1. Introduction
www.barkinbuddy.com (Barkin’ Buddy) is developed and published by Radical Ideas Group Pty Ltd ACN 137 869 704 (“RIG”) a company registered in Australia. All intellectual property rights are owned by RIG. Any information that you provide through our site may be collected and used by Barkin’ Buddy, governed by this privacy policy.
This statement sets out Barkin’ Buddy’s policies relating to the collection and use of your personal information. It applies to your conduct on Barkin’ Buddy. These policies are in addition to Barkin’ Buddy’s general Terms and Conditions of Use and should be read in conjunction with such Terms and Conditions of use.
Please note that separate privacy policies apply to the use of co-branded sites that are available through Barkin’ Buddy but are not operated by Barkin’ Buddy (“Co-Branded Sites”). Before disclosing your personal information to any Co-branded Sites you should read the relevant policy or terms of use.
2. Your personal information is important to us
We recognise that your privacy is very important and that you have a right to control personal information. We know that providing personal information is an act of trust and we take that seriously. The following sections set out how we handle and protect your personal information and safeguard your privacy.
3. Barkin’ Buddy Membership
Barkin’ Buddy has implemented a membership system which offers a more rewarding and personalised experience (“Membership”). To become a member and obtain the full benefits of Membership, you register your details with us and log in as a member each time you visit Barkin’ Buddy.
To become a Barkin’ Buddy member, you must first obtain user logins from Barkin’ Buddy, by setting up your Barkin’ Buddy account At sign-up, you will be prompted for information such as your e-mail address, password, secret question, country, state and postcode.
4. How we collect information about you
There are four main ways we collect information about you:
Access Device and Browser Information:
When you access Barkin’ Buddy from a computer, mobile phone, or other device, we may collect information from that device about your browser type, location, and IP address, as well as the pages you visit.
If you are not or do not log in as a Barkin’ Buddy member:
Whenever you visit Barkin’ Buddy, our servers automatically record information about your usage of the website, such as the time of the visit, its duration and the pages you visit. This is to help us understand what parts of our website our users enjoy the most and to help us ensure that advertisements on the website are most directly relevant to your interests. If you have not identified yourself on the website, such as by registering for Membership or logging in as a member, the information we collect about you remains anonymous.
If you log in as a Barkin’ Buddy member:
Once you have become a Barkin’ Buddy member, we collect personal information about you in order to provide you with the full benefits of Membership. When you first register for Membership, we collect information from you such as your e-mail, name and suburb, and will continue to add to your member profile as you interact more on the website, for example, if you enter a competition or subscribe to our newsletters.
If you enter into a competition:
When you enter into a competition on the website, you may be prompted to sign in to Membership. This will streamline the entry process, as many of the competition entry fields will be pre-populated with information we already hold about you. You may be required to provide further information to satisfy the entry conditions. If the competition is being sponsored by an advertiser, you may be prompted to opt-in to receive further promotional material from that third party. If you consent to this, then at the end of the competition, we will provide the information on your entry form to that third party. Use of your personal information will be in accordance with this Privacy Policy as well as that of the third party. The URL or contact details for third party privacy policies will appear in the competition terms and conditions.
5. How we preserve your privacy
We understand that even with our Privacy Policy, some people will not feel comfortable disclosing personal information in order to become a Barkin’ Buddy member. If you don’t feel comfortable disclosing your real identity but still want to take advantage of Barkin’ Buddy Membership, you can register for Membership using a pseudonym (or “nym”) – a different name. This way, you choose your own nym, which might be “Joe Bloggs” or “Jane Doe”, and that’s what we will call you. We won’t know who you really are, but we will still be able to find out what you like most on our website and therefore give you the most enjoyable and customised experience of the website possible.
6. Our use of cookies
Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to your computer’s hard disk for record-keeping purposes. Most web browsers are set to accept cookies. However, if you do not wish to receive any cookies, you may set your browser to refuse them. In some instances this may mean you will not be able to take full advantage of parts of the website.
The use of cookies can enhance your enjoyment of what we offer, because they help us personalise your experience of our website by providing information which is most relevant to your interests. Cookies provide us with aggregated information on how users interact on our website, track which advertisements are effective and help us improve your website experience. We also use cookies to operate the Membership system, as they help us identify visitors to the website who have previously registered. Cookies do not personally identify you, but your browser.
7. How we use and disclose your information
We will not disclose any information about you without your consent unless it is:
Required by law;
- We believe it necessary in order to provide you with a service which you have requested;
- We suspect that your use of the website is in breach of the Terms and Conditions of Use;
- To protect the rights or property of Barkin’ Buddy, any Barkin’ Buddy user or any member of the public; or
- To lessen a serious threat to a person’s health or safety.
We will never share your personal information with a third party or allow a third party to promote its products and services directly to you without your explicit consent.
In order to operate the website or deliver a service you have explicitly requested, we sometimes share your personal information with an affiliate or with a service partner.
