We are BDG Media Inc. (Bustle, we, us and our) and we operate the following websites (the Sites):
We are committed to protecting your privacy. In this Privacy and Cookies Policy for our Sites, and the services, features, content or applications we offer (collectively with the Sites, the Services). We explain who we are, why and how we collect, store, share and use (together, "process") your personal data (Personal Information), your rights and how to contact us.
Please read this policy carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal information and how we will treat it. By engaging with our Services, you acknowledge you have read and understood this privacy policy.
We are the data controller of the personal information processed in relation to this policy, except where this policy explains otherwise. This means we are responsible for treating your personal information safely, in accordance with applicable data protection and privacy laws. If you have any questions about how we protect your Personal Information, please contact us.
This Privacy Policy covers the treatment of your Personal Information gathered when you are using or accessing the Services.
This Privacy Policy also covers our treatment of any Personal Information that our business partners share with us or that we share with our business partners.
Our Services may, from time to time, contain links to external websites. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies.
Third Party Services
This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of third parties that we do not own or control, including but not limited to: any third party websites, services and applications and any affiliated brands (“Third Party Services”) that you elect to access through the Service or to individuals that we do not manage or employ. We do not have any responsibility or liability for these policies or any content on Third Party Services and do not necessarily endorse the views expressed within them. We have no control over the availability of any of those Third Party Services. We encourage you to carefully review the privacy policies of any Third Party Services you access. Please refer to Information You Elect to Share for further information.
We process information about you:
The information we gather enables us to personalise, improve and continue to operate the Services. In connection with certain aspects of the Services, we may request, collect and/or display some of your Personal Information. We collect the following types of information from our users.
YOU PROVIDE US WITH
When you interact with us (for example, registering for any of our newsletters, or sending us an e-mail), we collect the following types of Personal Information: Sign-up information:
OTHER PARTIES MAY PROVIDE US WITH
WE AUTOMATICALLY COLLECT
See Cookies and other technologies for more information on the use of cookies and device identifiers on the Services.
With your prior consent we will use your personal information to send you our newsletters, and to provide you with promotional update communications by email or Site pop-ups about our Services.
You can opt-out of further marketing at any time by selecting the unsubscribe link at the bottom of each email, or by sending us an email at info@bustle.com.
We've set out how we use each category of personal information, and what legal basis (or bases) allow us to undertake the processing. We explain more about what each legal basis means below.
We may process your personal data based one or more than one legal basis, depending on the specific purpose(s) for which we are using your personal information. Please contact us if you would like further details about the specific legal basis we are relying on to process your personal data.
TYPE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
OUR LEGAL BASES FOR PROCESSING
To register you as a newsletter subscriber and to keep you updated with information about our Services, including:
In relation to technical communications relating to your newsletter subscriptions, which may include any changes to our Sites, to provide service updates and to improve our customer service and provide more relevant content.
See our promotional updates and communications to learn more.
HOW WE USE THIS PERSONAL INFORMATION
TYPE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
HOW WE USE THIS PERSONAL INFORMATION
OUR LEGAL BASES FOR PROCESSING
TYPE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
HOW WE USE THIS PERSONAL INFORMATION
OUR LEGAL BASES FOR PROCESSING
TYPE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
HOW WE USE THIS PERSONAL INFORMATION
OUR LEGAL BASES FOR PROCESSING
Our legitimate interests
TYPE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
HOW WE USE THIS PERSONAL INFORMATION
OUR LEGAL BASES FOR PROCESSING
We will only use your Personal Information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you would like an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us at info@bustle.com. If we process your Personal Information for any new purpose, we will notify you (via updating this Privacy Policy, and letting you know we have updated it) and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
Information Shared with Our Sub-contractors:
We employ and contract with people and other entities that perform certain tasks on our behalf (our “sub-contractors”).
We may share Personal Information with our sub-contractors in order to provide our Services to you. Unless we tell you otherwise, our sub-contractors may only use Personal Information we share with them in in accordance with our instructions.
Our sub-contractors include:
Aggregate Information
Aggregate information does not include any personal information which you can be identified from. We share aggregate information with our partners, service providers and other persons with whom we conduct business. We share this type of statistical data so that our partners can understand how and how often people use our Services and their services or websites, which facilitates improving both their services and how our Services interface with them.
In addition, these third parties may share with us anonymised, aggregated or otherwise non-personal information about you that they have independently developed or acquired.
Other Disclosures We May Make
We will disclose your personal information to third parties if we buy or sell part of our (or another) business, or if we are required to do so in order to comply with a legal obligation.
