Privacy Policy
New to the Collection
Online Privacy Policy
Updated and effective July 2010.
Welcome to bongocomics.com (the “Site”). We are committed to protecting your online safety and privacy when visiting the Site. We have therefore adopted the policy below regarding the privacy rights of our online visitors (the “Privacy Policy”) which guides how we collect, store and use the information you provide us online. Please read the Privacy Policy so that you can enjoy the features we have made available on our Site. Use of the Site signifies your acceptance of the Privacy Policy, and to the transfer, collection, processing and use of your personally identifiable information by us and/or the Site. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not provide us with any information and do not use this Site. Please remember that this Site and the servers that make this Site available are located in the United States.
A SPECIAL NOTE FOR PARENTS AND LEGAL GUARDIANS:
In compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501-06 and 16 C.F.R. §§ 312.1-312.12, we do not permit children under 13 years of age to use the Site without their parent’s or guardian’s express consent and approval. By using our Site, you represent (i) you are not under 13 years of age or (ii) your parent or guardian has approved of your registration with the Site or has provided us his or her personal information in lieu of yours. As used herein, “you” refers to all Site users over the age of 13, and the parent/guardian of users under 13 years of age who have registered with the Site, as applicable.
You can help protect your children’s privacy by spending time online with your children, teaching them about safe online practices and monitoring your children's online use. Please help us protect your child's privacy by instructing them never to provide personal information on this Site, or any other site, without your permission.
If you are under 18 years of age, please be sure to read this policy with your parents or legal guardians and ask questions about things you do not understand. Children under 13 years of age should get your parent's or legal guardian's permission before giving out your e-mail address or any personal information to us or to anyone else on the Internet.
1. What information do we collect?
We may from time to time elect to provide services or activities on the Site which may require the collection of certain personally identifiable information from you as set forth in more detail in this Privacy Policy and in our http://bongocomics.com/terms-and-conditions. We do not collect and keep any personal information online from you unless you volunteer it and you are 13 years of age or older. We also do not collect and keep personal information online from children under the age of 13 without the express consent of a parent or legal guardian, except in limited circumstances authorized by law and described in this Privacy Policy.
Whatever the activity may be, we will only collect information to the extent deemed reasonably necessary to fulfill your requests or for our legitimate business objectives. If you do not want to submit personal information when requested, you will not be able to access certain areas on our Site. However, you do not need to provide personal information in order to use our Site.
We may elect to allow users of the Site register with the Site, send questions or comments to us via email for customer service purposes and/or fill out online surveys from time to time. In order to give you the most exciting Internet experience possible, we may request and/or collect information from you on a voluntary basis in connection with these activities. The requested information may include personal information such as your name, e-mail address, telephone number, and home address. For some activities, we may also ask you to create a password and to provide demographic information such as your age, the gender and birthdates of children in your household, and toy and game ownership and preferences. If demographic information is collected for an activity that also requires personal information, we may combine the demographic information with your personal information. This allows us to tailor the notices we send you and the content we provide you according to your preferences and interests.
Registration
We may elect to allow users of the Site register with the Site. If you wish to register with our Site, you may be asked to supply personal information such as your full name, e-mail address, and (in the case of product registration) mailing address. We may also ask you to provide demographic information such as your birthdate, gender, the birthdates and genders of children in your household, the postal code and country in which you live, and information on products you own or of interest to you. We may use such information to periodically contact you with product information news, special offers and relevant announcements (including service announcements) and to provide other exclusive benefits to those who register their products on our Site, subject to your rights to “opt-out” of receiving such information.
Online Store
We may elect to allow users of the Site to purchase goods and/or services via the Site or may direct users to third-party websites ("Shop Sites"). In such event, we or the Shop Sites may collect certain personal information directly such as a valid credit card number and expiration date, name, mailing address, phone number and e-mail address. While Shop Sites will maintain the confidentiality, security, and integrity of the personal information they obtain from you pursuant to their own policies, we will not and do not control, nor are we responsible for, the privacy policies or information practices of any such Shop Sites.
We may elect to allow users of the Site to send e-mail to us for customer service purposes. In the event we allow you to send an e-mail to us, we are not attempting to collect any personal information about you. We will only use personal information (such as name, mailing address, e-mail address and any information you choose to provide us in the body of the e-mail) contained in your e-mail to respond to your specific inquiry or comments in the e-mail. Although we may retain your e-mail for a period of time, we will not use any personal information contained in your e-mail for any purpose other than responding to your specific inquiry or comments.
