We disclose our privacy policies and procedures in this document.
We do not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to third parties for marketing purposes without providing you with a choice to opt-out from such disclosure, which you can exercise at the My profile page.
We prohibit the third parties that we use to store and organize your information from disclosing or using your information without our consent or in violation of this privacy policy.
We allow all users to opt-out at any time from receiving e-mail messages and other electronic communications from iWon and third parties including selected iWon partners or from having information shared for marketing purposes with third parties including selected iWon sponsors or business partners. We allow users to access their profiles and change information, communication and sharing preferences as they deem necessary, by accessing the My profile page.
Since this policy may change over time as we modify or expand our service, we suggest that you check back from time to time in order to understand how we treat your information. Your use of iWon constitutes your agreement to the terms of iWon's privacy policy. If we decide to materially change our privacy policy, we will prominently post those changes on this page 30 days prior to the change, or send you an email informing you of the change fourteen (14) days in advance, and provide you an opportunity to opt-out, so that you are always aware of what personal information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances we disclose it. Your continued use of iWon constitutes your agreement to any such changes.
TRUSTe Certified
iWon is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to build users' trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices. Because iWon wants to demonstrate its commitment to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have our privacy practices reviewed and audited by TRUSTe. Questions regarding this statement should be directed to iWon Customer Service, or by mail to iWon.com, Ask.com, 555 12th Street, Suite 500, Oakland, CA 94607. If we have not responded to your inquiry in a timely manner, or your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, or if you wish to contact TRUSTE to express concerns regarding iWon's privacy policies or practices please contact TRUSTe at TRUSTe.
All rights in the TRUSTe marks belong to TRUSTe.
The TRUSTe program covers only information that is collected through this Web site, and does not cover information that may be collected through software downloaded from the site.
This document is rather long because we want to give our users all the facts about our privacy policy. The items below provide an index to the information that follows:
What personally identifiable information does iWon collect?
Registration Data
During registration, iWon collects personal information including your name, address, email address, birth date, gender, zip code and phone number. After providing iWon with this information, you are no longer anonymous. You do not have to provide any personal information to use the iWon service. However, if you choose to withhold registration information, you will not be registered and you will not earn entries into the iWon Sweepstakes when using iWon. In addition, we may not be able to provide you with some of the other services dependent upon the collection of such information, such as a personalized home page.
IWon Software Applications
If you elect to install certain software products (the "iWon Software Products") provided by iWon to its users, such as the iWon Messenger or iWon Co-Pilot, iWon may collect additional information about you. For example, you can create bookmarks or personalized links that are accessible through the iWon Co-Pilot and customize the iWon Co-Pilot. Importantly, iWon Software Products are spy-ware and ad-ware free. IWon Software Products do not collect or report information about your activity on websites other than iWon.com. In addition, iWon Software products do no present you with ads, such as pop-up or so-called "contextual marketing". iWon Software products include software that allow us to distribute updates and fixes, but such updates will occur only upon prior notice to you, except for the limited case where notice is not possible due to technical problems or an emergency that requires us to update the application in order to maintain existing functionality or to comply with the law. All such updates shall be governed by and made in compliance with this Privacy Policy and any applicable end user license agreements. For a complete list of iWon Software Products and more information on how these products work and can be uninstalled, click here.
Other data collected
From time to time, iWon may collect additional personal and non-personal information about you, for example, in these instances:
- when you register to receive goods or services from one or more of our partners;
- when you enter into a contest, sweepstakes or promotion sponsored by iWon and/or one of our partners;
- when you fill out a user survey;
- when you contact our customer service center;
- Information you provide if you contact our customer service center.
iWon may also collect publicly available information that we obtain from third parties.
iWon will make an effort to include a link to the Privacy Policy whenever we ask you for additional personal information or offer you an iWon Software Product.
How does iWon use personal information?
We use the personal information you supply us, including your registration data, to enhance the iWon service, fulfill your requests for products, programs, or services, personalize your experience and provide you or permit others to provide you with special offers we think you will find valuable. You may at any time consult and modify your email and information sharing preferences by clicking here. We also use other information obtained from user site traffic patterns to better provide you with a personalized experience and special advertising offers and promotions. We view personalized advertising as beneficial to our users.
We also use your registration data information in connection with the iWon Sweepstakes and other promotions in order to track your progress, to notify you if you are a winner and to ensure that we comply with the applicable laws.
iWon uses the information described above to do, among other things, the following:
- Personalize and enhance the iWon site and service such as providing you with your personalized weather, horoscope, and advertisements we believe will be of interest to you.
