Privacy Policy
Pocketville is operated and presented to users in all locations by ME, LLC of El Segundo, California, USA, which does business as MEG ("MEG"). This Privacy Policy covers the use of information collected through this website by MEG. To help ensure a rewarding online experience for our visitors, we provide you with this Privacy Policy that describes our information practices for the Pocketville website, including how we collect, use and disclose personal information.
Children’s Privacy
We are committed to providing fun, entertaining, and safe websites for people of all ages and are dedicated to safeguarding any personal information we collect. We ensure that our privacy policy, which applies to all users including children, and our information practices adhere to the United States Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and all other applicable legislation. We do not condition a child's participation in an online activity on the child providing more personal information than is reasonably necessary for that activity. For information on how to review or remove any personal information we have collected from your child, please see Access to Information below.
The Information We Collect
When a child first registers with Pocketville, we directly collect the child’s account name (which should not be the child’s real name), password and birthday and the email address of the child’s parent. We also may ask for a child’s sex, state and country.
When a purchase is made through the Pocketville website, we may collect personally identifiable information from the purchaser, which may include a full name, email address, credit card or other billing or payment information, address, phone number and such other information as may be requested from time to time in order to complete the transaction.
We may request an account name, user name and/or email address when a person submits a question or comment through the "Feedback" feature of the website so that we may respond. We may ask for additional information from you if it is necessary to respond to your question or concern.
For some of our online activities - such as polls or surveys - we may ask users to provide information that is not personally identifiable, such as a user’s favorite animal or color.
We enable users to chat with each other online through our Pocketville website, but we take measures so that users cannot communicate personal information through this chat function.
We also may collect information if you request a newsletter or enter a contest. Please see the sections “Newsletters” and “Contests and Sweepstakes” below.
Additionally, when visitors come to our web site, we may passively collect certain non-personally identifiable computer information, such as the type of computer operating system (e.g., Windows XP or Mac OS), the user's IP Address, the web browser (e.g., Netscape, Internet Explorer) being used, and information regarding the Internet service provider. We may link this information to personally identifiable information that we have collected. If we do so, we will treat such linked information as personally identifiable information.
If personal information we require is not provided to us, then MEG may not agree to a establish a user account for you and may not be able to provide access to certain content and functionality on our websites, or to provide other information, products or services which may be requested.
How We Use, Disclose, and Store the Information We Collect
We use the information we collect for our internal purposes of enabling visitors and users to access our websites, responding to inquiries, informing interested persons of upcoming events or announcements, and conducting contests or sweepstakes. We also use the information to track usage of our website, improve the design and features of the website, offer products and services, save your passwords and account information, enable you to make purchases, and ensure compliance with our rules and terms and conditions of using our website. We may share your information with third-party agents or contractors who help us operate our websites and provide services to visitors and users. We require agents and contractors to keep information confidential and to use information only for the specific services they are performing. These agents and contractors may be located in countries different from where a user or visitor is located.
The Pocketville website requires a child to provide a parent's valid email address in order to register on the website. We use this information to send the parent a message informing the parent that the child has registered for the website, to provide the parent with the child’s account name, to notify the parent about our privacy practices, to send communications either about the child’s account or activities, and for the other purposes described in this Privacy Policy. This email address is correlated with the child’s account name.
We may use an email address and account name to ban a user temporarily or permanently from a website if that user engages in inappropriate conduct on the site. We may also use email addresses and account names to enable a parent to review personally identifiable information that a child has submitted to a website.
We use information submitted during a purchase, including credit card or billing or other payment information, for the purpose of completing the requested transaction. The credit card or billing or other information that you enter to make a purchases is not stored by MEG, but is provided to and retained by third party payment processing vendors and financial institutions for the purpose of processing payments.
We may disclose information where we are required to do so by law, for example, in response to a court order or a subpoena, at the request of a governmental authority conducting an investigation, to verify or enforce compliance with our rules or terms and conditions of use, or where we disclose information to service providers or other group companies who provide support for the operations of our website and who do not use or disclose the information for any other purpose. To the extent permitted by applicable law, we also may disclose personally identifiable information in response to a law enforcement agency's or other public agency's (including schools or children services) request or if we feel that such disclosure may prevent the instigation of a crime, facilitate an investigation related to public safety or protect the safety of a child using our website, protect the security or integrity of our website, or enable us to take precautions against liability.
If we sell all or part of our business or make a sale or transfer of our assets or are otherwise involved in a merger or business transfer, we may transfer personally identifiable information to a third party as part of that transaction, to the extent permitted by applicable law.
