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Terms of Service & Privacy Policy

  1. Terms of Service
  2. Privacy Policy

Terms of ServiceLast Updated on: January 26, 2016

1. Agreement and General Terms of Use

1.1 These Terms of Service constitute the agreement between Dictionary.com, LLC ("Dictionary.com") and you as a user who accesses, subscribes to access or otherwise establishes a connection (“user,” “you,” or “your”) to the world wide web sites known as Dictionary.com, Reference.com, Thesaurus.com (individually and collectively, the "Site" and including any sub-domains or other related Dictionary.com products and services), which are owned,controlled or managed by Dictionary.com.

1.2 You must agree to abide by all of the provisions in this agreement in order to remain an authorized user of the Site and your use of the Site constitutes your agreement to abide by those provisions. You are solely responsible for your use of the Site and for ensuring that your use complies fully with the provisions of this agreement. Your rights are personal and non-assignable. This means that you will be responsible for the acts of anyone accessing the Site through you or using your name and password.

1.3 Dictionary.com reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to change any or all of the provisions of this agreement at any time. Dictionary.com will notify users of any changes by posting them on the Site or through other reasonable means of providing notice. Any changes to this agreement will be effective immediately upon notice to you. Your use of the Site after notice of changes to this agreement will be deemed your acceptance of the changes.

1.4 Dictionary.com reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to change, limit, or discontinue any aspect, content, or feature of the Site, as well as any aspect pertaining to the use of the Site.

1.5 IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE PROVISIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT OR ARE NOT SATISFIED WITH THE SITE, YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY IS TO DISCONTINUE YOUR USE OF THE SITE.

2. User Activities and Information on The Site 

2.1 You will use the Site and any tools, features, content, material, or information found on the Site solely for lawful, non-commercial purposes. You will not allow any third party to access the Site through your account, upload to, distribute to, or otherwise disseminate through the Site any material or information of any kind that is libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, abusive, or otherwise violates any law or infringes or violates any rights of any other person or entity, or contains a solicitation of funds, advertising, or a solicitation for goods or services.

2.2 You warrant that any material or information that you make available through the Site, including, for example, postings to comment sections and forums, is solely your original work, or that you have all necessary rights to make the material or information of any other person or entity available on the Site. You will be solely responsible for the content of any material or information that you make available through the Site. You will also be liable for any damage resulting from making any material or information available through the Site.

2.3 By making any material or information available through the Site, you automatically grant to Dictionary.com a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, distribute and sublicense any such material or information (in whole or in part) and/or to incorporate it in other works regardless of form, media, or technology. By making any material or information available through the Site, you also grant to users other than yourself the right and license to access, view, store, or reproduce your material and information for that user’s personal use.

2.4 Dictionary.com has no obligation to, and does not and cannot, review every item of material or information that you and users other than yourself made available through the Site, and Dictionary.com is not responsible for any content of this material or information. However, Dictionary.com reserves the right to delete, move, or edit any material or information that it deems, in its sole discretion, unacceptable, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, abusive, or otherwise in violation of any law or that infringes or violates any rights of any other person or entity. Further, Dictionary.com reserves the right at all times to disclose any material or information as necessary to satisfy any law, regulation, or governmental request.

2.5 Dictionary.com reserves the right to collect, use, and distribute demographic data about you and your use of the Site in forms that do not identify you individually or reveal your identity.

3. Rights in Site Content and the Site

3.1 All content provided by Dictionary.com on the Site is protected by copyright, trademark, and other applicable intellectual property and proprietary rights laws and is owned, controlled, and/or licensed by Dictionary.com. The Site is protected by copyright, patent, trademark, and other applicable intellectual property and proprietary rights laws and is owned, controlled, and/or licensed by Dictionary.com. Any and all trademarks appearing on the Site are the property of Dictionary.com or their respective owners.