Information Disclosed Pursuant to Business Transfers
In some cases, we may choose to buy or sell assets. In these types of transactions, user information is typically one of the transferred business assets. Moreover, if we, or substantially all of our assets, were acquired, or if we go out of business or enter bankruptcy, user information would be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. You acknowledge that such transfers may occur, and that any acquirer of us or our assets may continue to use your Personal Information as set forth in this policy.
Information Disclosed for Our Protection and the Protection of Others
We also reserve the right to access, read, preserve, and disclose any information as we reasonably believe is necessary to (i) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, (ii) enforce the Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations hereof, (iii) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, (iv) respond to user support requests (as explained above), or (v) protect our rights, property or safety, our users and the public. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for fraud protection and to prevent cybercrime, including spam/malware prevention.
Information We Share With Your Consent
Except as set forth above, you will be notified when your Personal Information may be shared with third parties.
Consent: We will only process your personal information for promotional or marketing purposes where you have given us your express consent for us to do this, where required by law. For more information, please refer to Our Promotional Updates and Communication section.
You can opt out from further marketing at any time by sending an email to info@bustle.com.
Contract: We collect, store and process your personal information where it is necessary for performing a contract you have with us (such as our competition terms and conditions – please refer to the specific relevant terms for each competition), or where you have asked us to take specific steps before entering into that contract. If you enter any of our competitions, you will be provided with the full terms and conditions prior to entering – please ensure you read these carefully.
Legal Obligation: we may need to process our personal information to comply with our legal obligations, including under applicable local and EU law, and any court orders.
When processing your personal information in order to manage our relationship with you, including complying with any rights requests, we ensure that we comply with the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR) and the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications 2002/58/EC, and applicable local laws which implements these rules.
Legitimate interests: processing your data is necessary for our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party, provided those interests are not outweighed by your rights and interests.
Our legitimate interests are:
In each case, these legitimate interests are only valid if they are not outweighed by your rights and interests. If you would like further information about how we assess our legitimate interests, please contact us at info@bustle.com.
We also use different types of cookies (including automatically collected information) on our Platform in our legitimate interests or with your consent – we explain this in the Cookies section.
You may access other Third Party Services, including other websites and platforms, through the Services for example by clicking on links to those Third Party Services from within the Site. We are not responsible for the privacy policies and/or practices of these Third Party Services, and you are responsible for reading and understanding those Third Party Services’ privacy policies. This Privacy Policy only governs information collected as part of our Services.
Public Information about Your Activity on the other websites or platforms
Where you engage with Bustle accounts on other third-party websites or platforms (for example, social media), some of your activity may be public by default. This may include, but is not limited to, content you have posted publicly on those websites or otherwise through the Services, such as written posts, comments, or other submissions by you. Please also remember that if you choose to provide Personal Information using certain public features of other websites or platforms, then that information is governed by the privacy settings of those other websites or platforms and may be publicly available. Individuals reading such information may use or disclose it to other individuals or entities without our control and without your knowledge, and search engines may index that information. We therefore urge you to think carefully about including any specific information you may deem private in content that you submit when engaging with Bustle on other websites or platforms.
We store all of our information, including your IP address information, using industry-standard techniques.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. We do our best to protect your personal information, but we cannot guarantee or warrant that such techniques will prevent unauthorised access to information about you that we store, Personal Information or otherwise; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.
The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (EEA) that may not be subject to equivalent Data Protection Law.
Where your information is transferred outside the EEA, we will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is subject to appropriate safeguards, such as relying on a recognised legal adequacy mechanism, and that it is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.
We may transfer your personal information outside the EEA:
We may transfer your personal information to the following countries and entities outside the EEA:
Zendesk, Inc Privacy Shield
AWS Privacy Shield
Datto, Inc (Backupify) Privacy Shield
If you have subscribed to any of our newsletters, we retain Personal Information for as long as you remain subscribed. If you opt-out, we will retain only the minimum information needed to make sure you don't receive any unwanted communications from us.
We retain any first-party cookie information as set out in our Cookies section.
We may also retain aggregate information beyond this time for research purposes and to help us develop and improve our services. You cannot be identified from aggregate information retained or used for these purposes.
You can always opt not to disclose certain information to us, even though it may be needed to take advantage of some of our features (e.g. newsletter sign-ups).
Readers can access and delete cookies through their web browser settings.
Your rights:
You may have the right, under certain circumstances:
Your right to withdraw consent:
Where the processing of your personal information by us is based on consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent without detriment at any time by contacting us at info@bustle.com. You can also change your marketing preferences at any time as described in Our promotional updates and communications' section;
You can also exercise the rights listed above at any time by contacting us at info@bustle.com. If your request or concern is not satisfactorily resolved by us, you may approach your local data protection authority, (see http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/bodies/authorities/index_en.html).
