Privacy policy

SLASHDOT MEDIA PRIVACY POLICY

Last Updated:  December 23, 2019

At Slashdot Media LLC (“Slashdot Media,” “Slashdot,” “we,” “us” or “our”) we take your privacy and the security of your information very seriously.

We are committed to good privacy practices regarding your data. Your loyalty as a customer or visitor is important, and we hope that our concerns regarding your privacy, as described in this Privacy Policy, demonstrate our commitment to making your experience with us an enjoyable and satisfying one.

This policy (“Privacy Policy” or “Policy”) covers Slashdot owned and operated websites (“Site” or “Sites”), including SlashdotMedia.com, SourceForge.net, Slashdot.org, and any services we may offer via these sites or otherwise (collectively, the “Services”). This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and is part of our Terms of Use available at https://tmonews.com/terms-of-use/ which govern your use of the Services, unless you have entered into a separate written agreement with Slashdot. If you have entered into a separate written agreement with Slashdot, that separate written agreement shall control, only those terms within this Privacy Policy that do not conflict with said separate written agreement shall apply.

If you have any questions regarding this Policy please contact us at privacy@slashdotmedia.com.

The Policy describes the types of information we gather from people visiting our Site and/or using our Services and from individual users (“you” or “users”) interacting with our Site and Services and how we use, transfer, and secure such information. By accessing any Site or using any Services, you agree to be bound by this Policy. This Policy does not govern information we receive from third parties. If you do not agree to the terms of this Policy, please do not use the Site, or any of our Services. Each time you use any Site, or any Services, the current version of this Privacy Policy will apply. Accordingly, when you use any Site or Services, you should check the date of this Policy (which appears at the top) and review any changes since you last reviewed the Policy.

We encourage you to re We may also share your Personal Informationview the entire Policy. Please click on any of the links below to review that particular section.

  1. The information we gather

  2. How we use the information we gather

  3. How we share information we gather

  4. Cookies, Web Beacons and Similar Tracking Technologies

  5. Security

  6. Polls & Sweepstakes

  7. Social Media Features

  8. Social Media Logins

  9. Children

  10. California Residents

  11. Canadian Residents

  12. European Economic Area (EEA) Rights under GDPR

  13. Visitors and Users of our Sites from Outside the United States

  14. Changes to this Privacy Policy

  15. Questions?

Privacy Shield Framework and Related Information

Slashdot complies with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of Personal Data. For purposes of this Policy, “Personal Data” means information that (i) is transferred from the EU to the United States, (ii) is recorded in any form, (iii) is about, or relates to, an identified or identifiable individual, and (iv) can be linked to that individual. Slashdot has certified to the Department of Commerce that it adheres to the Privacy Shield Principles. If there is any conflict between the terms in this privacy policy and the Privacy Shield Principles, the Privacy Shield Principles shall govern. To learn more about the Privacy Shield Framework, visit the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Privacy Shield List. [https://www.privacyshield.gov/list]

Slashdot is responsible for the processing of Personal Data it receives, under the Privacy Shield Framework, and subsequently transfers to a third party acting as an agent on its behalf. Slashdot complies with the Privacy Shield Principles for all onward transfers of Personal Data from the EU, including the onward transfer liability provisions.

With respect to Personal Data received or transferred pursuant to the Privacy Shield Framework, Slashdot is subject to the regulatory enforcement powers of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. In certain situations, Slashdot may be required to disclose Personal Data in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

In compliance with the Privacy Shield Principles, Slashdot commits to resolve complaints about our collection or use of your Personal Data. EU and Swiss individuals with inquiries or complaints regarding our Privacy Shield policy should first contact Slashdot at: Slashdot Media LLC, PO Box 2452, La Jolla, CA 92038 or email us at privacy@slashdotmedia.com.

Further, we require service providers to whom we disclose Personal Data and who are not subject to laws based on the European Union General Data Protection Regulation to either subscribe to the United States / European Union Privacy Shield principles or agree to provide at least the same level of protection for Personal Data as is required by the relevant Privacy Shield principles, for instance by entering into Standard Contractual Clauses, as promulgated by the European Commission. If the third party does not comply with its privacy obligations, Slashdot will take commercially reasonable steps to prevent or stop the use or disclosure of Personal Data.