- Send personalized information about iWon and its site features, prizes and special offers, unless you have opted out of receiving these types of communications.
- Send you advertising from third parties including selected and trusted iWon partners, unless you have opted out of receiving these types of communications.
- Provide your personal information to selected 3rd parties unless you have opted not to permit such sharing.
- Provide you with advertising and other promotional offers that we believe will be of interest to you.
- Contact users for feedback regarding iWon and iWon's partners via email surveys.
Unless you have opted out of receiving special offers, emails or other communications from selected third parties, we also may provide a report to our advertiser which tells them who responded to a particular offer. For example, we might send you an email, launch a new window within your internet browser, or send you other advertisements in electronic form which offer you a discount on a particular good or service. If you click on that e-mail or advertisement or accept an offer or discount contained therein, we may provide the advertiser with the information necessary to provide you with that discount or offer.
Refer-a-Friend feature
If you choose to use our referral service to tell a friend about our site, we will ask you for your friend's name and email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the site. iWon.com does store this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and tracking the success of our referral program.
Your friend may contact us at privacy@help.iwon.com to request that we remove this information from our database.
Information that you provide while using products such as iWon Message Boards and iWon Chat is available for all to see. Discretion should be used in entering Personally Identifiable Information within such forums, as it may be collected by third parties. iWon does not actively associate the message content entered by our users in iWon Message Boards, or iWon Chat products with those users' registration information. Our server computers will retain this information, however; and it is potentially available for distribution to third parties - most obviously law-enforcement agencies acting under subpoena power, per the terms of this section of our Privacy Policy. We do not use this information to target any advertising to our users, nor is it ever willingly distributed to any third party, such as an advertiser, except if subpoenaed.
What choices are available to you regarding the collection, disclosure and distribution of personal information and how can you opt-out?
You can choose at anytime after registration, to opt-out of receiving emails from iWon or from having your personally identifiable information shared with selected companies. If you want to opt-out, you can do so by going to the My profile page and editing your preferences with respect to email or the sharing of information. If you elect to "opt-out" we will not, as applicable, share your personal information with third parties or send you emails. However, iWon may continue to use your personal information for internal purposes, to conduct sweepstakes and promotions, to enhance your user experience or as necessary to administer the site or comply with applicable law. For more on this see Administering the Site below.
If you have installed an iWon Software Product, you may choose to remove that product from your computer at any time in your sole discretion. You may terminate the collection of information due to the installation of iWon Software Applications at any time by removing all iWon Software Applications from your computer. All information collected up to the date on which you remove all iWon Software Applications from your computer will be treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy in effect at the time of any subsequent use and your preferences as indicated in your profile. For a complete list of iWon Software Applications and instructions on how uninstall, click here.
What are cookies are and how they are used by iWon?
A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier, which is sent to your browser from a web site's computers and stored on your computer's hard drive. As a standard practice, iWon assigns a cookie with an anonymous identifier to each end user.
iWon uses its own cookies for a number of purposes, including to:
iWon does not require users to accept cookies in order to enter or view the site. However, if you reject cookies, you will not be able to participate in the iWon Sweepstakes when using iWon.com or to access other features. You can set your browser to reject cookies, or to notify you when iWon or another company sends you a cookie. If you have questions about how to change your browser's "cookie" settings, please contact the software manufacturer. Please note that some areas or features of iWon will be significantly slower, or may not function at all, if cookies are disabled.
Third party advertiser may also use tracking pixels that count new registrations on iWon. This allows the third party advertising companies to know how many new users have registered with iWon as a result of their advertising for iWon, or to track how many users have viewed a particular advertising offer displayed on iWon. The information collected by such tracking pixels are used in aggregate only for reporting purposes and is not used in connection with your personally identifiable information.
What is iWon's relationship with other Advertising Networks?
Some of the ads that may appear on the iWon site may be delivered to you by third party web advertising providers. In the course of delivering an ad to you, these advertising providers may collects certain non-personally identifiable information about your visits to this and other Web sites through the use of cookies or similar technology. This information is used, among other reasons, to deliver tailored ads to you.
When you are on iWon, advertisers and/or our partners may place their own cookies on your computer, even if you remain solely on the iWon site. iWon does not allow third party companies to set cookies on our domain, however, such third parties may set cookies on their own websites which you may visit from iWon. iWon does not control the use that these parties make of the information obtained through the cookies they place. If you have questions or concerns regarding cookies sent to you by companies other than iWon, we encourage you to contact those companies directly.
What happens when you leave iWon.com to go to other sites?
