Privacy Policy | Realnetworks

REALNETWORKS LLC AND AFFILIATED ENTITIES

Last modified: December 22, 2022

RealNetworks is committed to protecting the privacy of your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how RealNetworks collects and uses personal information when you use RealNetworks products, services and websites.

This Privacy Policy covers RealNetworks LLC, its majority-owned affiliates and worldwide subsidiaries, and RealNetworks divisions operating under different trade names (collectively "RealNetworks"). It applies to our products, services, and websites that display or reference this Policy, but it does not apply to any products that display or reference a different privacy policy. For example, to view the SAFR® Privacy Policy, please click here.

WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?

RealNetworks collects information as necessary to operate effectively, provide and improve the products and services we offer, communicate with you, and provide effective customer support. Such information can include:

Your name and contact details such as email address, mailing address, and phone number;
Billing information, such as credit card number, when you make a purchase;
Demographic information such as your gender or language preference;
Information about your interaction with our websites such as pages visited, time and date, and subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over during your visits;
Information relating to your use of our products and services, for example geolocation information and the content you download using RealPlayer® (including domains associated with such content);
Information relating to photographs or videos you upload to RealPlayer or add to RealTimes®, including facial recognition information or patterns associated with photographs or videos to enable and improve image and facial recognition features;
Information about your computer or mobile device such as your unique device ID (persistent/ non-persistent, MAC or IMEI), hardware, software, platform, browser type, and Internet Protocol (IP) address.

While most of this data come directly from you or your device, such as information you provide when you sign up for the service or information we gather when you use our products and services, we sometimes receive information from third parties such as:

Partners with which we offer co-branded services or engage in joint marketing activities:

Advertisers that share information about your experiences or interactions with their offerings;
Service providers that help us determine your device’s location based on its IP address to customize certain products to your location;
Social networks (like Facebook and Twitter) and similar third-party services, that make users’ information available to others; and
Publicly available sources.

For example, when you use a RealNetworks product or game through a Social Networking Site (“SNS”) such as Facebook, you allow RealNetworks to access certain information you provided to such SNS such as your user ID, first and last name, profile picture, and usage data for that product or service. By accessing a RealNetworks’ product or service through an SNS, you are authorizing RealNetworks to collect, store and use information that you agreed the SNS could provide to RealNetworks through the SNS. RealNetworks' collection, storage and use of your information are governed by this Privacy Policy. RealNetworks may access videos, photographs, and other media you share on an SNS with the public and use such material in accordance with the terms and policies of that SNS. If you do not want RealNetworks to have such access, adjust your SNS privacy settings so that the media is not shared with the public.

As an example of publicly available sources, RealNetworks collects publicly available images of known celebrities and public figures. RealNetworks uses these images to develop associated facial recognition data for its celebrity database, which supports the celebrity recognition feature in RealPlayer and StarSearch® by Real Chrome Extension.

We protect data obtained from third parties according to the practices described in this Privacy Policy, plus any additional restrictions imposed by the source of the data. When you are asked to provide personal information, you may decline. But if you choose not to provide information that is necessary to provide a service, you may not be able to use that service.

Our services are not targeted to children and RealNetworks does not intentionally or knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13.

HOW DO WE USE PERSONAL INFORMATION?

RealNetworks uses the personal information we collect to enable our operations and to provide our products and services, including:

Deliver to you and bill you for RealNetworks products and services;
Verify access rights to premium content or other access-restricted services and software;
Determine if your device meets minimum system requirements to use our products, and provide information concerning compatibility and interoperability;
Auto-update downloaded products;
Provide personalized content recommendations, language and location customization, and/or personalized help and instructions;
Develop aggregated statistics that help us better understand how our products are used and to market them;
Conduct research, develop new products or features, and improve our existing software and services, such as fixing problems and continually improving the performance of features such as facial recognition or content recommendations;
Track content use for the purpose of paying royalties and license fees to third-party providers; and
Communicate with you, such as sending you messages concerning your account and customer service issues; asking you to participate in surveys; and delivering news, updates, targeted advertising, promotions, and special offers.

HOW DO WE KEEP PERSONAL INFORMATION SECURE?

RealNetworks is committed to protecting your personal information. We use the following controls to protect your personal information:

Use of secure connections using SSL to safeguard information when transmitted from your Web browser to RealNetworks;
Use of security controls to restrict access to databases housing personal information;
Use of encryption for sensitive personal information, such as credit card numbers and user names;
Limited employee access to databases containing personal information and confidentiality requirements imposed upon employees who do; and
Subcontractors bound by contractual, technical and organizational measures to honor RealNetworks’ Privacy Policy or equivalent privacy standards.