Slashdot has further committed to refer unresolved Privacy Shield complaints to European Data Protection Authorities (EU DPAs) or the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), alternative dispute resolution providers located in each EU country or Switzerland, respectively. If you do not receive timely acknowledgment of your complaint from us, or if we have not addressed your complaint to your satisfaction, please contact or visit the DPA in your country (find a EU list here and a Swiss list here) for more information or to file a complaint. The services of EU and Swiss DPAs are provided at no cost to you.

Under certain conditions, more fully described on the Privacy Shield website [https://www.privacyshield.gov/article?id=How-to-Submit-a-Complaint], you may invoke binding arbitration when other dispute resolution procedures have been exhausted.

A. The information we gather

We gather the two types of information about users, “Personal Information” which is information is about, or relates to, an identified or identifiable individual, or that can be linked to that individual (such as name, email address, etc.) and “Aggregate Information” which is information that cannot be used to identify you (such as frequency of visits to one of our Sites, browser type, etc.) Please note that we may convert Personal Information into Aggregate information via one or more processes at our discretion.

Categories of Personal Information Collected

Information you give us: In certain areas of the Sites, such as those in which you register for and complete a profile, post content that you have created (such as blogs, articles, photos or reviews), create a new account, subscribe to any of our mailing lists or promotions, or enter contests sponsored by us, or indicate that you want to receive more information about certain products or services, we may request that you provide us with certain personal information. By doing so, depending on the functionality used, you could choose to provide us one or more categories of Personal Information. Categories of Personal Information that may be provided, include your username for the Sites or third party social media services, e-mail address, phone number, name, postcode, profession, job title, or work experience, or other categories of Personal Information you may choose to provide. We will, in such situations, seek to identify which informational items are required and which are optional, based on the country that you specify or approximate location derived from your IP address. Further, you may choose to provide Personal Information through participation in Polls & Sweepstakes, as further explained in the corresponding section below.

Information we collect about you automatically: When you use the Sites or Services we may automatically collect technical information and information about your visit including pages you visited, the order in which they were visited, page interaction information (such as the links you “clicked” or the content you viewed or consumed), the type of device you are using, IP address, operating system, header information and browser software. We may collect information that allows us to associate you with your social media or other accounts that you have on other websites. Where such information meets the definition of Personal Information, such as IP address, we will treat it as such.

Testimonials and reviews: We post customer testimonials and user reviews on the Sites. Customer testimonials will be posted only with the customer’s permission. Testimonials and reviews may contain Personal Information.

Information we receive from other sources: We work closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners, sub-contractors in technical and payment services, and advertising networks) and may receive information about you from them. We may work with third parties to collect information that allows us to associate you with your social media or other accounts that you have on other websites.

Categories of Aggregate Information Collected

Aggregate Information: We may collect Aggregate Information that does not identify you, or aggregate the data we collect from you (including without limitation the IP addresses, and operating system and browser software type) to create Aggregate Information to help us identify the most popular areas of the Sites and determine the effectiveness of our promotional activities. In the course of aggregating the data, we anonymize and de-identify it so it cannot be associated with you, which means that Aggregated Data is not Personal Information. We may disclose Aggregated Data to advertisers to inform them of the number of people who have seen and/or clicked through their advertisements, or for other purposes at our discretion.

B. How we use the information we gather

Please take some time to familiarize yourself with the different ways we use the information we gather. Keep in mind that, we: (a) we require the companies to which we transfer your Personal Information to comply with applicable laws relating to Personal Information, and more generally, we encourage all third parties we interact with, including but not limited to advertisers and vendors, to adhere to our policies regarding the privacy of our visitors and users and to otherwise handle Personal Information in a responsible manner; and (b) in accordance with relevant data security and privacy laws, we have put in place appropriate technical and organizational measures designed to ensure the security of your Personal Information. However, notwithstanding those measures, to the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not assume any responsibility for any actions or omissions of third parties, including the manner in which they use information received either from us or independently. Nevertheless, in the event you encounter any third party associated with us, or who claims association with us, who you feel is improperly collecting or using information about you, please contact privacy@slashdotmedia.com.

