Nick.com is the place in cyberspace where fans of Nickelodeon can come to find out more about their favorite Nick stars, play games and have their opinions heard. Nick.com believes in the power of kids and we urge both kids and their parents to use and enjoy our website. While we encourage the interactive nature of online media, we strive to educate parents and kids about how to appropriately safeguard their privacy when traveling on the Web. Nick.com is committed to complying fully with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998. Our information collection practices are described below. We urge kids to check with their parents before entering information on any website and we urge parents to discuss with their kids restrictions regarding the online release of personal information to anyone they don't know.
What Information Is Collected?
At nick.com, it's our policy to create website content that requires minimum collection of information from our visitors. Generally, nick.com limits our collection of information from kids to what is known as non-personally identifiable information (e.g. screen name, birthday, gender, state, zip code and country of residence). This information is collected so kids can participate in activities (e.g. chat with celebrities, post messages, play online games) without giving unnecessary personal information. From time to time, however, we may request limited personally identifiable information (e.g. kid's email address and/or email address of parent or third party), as explained below, in order to conduct online contests or sweepstakes or offer other online activities (e.g. electronic postcards, newsletters).
Nick.com does not condition a kid's participation in any of our online activities on the disclosure of more information than is reasonably necessary to participate in the activity. As explained below, we also collect from parents additional types of information (e.g., credit card and billing information) when they purchase products and offerings at our site.
Electronic Newsletter Subscription
Nick.com offers kids the opportunity to sign up to receive the Nick.com newsletter by email. When a kid asks to receive our email newsletter, the child is asked to provide his or her first name, email address and the email address of his or her parent. Within two business days of receiving this information, we send the child's parent a notification email informing him or her of the child's request to receive by email the Nick.com newsletter on an ongoing basis and give the parent the option to have his or her child's information be removed from our Nick.com 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 Nick.com newsletter and have the child's information removed from our Nick.com newsletter by following the "unsubscribe" instructions found in either their initial notification email or at the end of any of the Nick.com newsletter emails. In addition, parents may at any time review any identifiable information collected about their child (see below, Parental Access).
All information collected for Nick.com newsletters is used only to send the child the electronic newsletter and may be transferred, disclosed, or shared with third parties who may be engaged by us specifically to handle the preparation and delivery of the electronic newsletter and perform other related technical and processing functions. These third parties may not use it for other purposes and have agreed to maintain the confidentiality of such information.
Contests and Sweepstakes
Nick.com occasionally offers contests and sweepstakes, which may be entered online. To participate in a contest or sweepstakes, a child is asked to provide his or her first name and email address. Sometimes, when we conduct contests or sweepstakes that may involve more than a one-time contact, we ask additionally for the email address of his or her parent. In such types of contests or sweepstakes, we send the child's parent an email within two business days informing him or her of the child's entry and give the parent the option to have the child's entry deleted. All the information collected by nick.com is securely maintained and used only for the purpose of conducting the contest or sweepstakes. Once the contest or sweepstakes if finished, we then delete any personal information collected. The information collected in a nick.com sweepstakes may be passed to a fulfillment house which may use the information to help run the contest or sweepstakes and may not use it for other purposes and has agreed to maintain the confidentiality of such information.
Electronic Postcards and Email Messages
Nick.com provides kids the opportunity to send electronic postcards featuring Nickelodeon characters or original artwork to family or friends. Also, nick.com features information about products that kids are interested in and from time to time will send, on behalf of kids who request it, email messages to family and/or friends to let family and/or friends share their interest. We may ask for a first name, but we do not require kids to submit personally identifiable information about themselves in order to send an electronic postcard or for nick.com to send email messages to family or friends. We do, however, ask kids to submit the email address of the recipient of such electronic postcards or email messages.
Nick.com may also provide the opportunity to send e-mail to us. We may ask for first names, but we request no personally identifiable information except an e-mail address, which we use solely for the purpose of responding to messages and/or requests..
All information collected for electronic postcards and email messages is used only to send the requested electronic postcard or email message and to respond to email questions and/or requests and is deleted from our system once the electronic postcard, email message or email response is sent.