HOW LONG DO WE RETAIN PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We retain personal information only as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, such as providing the Services and fulfilling the transactions you have requested, or for other essential purposes such as complying with our legal obligations, resolving disputes, and enforcing our agreements, after which the information will be deleted or de-identified. Your content will be deleted from our Services when you remove content from our Services or five years from your last interaction with our Service, whichever occurs first although certain de-identified or aggregated data derived from it may be retained for limited purposes such as product improvement.

WHEN AND HOW DO WE SHARE PERSONAL INFORMATION WITH THIRD PARTIES?

We will not share your personal information with third parties without your consent, except as set forth in this Privacy Policy. In order to effectively operate our services and also provide optimal customer experience we share personal information with the following partners.

Service providers:

RealNetworks may disclose personal information about our customers to our service providers in order for them to provide specific services for RealNetworks. For example, RealNetworks shares personal information with third-party payment processors for billing purposes, and third-party data center service providers such as AWS for secure storage. RealNetworks service providers are bound to keep all personal information they process confidential.

Analytics Providers:

RealNetworks use third-party analytics providers such as Google Analytics to help us compile aggregated statistics about the operation and effectiveness of our websites. Analytics providers set or read their own cookies or other identifiers on your device, through which they can collect information about your use of our websites and those of other companies. You can learn more about Google Analytics, including how to opt-out, by visiting Google’s Privacy & Terms for Partners.

Advertising Companies:

We work with third-party advertising companies to help ensure the advertisements about goods and services you see are likely to be of greater interest to you. These third-party partners currently include Google’s DoubleClick. The advertising companies we work with typically use third-party cookies and/or web beacons to collect a unique ID number in combination with information such as click stream information, browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over during your visits to this and other websites. In order to enable a consistent browsing experience, the RealPlayer PC application may copy the DoubleClick cookie from your web browser to the app’s embedded browser. Please review our use of Cookies section to understand how we Use cookies and how you can change cookie settings. Learn more about Google DoubleClick here: Google’s Privacy & Terms site

On mobile devices, these advertising companies sometimes collect and use this cookie along with advertising IDs provided by the mobile operating systems, such as the Android advertising ID and/or Apple's ID for advertising. These advertising IDs can be controlled or reset through your mobile operating system settings. Settings vary from device to device but you will usually find the ad identifier settings under "privacy" or "ads" in your device's settings.

When you search for specific content on RealNetworks websites, the search terms may be embedded in the "search string" that appears in the URL display window of your web browser. Certain advertising services or third-party content providers may associate these search strings with cookies they set or retrieve from our pages.

To learn more about third-party targeted advertising, you can visit either the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) or the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), which each provide an easy way to opt out of ad targeting from participating companies. Similarly, for Europe you can visit the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA) and for Canada you can visit Ad Choices: Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada (DAAC) / Choix de Pub: l'Alliance de la publicité numérique du Canada (DAAC).

Third Party Partners

In some cases, access to certain products and services may require the provision of personal information to a third party. In such cases, this will be stated during the registration process, in the terms of use, through the distribution process, or in a similar manner. The third party's use of such information is governed by that party's privacy policy. Please visit the privacy policy of the third party to make sure you understand how they use the personal information you provide to them. If you do not wish for such a transfer to take place, you should not register for the applicable product or service. Additionally, RealNetworks may be required to provide specific access and usage information to certain content providers and rights holders as a condition of content licensing and royalties.

In addition, RealNetworks websites may link to third-party websites or services. Certain RealNetworks products allow the addition of third-party plug-ins. This Privacy Policy does not apply to any such third-party websites, services, or plug-ins.

RealNetworks may transfer personal information in connection with a sale, merger, transfer, exchange or other disposition (whether of assets, stock or otherwise) of all or a portion of a business of RealNetworks and/or its subsidiaries.

RealNetworks may also disclose your personal information, including the content of files you upload using RealNetworks’ products or services, if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law; (b) comply with the order of a competent judicial authority in any jurisdiction; (c) comply with legal process served on RealNetworks; (d) protect and defend the rights or property of RealNetworks; or (e) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of RealNetworks products or the public at large.

USE OF COOKIES

Please see RealNetworks’ Cookie Policy for more information about how RealNetworks and our business partners use cookies and similar technologies.

HOW TO MANAGE E-MAIL COMMUNICATIONS FROM REALNETWORKS

RealNetworks will send marketing e-mail messages to you only in accordance with your preferences. You may change your communications preferences at any time by either (a) selecting the opt-out option in any marketing message you receive or (b) if you have created an online account with RealNetworks, changing your account setting to select whether to receive marketing messages. Note that separate RealNetworks products, services and lines of business may send separate newsletters and marketing emails to you, which you may have to manage separately. We may also send you certain essential (non-promotional) e-mail about products or services you have previously purchased or to inform you about critical technical service issues relating to a RealNetworks product or service even if you have opted out of marketing messages.