Newsletters
We may offer the opportunity to sign up to receive a periodic newsletter by email. When a child asks to receive our email newsletter, the child is asked to provide his or her email address and, if we do not already have a parent’s email address for the child, the email address of a parent. Within two business days of receiving this information, we send the parent a notification email informing the parent of the child's request to receive the newsletter on an ongoing basis and give the parent the option to have the child's information removed from our newsletter database. At any time after receiving this notification email, the child's parent has the opportunity to exercise the option to request that we stop sending the child the newsletter and have the child's information removed from our newsletter by following the "unsubscribe" instructions found in either their initial notification email or at the end of any of the newsletter emails.
Contests and Sweepstakes
Occasionally we may offer contests and sweepstakes which may be entered online. To participate in a contest or sweepstakes, a child may be asked to provide his or her name and email address and parent’s email address. If the contest or sweepstakes involves more than a one-time contact, we will send the user’s parent an email informing him or her of their child's entry and give the parent the option to have the child's entry deleted. All of the information collected by MEG is securely maintained and used only for the purpose of conducting and fulfillment of the contest or sweepstakes. Once the contest or sweepstakes is finished, we delete any personal information collected. The information collected in a contest or sweepstakes may be passed to a fulfillment house which may use the information to help run the contest or sweepstakes. Any such fulfillment house may not use the information for other purposes and must agree to maintain the confidentiality of the information.
Collection of Information for Third-Party Sites and Sponsors
We do not allow third-party companies to solicit or advertise to our users. Our intention is to keep our website free from any of this sort of direct advertising.
Cookies
We may use software technologies such as unique identifiers or "cookies." Cookies are small text files that we place in visitors' computer browsers to store their preferences. Cookies themselves do not contain any personally identifiable information. Where we link these unique identifiers with your other personally identifiable information, we will treat the unique identifiers as personally identifiable information as long as they are linked. We do use unique identifiers to learn about usage of our site, such as geographic location, how many visitors we have and how often they visit various sections of our site.
Security
We have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security, and correctly use the information we collect online.
Financial Information
As noted above, if you decide to make purchases through the Pocketville website, additional financial information will be required at the time of purchase. That information is not stored by MEG, and, instead, is collected and stored by our payments processing vendor for the purpose of processing payments made to MEG. That information is safeguarded with appropriate security, and it will not be used for other purposes. Furthermore, our payments processing vendor has agreed to maintain the confidentiality, security, and integrity of the personal and financial information it obtains from the Pocketville website, and only to use this information on our behalf. Our financial institution is bound by all applicable privacy laws relating to the provision of financial services.
Access to Information, and Objection to Information Collection and Retention
Please contact our Privacy Director as provided below if you would like to access the personally identifiable information that we have collected online from you or your child, correct factual errors in such information, request to have this information deleted, request that we no longer collect or maintain such information, or if you would like information about the organizations we disclose personally identifiable information to and how to contact them.
Please be sure to include your email address and a telephone number where we can reach you. To protect you and your child's privacy and security, we will take reasonable steps to help verify your identity before granting you access to the personal information that we collect and maintain about you or your child.
Contact Us
If you have questions or wish to send us comments about this Privacy Policy, please send an e-mail with your questions or comments to privacy@inmypocket.com or write us:
Privacy Director
MEG
2041 Rosecrans Avenue, Ste # 359
El Segundo, CA 90245
USA
Or call us at +1-323-648-7788.
Please be assured that any personal information that you provide in communications to the above email and postal mail addresses will not be used to send you promotional materials, unless you so request.
A Final Note to Parents
The Internet offers a world of opportunity for children. Your guidance and involvement are essential to help ensure that children have a safe and rewarding online experience. We encourage you to visit GetNetWise.org, a website prepared and maintained by the Internet Education Foundation, and look through the "Kids Safety" section together. Your efforts to instill responsible information practices will help steer your children to age-appropriate sites and will go a long way toward ensuring that your children have enriching experiences online.
Effective Date
The privacy policy set out above is effective as of February 9, 2009, and applies to all information previously obtained by MEG. We reserve the right to change the privacy policy at our sole discretion. Users will be informed of any such change by us posting a new privacy policy on the website and the effective date of any change of privacy policy will be clearly marked. As required by law, we will not use personally identifiable information in ways that are materially different from the ones described in this Privacy Policy without also providing notification of such practices and obtaining consent to any such different uses.
Updated: February 9, 2009