3.2 You will not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale, create derivative works, or in any way exploit, any of the content, in whole or in part, found on the Site. You agree that all rights to the Site, content and any derivative work will remain with Dictionary.com. You will download copyrighted content solely for your personal use, but will make no other use of the content without the express written permission of Dictionary.com and the copyright owner. You will not make any changes to any content that you are permitted to download under this agreement, and in particular you will not delete or alter any proprietary rights or attribution notices in any content. You agree that you do not acquire any ownership rights in any downloaded content.

3.3 Certain content found on the Site may be subject to additional terms, conditions, and notices as specified in Section 10 (Content-Specific Notices) below.

4. Disclaimer of Warranties & Limitation of Liability

4.1 YOU EXPRESSLY AGREE THAT USE OF THE SITE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. NEITHER DICTIONARY.COM, NOR ANY OF ITS AFFILIATES, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, THIRD PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS, OR LICENSORS WARRANT THAT THE SITE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE NOR DO THEY MAKE ANY WARRANTY AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THE SITE, OR AS TO THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, COMPLETENESS, OR CONTENTS OF ANY CONTENT, INFORMATION, MATERIAL, POSTINGS, OR POSTING RESPONSES FOUND ON THE SITE, ANY MERCHANDISE OR SERVICES PROVIDED THROUGH THE SITE, OR ANY LINKS TO OTHER SITES MADE AVAILABLE ON THE SITE.

4.2 TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE SITE AND ALL CONTENT, MATERIAL, INFORMATION, POSTINGS, OR POSTING RESPONSES FOUND ON THE SITE ARE PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” BASIS WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF TITLE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

4.3 UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, NEGLIGENCE, WILL DICTIONARY.COM (OR ANY OF ITS PARENTS, SUBSIDIARIES, AFFILIATES, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, THIRD PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS, OR LICENSORS, AND THEIR RESPECTIVE DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS), BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES THAT RESULT FROM THE USE OF, OR THE INABILITY TO USE, ANY TOOL, CONTENT, INFORMATION, MATERIAL, POSTINGS, OR POSTING RESPONSES ON THE SITE OR THE SITE ITSELF. THESE LIMITATIONS APPLY REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE PARTY LIABLE OR ALLEGEDLY LIABLE WAS ADVISED, HAD OTHER REASON TO KNOW, OR IN FACT KNEW OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. YOU SPECIFICALLY ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT DICTIONARY.COM (AND ANY OF ITS PARENTS, SUBSIDIARIES, AFFILIATES, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, THIRD PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS, OR LICENSORS, AND THEIR RESPECTIVE DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS), IS NOT LIABLE FOR ANY DEFAMATORY, OFFENSIVE OR ILLEGAL CONDUCT OF ANY USER, INCLUDING YOU.

5. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Dictionary.com (and any of its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, employees, agents, third party content providers, or licensors, and their respective directors, officers, employees, and agents) from and against all claims, liability, and expenses, including attorneys’ fees and legal fees and costs, arising out of your use of the Site or your breach of any provision of this agreement. Dictionary.com reserves the right, in its sole discretion and at its own expense, to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you. You will cooperate as fully as reasonably required in the defense of any claim.

6. Notices Between Us

You will contact us by submitting your message via this form. We will contact you by the e-mail address you provide to us, or by posting a notice on the Site.

7. Termination

Dictionary.com may terminate this agreement and your use of the Site at any time. Dictionary.com will have the right immediately to terminate your use of the Site in the event of any conduct by you which Dictionary.com, in its sole discretion, considers to be unacceptable, or in the event of any breach by you of this agreement.

8. Law Governing Performance and Disputes

This agreement, your performance under it, and any disputes arising under it will be governed exclusively by the laws of the United States of America and the State of California, without giving effect to their conflict of laws principles. You expressly consent to the exclusive forum, jurisdiction, and venue of the Courts of the State of California and the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in any and all actions, disputes, or controversies relating to this agreement.