  1. How we use Aggregate Information: As we explain above, Aggregated Information does not identify any specific individual and is not Personal Information. However, we would like you to understand how we use Aggregated Information. We use Aggregated Information to build higher quality, more useful Services by performing statistical analyses of the collective characteristics and behavior of our visitors and users, and by measuring demographics and interests regarding specific areas of the Services. We may sell, rent or lease statistical information based on this data to advertisers, users, and other current and potential business partners. We may also use Aggregated Information to inform these third parties as to the number of people who have seen and clicked through links to their websites. With respect to polls, we will treat information provided by you in accordance with this section and Section F (Polls & Sweepstakes) below. Circumstances under which we would publicly disclose such Aggregated Information include, but are not limited to, sharing poll results on the Sites, providing data to our advertisers on user preferences and/or demographics, and publicizing overall usage data in press communications. Where polls allow users to submit written comments, and where we advise users of the possibility of such disclosure at the time they take the poll, we reserve the right to disclose and/or commercially exploit any information provided by users, provided that no Personal Information identifying a specific user is disclosed. Participation in polls is at a user’s option. You can use our website without answering polls.

  2. How we use Personal Information: We may use Personal Information a user submits for the following purposes related to our business:

    1. To understand a user’s needs and create content that is relevant to the user;

    2. To generate statistical studies;

    3. To build browsing and usage profiles of our users so that we may tailor our offers, and share such profiles with our advertisers and data customers, so that they may tailor their offers to our users’ interests (and we obtain consent when required to create and use these profiles – please click here for more information);

    4. To conduct market research and planning by sending user surveys (with your consent where required – please click here for more information);

    5. To improve services, information, and products;

    6. To help a user complete a transaction, or provide services or customer support to users and to recipients of our products;

    7. To communicate with users and with recipients of our products and Services to provide users with information (by electronic means or otherwise) about other services we offer that are similar to those that a user has already received or enquired about;

    8. Where we have a user’s consent to email users about services, information, products and offers from our business partners (and as set forth in the Section  How we share information we gather);

    9. To personalize a Site for the user;

    10. To provide forms, opt-in and opt-out choices appropriate to a visitor’s geographical location;

    11. To notify the user of any changes with a Site which may affect the user;

    12. To enforce our Terms of Use for a Site, or any terms or conditions applicable to a Site;

    13. To allow the user to purchase products, access services, or otherwise engage in activities the user selects;

    14. To allow us to contact you by phone and/or email for purposes of completing transactions, providing services. customer support, or fulfilling your requests;

    15. To keep track of the consent that you give us to various uses of your Personal Information (and any opt-outs that you exercise initially or later on, along with requests you make under the section EEA Rights; and

    16. To protect the security or integrity of the Sites or our business.

If you are an EEA user, see EEA Rights for an explanation of the types of legal basis for the use of your Personal Information. The uses marked above with an asterisk are based on consent. The other listed uses are based on our legitimate interests, or are necessary to enter into a contract with you or to perform our contractual obligations to you.

When we send certain communications (such as a newsletter) to subscribers of our distribution list, we always allow our users to choose to stop receiving such newsletters or other communications from us by clicking an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our message.

User names, identifications, and email addresses (as well as any additional information that a user may choose to post) may be publicly available on a Site when a user voluntarily and publicly discloses Personal Information, such as when a user posts Personal Information in conjunction with content subject to an open source license, uses features to send a message to another user, or as part of a message posted to a public forum or a publicly-released software application. Such Personal Information may be used by visitors of these pages to send unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for any consequences which may occur from the use of Personal Information that a user chooses to submit to public pages.

C. How we share information we gather

We will share your Personal Information with third parties only in the ways that are described in this privacy statement.

We may share your Personal Information in the following ways:

  1. We may share your Personal Information with third party service providers to help us with our business activities such as email marketing, telemarketing, offering customer service, or operating a community forum. We include provisions within our contract with these companies to ensure that they: (i) use your Personal Information only as necessary to provide these services to us; and (ii) establish safeguards to protect the confidentiality of the information that we provide them.

