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Meetup Privacy Policy Statement
Protecting your privacy is a serious matter and doing so is very important to us. Please read this privacy policy statement (the "Policy") to learn more about our privacy policy. This Policy describes the information we collect from you and what may happen to that information, and only applies to such information. This Policy applies to all sites under the meetup.com domain.
1. Information Collection
We collect the following information about you and your use of our service in order to create a better, more personalized experience for you:
- for each topic group in which you participate, a nickname selected by you or assigned by us, your e-mail address, a password selected by you, your zip code; and
- for each topic group in which you participate, you may choose to create and store a short description or statement which will be viewed by anyone who is accessing that topic group.
In addition, we automatically track certain basic information about our users (such as internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, click patterns, etc.). We use this information to do internal research on our users' usage patterns, demographics, interests and general behavior to better understand and serve you and our community. We do not directly link these types of information with your personally identifiable information. For purposes of this Policy, "personally identifiable information" means any information that could be used to identify your personally (e.g., your e-mail address) or to identify the computer with which you access our service.
For our users convenience, we use "cookies" to allow you to enter your password less frequently during a session and to provide for an easier registration process. A "cookie" is a piece of data stored on your computer that is tied to information about you. We do not use cookies for any other purpose (for example, we do not use cookies to monitor your activities or otherwise track information about you). If you configure your browser or otherwise choose to reject the cookies, you may still use our site. However, to best experience our web site and most easily use our service you must have cookies enabled.
Also, if you post messages in message areas (including the personal introduction section of each topic group) on our web site, send us personal correspondence, or if other users or third parties send us correspondence about your activities or postings on our web site, we may collect such information and include it in your profile. Your profile is not accessible to other users or third parties other than MEETUP personnel.
2. Use of Information
We use the information we collect about you (including your personally identifiable information) to create a better, more personalized experience for you based on your individual usage habits, improve our marketing and promotional efforts, analyze site usage, improve our content and product offerings, and customize our site's content, layout and services. These uses improve our site and allow us to better customize it to meet your needs. We also use the information we collect about you to resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems, and enforce our Terms of Service Agreement.
We may compile the information we collect about you and use it, in an aggregate form only, in the negotiation and establishment of service agreements with public and/or private enterprises under which such enterprises will serve as venues for meetings between our users ("Meetups").
We may use your information to contact you and deliver information to you that, in some cases, are targeted to your interests, such as topic group newsletters or Meetup announcements (which also may include promotional communications), administrative notices, product or service offerings, and other communications relevant to your use of our service.
We may use for promotional, sales or any use that we consider appropriate your correspondence with us or photographs submitted for publication on our website, be it via e-mail, postings on our web site, or feedback via the user polls. We will not link any of this correspondence or photographs to your personally identifiable information.
3. Disclosure of Your Information
Opt-in requirement. WITHOUT YOUR AFFIRMATIVE CONSENT [ON A CASE-BY-CASE BASIS], WE DO NOT SELL, RENT OR OTHERWISE SHARE YOUR PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION WITH OTHER THIRD PARTIES, UNLESS OTHERWISE REQUIRED AS DESCRIBED BELOW UNDER "REQUIRED DISCLOSURES". INSTEAD, TO THE EXTENT WE SHARE INFORMATION WITH OUR PARTNERS AND ADVERTISERS, WE SHARE ONLY AGGREGATED INFORMATION THAT IS NOT LINKED TO YOUR PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION. Aggregated information that we may share with our marketing partners includes, but is not limited to, information showing the relative popularity of one Meetup venue over another (for example, the number of individuals present at a Meetup).
Required disclosures. Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose your personal information when required by law or if we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to (a) comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on our web site, (b) enforce this Policy or the Terms of Service Agreement, (c) respond to claims that your Personal Information violates the rights of third parties; or (d) protect the rights, property or personal safety of MEETUP, its users and the public. You authorize us to disclose any information about you to law enforcement or other government officials as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate, in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringements, or other activity that is illegal or may expose us or you to legal liability.
4. Communications from Us
You will occasionally receive the following types of communication from us in the normal course of our providing you our services:
- topic group newsletters and Meetup notifications
- service announcements; and
- customer service communications.
The PRIMARY purpose of any communication from us will be announcements or information regarding your Meetup membership, and may also contain paid promotional messages from Meetup advertisers. At no time will the PRIMARY purpose of a Meetup communication be of a paid promotional nature.
5. Reviewing, Updating, Deleting and Deactivating Personal Information
After registration for our service and for specific topic groups, we provide a way to update your personally identifiable information. Upon your request, we will deactivate your account and remove your personally identifiable information from our active databases. To make this request, e-mail privacy@meetup.com. Upon our receipt of your request, we will deactivate your account and remove your personally identifiable information as soon as reasonably possible in accordance with our deactivation policy and applicable law.
Nonetheless, we will retain in our files information you may have requested us to remove if, in our discretion, retention of the information is necessary to resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems or to enforce the Terms of Service Agreement. Furthermore, your information is never completely removed from our databases due to technical and legal constraints (for example, we will not remove your information from our back up storage).
6. Notification of Changes
If we decide to change this Policy, we will post those changes on http://www.meetup.com/privacy or post a notice of the changes to this Policy on the homepage (http://www.meetup.com) and other places we deem appropriate, so you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We will use information in accordance with the privacy policy statement under which the information was collected.
If we make any material changes in our privacy practices, we will post a prominent notice on our web site notifying you and our other users of the change. In some cases where we post a notice we will also e-mail you and other users who have opted to receive communications from us, notifying them of the changes in our privacy practices. However, if you have deleted/deactivated your account, then you will not be contacted, nor will your previously collected personal information be used in this new manner.
If the change to this Policy would change how your personally identifiable information is treated, then the change will not apply to you without your affirmative consent. However, if after a period of thirty (30) days you have not consented to the change in the Policy, your account will be automatically suspended until such time as you may choose to consent to the Policy change. Until such consent, your personal information will be treated under the Policy terms in force when you began your membership.
Any other change to this Policy (i.e., if it does not change how we treat your personally identifiable information) will become are effective after we provide you with at least thirty (30) days notice of the changes and provide notice of the changes as described above. You must notify us within this 30 day period if you do not agree to the changes to the Policy and wish to deactivate your account as provided under Section 5.
7. Dispute Resolution
Any dispute, claim or controversy arising out of or relating to this Policy or previous privacy policy statements shall be resolved through negotiation, mediation and arbitration as provided under our Terms of Service Agreement.
8. Contact Information
If users have any questions or suggestions regarding this Policy, please contact the Secretary of MEETUP using postal mail or e-mail, as follows:
Postal Address:
MEETUP INC.
133 West 25th Street, #6W
New York, NY 10001
E-mail: privacy@meetup.com
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