When you are on iWon, you may be directed to other sites that are beyond our control. For example, if you "click" on a banner advertisement or an iWon search result, the "click" may take you off the iWon site. These other sites may independently collect data, solicit personal information, or send their own cookies to you. iWon is not responsible for any use of the information including click-stream data that you may create when using such 3rd party sites.
iWon also offers its users access to "co-branded" services that are jointly provided by iWon and selected companies. In many cases, these co-branded services will contain iWon branding, but may not be hosted by iWon. You may notice that you are on a co-branded site if the pages say "provided by", if the entry counter is not displayed on the top of the page, or if you are asked to subscribe for any service or provide additional information. In such cases, if you use the co-branded service, iWon may be entitled to receive information about what you do when using that service. If you elect to provide additional personal information using a co-branded service, the information you provide may be shared or jointly retained by the provider of that service in accordance with that provider's privacy policies and terms of service. Again, we encourage you to read the privacy polices of these other companies and to contact these companies directly if you have any questions about their use of this information. When you are using a co-branded service, we will attempt to make sure that there is a link to the service provider's applicable privacy policies and terms of service.
Who has access to your personally identifiable information?
Your registration data is password-protected so that only you and iWon have access to this personal information. You may edit your registration data by using your password.
We recommend that you do not divulge your password to anyone. iWon will never ask you for your password in an unsolicited phone call or in an unsolicited email. Also, if you share your computer or use a computer that is accessed by the general public (a university, library, etc...), remember to "sign out" of your iWon account and close your browser window when you have finished your session. This will help to ensure that others cannot access your personal information.
iWon takes steps to ensure that your information is treated securely and in accordance with our Terms of Service and this Privacy Policy. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us or from our online products or services, and you use these services at your own risk.
You may at any time consult and modify your information sharing preferences by clicking here.
How and when is information disclosed to 3rd parties?
iWon may disclose your personally identifiable information to selected and trusted third parties but at all times provides you with an opportunity to opt-out. If you opt-out of sharing your personally identifiable information, we will not disclose such information to any third party, except in special situations described below, such as to comply with the law or administer the site You can elect to opt-out at anytime by going to the My profile page. You can also elect not to use certain services or participate in certain promotions if you do not want your information shared with the third parties who are sponsoring or administering such promotions.
In the event that all or substantially all of iWon's stock and/or assets are transferred or sold to another entity, iWon may transfer personally identifiable information to the acquiring entity. iWon will post all changes to company information in the About iWon section located at the footer of all iWon pages.
Sweepstakes, Promotions and sponsorships:
iWon may disclose your personal information to business partners or sponsors of promotions or sweepstakes available through iWon. Special sponsor promotions may often involve a request for information or a grant of permission to share personally identifiable information. By submitting this information or participating in the promotion, you give iWon permission to transfer this information to the sponsor or as otherwise stipulated in connection with the rules or privacy policy applicable to the promotion. You should review any applicable sweepstakes and promotions rules or user agreement to see what is being shared. If personally identifying data about you will be shared, we will disclose this to you before we collect or transfer the data.
Administering the Site and Compliance with Law:
iWon may disclose your personally identifiable information if we believe in good faith that we are required to do so in order to comply with applicable law, a subpoena, or other legal process. iWon may also disclose personally identifiable information when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be violating our Terms of Service or to protect the safety of our users and the public.
In addition, we may share your personal information under confidentiality agreements with certain third parties which assist us in developing, operating and maintaining iWon or for determining whether or not to provide you with new services or special offers. For example, we use an independent sweepstakes agency, SCA, to help us conduct sweepstakes drawings. Your registration data may be disclosed to SCA under a confidentiality agreement. iWon also may disclose or access personally identifiable information for administrative and other purposes that we believe are necessary to develop, maintain and improve our products and services. This may include delivery services, fulfillment houses, and other similar entities.
How can you correct inaccuracies in your personal information?
You may update your personal information as necessary by going to the My profile page, which allows you to access and edit your registration account information. In addition, you may contact iWon Customer Service to update your profile.
What is iWon's policy regarding children's privacy?
iWon is committed to the safety of our children. Children under 13 may not register or participate in the iWon Sweepstakes. iWon does not knowingly collect any personal information from such children at this site.
Who can you contact with questions regarding this policy?
Questions regarding this statement should be directed to iWon Customer Service, or by mail to iWon.com, Ask.com, 555 12th Street, Suite 500, Oakland, CA 94607. If you do not wish to contact iWon, you may also contact TRUSTe.
Last Updated: February 6, 2006.