Updated: November 29, 2007
Our Commitment to You
Welcome to Bebo.com, the next generation social networking site where members can stay in touch with their friends, meet new people and hang out. The founders and employees of Bebo take your privacy very seriously. To make it easier for you to read and understand our privacy policy, we did the unconventional thing -- we wrote it in plain English and tried to keep it to a reasonably short length.
The key points of our privacy policy are:
- Your privacy remains under your control.
- You can end your membership at any time.
- We only disclose information from which you may be personally identifiable to selected third parties in accordance with this privacy policy.
- Bebo does not spam.
- By participating in the Bebo community, you agree to this privacy policy.
Information collected by Bebo
We collect the following types of information about you when you use Bebo:
- Information provided by you. We collect personal information, such as your name and email address, when you register to become a member of Bebo.com. This information is used when you set up your personal profile. As part of your personal profile, you may choose to submit additional information such as your age, your hobbies and interests and other content, such as photos, music and videos.
- Information collected automatically. Bebo receives and stores information which is transmitted automatically from your computer when you browse the Internet and use Bebo. This information includes information from cookies (which are described in paragraph 4 below), your IP address and browser type. Your IP address is the unique address of your computer which is automatically provided to other computers when your web browser or email application requests a web page or email from those computers on the Internet.
Use and Disclosure of information
- We will display your personal information on your profile according to the preferences you set. We will use your name so that you are recognisable on our database and so that we can personalize your experience. We will use your email address to contact you from time to time and may also use it for security reasons to confirm that you are who you say you are. You can control the types and frequencies of certain emails you receive in your email preferences.
- We may use the information collected automatically, such as your IP address and information stored via cookies, to gather statistics about the number of people who visit Bebo and to customise Bebos content, layout and services. We may share this information with third parties to help us improve Bebo and better serve our users.
- Advertisements that appear on Bebo are delivered to you by our advertising partners. Bebo may transfer information about your use of Bebo, such as your IP address and information stored via cookies, to our advertising partners (including Yahoo! and its affiliates) and other third parties. This information may be used to provide advertising, promotions and other products and services that may be of particular interest to you. It may also be used to provide you with a tailored choice of content and media products. If you do not want to receive targeted advertisements at any point in the future, please change your advertisement preferences in your account or send a request to us via the Contact Us page.
- Our advertising and promotions partners have no access to your name or personal contact information stored by Bebo unless you choose to share it with them. Bebo does not provide your name or personal contact information to an advertising partner when you interact with or view a targeted advertisement.
- We may provide your personally identifiable information and the data generated by cookies and the aggregate information to the vendors and service agencies that we may engage to assist us in providing our services to you. Such third party entities will be obligated to use your personally identifiable information solely to provide the services to us.
- We will disclose your personally identifiable information if we reasonably believe we are required to do so by law, regulation or other government authority or to protect the rights and property of Bebo.com, its affiliates or the public. We may also co-operate with law enforcement agencies in any official investigation and we may disclose your personally identifiable information to the relevant agency or authority in doing so.
- We reserve the right to transfer your personal information in the event of a transfer of ownership of Bebo.com, such as acquisition by or merger with another company. If an acquiring company should plan to materially change this privacy policy, we will notify you beforehand.
Tell-A-Friend
If you choose to use our referral service to tell a friend about Bebo, we will ask you for your friends name and email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit Bebo. Bebo stores and only uses this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and tracking the success of our referral program.
Your friend may submit a request that we remove this information from our database via the Contact Us page or by emailing customerservice@bebo.com; remove requests of this nature will be completed within 30 days.
Links to Other Sites
This Web site contains links to other sites that are not owned or controlled by Bebo. Please be aware that we, Bebo, are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites.
We encourage you to be aware when you leave our Web site and to read the privacy statements of each and every site that collects personally identifiable information.
This privacy statement applies only to information collected by this Web site.
"Masking" is a function of using programming techniques such that the displayed URL does not match the actual pages being viewed (e.g. user is on www.xyz.com, but the URL displayed is www.abc.com). In certain circumstances, Bebo may use Masking and, although it will appear that you are still on the Bebo Web site, you may be on a different site. For example, when you create a widget or when you upload a video, you may be transferred to a third party's site and the privacy policy of the applicable third party site applies.
Testimonials
We post customer testimonials on our Web site which may contain personally identifiable information such as your name. We obtain your prior consent to post your name along with your testimonial.
