BlueCava Online Privacy Policy

February 15, 2013 (this is the date of the most recent version of our policy.) We will modify the policy from time to time. Please check back for updates.

This privacy policy covers data collected by BlueCava for the purposes of online advertising and detection and prevention of fraud on the Internet. A common complaint about privacy policies is they can be long, difficult to understand and include too much “legalese”. We have tried to explain what we do in simple, understandable language. We welcome your comments.

The basis of our business is helping advertisers and online merchants do a better job at engaging with their customers and prospects. We do this by recognizing and collecting information about the various computers, smart phones, tablets, game consoles, etc. that people use to connect the internet.. The data we collect about these “screens” is generally used for the following: to deliver more relevant advertising, to measure the effectiveness of advertising and to reduce fraud on the Internet. We want to be transparent about what we do and how we do it and most of the rest of this privacy policy is about that, but if you just want to cut to the chase and stop BlueCava from collecting data about your screen for targeted advertising, click here to opt-out. If you opt-out, you’ll still receive ads, they just won’t be tailored to your interests.

Personal Information You Provide to Us

Sometimes people come to our Website and fill out a form, for example so our sales guys can get in touch with them. We use this information only to respond to these requests or inquiries. We do not provide this information to third parties unless we need help with the request, likely because they can do it better or faster.

If you are a BlueCava customer and use the BlueCava Website, maybe you don’t want us to contact you for marketing purposes. If that is the case, let us know by email, mail, fax or phone. The easiest way to opt-out of receiving these emails is to contact us by email at info@bluecava.com.

Personal Information We Collect from Third Parties

We collect personal information from other Websites or business that have received your consent to share your personal information with third parties like BlueCava for online marketing purposes. This information may include your name, postal address, email address, and/or telephone number. We do not collect Sensitive Information (see below). We are very careful about how we use this information, and how we protect it. We store this personal information only in our secure servers. We do not store personal information in cookies.

Non-Personal Information We Collect

We collect non-personal information from Websites that use our services such as our customer’s sites or our partner sites. We anonymously collect data over time and across these sites for the purpose of creating interest based audience segments. Examples of audience segments include sports enthusiasts, fashion shoppers, in market car buyers, etc…

We also collect non-personal information from third party data providers. These are companies that collect anonymous demographic data, online and offline interest data, and shopping history data. They use that data to group people into audience segments. They share those audience segments with us.

Sensitive Information

BlueCava does not collect sensitive information, including sensitive health or financial data. This is information like health conditions, financial account numbers, etc… This is the potentially scary stuff, and we stay away from it.

Children

We do not target or create audience segments targeted at children under the age of thirteen (13). We may collect data from a computer being used by someone who is under 13, and may use that data for creating interest based audience segments for advertising purposes. We are unable to prevent this since we don’t collect data with the intent of identifying children under the age of 13.

Recognition

BlueCava has developed technology that enables us to recognize computers (including smartphones, tablets and other types) when they visit web sites on the Internet. In order to do this, we collect information about the browser you are using when you visit one of our partner Websites. The type of information we collect includes the type of screen, IP address, browser version, time zone, the fonts installed, browser plug-ins and various other properties of your screen/browser. We do not collect browsing history (aka history sniffing) as part of this process. The collected information is put into a “snapshot” and is sent to our servers each time you visit one of our partner Websites. The servers use the information to create a unique ID for every browser and to “match” the snapshot to the snapshots we receive from our partners. The cool thing is, this stuff varies enough from computer to computer than we can uniquely identify browsers (very few look alike). We can only collect this information when our software is included in a software application, is on a Website, or in an online ad.

When we use snapshots to create a unique ID, we are also able to group related screens into “households” based on strong, common characteristics among the snapshots, like IP addresses. By understanding these households, we can help our customers understand how screens are related so they can deliver content personalized to you based on your interests gathered from all your screens, no matter which screen you are using and not just your primary screen.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files that can be used by a Website to store information on a users’ machine and later retrieve it. The Internet, and particularly online advertising, uses cookies for all sorts of things. We don’t depend on cookies to recognize browsers, however, in certain cases we may use cookies (aka browser cookies), Flash and/or HTML5 cookies to speed up the process of recognizing the machine. This allows us to identify a screen faster, which can be good for everybody. We don’t store any personal information in cookies. Which of these technologies we use depends upon our customers/partners. We require them to provide notice of which technologies they use on their Website.

Web Beacons

We may collect or share information with other Websites using Web beacons. Some people call Web beacons “image pixels” or “tags”. A Web beacon is just a link to another Website that enables two Websites to share information. We use these with some customers/partners to share information.

