Your privacy is important to us, and so is being transparent about how TechSpot collects and uses information about you. This Privacy Policy governs your access to and use of the TechSpot website (“TechSpot,” “we” or “us”), the information we provide and services offered ("The Services"). Your use of TechSpot indicates that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy and indicates your agreement to abide by the Terms of Use in effect and to be subject to this policy.
Information we automatically collect
If you choose not to register or provide personal information, you can still use most of the features on TechSpot, but you will not be able to access areas that require registration.
When you access or use our Services, we may also automatically collect information about you. We may log information that may include your IP address, user-agent string, browser type, operating system, referral URLs, device information (e.g., device IDs), pages visited, links clicked, user interactions, the requested URL, hardware settings, and search terms. Except for the IP address used to create your account, TechSpot will delete any IP addresses collected after 100 days.
TechSpot sends regular email newsletters, which are sent only to opt-in lists. They also include an easy and simple way to be removed once you have joined.
We may receive information from cookies, which are pieces of data your browser stores and sends back to us when making requests. We use this information to improve your experience, understand user activity, personalize content and advertisements, and improve the quality of our Services. For example, we store and retrieve information about your preferred homepage style and other settings.
We may offer social sharing features or other integrated tools that let you share content or actions you take on our Services with other media. Your use of these features enables the sharing of certain information with your friends or the public, depending on the settings you establish with the third party that provides the social sharing feature (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc).
We use analytics partners (such as Google Analytics) to help analyze usage and traffic for our Services. As an example, we may use analytics partners to analyze and measure, in the aggregate, the number of unique visitors to our Services.
Information you provide to us (optional free registration)
TechSpot can be read and accessed without a registered user account. We will ask you when we need information that personally identifies you (Personal Information) or allows us to contact you. Generally this information is requested when you register and become a TechSpot Member in order to participate in the user comments, forums, enter into a contest, or opt-in our email newsletters. We use your Personal Information for three primary purposes:
- To make the site easier for you to use by not having to enter information more than once.
- To help you quickly find services or information on TechSpot.
- To alert you about updated information and other new services on TechSpot.
We collect the content and other information you provide when you use our Services. This includes information used to create your account (e.g., a username, password, an email address), account preferences, the content of private messages between you and other users or communities, and the content of information you post to the Services (e.g., text, photos, videos, links).
Anything you post on TechSpot is public. So make sure you’re comfortable with the idea that anyone can view anything you post here.
When you delete your account, your profile is no longer visible and disassociated from content you posted under that account. All account data will be deleted from our system, including your username, email address, IP address and other profile information.
Please note that the public posts, comments, and messages you submitted prior to deleting your account will still be visible to others. If for some reason you included personal information in public posts, you can submit a ticket on the Feedback forum and those posts will also be deleted from our systems.
Information you provide to us (paid registration)
TechSpot offers an optional paid subscription to remove advertisements from the website. We rely on PayPal, so it's easy and secure to subscribe. We won't ask for any other information other than your email address and all financial data remains with PayPal.
Security
TechSpot strictly protects the security of your personal information and honors your choices for its intended use. We carefully protect your data from loss, misuse, unauthorized access or disclosure, alteration, or destruction.
Distribution of personal information
TechSpot does not distribute personal information to any third parties. Should this change, TechSpot will not distribute any information without your prior express consent. Please be aware that it may be possible, depending on your use of various features on TechSpot, that some of your personal information is available on publicly accessible web pages. One example would be using the TechSpot Forums. Consent to expose some of your personal information in these cases is implied by the use of these features.
We may share aggregated or de-identified information, which cannot reasonably be used to identify you.
Advertising & third-party ad servers
We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit TechSpot. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, e-mail address or telephone number) about your visits to our site and to other web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. These companies may employ cookies and clear GIFs to measure advertising effectiveness.
Any information that these third parties collect via cookies and clear GIFs is generally not personally identifiable (unless, for example, you provide personally identifiable information to them through an ad or e-mail message).
Our ad partners and ad networks may use cookies and use related technologies to collect information when ads are delivered to you on our Services, but TechSpot does not link to or provide them with your actual TechSpot account details. This means that TechSpot does not share your individual account browsing habits with advertisers. TechSpot cannot see advertisers’ cookies and advertisers will not see TechSpot cookies.
Children's Privacy
TechSpot gives children between the ages of 13 and 18 the ability to publicly post or distribute personally identifiable contact information without prior parental consent. Please take proper measures if you do not wish your child to have access to public forums and message boards. As always, exercise caution when deciding to disclose personal information in a public forum. In order to comply with the COPPA ruling, if you are younger than 13 years of age, you are forbidden from becoming a member of TechSpot or posting information on TechSpot message boards without direct parental consent.
Preferences & Cookies
You have choices about how to protect and limit the collection, use, and disclosure of, information about you. As a TechSpot registered user, we may provide you with tools and preference settings that allow you to access, correct, delete, and modify information associated with your account.
You may delete your account information by logging into your account and following the steps under “Account Settings” or by requesting this via the Feedback forum. When you delete your account, your profile is no longer visible and disassociated from content you posted under that account. All account data will be deleted from our system, including your username, email address, IP address and other profile information.
Please note that the public posts, comments, and messages you submitted prior to deleting your account will still be visible to others. If for some reason you included personal information in public posts, you can submit a ticket on the Feedback forum and those posts will also be deleted from our systems.
Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject first- and third-party cookies. Please note that if you choose to remove or reject cookies, this could affect the availability and functionality of our Services.
Enforcement
If for some reason you believe TechSpot has not adhered to these principles, please notify us by e-mail, and we will do our best to determine and correct the problem promptly. Be certain the words Privacy Policy are in the Subject line.
Changes to this document
Changes to this document may be made from time to time. We will post any privacy policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice on the TechSpot homepage. You will not be notified about changes related to clarification and/or elaboration of parts of this policy.
We encourage you to review our privacy policy whenever you use the Services to stay informed about our information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy. If you disagree with any changes to this privacy policy, you will need to stop using the Services and if necessary deactivate your account. By continuing to use the service, you agree and accept the changes and agree to the Terms.