Microsoft Popfly Privacy Statement

(last updated: February 2008)

Microsoft is committed to protecting your privacy. This privacy statement applies to the data collected by Microsoft through the Popfly site (the “Site”); it does not apply to data collected through other online or offline Microsoft sites, products or services.

Collection of Your Personal Information

We will ask you when we need information that personally identifies you or allows us to contact you. The personal information we collect may include names and email addresses.

To sign in to the Site, you will be asked to enter an e-mail address and password, which we refer to as your Windows Live™ ID or your Microsoft Passport Network credentials. After you create your Windows Live ID, you can use the same credentials to sign into many different Microsoft sites and services, as well as those of select Microsoft partners, that display the Windows Live ID or Microsoft Passport Network logos. By signing in on one Microsoft site or service, you may be automatically signed in when you visit other Microsoft sites and services. To learn more about how your credential information is used when you sign into participating sites, please read the Microsoft Online Privacy Statement at http://privacy.microsoft.com.

We may collect information about your visit, including the pages you view, the links you click and other actions taken in connection with the Site. We also collect certain standard information that your browser sends to every website you visit, such as your IP address, browser type and language, access times and referring Web site addresses.

Use of Your Personal Information

The personal information collected on this Site will be used to operate the Site and to provide the service(s) or carry out the transaction(s) you have requested or authorized.

In support of these uses, Microsoft may use personal information to provide you with more effective customer service; to improve the Site and any related Microsoft products or services; to make the Site easier to use by eliminating the need for you to repeatedly enter the same information; and to display content and advertising that are customized to your interests and preferences.

We may use your personal information to provide you with important information about the product or service that you are using, including critical updates and notifications. Additionally, with your permission, we may send you information about other Microsoft products and services, and/or share information with Microsoft partners so they may send you information about their products and services.

Microsoft occasionally hires other companies to provide limited services on our behalf, such as Web site hosting, packaging, mailing and delivering prizes, answering customer questions about products and services, and sending information about our products, special offers, and other new services. We will only provide those companies the personal information they need to deliver the service. They are required to maintain the confidentiality of the information and are prohibited from using that information for any other purpose.

Microsoft may disclose personal information 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 or comply with legal process served on Microsoft or the Site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of Microsoft and our family of Web sites; or (c) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of Microsoft products or members of the public.

Personal information collected on the Site may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which Microsoft or its affiliates, subsidiaries or agents maintain facilities, and by using the Site, you consent to any such transfer of information outside of your country. Microsoft abides by the safe harbor framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of data from the European Union.

Control of Your Personal Information

Except as otherwise described in this statement, personal information you provide on the Site will not be shared outside of Microsoft and its controlled subsidiaries and affiliates without your permission.

Your personal information and subscriptions you may have made can be changed from your profile page (see below for how to access this).

Please be aware that this privacy statement and any choices you make on the Site will not necessarily apply to personal information you may have provided to Microsoft in the context of other, separately operated, Microsoft products or services.

Access to Your Personal Information

You can review and edit the personal information you provided at this Site by accessing your profile page which can be found by following the "My Profile" link which can be found on the left hand navigation panel when signed in.

Security of Your Personal Information

Microsoft is committed to protecting the security of your personal information. We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. For example, we store the personal information you provide on computer servers with limited access that are located in controlled facilities. Additionally, when we transmit sensitive personal information (such as a credit card number) over the Internet, we protect it through the use of encryption, such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol.

Use of Cookies

We use cookies on this Site to ensure the integrity of the registration process and to personalize the Site. A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your hard disk by a Web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a Web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. For example, if you personalize a web page, or navigate within a site, a cookie helps the site to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of delivering relevant content, eases site navigation, and so on. When you return to the web site, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the site's features that you customized.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to use interactive features of this or other web sites that depend on cookies.

Use of Web Beacons

Microsoft Web pages may contain electronic images known as Web beacons - sometimes called single-pixel gifs - that may be used to assist in delivering cookies on our sites and allow us to count users who have visited those pages and to deliver co-branded services. We may include Web beacons in promotional e-mail messages or our newsletters in order to determine whether messages have been opened and acted upon.

Microsoft may also employ Web beacons from third parties in order to help us compile aggregated statistics and determine the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns. We prohibit Web beacons on our sites from being used by third parties to collect or access your personal information.

Display of Advertising

Many of the websites and online services we offer, as well as those of our partners, are supported by advertising. Through the Microsoft Advertising Network, we may display ads on our own sites and the sites of our advertising partners.

When we display online advertisements to you, we will place a persistent cookie on your computer in order to recognize your computer each time we display an ad to you. Because we may serve advertisements on many different websites, we are able to compile information over time about where you, or others who are using your computer, saw and/or clicked on the advertisements we display. We use this information to make predictions about your characteristics, interests or preferences and to display targeted advertisements that we believe may be of interest to you. We may also associate this information with your subsequent visit, purchase or other activity on participating advertisers’ websites in order to determine the effectiveness of the advertisements.

While we may use some of the information we collect in order to personalize the ads we show you, we designed our systems to select ads based only on data that does not personally and directly identify you. For example, we may select the ads we display according to certain general interest categories or segments that we have inferred based on (a) demographic or interest data, including any you may have provided when creating an account (e.g. age, zip or postal code, gender), demographic or interest data acquired from other companies, and a general geographic location derived from your IP address, (b) the pages you view and links you click when using Microsoft’s and its advertising partners’ web sites and services, and (c) the search terms you enter when using Microsoft’s Internet search services, such as Live Search.

When we display personalized ads, we take a number of steps designed to protect your privacy. For example, we store page views, clicks and search terms used for ad personalization separately from your contact information or other data that directly identifies you (such as your name, e-mail address, etc.). Further, we have built in technological and process safeguards designed to prevent the unauthorized correlation of this data.

We also provide third party ad delivery through our Atlas subsidiary, and you may read the Atlas privacy statement at http://www.atlassolutions.com/privacy.aspx.

Although the majority of the online advertisements on Microsoft sites are displayed by Microsoft, we also allow third-party ad serving companies, including other ad networks, to display advertisements on our sites. These companies currently include, but are not limited to: 24/7 Real Media, Advertising.com, Bidclix, BlueStreak, Burst Media, DoubleClick, EuroClick, Eyeblaster, EyeWonder, Falk, Interpolls, Kanoodle, Mediaplex, Pointroll, TangoZebra, Yahoo! Publisher Network, and Zedo. These companies also may place a persistent cookie on your computer, for the purposes described above.

These companies may offer you a way to opt out of ad targeting based on their cookies. You may find more information by clicking on the company names above and following the links to the websites of each company. Some of these companies are members of the Network Advertising Initiative, which offers a single location to opt out of ad targeting from member companies.

Changes to this Privacy Statement

We may occasionally update this privacy statement. When we do, we will also revise the "last updated" date at the top of the privacy statement. For material changes to this privacy statement, we will notify you either by placing a prominent notice on the home page of our web site or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to periodically review this privacy statement to stay informed about how we are helping to protect the personal information we collect. Your continued use of the service constitutes your agreement to this privacy statement and any updates.

Contact Information

Microsoft welcomes your comments regarding this privacy statement. If you have questions about this statement or believe that we have not adhered to it, please contact us electronically by clicking here.

You may also contact us by writing to:

Microsoft Privacy
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399