"Nick Arcade"/Ordering from the Site and Opening An Account
When customers make purchases through nick.com (e.g., phone calls from "Nickelodeon Calls You" or games from "Nick Arcade") other than by using the Nick Arcade Game Card (which does not require our customers to enter any personally identifiable information), customers are required to provide their full name, billing and/or shipping addresses, email address, credit card number/expiration date and, only in the case of Nickelodeon Calls You, a phone number. We also provide our customers the opportunity to send to family and friends gift items purchased by the customer. Along those lines, we will send, on behalf of customers who request it, emails to family or friends notifying them that someone has sent them a gift. To do this, we ask customers to provide us with their family member or friend's first name and email address. We only use this information to send the gift recipient the item(s) the customer has requested their family or friend receive. During the checkout process, customers are provided the opportunity to receive newsletters, sales and promotions from Nickelodeon. To be removed from the contact list at any time, customers can elect to unsubscribe in the next email they receive from Nickelodeon.
Nick Arcade customers may email us their questions about the games and our site. Specific questions concerning the Nick Arcade Game Card should be directed here: Nick Game Card Other than a parental email address, we do not request that users submit any personal information online for customer service inquiries. We may however ask for additional non-personal information to better help us respond to customer service questions. We use the parental email address to communicate directly with parents about technology-related questions, and provide them with answers that they and their child may find helpful. We do not sell, transfer or share the parental email address with third parties, with the exception that the information is transferred, disclosed and shared with our third party agent who uses the information solely to handle and manage customer service, but cannot use it for other purposes and has agreed to maintain the confidentiality of such information. Once we or our third party agent have had a chance to provide email responses to customer service email questions, the parental email address is deleted from our system.
Nick.com uses or may use personally identifiable information that kids provide for such purposes as sending requested electronic postcards and email messages on their behalf, and conducting contests or sweepstakes, and responding to their questions regarding our products and services. Nick.com currently does not disclose to third parties personally identifiable information that kids provide, except from time to time, we may transfer, disclose or share such information with third parties who may be engaged by us specifically to handle and deliver certain online activities (e.g. conducting contests and sweepstakes). Such third parties have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes. Additionally, in the event that all or substantially all of the assets relating to nick.com are transferred or sold to another entity, personally identifiable information submitted to us may be transferred to the acquiring entity. Finally, we may also disclose personally identifiable information to third parties in order to comply with law or requests by law enforcement agencies, to enforce our Terms and Conditions or to protect the rights, property or safety of our website, users of our website and others.
Information Received from the Nick Shop
The website for the Nick Shop, www.shop.nickjr.com, which is hosted and operated by a third party and is independent and separate from nick.com, collects personal information about its users and shares and transfers such information with us. We use the personal information we receive internally within Nickelodeon but we do not sell, transfer or share this personally identifiable information with third parties except from time to time, we may transfer, disclose or share such information with third parties who may be engaged by us specifically to handle and manage certain analysis of the data or other functions (e.g., fulfilling contests and sweepstakes conducted on the Shop to which we are sponsors). Such third parties have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use such personally identifiable information for other purposes and have agreed to maintain the confidentiality of any information they receive from us.
We are always looking for ways to improve your shopping experience with Nickelodeon. In order to accomplish this goal, we may at times solicit additional personally identifiable information from third party marketing organizations. This information, in addition to the information you have already provided, will help us to offer new Nickelodeon products and services we believe may be of interest to you.
Additionally, in the event that all or substantially all of the assets relating to nick.com are transferred or sold to another entity, personal information we received from the Shop may be transferred to the acquiring entity. Finally, we may also disclose personal information about Shop users to third parties in order to comply with law or requests by law enforcement agencies, to enforce the Shop's Terms and Conditions or to protect the rights, property or safety of the Shop's users and others.
In addition, we may use the personal information received from the Shop to provide you with our print catalog, and to contact those Shop users who have asked that Nickelodeon contact them directly about such things as sales and special offers. To request that we discontinue sending you our catalog, please contact as at Nick Online, 1515 Broadway, New York, NY 10036, ATTN: Catalog Manager. To opt-out of receiving sales and special offers, simply follow the unsubscribe information at the bottom of any Nickelodeon newsletter that you receive.