Uses of Non-Personal Information

As BlueCava identifies screens, we also collect non-personal information. We use that information for a couple of purposes: to create anonymous audience segments for targeted advertising, to report on the effectiveness of online advertising campaigns, to deliver personalized content and services on Websites, and to reduce fraud on the Internet.

Uses of Personal Information

BlueCava collects personal information in order to associate Internet connected screens with anonymous, non-personally identifiable categories of information (audience segments) that can be used for online advertising. That’s a mouthful. Let us put it in layman’s terms. Let’s say you have loyalty cards for your favorite stores. When you sign up, you agree to let the company collect data for marketing purposes. They use your shopping data and the email address you provide to associate you to various anonymous audience segments, things like “golf enthusiast” or “buys shoes a lot”. We work with them to associate an Internet connected computer to those audience segments.

Information Sharing

BlueCava sells the data we collect. The first kind of data is the unique identity of a screen. The second kind of data we sell is the data about the screen, including the behavior of that screen on certain sites. The data we sell helps our customers fight online fraud and provides better online ad targeting. We might combine our data with the data of others to make us even better at this.

BlueCava may share your information, including personal information with “Business Partners”. BlueCava carefully selects the Business Partners we share personal information with. These business partners typically have access to personal information and use the personal information we provide to associate marketing data with screens. We require the Business Partners we share personal information with to follow the same privacy practices we do, and to provide consumers with an opt-out. When we share personal information with them, we require them to protect that information as carefully as we do (since they already have personal information, they’re already protecting it).

Information Security and Retention

The data that BlueCava collects is stored in the BlueCava network database. The screen identification, personal and non-personal information we collect for online behavioral advertising (OBA) purposes is retained for up to two (2) years. As part of these OBA services, we also collect aggregated ad delivery and reporting data. This limited type of aggregated advertising performance data is kept indefinitely. The information we collect for fraud prevention and detection is kept indefinitely.

Access to customer information is restricted to authorized personnel. In other words, we take guarding our data seriously. Our servers are designed to be secure. Plus we’ve adopted a bunch of security procedures designed to prevent our data from being seen or stolen by bad guys. Here are some of the steps we take.

• access to our computing facilities is controlled by high-tech electronic access keys. And it’s supplemented by a human security staff.
• we transmit our data using encryption protocols.
• data access is based on the principle of least privilege.
• access to our services is controlled two ways- password based authentication and network firewall settings.
• application layer controls are designed to prevent other customers from getting at data that is private.
• all the people that work at BlueCava and who have access to data are subject to our company’s policies that prohibit the unauthorized transmission of data to third parties.
• no method of electronic storage or transmission is 100% secure. And, as our lawyers point out quite emphatically and please note the capitalization for emphasis, WE WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS OR USE OR ANY DAMAGES INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR OTHER DAMAGES CAUSED BY THIRD PARTIES.

Choices

We think targeted advertising is a good thing, it certainly funds a lot of the “free” services on the Internet. But we understand that some people don’t want data collected about them online. In addition, we’re supportive of industry self-regulatory principles for online behavioral advertising.

If you choose to opt out of being tracked or targeted by us we will not share your screen information, or other information we may have associated with your screen, with online marketers, advertisers, or their suppliers. Note that we do have some customers who use our services on their own web sites, including for things like fraud prevention, and the opt out you do here will not necessarily prevent them from using our technology to recognize your device you when you visit their sites.

Click here to opt-in, opt-out.

To opt-out from other companies that BlueCava may share information with, or other companies that provide online behavioral advertising services, you can opt-out at the following online advertising industry Websites.

• The Digital Advertising Alliance Website, www.aboutads.info.
• The Network Advertising Initiative Website, www.networkadvertising.org.

Important Information

Digital Advertising Alliance

BlueCava adheres to the Digital Advertising Alliance Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (www.aboutads.info). The DAA offers a Consumer Choice Page (opt-out) and other privacy tools and resources.

Internet Advertising Bureau

BlueCava is a member of the Internet Advertising Bureau (www.iab.net).

Legal and Other Disclosures

We may share personal information when we believe such action is appropriate to comply with the law (e.g., legal process or a statutory authorization); to enforce or apply our customer agreements; to initiate, render, bill, and collect for services; to protect our rights or property, or to protect users of those services from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful use of, or subscription to, such services; or if we reasonably believe that an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure of communications or justifies disclosure of information without delay.

How to Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this statement, you have general or technical questions about our privacy practices and features or you have complaints regarding our compliance with the Safe Harbor, you should first contact our Privacy Officer at privacy@bluecava.com or even by snail mail.

BlueCava
Attn: Privacy Policy Guru
131 Innovation Drive
Suite 250
Irvine, CA 92617

Changes to Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy may change from time to time. Our Privacy Policy was last updated on February 15, 2013.