9. General Terms

This agreement and any posted rules on the Site established by Dictionary.com constitute the entire agreement of the parties with respect to the subject matter hereof. No waiver by either Dictionary.com or you of any breach or default under this agreement will be deemed to be a waiver of any preceding or subsequent breach or default. This agreement will be binding upon and inure to the benefit of Dictionary.com and its successors, trustees, and permitted assigns. Dictionary.com may assign this agreement or any of its rights or obligations under this agreement with or without notice to you.

10. Content Specific Notices

Please see the notices here regarding specific content that may be found on our Site.

Privacy PolicyLast revised: January 07, 2014

Dictionary.com  LLC  respects your privacy. When you use  Dictionary.com , Reference.com, Thesaurus.com or any other online products or websites that we own (our "sites") and mobile applications (our "apps"), we collect information about you and use it to facilitate and improve our services. Information about you may also be shared with other companies. For instance, companies engaged in "targeted" or "behavioral" advertising present ads that might be of interest to you based on information about your online activities. We want to be clear about how information about you may be used and what your privacy options are.

This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, how other companies may use it, and tracking technologies used to collect information. If we make any material changes to our privacy practices, we will post a revised Privacy Policy on this page. If you have any questions, please contact us by sending an email here http://content.dictionary.com/about/contact or writing to Dictionary.com LLC, ATTN: Legal Department, 555 12th Street, 5th Floor, Oakland, CA 94607.

 

Information we collect

Information collected automatically: When you visit our sites and use our apps, we automatically collect and store information about your computer or mobile device and your activities. This information includes:

  • Your computer's IP address
  • Technical information about your computer or mobile device (such as type of device, web browser or operating system)
  • Your preferences and settings (time zone, language, etc.)
  • Your mobile device's unique ID number
  • Your mobile device's geographic location (specific geographic location if you've enabled collection of that information, or general geographic location automatically)
  • The URL of the last web page you visited before coming to one of our sites
  • The words you have looked up and results you selected
  • The ads you clicked on
  • How long you visited our sites or used our apps and which services and features you used
  • For app users, the online or offline status of Your app

Information you choose to provide: You may choose to open an account and if you are age 13 or older, provide us with information in order to use certain services or products, like Dictionary.com Premium or Word Dynamo, or to take advantage of special offers, like a contest or a sweepstakes. This information may include your name, email address, phone number, credit card information (including billing address), and demographic information (age, gender, etc.). You may provide this information directly to us or you may choose to register using your Facebook account in which case you would authorize us to access certain Facebook profile information including your first name, last name, gender, birth date and email address. You may also choose to post content (such as custom flashcards) that you may share with others, through our site or through your Twitter or Facebook account. You do not have to provide any of this information to us. But if you do not provide certain information, you will not be able to use some of the services we offer. If you wish, we will delete your account information; to do so, please log into Dictionary.com using the account you wish to close, then close your account at http://app.dictionary.com/users/cancelaccount.

 

How we use your information

We use your information to provide and improve our services, customize services for you (such as by remembering your preferences), make special offers (like sweepstakes), better understand our users, diagnose and fix problems, and sell and display ads that may be relevant to you. Email addresses, mobile phone numbers, and credit card information are used only for providing you the services you requested upon creating your account.

Email Address: We use your email address only to allow you to log in to your account, send you confirmations (of your registration, purchase, etc.), and to send you messages as part of our services. You may choose to stop receiving these emails by adjusting your email settings at http://app.dictionary.com/users/settings or by clicking on the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of the email. For specific services, you can unsubscribe here: Word of the Day unsubscribe or Reference of the Day unsubscribe. We will also use your email address to respond to your customer service inquiries. If you are under the age of 13, certain messaging and site functionality may be non-existent or limited.

Phone Number: We use your mobile phone number only to send you SMS messages that you've requested. To stop receiving SMS messages, please enter your mobile number’s corresponding email address here: http://www.dictionary.com/help/faq/wordoftheday/index.html#unsubscribe.