Cookies and Log Data
Cookies are information files that your web browser places on the hard drive of your computer when you visit a website. Cookies cannot damage user files, nor can they read information from a user's hard drive. Cookies allow websites to "remember" users' activities on a website as well as users visits to a site. At nick.com, cookies are used to determine the number of unique visitors to our website over a given period and to remember user screen names so that the need for multiple log-ins is eliminated. We do not store any personal information into cookies nor do we link or combine information collected through cookies to any personal information that kids submit online when participating in our activities. You can, of course, disable cookies on your computer by indicating this in the preferences or options menus in your browser.
The ads appearing on nick.com are delivered to you by a third party ad service provider. In the course of serving ads, the ad service provider may place or recognize their own unique cookie on your browser, and may use non-personally identifiable information about your visit to nick.com, such as the number of times that you have viewed an ad. For more information about the third party ad service provider and how to "opt out" of the ad serving cookie, please click here.
Log data collected on web servers both within nick.com's control and under the control of nick.com's third party ad service provider, who is required to maintain such data on a confidential basis, supplies nick.com with aggregate information about the number of visits to different pages on our site. Nick.com uses such aggregate information to improve access to our content based on our visitors' browsers and operating system types to make our content available to as many kids as possible. We do not link the log data collected to the personal information that kids submit online when participating in our activities.
Parental Access
At nick.com, our goal is to help parents ensure that their kids have a safe and fun online experience. That's why we've set up a system by which parents can print out and mail or fax us a signed form that allows them to review any identifiable information collected about their child, have this information deleted, and/or request that there be no further collection or use of their child's information. You can link to the form from here. Nick.com takes steps to verify the identity of anyone requesting information about a child and to ensure that the person is in fact the child's parent or legal guardian.
Security
Nick.com has taken steps to ensure that personally identifiable information collected in the future is secure, including limiting the number of people who have physical access to our database servers as well as electronic security systems and password protections which guard against unauthorized access.
Nick.com provides a "bumper page" when linking from nick.com to an advertiser's site, which lets kids know they are going to an advertiser's site and reminds them not to give out information online without getting permission from their parents.
Nick.com provides links to other websites that may have their own information collection practices such as Nickelodeon Calls You and the Nick Shop, both of which are operated and hosted by third parties. Nick.com provides internal "bumper pages" that inform kids that they have linked to another site and instructs them not to give out information online before checking with their parents. These other websites are governed by their own privacy policies or information collection practices, which may be substantially different from ours. We encourage visitors to other websites to review the privacy policies and information collection practices of those websites.
Questions/Concerns?
If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding nick.com's privacy policy and/or practices, please email us at:
nickprivacy@nickonline.com
1515 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
Or call this number:
212-846-2543
Nick.com participates in the BBB Online Privacy Seal Program. Further information about this program is available at www.bbbonline.org. This policy, like the online medium itself, is subject to change. We will notify you of material changes by posting them at our site. We encourage you to check back and review this policy, from time to time, so that you always will know what information we collect, how we use it, and to whom we disclose it.
To parents: Nick.com offers you and your child an online safety guide which we encourage you to use as an entrée into discussing safety and privacy concerns with your child. It can be reached by clicking on the "Online Safety" link.
The nick.com website is intended for domestic viewers and is consequently directed towards residents of the United States.
YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS
Beginning on January 1, 2005, California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits our visitors who are California residents to request certain information regarding its disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an e-mail to caprivacy@nickonline.com or write us:
Nick.com CA Privacy Coordinator
Nickelodeon Online
1515 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
COPYRIGHT POLICY
We take protection of copyrights, both our own and others, very seriously. We therefore employ multiple measures to prevent copyright infringement over this Site and to promptly end any infringement that might occur. If you believe that the Site contains elements that infringe your copyrights in your work, please follow the procedures set forth in our Copyright Compliance Policy
This Privacy Policy was last updated on May 18, 2007
