At SparkPeople, we respect your privacy and believe you should be informed about how we collect, use and disclose your Personal Information (as defined below). This Privacy Policy describes our practices regarding how we use and share with third parties Personal Information and other information that we collect on the Website.

By using or accessing the Website, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy. Capitalized terms not defined in this Privacy Policy have the meanings set forth in the Terms of Use.

The Website may provide links or references to websites operated by third parties. Once you enter another website, please be aware that SparkPeople is not responsible for the privacy practices of these other sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of each site that you visit through a link on our Website.

Modifications to the Privacy Policy
We may make changes to the Privacy Policy from time to time. A link to the most current Privacy Policy will be available on the SparkPeople home page. In the event of significant changes to the Privacy Policy, we may also place a special notice on the Website or communicate the changes by email. Your continued use of the Website following the posting of such changes constitutes your acceptance of any such changes. If you do not agree with this Privacy Policy, or any revised versions thereof, you may not use the Website.

Age Requirement
In order to use the Website you must be at least 18 years of age or the legal age to form a binding contract in your jurisdiction if that age is greater than 18 years of age. Please see the Terms of Use for additional information regarding this and other requirements regarding eligibility.

Personal Information
We may collect your name, address, email address, telephone number and other contact information in connection with the Website ("Personal Information"). We may ask you to submit Personal Information at various places on our Website, including by providing Registration Data, subscribing to a newsletter, or submitting feedback. We do not share your information with third parties except as set forth in this Privacy Policy.

We use your Personal Information to contact you or send you information you have requested or that we feel will be of interest to you. We may contact you via phone, email, or postal mail. We generally provide an option for you to choose not to receive these types of communications (see below). However, even if you request not to be contacted by us, we reserve the right to use your contact information if we consider it necessary to send you information about the operation of the site, including information regarding the services you have signed up for on the Website or information about changes to our Privacy Policy.

If you do not want to receive special offers, marketing communications, newsletters or other promotional communications ("Marketing Communications") from SparkPeople, you may "opt-out" or withdraw your consent in the following manner:

(a) You may "opt-out" of Marketing Communications that you are already receiving from us by following the steps described in each such Marketing Communication.

(b) You may also control the communications you receive from us by logging into your account and updating your email notification settings.

Please note that once we receive your request, it make take an additional period of time for such request to become effective. Also note that after you "opt out" SparkPeople may still send you certain communications that are not primarily for marketing purposes and that SparkPeople deems important for all Website users to receive, such as notifications regarding technical problems with the Website.

User Generated Content
You may elect to submit User Generated Content via the Website. If at any time you share User Generated Content on areas of the site that are generally accessible to other Website users, such content is considered "Public User Generated Content." If you share User Generated Content solely on areas of the site that are accessible to other SparkPeople users only if such users have a non-public access code (e.g., private SparkTeams), or if you share Personal Information with SparkPeople that you do not share on public areas of the Website, such content is considered "Private User Generated Content."

You have control over what information about yourself you choose to share on the Website. Please be aware that when you post Public User Generated Content on the Website, such content may be viewed by other users and by the general public, including any such content that contains Personal Information. All such sharing of information and content is done at your own risk.

We may use User Generated Content in accordance with the User Generated Content License set forth in the Terms of Use, provided that (i) we will not distribute or display your Private User Generated Content other than in the areas of the Website to which you have submitted such content (e.g., within private SparkTeams) and (ii) if we distribute Public User Generated Content to third parties for publication in print media, we will not associate your Personal Information with such Public User Generated Content without your permission.

You may modify or delete your User Generated Content in accordance with the instructions on the Website. Please be aware that even if SparkPeople deletes such User Generated Content from its ‘live’ databases, such information may still be stored on other databases (including those kept for archival purposes). We will not retrieve deleted content from our archives in order to publish it on the Website or elsewhere, but please be aware that any Public User Generated Content that you delete but that has been published or distributed in media other than the Website prior to deletion may remain publicly available on areas other than the Website in accordance with the User Generated Content License.

Website Usage Information
We may collect information automatically about the use of the Website, through, for example, "cookies" or "IP addresses" (as described below). SparkPeople also archives log files and uses non-personally identifying information in aggregate form to detect errors with the Website, identify security issues, build higher quality, more useful online services by performing statistical analyses of the collective characteristics and behavior of SparkPeople users, and measure demographics and interests in connection with specific areas of the Website. We may provide such statistical data to our advertisers, affiliates and other current and potential business partners. For example, we may inform these third parties as to the number of people who have seen and clicked on links to their websites. We also use such data to create a more enjoyable experience for our users, for example, to assist in selecting content and advertisers featured on specific channels, pages and site areas based on your general likes and dislikes.

