to complete
financial transactions for added features and services that we may offer.
We may also use information in an
aggregate form to analyze site patterns and usage to assist in creating new
features, products, programs or services. For some of our activities (polls or
surveys), we may ask users to provide information that is not personally
identifiable (e.g. favorite animal, top dog breeds, etc.)
When a username or email address
is requested from Virtual Pups via Virtualpups.com a form is submitted through
our 'contact us' page, blogs, forums or wiki area of our website. This ensures
that we provide a response in a timely manner, or track and monitor
correspondence that may be deemed inappropriate or disturbing to the community.
We may passively collect certain
non-personally identifiable computer information such as the type of operating
system (Windows 7, Mac OS), the user's IP address, type of web browser
(Internet Explorer, Firebox, Safari) and information regarding the Internet
service provider used, and possibly link this information to the user account
and personal information. If we do this, we will secure this data.
We may also use Cookies. Cookies
are small text files that we place in visitors' computer browsers to store
their preferences. You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a
cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You do this
through your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) settings. Each browser
is a little different, so look at your browser Help menu to learn the correct
way to modify your cookies. If you turn cookies off, you won't have access to
many features that make your Web experience smoother, and some of our services
may not function properly.
Third parties that we link to from
our site may use cookies but we are not responsible and/or liable for the use
of cookies by such third parties and they are not covered by our privacy
policy.
Lastly, we collect financial or
payment information used for no other purpose than processing payments to Offleash
Media Inc. The financial information entered to acquire a membership is not
stored by Offleash Media, but is instead retained by our payments processing
vendors Paypal and Rixty specifically to securely manage credit card payments
made to Offleash Media Inc.
If personal information is not
provided but necessary to create an account, then Offleash Media Inc. may not
agree to membership and may not be able to provide access to certain areas and
functionality on the Virtual Pups website(s), application(s), or portal(s) or
provide information, products, or services that may be requested.
In case of a merger or business
transfer, a sale or transfer of our assets, or if we sell all or part of our business,
we may transfer personal information to a third party as part of that business
transaction to the extent permitted by law.
All personal information is
processed fairly and lawfully. We ask for consent before collecting personal
information, and disclose when it is collected and how the data will be used.
We do not ask for information that is out of scope of the purpose for which it
is collected. In addition, the use of personal information is not used beyond
what has been disclosed. Participants that provide personal information can
later view, change any inaccuracies, or delete their data at any time.
We know how intrusive it is to get
spam, unsolicited phone calls, and 'junk' mail. This is why we will not contact
you unless you specifically request to be contacted. The log in area is
designed to provide visitors with Virtual Pups and company information that
requires email verification and proper internal approval within Offleash Media Inc..
We do not share, rent, or sell this information with any person, business, or
organization.
Other areas of our website,
specifically our applications, enable visitors to experience the fun,
convenience, and excitement of Virtual Pups. Information entered in these
sections will not be permanently stored and/or used, nor will it be exposed or
exploited through Offleash Media Inc. or any third party affiliate or
otherwise. This information will not be shared, sold, or rented to any person,
business organization. If you have any questions about our email policies,
please feel free to contact us at webmaster@Virtualpups.com.
We do not sell, rent, or share
personal information to any person, business, or organization without your
prior consent except in the limited circumstances described in this Policy.
We will disclose personal
information when we believe it is appropriate to comply with the law (e.g., a
lawful subpoena, warrant, or court order) or at the request of law enforcement
authorities or as a result of the unlawful use of our site. If we reasonably
believe that an emergency involving danger of serious physical injury or death
to any person(s) requires disclosure of communications or records, we will use
reasonable commercial efforts to disclose this information promptly. In
addition, information about our customers including personally identifiable
information may be disclosed as part of any merger, acquisition, debt financing
or sale of company assets, as well as in the event of an insolvency, bankruptcy
or receivership in which personally identifiable information could be
transferred to third parties as one of our business assets.
Your account information is
displayed to other users in your Virtual Pups profile. This information may
also be available through automated script calls and application program
interfaces. This information includes your Screen Name, Kennel Name, Virtual
Pups(s) name(s) and PlayCash information (quantities). We do not display your
address, credit card number, or bank account numbers.
You may choose to disclose your
own personal information in our online forums, or wikis. Please be aware that
this information is public and therefore not held confidential or private in
these settings.
Third-Party Advertising Companies
We use third-party advertising
companies to serve ads on our site. Our system and the third-party advertising
technology uses information derived from Activity Information, Virtual Pups'
cookies on your hard drive, your visits to our site, to target advertising
within our site or other Offleash Media sites. In addition, our advertisers may
use other third-party advertising technology to target advertising on our site
and other sites. In the course of advertisements being served to you, a unique
third-party cookie or cookies may be placed on your computer. Similarly,
third-party advertising companies may provide us with pixel tags (also called
Òclear gifsÓ or ÒbeaconsÓ) to help manage and optimize our online advertising.
Beacons enable us to recognize a browser's cookie when a browser visits the
site on which the beacon is located, and to learn which banner ads bring users
to a given site.
Virtual Pups and/or Offleash Media
Inc. does not provide any Personally Identifiable Information to third-party
advertising companies. Note, however, that if an advertiser asks Offleash Media
Inc. to show an advertisement to users with certain characteristics (for
example, women ages 18-24) or a segment of that group (for example, women ages
18-24 who have viewed certain categories of content) and you respond to that
advertisement, the third-party advertising company may conclude that you have
the characteristics of the audience that they are trying to reach.
The information you submit to this
Website is stored in encrypted form. We follow generally accepted industry
standards to protect data both in transmission and when we hold it. However, no
means of transmission or method of electronic storage is 100% secure so whilst
we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect data we cannot
guarantee its security.
If we decide to change our privacy
policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and
other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we
collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
We reserve the right to modify
this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make
material changes to how we use Personal Information collected from children
under age 13, we will notify parents by email in order to obtain verifiable
parental consent for the new uses of the child's Personal Information.
If you have further questions and
comments on privacy please contact us at:
Offleash Media Inc.
1135 Adelaide St. North - 3rd Floor
London, Ontario
N5Y 5K7
Canada
Support:
email: webmaster@virtualpups.com
phone: +1-416-623-7832