  2. We may also share your Personal Information with our advertisers, vendors, and customers, including data profiling companies, business-to-business lead buyers, and data aggregation companies that track user behavior. We include provisions within our contract with these companies to ensure that they: (i) use your Personal Information only as permitted by applicable law; and (ii) establish safeguards to protect the confidentiality of the information that we provide them. Please see Additional EEA Rights, which describes the right of users in the European Economic Area to object to the use of your Personal Information for profiling.

  3. We may share with unrelated third parties Aggregate Information compiled from information collected from users of the Sites, without prior notice to you, for any reason in our sole discretion. Aggregate Information is used in a collective manner and no single person can be identified by such compiled information.

  4. We may share certain data from the Sites with researchers and research organizations for the purpose of supporting academic and scholarly research on free and/or open source software. We may further choose to establish agreements for these parties to act in a clearinghouse capacity and authorize them to share this data with other researchers studying free and/or open source software. When data from these websites is transmitted to researchers, we make commercially reasonable efforts to remove Personal Information from data fields designed to capture Personal Information (other than user names and information that users have made publicly available through one of the Sites). We, however, do not guarantee the complete removal of information that may identify a user, particularly in cases where the user has provided that information in comment fields or other fields not specifically designed for the collection of identifiers.

  5. We may disclose information submitted by or concerning any visitor or user as we reasonably feel is necessary to protect our systems, servers, networks or business, to protect and defend our rights or property and/or the rights or property of third parties (as permitted by law), and/or to detect, prevent or otherwise address security or technical issues;

  6. We may also disclose your Personal Information as required by law or regulation, such as to comply with legal processes and/or to meet national security or law enforcement requirements, when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate and address fraud, or respond to a government request. We cooperate with law enforcement agencies in identifying those who may be using our systems, servers, networks or the Services for illegal activities. We also reserve the right to report any suspected illegal activity to law enforcement for investigation or prosecution, or to suspend or terminate your use of the Sites in connection with any suspected illegal or infringing activity or if you are in violation of our Terms of Use Agreement or other published guidelines.

  7. If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, you will be notified via email and/or a prominent notice on any applicable Site of any change in ownership or uses of your Personal Information, as well as any choices you may have regarding your Personal Information. Slashdot reserves the right to assign, sell, license, or otherwise transfer to a third party your Personal Information in connection with an assignment, sale, joint venture, or other transfer or disposition of any portion or all of Slashdot or its affiliated entities’ assets or stock.

D. Cookies, web beacons and similar tracking Technologies

Please review our Cookie and Opt Out Choices Statement for detailed information about our use of cookies, web beacons and other tracking technologies, as well as to learn about your choices to opt out of or turn off cookies, web beacons and other tracking technologies.

Tracking and “Do Not Track” Features. When you visit our Sites, we may automatically collect the name of the website you visit from (called the “referring page”) and the name of the website you choose to visit immediately after ours (called the “exit page”), and we may collect information about other websites you have recently visited. We will not be able to identify you from any of the information we collect in this way. Certain browsers have a “Do Not Track” feature that allows you to tell websites or applications that you do not want to have your online activities tracked. Please consult the “Help” section of your browser for more information. Please note that at this time our Sites generally do not respond to browser “Do Not Track” signals.

Interest-Based Advertising. We may also participate in interest-based advertising using cookies, web beacons and other tracking technologies. This means that you may see advertising on our Sites tailored to how you browse or shop, or you may see our advertising on other websites based on your browsing behavior. Some websites where we may advertise belong to ad networks that use your web browsing history to choose which ads to display on their network websites; these ads include advertising for Slashdot and our Sites. Other websites where you see our ads may use interest preferences that you have chosen on those websites, as well as registration and other information about you, to choose which ads to display to you. Some internet browsers, websites, and mobile devices offer opt-outs for interest-based advertising. Please refer to the website that you are visiting, your browser and/or your device settings, and our Cookie and Opt Out Choices Statement available at https://slashdotmedia.com/opt-out-choices/ for additional information.

You can opt-out of receiving interest-based ads from third parties who are members of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) or who follow the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising by visiting the opt-out pages on the NAI website[http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/] and DAA website [http://www.aboutads.info/choices/]. EEA users can learn more about interest-based advertising– and opt-out – at http://www.youronlinechoices.com/.

Please review our Cookie and Opt Out Choices Statement for more information.