Credit Card Information: We use your credit card information only to process your purchases and to detect and prevent fraud.

 

Use of your information by other companies  

We share user information with other companies for various reasons. What information we make available to other companies depends on the nature of our relationships with them. We generally require these other companies to keep our users' information confidential.

Service Providers: We may share all of the types of information we collect with vendors who provide services (such as voice transcription, email and SMS messaging, and payment processing), conduct surveys, and run sweepstakes on our behalf.

Advertisers: Advertisers and advertising networks use tracking technologies to collect information about users' computers or mobile devices and their online activities (for example, web pages visited and searches made) as well as general geographic location and use that information to display targeted ads to users. We sometimes allow these ad companies to collect such information when you use our sites and apps to enable them to display targeted ads to you.

Analytics Companies: We allow analytics companies to use tracking technologies to collect information about our users' computers or mobile devices and their online activities. These companies analyze this information to help us understand how our sites and apps are being used. Certain versions of our App have an "Opt out of Tracking" setting, which permits you to opt out of being tracked by third party analytics companies.

What we don't share: We do not provide ad companies or analytics companies with your name, address, email address, phone number, or credit card information.

Aggregated Information: We may publicly disclose aggregated information about our users, such as the total number of our users and their overall demographics.

Legal Matters: We may disclose user information: in response to a legal request, such as a subpoena, court order, or government demand; to investigate or report illegal activity; or to enforce our rights or defend claims. We may also transfer your information to another company in connection with a corporate restructuring, such as a sale, merger or in the event of a bankruptcy proceeding.

 

Tracking technologies

We, as well as other companies, use tracking technologies to collect and store data about your computer or mobile device and your activities on our sites and apps.

Cookies: When you visit our sites, we place "cookies" (small text files) on your computer to recognize you. We do this to store your preferences and track your use of our sites. Ad companies place cookies on your computer to track your activities across various sites so that they can display targeted ads. Some ad companies and game developers use "flash cookies" for ads and games that use Flash media technology.

Many ad companies are members of the Network Advertising Initiative. NAI members allow users to opt out of being tracked by cookies. To opt out of cookie tracking by NAI members, you may visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/ and click on the "Consumer Opt-out" button. Companies may also be members of the Digital Advertising Alliance ("DAA") and to opt out of cookie tracking by DAA members, you may visit http://www.aboutads.info/choices/. Finally, to learn how to remove cookies, you may visit these links: deleting cookies and deleting flash cookies. By using our site and products, you give us explicit consent to place cookies and other tracking technology on your computer or mobile device.

Pixel tags: We embed pixel tags (also called web beacons or clear GIFs) on web pages, ads, and emails. These tiny, invisible graphics are used to access cookies and track user activities (such as how many times a page is viewed). We use pixel tags to measure the popularity of our features and services. Ad companies use pixel tags to measure the number of ads displayed and their performance (such as how many people clicked on an ad).

Mobile Device IDs: If you're using an app, we use mobile device IDs (the unique identifier assigned to a device by the manufacturer), instead of cookies, to recognize you. We do this to store your preferences and track your use of our apps. Unlike cookies, device IDs cannot be deleted. Ad companies use device IDs to track your use of the app, track the number of ads displayed, measure ad performance and display ads that are more relevant to you. Analytics companies use device IDs to track information about app usage.

 

Do Not Track Disclosure

Do Not Track (“DNT”) is a privacy preference that users can set in certain web browsers. DNT is a way for users to inform websites and services that they do not want certain information about their webpage visits collected over time and across websites or online services. We are committed to providing you with meaningful choices about the information collected on our website for third party purposes, and that is why we provide the NAI “Consumer Opt-out” link and the DAA opt-out link above. However, we do not recognize or respond to browser-initiated DNT signals, as the Internet industry is currently still working toward defining exactly what DNT means, what it means to comply with DNT, and a common approach to responding to DNT.