OpenCritic.com Privacy Policy
Effective September 2, 2021
Your privacy is extremely important to us, and so we’ve prepared this Privacy Policy to transparently explain how we collect, use, and share information we get through your interactions with OpenCritic. This Privacy Policy does NOT govern our use of any information you provide to us when you call, email, write, or communicate with us through any other channel other than OpenCritic. Given that the Internet is a global network, information that we collect and gather may be transferred to, processed in, and held in countries other than the one in which you reside.
By using OpenCritic, you explicitly consent to such use of your information and agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy.
1. Information We Automatically Collect
We automatically collect a lot of data as you use and navigate OpenCritic and associated services. We do this to help us understand who our users are and how they interact with our services. For example, each time you visit OpenCritic and associated services, we may automatically collect your IP address, browser, device operating system, access time, how you got to OpenCritic, what pages you visit, and what features and web elements you interact with. We call this data “Usage Data.”
We use this data to help improve OpenCritic. With demographic information, we can get a better understanding of who our audience is. With page access information, we can monitor and diagnose problems with our servers and software.
2. Information You Choose To Submit
Information that identifies who you are or could otherwise be used by someone to personally identify you is called “Personal Information.” You can visit OpenCritic without revealing any personal information at all. If, however, you register an account and become a member on OpenCritic, you are required to provide us with certain Personal Information (such as your email address). You may also be able to sign up with a username and password.
We use Personal Information to personalize OpenCritic for you with features such as personalizing your own custom outlets and highlighting games or reviews we think you’ll find interesting. We may also use your personal information to contact you from time to time about OpenCritic or other products and services that OpenCritic.com, LLC. has made.
Information you choose to submit to us that could not be used to identify you is called “Non-Personal Information.” Examples of non-personal information include your gender, your age, your zip code, your game ratings, or your site usage.
We may collect any Non-Personal Information that you choose to submit to us. We may also collect additional information about you when you interact with OpenCritic, including when you interact with offers such as advertisements. We may also collect data during our direct interactions with you, such as when asking you to complete a survey, asking you to enter a promotion, or assisting you in the process of customer support.
Finally, there’s may be information that we allow you to display on your public profile. This information includes information such as (but not limited to) your alias, hometown, bio, game reviews, and any other information that’s displayed in a public fashion tied to your account. We call this information “Shared Information.”
3. Our Information Sharing Practices
(a) In general, we will never share your Usage Data, Personal Information, Non-Personal Information, or Shared Information with any third party without your permission, except as otherwise described in the sections below.
(b) Advertisers. We may occasionally share your Usage Data and Non-Personal Information to enable third parties who advertise on OpenCritic to bolster the relevance and usefulness of advertisements delivered to you. Note that we will not share any information with the advertiser that could personally identify you.
(c) Aggregated Data. We may occasionally report aggregated User Information to third parties or to the general public. We will not share any aggregated data, however, in ways that would enable recipients to personally identify you. For example, we might publish the percentage of users who disable a specific publication, or how many users looked at a specific game.
(d) Other scenarios. We reserve the right to share any data we collect in response to:
- If we believe it’s in the best interest of the community in regarding illegal activities, fraud, or situations that involve credible threats to the safety of persons or properties.
- Subpoenas, court orders, or legal processes
- To establish, protect, or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims.
- If we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding abuse of OpenCritic’s infrastructure or servers or the Internet in general (ex: DDoS attacks, intentional spamming, or hacking).
- If we are acquired by or merged with another entity
4. Public Information
Unless otherwise noted, data that shows up on your individual profile will considered to be available to the public. You may choose to not fill in profile data. There may also be features and elements of OpenCritic in which there is a clear expectation that information posted will be visible by other users and the general public (ex: forums, message boards, user reviews, game ratings, chat rooms).
5. Cookies
A “cookie” is a small file containing data that is sent to your device and stored in your device’s memory when you visit a website. Many websites and other web services across the internet use cookies to provide useful features for their users. Most websites, including OpenCritic, use cookies to uniquely identify your device and browser. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies by default. You can, if you wish, reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate whenever a cookie is being sent, set, or altered.
We may set and access cookies on your device. The first time you visit OpenCritic, a cookie is sent to your device.