8. Sharing Information on Barkin’ Buddy
Barkin’ Buddy is designed to make it easy for you to find and connect with others, however you can restrict other users from accessing some of your information via choosing to select “visible” or “invisible” mode in the application itself. We share your information with third parties when we believe the sharing is permitted by you, reasonably necessary to offer our services, or when legally required to do so.
Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your information, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other users with whom you share your information. We cannot guarantee that only authorized persons will view your information.
We cannot ensure that information you share on Barkin’ Buddy will not become publicly available. We are not responsible for third party circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures on Barkin’ Buddy. You can reduce these risks by using common sense security practices such as choosing a strong password, using different passwords for different services, and using up to date antivirus software.
9. Communicating with Barkin’ Buddy members: service messages and promotional messages we send to you
We send our members service e-mails which contain important information about updates, changes and developments on the website, such as if we take down a service which we know you are currently using, or, if we have improved a service and want to communicate its new functionality to you. For you to continue to make the most of what is available on the website, it is essential that we send these communications.
From time to time, we will send you member-only offers from our carefully selected partners, e-mail newsletters to which you have subscribed, and tell you about new competitions.
You can manage the type of information you receive from us by:
- updating your Membership profile;
- unsubscribing from the message you receive; or
- e-mailing us on our privacy feedback form (please allow seven days for this request to be processed).
10. How we store your information and keep it secure
We will take all reasonable steps to keep secure any information we hold about you and to keep this information accurate and up to date. Your information is stored on secure servers that are protected in controlled facilities.
In addition, our employees and the contractors who provide services related to our information systems are obliged to respect the confidentiality of any personal information held by us. However, we will not be held responsible for events arising from unauthorised access to your personal information.
You can also play an important role in keeping your personal information secure by maintaining the confidentiality of any password and accounts used on Barkin’ Buddy. Please notify us immediately if there is any unauthorised use of your account by any other Internet user or any other breach of security.
11. How you can access your information
If you are a Barkin’ Buddy member, you can access, change and update your Membership profile at any time on the website. If you wish to know what other information we have gathered about you while you have been logged in to the website, you can request this information via our privacy feedback. We will endeavour to respond to your request within seven days.
12. What happens on Co-Branded sites and Barkin’ Buddy links to other websites
We provide links to websites outside our website. These linked sites are not under the control of Barkin’ Buddy and we do not accept responsibility for the conduct of companies linked to our website. Before disclosing your personal information on any other website, we advise you to read the terms and conditions and privacy policy of that website.
There are also a number of Co-Branded sites on our website which may operate under their own terms and conditions and privacy policy.
Before disclosing your personal information to any Co-Branded sites, you should read the relevant policy or terms of use. In some cases, the specific terms on the Co-Branded site will override Barkin’ Buddy’s own policies.
13. What to do if you have a problem or question
If you make us aware of any ongoing concerns or problems with our website, we will take these issues seriously and work to address these concerns. You can contact us using the privacy feedback.
14. Changes to the Privacy Policy
Our commitment to make Barkin’ Buddy the leading website for dogs means that we are constantly adding new sites and features to our website. We will continuously review our Privacy Policy to ensure that it protects your privacy while supporting your user experience on the website. We encourage you to keep visiting our Privacy Policy to see if any updates have been made.
15. Display of Advertising (your choices)
Many of the Web sites and online services we offer, as well as those of our partners, are supported by advertising. We may display ads on Barkin’ Buddy (including the websites and mobile sites bearing the Barkin’ Buddy header and footer), and the sites of our advertising partners including our third party ad network.
When we display online advertisements to you, we will place a one or more persistent cookies on your computer in order to recognize your computer each time we display an ad to you. The cookies we use for advertising have an expiry date of no more than 2 years. Because we may serve advertisements on many different Web sites, we are able to compile information over time about where you, or others who are using your computer, saw and/or clicked on the advertisements we display. We use this information to make predictions about your characteristics, interests or preferences and to display targeted advertisements that we believe may be of interest to you. We may also associate this information with your subsequent visit, purchase or other activity on participating advertisers sites in order to determine the effectiveness of the advertisements.
While we may use some of the information we collect in order to personalize the ads we show you, the systems we use are designed to select ads based only on data that does not personally and directly identify you. For example, we may select the ads we display according to certain general interest categories or segments that we have inferred based on (a) demographic or interest data, including any you may have provided when creating an account (e.g. age, zip or postal code, gender), demographic or interest data acquired from other companies, and a general geographic location derived from your IP address, (b) the pages you view and links you click when using the Barkin’ Buddy website and its advertising partners web sites and services, and (c) the search terms you enter when using internet search services, and (d) information about the users you most frequently interact with through the Barkin’ Buddy website.
When we display personalized targeted ads, we take a number of steps designed to protect your privacy. For example, page views, clicks and search terms used for ad personalization targeting are stored separately from your contact information or other data that directly identifies you (such as your name, e-mail address, etc.). We also give you the ability to control your preferences to receive this type of advertising via the Barkin’ Buddy opt out tool.
16. Further information on Privacy
For more information about privacy issues in Australia, visit the Australian Federal Privacy Commissioner’s website ( www.privacy.gov.au ).
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