TapArtist Privacy Policy

Updated as of March 9, 2009
The TapArtist Privacy Policy describes how TapArtist and its subsidiaries treat personal information when you use TapArtist services. In addition, the following describes privacy practices specific to TapArtist. To understand how we treat the information you give us as you use TapArtist, you should read this policy.

Personal Information

Non-Account Activity. You can view pictures on TapArtist without having a TapArtist Account. You can also contact us about a particular picture without having a TapArtist Account.
Account-Related Activity. Certain other activities on TapArtist--like uploading pictures, posting comments, or flagging pictures--require you to have a TapArtist Account. We ask for some personal information when you create a TapArtist Account, including a username.
Usage Information. We may record information about your usage, such as when you use TapArtist, the contacts you communicate with, the pictures you view, and the frequency and size of data transfers, as well as information you display or click on in TapArtist (including UI elements, settings, and other information). If you are logged in, we may associate that information with your account. We may use clear GIFs (a.k.a. "Web Beacons") in HTML-based emails sent to our users to track which emails are opened by recipients.
Content Uploaded to Site. Any personal information or picture content that you voluntarily disclose online (on discussion boards, in messages and chat areas, within your picture or profile pages, etc.) becomes publicly available and can be collected and used by others.

Uses

If you submit personally identifiable information to us through the TapArtist Sites, we use your personal information to operate, maintain, and provide to you the general and personalized features and functionality of the TapArtist Sites, and to process any flagging activity or correspondence you send to us.
Your account name (not your email address) is displayed to other Users when you upload pictures or send messages through the TapArtist Sites and other Users can contact you through messages and comments. Any picture that you submit to the TapArtist Sites may be redistributed through the internet and other media channels, and may be viewed by the general public. We do not use your email address or other personally identifiable information to send commercial or marketing messages without your consent or except as part of a specific program or feature for which you will have the ability to opt-in or opt-out. We may, however, use your email address without further consent for non-marketing or administrative purposes (such as notifying you of major TapArtist Site changes or for customer service purposes).
We use both your personally identifiable information and certain non-personally-identifiable information (such as anonymous user usage data, cookies, IP addresses, browser type, clickstream data, etc.) to improve the quality and design of the TapArtist Sites and to create new features, promotions, functionality, and services by storing, tracking, analyzing, and processing user preferences and trends, as well as user activity and communications.
We use cookies, clear gifs, and log file information to: (a) store information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you visit the TapArtist Sites; (b) provide custom, personalized content and information; (c) monitor the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns; (d) monitor aggregate metrics such as total number of visitors, pages viewed, etc.; and (e) track your entries, submissions, and status in promotions, sweepstakes, and contests.

Information That is Publicly Available

When you create an account on the site, some information about your account and your account activity will be provided to other Users of the site. This may include the date you opened your account, the date you last logged into your account, your age (if you choose to make it public), the country and the number of pictures you have viewed.
Your account name (not your email address) is displayed to other Users when you engage in certain activity on the site, such as when you upload pictures or send messages through the TapArtist Sites. Other Users can contact you through messages and comments.
You may also choose to add personal information that will visible to other Users on your artist page (which is the public facing page for your account on the site). This may include a profile picture, your name, gender, or other details.
If you choose to add certain features to your artist page, then these features and your activity associated with these features will be displayed to other Users and may be aggregated and shared with your confirmed friends or other Users. Such shared activity may include what pictures you favorite, what pictures you rated and what pictures you have uploaded.
Any pictures that you submit to the TapArtist Sites may be redistributed through the internet and other media channels, and may be viewed by the general public.

Your Choices

You may, of course, decline to submit personally identifiable information through the TapArtist Sites, in which case you can still view pictures and explore the TapArtist Sites, but TapArtist may not be able to provide certain services to you. Some advanced TapArtist features may, for authentication purposes, require you to sign up for other services like PayPal. The privacy notices of those services govern the use of your personal information associated with them.
You may update or correct your personal profile information and email preferences at any time by visiting your account profile page.
You may control the information that is available to other Users and your confirmed friends at any time by editing your account and the features that are included on your artist page.

Third-party Advertisers, Links to Other Sites

TapArtist allows other companies, called third-party ad servers or ad networks, to serve advertisements within the TapArtist Sites. These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to send, directly to your browser, the advertisements and links that appear on the TapArtist Sites. They automatically receive your IP address when this happens. They may also use other technologies (such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons) to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and to personalize the advertising content you see.
TapArtist does not provide any personally identifiable information to these third-party ad servers or ad networks without your consent or except as part of a specific program or feature for which you will have the ability to opt-in or opt-out. However, please note that if an advertiser asks TapArtist to show an advertisement to a certain audience (for example, men ages 18-34) or audience segment (for example, men ages 18-24 who have viewed certain types of content) and you respond to that advertisement, the advertiser or ad-server may conclude that you fit the description of the audience they are trying to reach. The advertiser may also use information regarding your use of the TapArtist Sites, such as the number of times you viewed an ad (but not any personally identifiable information), to determine which ads to deliver to you.
You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers or ad networks (see links below) for more information on their practices and for instructions on how to opt-out of certain practices. TapArtist's privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites. Any data obtained by third-party ad servers subsequently shared with TapArtist is maintained and dealt with by TapArtist in accordance with this privacy policy.
The current list of third-party ad servers or ad networks TapArtist has a relationship with is available here: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=94149