If you reject cookies on OpenCritic, you will not be able to sign in to OpenCritic or use all of OpenCritic’s features.
You can manage your cookies as they pertains to advertisers here.
In general, we may use cookies to enhance our Usage Data, personalize your experience, enable you to access your account, display appropriate and relevant advertisements.
We may also use “pixel tags,” which are small graphic files that enable us to monitor how you use OpenCritic. Our main use of pixel tags are with our GameStop affiliate program links or other third party advertisers. These tags allow us to collect information such as the IP address of the device accessing the page, the URL of the page in which the pixel tag was contained, when you accessed the page, details of the device accessing the page, and how long the page was accessed.
To be explicit, OpenCritic uses Google Analytics. Hyper-boring paragraph about Google Analytics incoming (much legal jargon, handle it): Google's advertising requirements can be summed up by Google's Advertising Principles. They are put in place to provide a positive experience for users. https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/1316548?hl=en .Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on our site. Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to our users based on their visit to our site and other sites on the Internet. Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy. Users can set preferences for how Google advertises to you using the Google Ad Settings page. Alternatively, you can opt out by visiting the Network Advertising initiative opt out page or permanently using the Google Analytics Opt Out Browser add on.
6. Advertising
One day, OpenCritic may feel the need to advertise on our website (we know, we hate it too).
We may use other companies to serve advertisements when you visit OpenCritic. These companies may collect and use click stream information, browser information, time and duration information, and the subject of the advertisements viewed or clicked in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be useful and relevant to you. These companies are likely to use cookies, web beacons, and pixel tags to collect this information. Other companies’ use of cookies is subject to their own privacy policies, and not this one. These companies don’t get access to OpenCritic cookies.
If we do start advertising, we will update this privacy policy to inform you as to which advertising networks we use. However, this update will not fall under our standard 15-day notification, and will be automatic.
We use third party advertisements to support our site. Some of these advertisers may be served from our third party advertiser. You can view their privacy policy and cookie policy here. You can manage your cookies here.
We use Google Analytics and Comscore to analyse the use of our website. Google Analytics and Comscore gather information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website. Google's privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. Comscore’s privacy policy is available at https://www.comscore.com/About-comScore/Privacy-Policy.
7. Targeted Advertising
If we do advertise, it’s possible that the advertisements will be targeted advertisements based on personal information that you provide. We don’t provide this personal information to our advertisers when you interact with such an advertisement.
8. Security
The Fair Information Practices Principles form the backbone of privacy law in the United States and the concepts they include have played a significant role in the development of data protection laws around the globe. Understanding the Fair Information Practice Principles and how they should be implemented is critical to comply with the various privacy laws that protect personal information.
We believe we've taken the ncessary precautions to protect your Personal Information. Should a data breach occur, we will notify you within 7 business days of determining that your information was taken. We will also display an in site notification within 7 business days.
9. External Links
We’ve got links to other websites all over the place. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those websites.
10. Embedded Content
We use iFrames to embed YouTube content on OpenCritic. Please make sure you review YouTube and Google's privacy policy here: https://policies.google.com/privacy
11. Partner Logins and Permissions
We use several services to manage our login, such as OAuth at Google, Facebook, Twitch, and Patreon. If you use these providers to log in, please make sure you review the provider's privacy policy.
If you'd like to revoke OpenCritic's access to your Google or YouTube account data at any time, you may do so at Google's security settings page found here: https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions.
If you'd like to revoke OpenCritic's access to Facebook account data at any time, you may do so at Facebook's "Apps and Websites" page found here: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications&ref=settings
12. Data Deletion
If you'd like to have your account data removed from OpenCritic, please email us at [email protected].
13. Children’s Privacy
We are committed to protecting the privacy needs of children and we encourage parents and guardians to take an active role in their children's online activities and interests. The Services are not intended for and may not be used by children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of 13 and we do not target the Services to children under the age of 13.
14. Changes
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If under any such update we make any material change to the way in which we treat your User Information, we will inform you of such change via email or by posting a notice on relevant areas of the Services. Any updated version of this Privacy Policy will be effective as of the date set forth therein.
15. Contact Us
If you have any questions about OpenCritic’s privacy policy, please email us at [email protected].