The Information Commissioner is the supervisory authority in the UK and can provide further information about your rights and our obligations in relation to your Personal Information, as well as deal with any complaints that you have about our processing of your Personal Information.
California Privacy Rights: Under California Civil Code sections 1798.83-1798.84, California residents are entitled to ask us for a notice identifying the categories of personal customer information which we share with our affiliates and/or third parties for marketing purposes, and providing contact information for such affiliates and/or third parties. If you are a California resident and would like a copy of this notice, please submit a written request to the following address: 315 Park Ave S, 11th Floor New York, NY 10010, USA.
This policy was last updated on May 1, 2019.
Any changes we make to this policy in future will be posted on this page. If we make any substantive changes, we will notify you by e-mail or through a pop-up within our Sites.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding privacy using the Services, please send us a detailed message to info@bustle.com. We will make every effort to resolve your concerns.
IP Address Information and Other Information Collected Automatically:
We automatically receive and record information from your web browser when you interact with the Services, including your partial IP address and cookie information. This information is used for preventing cybercrime, including fighting spam/malware and also to facilitate collection of data concerning your interaction with the Services (e.g., what links you have clicked on).
Generally, the Services automatically collect usage information, such as the number and frequency of visitors to the Sites. We may use this data in aggregate form, that is, as a statistical measure, but not in a manner that would identify you personally. This type of aggregate data enables us and third parties authorised by us to figure out how often individuals use parts of the Services so that we can analyse and improve them.
Information Collected Using Cookies:
Cookies are pieces of text that may be provided to your computer through your web browser when you access a website. Your browser stores cookies in a manner associated with each website you visit. We use cookies to enable our servers to recognise your web browser and tell us how and when you visit the Sites and otherwise use the Services through the Internet.
Our cookies do not, by themselves, contain Personal Information, and we do not combine the general information collected through cookies with other Personal Information to tell us who you are. As noted, however, we do use cookies to identify that your web browser has accessed aspects of the Services and may associate that information with your web browser.
Most browsers have an option for turning off the cookie feature, which will prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, as well as (depending on the sophistication of your browser software) allowing you to decide on acceptance of each new cookie in a variety of ways. We strongly recommend that you leave cookies active, because they enable you to take advantage the most attractive features of the Services.
This Privacy Policy covers our use of cookies only and does not cover the use of cookies by third parties. We do not control when or how third parties place cookies on your computer. For example, third party websites to which a link points may set cookies on your computer.
Information Related to Advertising and the Use of Web Beacons:
To support and enhance the Services, we may serve advertisements, and also allow third parties to serve advertisements, through the Services. These advertisements are sometimes targeted and served to particular users and may come from third party companies called “ad networks.” Ad networks include third party ad servers, ad agencies, ad technology vendors and research firms.
Advertisements served through the Services may be targeted to users who fit a certain general profile category may be based on anonymised information inferred from information provided to us by a user, including Personal Information (e.g., gender or age), may be based on the Services usage patterns of particular users, or may be based on your activity on Third Party Services. We do not provide Personal Information to any ad networks for use outside of the Services.
To increase the effectiveness of ad delivery, we may deliver a file (known as a “web beacon”) from an ad network to you through the Services. Web beacons allow ad networks to provide anonymised, aggregated auditing, research and reporting for us and for advertisers.
Web beacons also enable ad networks to serve targeted advertisements to you when you visit other websites. Because your web browser must request these advertisements and web beacons from the ad network’s servers, these companies can view, edit or set their own cookies, just as if you had requested a web page from their website.
Aggregate Information:
We collect statistical information about how both unregistered and registered users, collectively, use the Services (“Aggregate Information”). Some of this information is derived from Personal Information. This statistical information is not Personal Information and cannot be tied back to you or your web browser.
Cookies we use
We may use the following types of cookies
You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them here:
How to opt-out of third party data targeting & how to disable cookies
If you prefer not to receive interest-based content and ads enabled by Google, you can opt-out by clicking on the “Opt Out” link at either Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) (http://optout.networkadvertising.org/#/) or Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) (http://optout.aboutads.info/#/). Bustle is a registered Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) program participant with sourcing disclosure information available.
The effect of disabling cookies depends on which cookies you disable but, in general, the Sites may not operate properly if all cookies are switched off. If you want to disable cookies on our Sites, you need to change your website browser settings to reject cookies. How you can do this will depend on the browser you use.
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Google Chrome
Safari
Mozilla Firefox
Opera 6.0 and further
Where you have not set your permissions, we may also separately prompt you regarding our use of cookies on the Sites.