Online Surveys
In order to improve the user experience on our Site, we may from time to time employ online surveys through which visitors may volunteer anonymous, demographic information about themselves and provide us feedback about why they visit our Site and what we can do to make it better. Information collected through these surveys is anonymous. We will not try to identify who is submitting the information or tie it to other personally identifiable information a user may have provided us through another means.
Personal Communications
We may elect to allow users of the Site to personally communicate with each other via chat rooms and other communication features. In such event, you may provide personally identifiable information to other users in any chat rooms and other communications features which may be provided by the Site (collectively, “Personal Communications”). Such Personal Communications will be and are provided at your sole discretion. We cannot and do not guarantee that any Personal Communications you may share in this fashion will be kept confidential or private. In addition, any Personal Communications transmitted via our Site will be stored on our servers, and may remain archived or in system backups.
2. Do We Collect Any Personal Information About Anyone Under 13 Years of Age?
We do not collect personal information online from children under 13 years of age without the express consent of a parent or legal guardian except in special, limited circumstances described below.
We may collect an e-mail address and first name (or screen name) from your child under 13 years of age without your consent, but only in the following special cases:
If a child under 13 years of age sends a request to us, we keep their e-mail address for long enough to respond to them. We delete this information from our system after we answer their question.
If a child under 13 years of age signs up for an e-mail newsletter or other activity that requires multiple online contacts with the child, we require his or her parent or legal guardian to sign up on the child’s behalf. If you no longer wish your child to receive an e-mail newsletter, simply click on the link that is provided for removal.
Upon proper identification, parents or legal guardians may contact us to review any personally identifiable information we have collected about their child, request deletion, or refuse to allow further collection or use of the information. However, if you ask us to delete your child's information, your child may not be able to participate in certain of our activities.
3. What Do We Do With The Information We Collect?
We use the personal information we collect for the purposes indicated at the time you or your teenager or child (with your consent) provides such information. For instance, if we elect to offer and you sign-up for a newsletter, we will use the registration information to send you the newsletter. Occasionally, and only with consent at the time we ask for information, we might also e-mail or mail you or your teenager or your child to provide information on upcoming products, website updates and promotions. Any mailings and e-mail correspondence will also include information allowing you opt out of receiving such information in the future.
4. Do We Share Information About You With Others?
If you consent, we may provide your information to outside companies that offer products or services that may be of interest to you, and if your teenager, 13 years of age or older, consents, we may likewise provide their information to such outside companies. Except as described in this policy, we never share personally identifiable information that we receive online from children under 13 years of age with other companies outside.
Similarly, some of our support provider entities may collect your personal information directly. In these instances, even though the pages where you enter your personal information have the look and feel of the Site, the support provider will be prominently identified by a “powered by” logo. In special circumstances, we may give other companies access to our information database, but only if necessary to allow them to provide database or server maintenance or security, help us process and fulfill orders or requests or provide other similar services to the Site. We have requested that the personally identifiable information you submit to these third party sites be treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy, and that these entities will not use your personally identifiable information for any purpose other than that stated when you submit such information. Nonetheless, while these third parties have agreed to maintain the confidentiality, security, and integrity of the personal information they obtain from you, we cannot guarantee their compliance with our Privacy Policy.
If we believe that anyone's behavior on our Site may cause harm to the rights, property, or safety of the Site, users of the Site or others, we may disclose the relevant personal information in order to prevent this harm. In that case, we might try to identify the wrongdoer, contact them or bring legal action against them. Similarly, we will disclose information we maintain, including personally identifiable information, when we believe we are required to do so by law, or may disclose such information in response to a request from a law enforcement agency or authority or other legal request or to enforce our Terms of Use http://bongocomics.com/terms-and-conditions.
We do not sell, rent, or otherwise disclose personal information collected from and about its users (including children under 13 years of age) to third parties for promotional purposes. However, in the event of a merger, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy, or other similar event, your personally identifiable information and/or technical information we obtain from you via the Site may be among those assets transferred and/or disclosed to our successor or assign, if permitted by and done in accordance with applicable law.
5. How Do We Use Cookies and clear GIFs?
A "cookie" is a small string of text or file that are sent by the Site to your browser and then stored by your browser on your computer’s hard drive that contain non-personal information. Our cookies help to give you faster access to pages you have already visited; they allow you to personalize your pages and allow us to customize our offerings; and they help you to participate in some activities or events on the Site. We MAY use cookies to help us figure out how many people visit our sites, which of our Web pages they stop at and how long they stay there. This information helps us figure out which of our Web features are successes and what portions or pages might need improvement. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but it is possible to change your browser setup so that it does not accept cookies. However, rejecting cookies may prevent you from taking advantage of certain portions of the Site.