HOW TO ACCESS, UPDATE AND DELETE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We strive to give you autonomy over your personal information. Therefore, we have provided several methods for you to access your personal information: (a) You can access your account information, your preferences and your data by using the view my data tool located at https://realtimes.real.com/mydata. You can access this page by selecting "Manage My Account" from the menu in the RealPlayer (usually under the "Help" menu) or other RealNetworks consumer software. (b) You may also access your data on the web at www.real.com by logging in using your name and password. (c) You may also submit a request for information by clicking here (d) If your image and facial recognition information is included in our celebrity database, you may submit a request to delete the information by contacting RealPlayer customer service at [email protected].

If you have forgotten your username or password or if you don’t have an account you can use our online help resources or contact us by clicking here. Please also refer to “Contact us About Privacy” section for additional ways of contacting us.

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

We revise this Privacy Policy as needed to keep it up to date with RealNetworks products, services and Web pages. When we do, we will update the date at the top of this Policy. If we make any material changes, we will notify you by email (sent to the e-mail address specified in your account) or by means of a notice on this page. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.

TRANSFER OF DATA TO OTHER COUNTRIES

RealNetworks processes information about our users on servers located in a number of countries. We may also subcontract processing or share your information to third parties located in countries other than your home country. Information collected by RealNetworks in the United States may, for example, be transferred to and processed in a country outside of the United States. Information collected within the European Economic Area, the UK, and Switzerland may, for example, be transferred to, and processed in a country outside of the European Economic Area, the UK, and Switzerland, some of which have not been determined by the European Commission to have an adequate level of data protection. RealNetworks generally transfers such data under the standard contractual clauses that have been approved by the European Commission. Wherever we process personal information, we do so according to the provisions of this Privacy Policy and the requirements of the applicable law.

EU-U.S. AND SWISS-U.S. PRIVACY SHIELD

RealNetworks also participates in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Although the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield has been ruled invalid as a legal basis for data transfers to the U.S., we continue to comply with the Privacy Shield Principles with respect to personal information transferred from the European Union, the UK, and Switzerland in reliance on the Privacy Shield. The subsidiaries of RealNetworks included in our Privacy Shield certification also adhere to the Privacy Shield Principles. If there is any conflict between this Privacy Policy and the Privacy Shield Principles, the Privacy Shield Principles shall govern.

In absence of an adequacy decision, RealNetworks provides appropriate safeguards for the transfers personal data to a third country or an international organization such as, but not limited to, standard contractual clause, and binding corporate rules. In absence of an adequacy decision and appropriate safeguards, RealNetworks will only make an international transfer of personal data if the transfer is necessary for the performance of a contract between you, as the data subject, and the controller, or for the implementation of pre-contractual measures taken at your request.

In some cases, RealNetworks may remain liable if a third party processes personal data on our behalf in a manner inconsistent with the Privacy Shield Principles. To learn more about the Privacy Shield program, and to view our certification, please visit www.privacyshield.gov.

If you have a question or complaint related to our participation in the Privacy Shield, we encourage you to contact us via our web form. For any complaints related to the Privacy Shield frameworks that cannot be resolved with RealNetworks directly, you may seek resolution of your complaint by contacting the International Centre for Dispute Resolution, the international division of the American Arbitration Association (ICDR-AAA). As further explained in the Privacy Shield Principles, binding arbitration is available to address residual complaints not resolved by other means. RealNetworks is subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS

If you are a California resident and the processing of personal information about you is subject to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), you have certain rights with respect to that information.

Right to know

Those rights include a “right to know” which allows you to request that we disclose to you the personal information we collect and details about how we collect, use, and disclose that information. Note that much of that information is provided in this Privacy Policy, including in the below table which provides you a summary of our data collection, use and sharing practices by data category for the preceding 12 months. Please note that this information supplements the information provided in the sections above.

Right to delete

California residents also have a right to request that we delete personal information under certain circumstances, subject to several exceptions.

Right to opt-out from sale

California residents have the right to opt-out from future “sales” of personal information. Note that the CCPA defines “sell” and “personal information” very broadly such that making personal information available to third-party advertising companies can be considered a “sale” in some circumstances. While we made such information regarding California residents available to advertising companies in the preceding 12 months, as described in the “when and how do we share personal information with third parties?” section of this Policy, we do not currently do so and thus do not currently “sell” information related to California residents.

To exercise the right to know or the right to request deletion, please refer to the “how to access, update and delete your personal information” section. California residents also have the right to not be discriminated against if they choose to exercise any of the above rights.