Third party website links & subdomains: Links to third party websites or widgets to enable sharing of information through social networks on the Sites are provided solely as a convenience to the user. When a user uses these links, the user leaves the Sites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies or statements of the other websites. Please be aware that the terms of our Privacy Policy do not apply to these third party websites. We have not reviewed all of these third party sites and do not control, and are not responsible for, any of the third party sites, their content, or their privacy practices. We do not endorse or make any representations about the third party websites, or any information, services, or products found on the websites. If a user decides to access any of the linked websites, we encourage the user to read their privacy statements. The user accesses such websites at user’s own risk.

With respect to SourceForge.net, we deliver the following services via subdomains:

  • Integrated communications;

  • Internet access;

  • Information sharing between developers and end users; and

  • Downloads through third-party mirror providers.

Any Personal Information you provide using any third party content, software, services, and other products are subject to that third party’s policies governing privacy and security.

E. Security

The security of your Personal Information is important to us. When you enter Personal Information on our web forms, we encrypt the Personal Information during transmission.

We follow generally accepted standards to protect Personal Information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, while we will put in place appropriate technical and organizational measures designed to ensure the security of your Personal Information we cannot guarantee that, notwithstanding such compliance by us, information will not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards. It is your responsibility to protect the security of your login information. Please help keep your account safe by using a strong password. We advise that you do not make any confidential information publicly available through our Sites.

If you have any questions about security on our Sites, you can contact us at privacy@slashdotmedia.com.

F. Polls & Sweepstakes

Occasionally, we may conduct polls in order to better deliver advertisements and content and to better understand your needs relating to the Services. We will not share your survey information with any third party, except in aggregate form.

From time to time we may provide you the opportunity to participate in contests or polls on one of our Sites. If you participate, we will request certain Personal Information from you. Participation in these polls or contests is completely voluntary and you therefore have a choice whether or not to disclose this information. The requested information typically includes contact information (such as name and shipping address), and demographic information (such as postcode). Any Personal Information that you submit in connection with these activities will be treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy unless the terms or rules which apply to those contests or polls state otherwise. To the extent that those terms conflict with this Privacy Policy, the terms which govern that particular promotion or sweepstakes will prevail – please remember to read them carefully. We may use the Personal Information we collect to notify contest winners and award prizes, to monitor Site use, to personalize the Sites, to send participants an email, and to measure participants’ demographics, interests and opinions. We may use a third party service provider to conduct these polls or contests; that company will be prohibited from using our users’ Personal Information for any other purpose. We will not share the Personal Information you provide through a contest or poll with other third parties unless we give you prior notice and you have consented. Currently, we offer contests and sweepstakes only to residents of the U.S.A.

G. Social Media Features

The Sites include social media features, such as the Facebook Like button and widgets, that run on our Sites. These features may collect your IP address, which pages you are visiting on our Sites, and may set a cookie to enable the features to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Sites. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it, and not by this Privacy Policy.

H. Social Media Logins

You may be able to log in to our Sites using sign-in services such as Facebook Connect, Google, Twitter or LinkedIn. These services will authenticate your identity and provide you the option to share certain personally identifiable information with us such as your name and email address to pre-populate our sign up form. Social media services may give you the option to post information about your activities on the Sites to your profile page to share with others within your network.

I. Children

Services are not available to children under 18 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 18 years of age. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 18 has provided Personal Information to us, please contact us.  We will take reasonable steps to investigate and if it is confirmed that we possess personally identifiable information of a child under 18 years of age, we will delete information and terminate the child’s account from our databases.  We may require additional information to confirm that the request is a bona fide request from an appropriate person concerning a child under the age of 18.

J. California Residents

Pursuant to Section 1798.83 of the California Civil Code, residents of California have the right to request from a business, with whom the California resident has an established business relationship, certain information with respect to the types of personal information the business shares with third parties for direct marketing purposes by such a third party and the identities of the third parties with whom the business has shared such information during the immediately preceding calendar year. If you are a California resident and want a copy of this notice, please submit a request by writing to: Slashdot Media, LLC dba Slashdot Media, PO Box 2452, La Jolla, CA 92038. In your request, please specify that you want a “Your Slashdot Section 1798.83 California Privacy Rights Notice.” Please allow 30 days for a response.