For administrative purposes, we also may collect IP addresses, which is the automatic number assigned to your computer when you surf the Web. Certain Internet Service Providers may assign the same IP address to many users. The IP address allows us to count the total number of "hits" on our sites. However, your IP address and cookie are not connected to any personally identifiable or online contact information like a name and address, so you and your family remain anonymous.
We also use other technology, called clear GIFs, to provide us with other important anonymous information, such as when an e-mail has been opened. Clear GIFs, sometimes called "Web bugs," are file objects, usually a graphic image such as a transparent one pixel-by-one pixel GIF (Graphics Interchange Format, one of the two most common file formats for images on the Web), that are placed on a Web page or in an e-mail message to monitor user behavior. The GIF tells us the IP address of the computer that fetched our page, the URL of the page the GIF is on, the time the page was viewed, the type of browser used, and can tell us a previously set cookie value. This anonymous information is returned by the clear GIF to us and we use this information to accurately count visitors and understand how they navigate and use our network of sites. We do not combine information gathered through clear GIFs with your personal information.
Log Files
Other information passively collected by us is in the form of logs - files that record website activity and gather statistics about web users' browsing habits. These entries are generated anonymously, and help us determine (among other things) how many and how often users have visited our Site, which pages they've visited, and other similar data. We also use the log file entries for our internal marketing and demographic studies, so we can constantly improve the online services we provide you. Log files are used internally only, and are not associated with any particular user, computer, or browser.
Linking to third party sites
To provide relevant information not found on our Site and to facilitate any online shopping, we may provide links from our Site to third party websites. We encourage our users to read third party sites' privacy policies before submitting personal information. We do not control, nor are we responsible for, the privacy policies or information practices of such third parties or their websites.
To provide users with the ability to comparison shop and purchase online, we have affiliate relationships with some of our retail affiliates. We may use cookies and/or clear GIFs (described above) to track shopping behavior on our Site and on our retail affiliates' sites. No personally identifiable information is tied to this shopping behavior. Tracking this behavior helps us better understand user preferences and plan product listings with our affiliates.
Opt-out
If we elect to send you e-mail and/or regular mail about our products and/or services and you do not want to receive any such mail, you can opt-out at the time of registration or at the time of information collection. If you receive e-mails or regular mail and no longer wish to receive such communications, you can have your name removed from our e-mailing or mailing list by using the link included with our e-mail.
We may elect to send you service e-mails regarding your use of the Site. Please note that any such service e-mail communications are not promotional in nature and, therefore, an opt-out is not provided with any such communications. These are simply to notify the user of a service they recently signed up for or to notify the user of any Site issues.
6. Do We Ever Collect Information Without Consent?
We do not collect information passively through cookies or other tracking mechanisms except in the circumstances described above. Cookies DO NOT contain any personal information about a specific user. We do not use cookies or other non-consensual methods to take personally identifiable or online contact information about you or your family off of your computer. Except for certain activities like treasure hunts, which we talked about above, we do not use cookies for direct marketing or promotional purposes. Cookies are also not used to collect information specifically about you or your family for sharing with third parties.
7. Do Our Third-Party Advertisers Use Cookies?
We may elect to allow third parties to advertise on our Site. In the course of serving advertisements to this Site, our third-party advertisers may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser.
Review, update and removal of personal information
It is your responsibility to ensure that your personally identifiable information in our database is accurate, complete and up-to-date. If you have registered with our Site, you may at any time review and/or update the contact information we have for you or inform us that you want us to remove your information from our database by visiting the online profile section of our Site.
8. Our Commitment to Security
We have put in place physical, electronic, and managerial procedures we believe appropriate to help safeguard and prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security, and correctly us the information we collect online.
9. Your California Privacy Rights
Beginning on January 1, 2005, California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits our visitors who are California residents to request certain information regarding its disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an e-mail to [email protected] or send a letter to:
Bongo Entertainment, Inc.
PO Box 1963
Santa Monica, CA 90406-1963
10. Users in the European Union
When a user who is located in the European Union (“EU”) chooses to post information that will be publicly disclosed, that user is responsible for ensuring that such information conforms to all local data protection laws. We are not responsible under the EU local data protection laws for user-posted information
If we decide to change our Privacy Policy, we will post those changes to this Privacy Policy, the home page, 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, alter or update this Privacy Policy at any time, and any such modifications, alterations, or updates will be effective upon posting, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by e-mail, or by means of a notice on our home page. If we make material changes to how we use personally identifiable information collected from children under age 13, we will notify parents by e-mail in order to obtain verifiable consent for such new uses of the child’s personally identifiable information.
For additional information about our Site, please see our Terms of Use http://bongocomics.com/terms-and-conditions.