Category & Source of personal information	How we use it	When and why we share it with third parties
Identifiers We collect this category mostly from you when you register for the services or interact with our service. We may also get certain identifies from third parties such as social networking sites or publicly available sources. Information in this category includes name, email address, Internet Protocol address or postal address.	To contact you, enable the use of our services, and to understand how you interact with our products and services.	Service Providers – to obtain support services such as credit card processing, data processing and secure data storage services.
Personal information under California Civil Code section 1798.80. Information in this category includes any information that is linked or linkable to an individual. We collect this category from our users and third-party partners.	To enable the use of our services and enhance the user experience.	Service Providers – to obtain support services. Analytics Providers – to better understand your use of the services. Third-Party Partners – to provide additional products and services that can be added onto our products. Advertising Companies – Currently we do not permit our advertising partners to serve personalized advertisements to California residents.
Commercial information We collect this category from you when you make purchases. Information in this category includes credit card numbers and purchase history.	To provide you access to the service.	Service Providers - to process payments. Analytics Providers – to better understand your use of our products and services.
Biometric information We generate this category from your media gallery and from publicly available media. Information in this category includes information derived from photos and facial images.	To provide you services such as image and video indexing when you enable the facial recognition feature.	Service Providers - to obtain secure data processing and data storage services.
Internet or other electronic network activity information. We collect this category when you interact with our website and other products and services. Information in this category includes browser type, time and date of visit to our website or other information relating to your interaction with our website or application.	To enable the use of our products and services, to understand how our users interact with products and services.	Service Providers and Analytics Partners.
Geolocation Data We collect this category from our users when you interact with our products and services. We may also obtain this information from our service providers when we validate your location.	To offer localized products and services and also offer certain functionalities such as image indexing.	Service Providers and Analytics Partners.
Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information. We collect this category when the users use our services.	To enable the use of our products and services.	Service Providers and Analytics Partners.
Inferences. We create these internally from our user interactions.	To provide you services and enhance your user experience.	Service Providers - only to obtain secure data processing and data storage services. Certain advertising companies can create their own profiles using cookies and other tracking techniques when they serve ads on our properties. We currently do not offer personalized advertisements in California and do not expose personal information to advertising companies.

EU DATA PROTECTION RIGHTS

We collect and process personal data about you with your consent and/or as necessary to provide the products you use, operate our business, meet our contractual and legal obligations, protect the security of our systems and our customers, or fulfil other legitimate interests.

If the processing of personal data about you is subject to European Union data protection law, you have certain rights with respect to that data:

You may request access to, and rectification or erasure of, personal data;
If automated processing of your personal data is based on a contract with you or your consent, you have certain rights to data portability;
If the processing of personal data is based on your consent, you have a right to withdraw consent at any time (without affecting the lawfulness of processing that occurred before its withdrawal); and
You have a right to object to, or obtain a restriction of, the processing of personal data under certain circumstances.

You may exercise those rights by using the controls described in the “HOW TO ACCESS, UPDATE AND DELETE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION” section above, or by contacting us as described below. When we are processing data on behalf of another party that is the “data controller,” you should direct your request to that party. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, but we encourage you to first contact us with any questions or concerns.

BRAZILIAN DATA PROTECTION RIGHTS

If the processing of your personal data is subject to Brazil’s Data Protection Law (LGPD), you have rights with respect to your data, as provided in Article 18 of the LGPD, including:

Rights to Access, Correction, and Deletion. You may inquire as to whether we are processing your personal data, and you may request copies of such personal data. You may request that we correct any incomplete or outdated personal data. You may request anonymization or deletion of your personal data under certain circumstances, which may be subject to some exceptions.
Right to Withdraw Consent. When we process your personal data on the basis of your consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time. However, if you refuse or withdraw consent for processing of provide data that is necessary to provide a service, you may not be able to use that service.
Right to Restriction of Processing. You may object to, or obtain a restriction of, the processing of personal data under certain circumstances.
Right to Data Portability. You may request your personal data be ported or transferred to another data controller to the extent required by the applicable regulation.
Right to Information About Sharing. You may request information about entities with whom we share your personal data. Note that we provide notice about such sharing in this policy under the heading “When and How Do We Share Personal Information with Third Parties.”

Your rights are exercisable free of charge by using the controls described in the “HOW TO ACCESS, UPDATE AND DELETE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION” section above, or by contacting us as described below. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, but we encourage you to first contact us with any questions or concerns.

CONTACT US ABOUT PRIVACY

If you have a question for us about this Privacy Policy, the privacy aspects of our products or services, the information concerning you that RealNetworks has retained, or would like to make a complaint, please contact us at the address or using the web form below.

RealNetworks LLC

P.O. Box 91123

Seattle, WA 98111-9233

You can also contact us via:

Web form by clicking here; or
Email at [email protected]