California Consumer Privacy Act Rights. Under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), California residents have certain rights regarding their Personal Information. If you would like to exercise these rights on or after January 1, 2020, please contact us using the email address, toll-free phone number, physical mailing address, or the interactive Do Not Sell My Information form listed within the “Contact Information” section below. For your own privacy and security, we may require you to prove your identity before providing the requested information, as provided for by the CCPA. It may take us some time to respond to your request, but we will do so within the requirements of the CCPA.

This Policy provides you disclosure regarding the Personal Information we collect from you and the purposes for doing so. Please see “Information We Gather” section above. The CCPA grants you specific rights, including the following:

 ● Right to request disclosure as to Personal Information we have collected about you:

  • Upon a verifiable request, made through one of the methods provided within the “Contact Information” section below, we will disclose to you the items listed below, one or more of which may be provided by reference to this Policy:
    • The categories of Personal Information it has collected about you.
    • The categories of sources from which the Personal Information was collected.
    • The business purpose behind collecting the Personal Information.
    • The categories of third parties with whom Slashdot has shared the information.
    • The specific pieces of Personal Information Slashdot has collected about you.

 ● Right to opt out of the sale of your information. To exercise this right, please visit our opt-out  portal.

 ● Right to request deletion: upon a verifiable request, made through one of the methods provided within the “Contact Information” section below, we will delete personal information we have regarding you and direct our service providers to delete your personal information from their records, to the extent provided by the CCPA.

 ● Right to be free from discrimination: Slashdot will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your rights under the CCPA.

CCPA Contact Information: Slashdot can be reached by telephone at 1-800-552-9000; by email at privacy@slashdotmedia.com; by mail at PO Box 2452, la Jolla, CA 92038, Attention: Privacy Compliance, or via an online interactive portal.

What We May Need From You

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time Limit to Respond

We will respond to all legitimate requests within forty-five days, or as permitted by the CCPA.

K. Canadian Residents

Canadian citizens, except under circumstances defined by law, are entitled to access their own Personal Information, to the extent covered by applicable law, collected by Slashdot by writing to: Slashdot Media, LLC dba Slashdot Media, PO Box 2452, La Jolla, CA 92038.  If you believe that the Personal Information about you that we have collected is incomplete or inaccurate, please contact us and we will correct the information upon verification of the omission or error and of the identity of the person requesting the change.

L. EEA Rights under the GDPR

Users who are resident in the European Economic Area (EEA) have additional rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and applicable law. EEA users benefit from our certification to Privacy Shield, which is described at the beginning of this Privacy Policy.  

To make this section more reader-friendly, we use everyday words such as use, transfer and storage to describe what we do with your Personal Information – but this Notice covers processing of any kind that is subject to EEA data protection law.

Slashdot processes Personal Information as a “processor,” “joint controller,” and as a “controller” under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. A “controller” is an entity that determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal information is processed. Any third parties that act as our service providers are “data processors” that handle your Personal Information in accordance with our instructions. With respect to your Personal Information that you enter or that is received through our Sites, Slashdot is the controller.

How we will use and share your Personal Information:  We will use and share your Personal Information as described in this section and elsewhere in this Privacy Policy.

How we secure your data: See our description of our security practices here.

Basis for processing of your Personal Information:  We rely on three primary bases for processing EEA Personal Information.

  • The first one is our legitimate interests, which we weigh against any risks to your rights. By “legitimate interests,” we mean the ordinary needs and objectives of a business that offers the types of services available on our Sites, including security, quality assurance (such as preventing the dissemination or malware and misuse of our Sites and services), customer service, communicating with users to better serve them, and improving and developing new products and services.

  • The second one is when processing is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you.

  • The third basis is consent – you will know when we are relying on consent because we will have expressly asked you for your consent (and if you don’t give us consent, we won’t perform the processing in question).  Also, the sections titled “How we use Personal Information” and “How we share information we gather” flag the uses that are based on consent by marking them with an asterisk.

  • We may also process your Personal Information on the basis that we need to do so to fulfill our legal obligations. We expect this would be a rare situation.

