Privacy Policy

ShoutAbout helps people better share and discover information to effect social change. We know that you care about how your personal information is used and shared, and we take your privacy very seriously. Please read the following to learn more about how we treat information that we collect through your use of shoutabout.org (the "Website") and any other functionality or services offered by ShoutAbout (collectively, the "Services"). By using the Services, you agree to and accept the practices outlined in this Privacy Policy. Please note that, although certain functions of the Services may link you to or provide you access to services or websites offered by third parties, this Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of those third parties, and ShoutAbout is not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties.

Information Collected by ShoutAbout

As part of the Services, we may collect the following types of information from you when you use the Services ("User Information"):

Registration Information: In order to access certain portions of the Services you must complete a registration form. In this registration form, we collect certain personal or Organizational information, such as your full name, Organization name, type of Organization, gender, birthdate, ZIP code, and email address. If you register for a personal account, this information will be kept private, unless you set your privacy settings to disclose this information on your profile. Please note that, depending on how you configure the privacy settings for your account, individuals may be able to see any information you post to your profile, including your name. Accordingly, we recommend that you refrain from posting sensitive information, such as social security numbers or credit card numbers, on your profile or anywhere else through the Services. If you register as an Organization, your profile will be public, which means that your Organization's name and information will be visible to others. ShoutAbout maintains a complete list of the Organizations that have registered for an account with ShoutAbout on a publicly available webpage located at shoutabout.org/about/?a=memberOrgs. For purposes of this Privacy Policy, an "Organization" includes any company, news organization, non-profit or other type of organization.

Usage Information. ShoutAbout may collect certain usage data, such as your IP address, URL request, browser type, and the date and time of a request, and may track certain information you provide to ShoutAbout through the Services, such as keyword preferences. ShoutAbout may use cookies (as further described below) or other automated mechanisms to collect this information and may collect this information on an aggregate or individual basis. ShoutAbout uses this information to help administer, manage and improve the Services, analyze trends, and to tailor your user experience, including tailoring what you may see on the Website. In addition, ShoutAbout may use anonymized usage statistics that may be derived from this information for marketing or reporting purposes.

Third Party. ShoutAbout may provide you the option to utilize functionality that will allow you to share information from your accounts with third party services, such as Facebook, with ShoutAbout in order to provide you a more streamlined and integrated experience. For example, some social networking services allow you to push content from ShoutAbout to your contacts or to pull information about your contacts so you can connect with them on or through the Services. Some social networking services also will facilitate your registration for ShoutAbout or enhance or personalize your experience on ShoutAbout. In the event that ShoutAbout becomes integrated with any of these third party services, your decision to use a social networking service in connection with ShoutAbout is voluntary.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files that the Services can send to your browser for storage on your computer. ShoutAbout may use cookies to control the display of ads, to track usage patterns on the site, to deliver editorial content, and to record registration and personalize your user experience. For example, to facilitate registration and login functions, ShoutAbout may use cookies to recognize when you return to the Services so that you do not have to resubmit your logon credentials. In order to clear this logon information, for example if using a public terminal, you should log out of your account. While many browsers allow you to change your settings in order to refuse cookies or to be alerted when cookies are being sent, ShoutAbout recommends that you leave cookies enabled, as disabling cookies may prevent you from using and may interfere with some functionality of the Services.

E-mail Communications

ShoutAbout may send you emails containing ShoutAbout-related news, products, offers, surveys or promotions. You may also receive notification emails from ShoutAbout to inform you of changes in the Services, new service offerings or other information related to your use of the Services. If you do not want to receive marketing email from ShoutAbout, please visit the Email Preferences section of your user profile or follow the opt-out instructions contained in email messages you receive from us. However, please note that, even if you choose not to receive marketing emails from ShoutAbout, you will continue to receive all emails related to your use of the Services (e.g. those regarding forgotten user passwords) from ShoutAbout.

Sharing of User Information with Third Parties

Generally, except as set forth above, ShoutAbout does not share User Information with third parties without your consent. Nonetheless, in order to maximize your user experience on the Service, the following individuals or entities may have access to User Information:

ShoutAbout Personnel: ShoutAbout personnel may have access to User Information as necessary for ShoutAbout to operate its business and to provide you with the Services.

Third Party Service Providers: ShoutAbout may share User Information with its third party service providers solely as necessary for those third party service providers to provide services to ShoutAbout.

Business Transfers: If ShoutAbout is acquired by or ShoutAbout otherwise sells substantially all of its assets to another company, ShoutAbout will transfer any User Information it has in its possession to the other company as part of the sale or transfer of the company or assets.

Protection of ShoutAbout and Others: We may share User Information when we believe in good faith that release is necessary to comply with a governmental or court order; to comply with applicable law; to comply with a subpoena from a third party; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of ShoutAbout, our employees, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Data Analysis: ShoutAbout may use, transfer, sell, and share aggregated, anonymous data derived from User Information for any business purpose, including for purposes of analyzing usage trends and seeking compatible advertisers and partners. This data will not include any personally identifiable information.

Children Under 18 Years of Age

You must be 13 years old or older to register to use the Services. As a result, ShoutAbout does not specifically collect information about children. If we learn that ShoutAbout has collected information from a child under the age of 13, we will delete that information promptly. We recommend that minors between the ages of 13 and 18 ask and receive their parents' permission before using ShoutAbout or sending information about themselves or anyone else over the Internet.

Transfer of Information

Your information may be transferred to, and maintained on, servers and databases located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the privacy laws may not be as protective as your jurisdiction. Please be advised that we may transfer your information to and from any state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction, and process it in the United States or elsewhere. By using the Services, you consent to any such transfer of your information.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

ShoutAbout may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time, at its sole discretion. Use of information we collect is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time such information is used. If we make changes to the Privacy Policy, we will notify you by posting an announcement on the Website so you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, it is disclosed.

Effective Date of this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy is effective as of March 8, 2013.