"Cookies" are small files websites place on your hard drive that allow websites to identify you. For example, if you allow a website to remember your login name or password, the website places a cookie on your computer. Cookies cannot read any other information on your hard drive. We may place cookies on your computer to allow us to identify you when you visit the Website. We may use cookies to measure Website traffic, to offer you certain services, or to customize your visit. However, if you do not wish to receive cookies, or want to be notified of when they are placed, your browser may permit you to do so. An "IP address" is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer when you use the Internet. In some cases your IP address stays the same from browser session to browser session; but if you use a consumer internet access provider, your IP address probably varies from session to session.

The cookies may reflect de-identified demographic or other data linked to data you voluntarily have submitted to us, e.g., your email address, that we may share with a data provider solely in hashed, non-human readable form.

Use of Contractors and Service Providers
SparkPeople uses third parties (including contractors and service providers) to help with certain aspects of its operations, which may require disclosure of your Personal Information to them. For example, SparkPeople may use a third party to communicate with you (via telephone, email, or letter) about our services, to send information to you, to host the Website and related databases, and to perform other work that we may choose to outsource. SparkPeople requires these third parties to use your Personal Information only as necessary to perform the services they are asked to perform.

SparkPeople uses technology provided by a third party to serve ads when you visit the Website. This technology may use information about your visit to the Website in order to provide advertisements about goods and services that may be of interest to you. SparkPeople customizes the advertisements that you see based upon: (i) the information that you knowingly provide; (ii) geographic location which SparkPeople determines through your IP address; (iii) data SparkPeople receives from third parties and (iv) your behavior on the Website or other sites. In the course of serving advertisements to the Website, such third party advertising technology may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used to target ads to you, please visit http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/opting_out.aspx. In addition, as described above, you have the ability to accept or decline cookies by modifying the settings in your browser.

Corporate Family
We may share some or all of your Personal Information with any current or future "affiliate" (which means a parent company, a subsidiary, joint venture, or other company that controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with SparkPeople), in which case we will require the affiliate to honor this privacy policy. If another company acquires SparkPeople (or a business unit of SparkPeople that uses your Personal Information), the Personal Information collected by SparkPeople will be transferred to that company and it will assume the rights and obligations regarding your Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy.

Security
We use a combination of multiple firewalls and multiple levels of physical security to protect the Personal Information you share with us from unauthorized access or disclosure. We encrypt your password when it is submitted to us in order to protect the Personal Information you share with us from unauthorized access or disclosure. However, you should know that no company, including SparkPeople, can fully eliminate security or other risks associated with the possession of Personal Information. For example, we may be legally required to disclose information to the government or third parties under certain circumstances, or third parties may unlawfully intercept or access transmissions or private communications. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login information and password.

Advertising Notice
This Site and third parties who place advertisements on this Site may collect and use information about your visits to this Site and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like to obtain more information about these advertising practices and to make choices about online behavioral advertising, please click here.

We partner with third parties that collect information across various channels, including offline and online, for purposes of delivering more relevant advertising and content to you. Our partner may place or recognize a cookie on your computer or device, or directly in email/communications and we may share personal information with them if you have submitted such information to us, such as your email address. Our partners may link the personal information we share with them to the cookie stored on your browser or device, and they may collect information such as your IP address, browser or operating system type and version, and demographic or inferred-interest information. Our partners use this information to recognize you across different channels and platforms over time for advertising, analytics, attribution, and reporting purposes. For example, our partners may deliver and/or enable downstream delivery of an ad to you in your web browser based on a purchase you made in a physical retail store, or they may send a personalized marketing email to you based on the fact that you visited a particular website. To learn more about interest-based advertising in general and to opt-out, please visit https://www.youronlinechoices.com You can also refuse cookies via the settings of your browser as follow:
For Internet Explorer, click here
For Mozilla Firefox, click here
For Google Chrome, click here
For Safari, click here
To know more about Liveramp advertising cookies and opting out: http://liveramp.uk/cookies-101/

Queries
If you have a question or comment about the SparkPeople site, please contact us at support@sparkpeople.com.

Last updated November 20, 2018.