Revoking your consent: If you have given us consent to process your Personal Information, you can withdraw it by emailing us at privacy@slashdotmedia.com.  You can withdraw your consent at any time, although your withdrawal will not apply to processing that took place with your consent before you withdrew it.  

Special” or “sensitive” personal data:  We do not intentionally collect any Personal Information that is considered “special” or “sensitive” under the GDPR, including racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs,  trade-union membership, genetic data, biometric data or data concerning health or anything to do with a person’s sexuality.  We also do not collect information about criminal convictions or offenses.  We request that you refrain from sharing any such Personal Information via the Sites or in connection with our Services.

Access, correction, restriction and deletion.  Your right to access your data and/or correct your data, and how to make a request, is described in the section titled “Access.”  You may request a copy of your Personal Information, and we reserve the right to charge a reasonable administrative fee for providing a copy to you, as permitted by applicable law.  You may also request that your data be deleted, and we will comply with your deletion request unless applicable law permits us to refuse the request, in which case we will tell you that we have rejected your request and give you the reasons why.  You may request that the use of your Personal Information be restricted, subject to Article 21 of the GDPR.  If you make a data restriction request, we will discuss it with you and, in any event, we will comply with any obligations we may have under Article 21 of the GDPR.  Where appropriate, we may address your request by de-identifying the data such that it no longer identifies you, consistent with applicable law.

Data Portability. The GDPR provides certain rights relating to data portability.  You may request data portability to the extent provided by applicable law.

Profiling.  Paragraph (b) under the section titled “How we share information we gather” describes how we use Personal Information for profiling, and how we share profiles with third parties. You can opt out of profiling for direct marketing at any time by contacting us at privacy@slashdotmedia.com and we will honor your request.  When we engage in profiling for other purposes that don’t involve direct marketing, we will consider your request and honor it unless we determine that we have  compelling legitimate in continuing the profiling that override the interests, rights and freedoms of the data subject, or the continued profiling is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims. We expect that this would be rare, but one example might be profiling to prevent fraud or the misuse of our Sites and Services.  We will explain our reasoning to you if we reject your request to stop profiling.

How long we keep your Personal Information: We retain your personal data as long as needed or permitted in light of the purpose(s) for which it was obtained. We retain your personal data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you Slashdot Services, or as otherwise required by applicable law or related legal purposes. If you wish to cancel your account or request that we no longer use your identifiable personal data to provide you Slashdot Services, contact us at privacy@slashdotmedia.com. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

Who will receive your Personal Information: See “How we share information we gather’.  

Data transfers to third countries:  We provide our Sites and related services from the USA and may use service providers in various countries that do not provide the same level of data protection as is in your country. Any Personal Information that we share is subject to the requirements of Privacy Shield or an appropriate alternative mechanism that provides adequate protection, such as model clauses, and we require third parties to provide appropriate contractual commitments to treat your Personal Information in accordance with our “onward transfers” obligations under Privacy Shield where relevant.  

Complaints: You have the right to make complaints per our process under Privacy Shield.  You may also make a complaint under the GDPR to your local data protection authority.  Our e-mail address for complaints, requests or questions relating to this Privacy Notice is privacy@slashdotmedia.com

Finally, we want to make it clear that nothing in this section is intended to limit any other right that applies to you under any other section of this Privacy Policy.

M. Visitors and Users of our Sites from Outside the United States

Canadian residents who use our Sites and Services will have those rights outlined in the applicable section above.  Visitors and users located in the European Economic Area may have additional rights, as described in our EEA Rights section.

N. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this privacy policy to reflect changes to our information practices. If we make any material changes we will notify you by email (sent to the e-mail address specified in your account) or by means of a notice on the Site prior to the change becoming effective. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices. Note that, by using the Services, you signify your agreement to this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this Policy, please do not use the Services. Your continued use of the Services subsequent to changes to this Policy will mean that you accept the changes; therefore, please bookmark this page and review it periodically. If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, or any other privacy issues in connection with the Services, please e-mail us at privacy@slashdotmedia.com.

O. Contact Information

Questions regarding this Privacy Policy, or to exercise your rights hereunder, unless another mechanism is provided, should be directed to privacy@slashdotmedia.com. You may also contact us at Slashdot Media, LLC dba Slashdot Media, PO Box 2452, La Jolla, CA 92038.