Cookies
- Cookies are a common Internet technology. Many web sites use cookies to provide useful features for their users. Cookies are small files that are written or downloaded to your computers hard drive when you access a site. They allow Bebo to store and quickly retrieve login information on your computer and provide data that we can use to improve the quality of our service. Most Internet browsers (such as Internet Explorer and Safari) are initially set up to accept cookies. If you prefer, you can set your browser to refuse cookies, although you may not be able to take full advantage of Bebo if you do so. You can disable cookies by going to Tools on your top menu bar. This will bring up the "Internet Options" dialogue box. On the top of the dialogue box, click on "Privacy". This will bring up the "Settings" box. Scroll up using the slide bar on the left-hand side of the box, until the wording in the box states Block All Cookies. Then click on the "OK" button on the bottom of the menu box. If you follow these instructions, your computer will not accept cookies in future.
- Bebo may link information stored in cookies such as your age, gender and country with your personally identifiable information and we may use such information to gather statistics about the number of people who visit Bebo and to customize Bebos content, layout and services for delivery to you.
- Our advertising partners may set and access cookies or use other technologies such as web beacons (which are electronic files that allow a web site to count users who have visited that page or to access certain cookies) in order to personalise advertising content. Use by these advertising partners of their own cookies and any other tracking technologies are subject to their privacy policies. Bebo uses its reasonable efforts to ensure that its advertising partners are operating privacy policies that are in accordance with Bebos own privacy standards as set out in this privacy policy.
You control who shares your information
- Your Bebo profile information will only be shared with people you have specifically agreed to share such information with, and to other members of groups (such as universities) you choose to belong to. You can limit who can view certain personal information, such as email addresses and phone numbers. Please bear in mind that if you choose to share your personal information (including any comments, videos, photos or any other information) to other people on Bebo, you do so at your own risk. Bebo recommends that you dont share your personal contact information.
- You can choose to make your profile visible to non-members of Bebo by editing your profile and opting in to accessible profile.
Reviewing, deleting and changing your Profile
You can review, delete, correct and revise your privacy settings and personal profile, including who has access to your personal profile in your account at any time or contact us for assistance via the Contact Us page or via email to customerservice@bebo.com; requests of this nature will be completed within 30 days.
Internet awareness
Whenever you voluntarily post personal information in public areas, like journals, weblogs, message boards and forums, this information can be accessed by the public and can in turn be used by others to send you unsolicited communications. Bebo recommends that you exercise discretion in deciding what information you disclose on the Internet.
Children
- Children under the age of 13 are not eligible to use Bebo and must not attempt to register with Bebo and/or submit any personal information to us. Bebo does not knowingly collect personal information from any person who is under the age of 13 or allow them to register. If it comes to our attention that we have collected personal data from a person under the age of 13, we will delete this information as quickly as possible. If you have reason to believe that this has occurred, please contact us via the Contact Us page, and we will delete any such information.
- We recommend that children between the ages of 13 and 17 should not send any information about themselves to anyone over the Internet without asking their parents or legal guardians for permission beforehand. Bebo is a member of the working party involved in the drafting of the UK Home Offices Good practice guidance for the providers of social networking and user interactive services 2007.
Security and confidentiality
- The security of your personal information depends on your protection of your account password. Please do not disclose your account password to unauthorized people. Bebo uses industry standard technology designed to help keep your personal information safe. Please bear in mind though, that it is impossible for Bebo to guarantee that impenetrable security measures are in place. For example, we cannot control any illegal and/or unforeseen activity of other users that may allow them to get around the privacy or security settings on the Bebo website. Consequently, you acknowledge that there are circumstances in which your personal information may be accessed by unauthorised persons.
- We limit access to your personal information only to employees who we believe need to come into contact with that information in order to do their jobs in connection with the Bebo service.
- If you become aware of any breach of data security or have any other questions about the security of our website, please contact us via the Contact Us page.
Changes in Privacy Policy
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the home page, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on our home page.
Additionally, we may send registered users an email notifying you of the change. IF ANY MODIFICATION IS UNACCEPTABLE TO YOU, YOU SHALL STOP USING THE BEBO SERVICE. YOUR CONTINUED USE OF THE BEBO SERVICE FOLLOWING OUR POSTING OF A CHANGE NOTICE OR ON OUR WEBSITE OR BLOG OR RECEIVING OUR EMAIL NOTIFYING YOU OF THE CHANGE WILL CONSTITUTE YOUR BINDING ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHANGE.
Canceling membership
You always have the option to cancel your membership at any time. If you are a member and no longer wish to participate in Bebo you can sign in to the site and click on the My Account at the top of the page; then select cancel membership and follow the simple instructions.
Co-Branding
The Bebo Web site may be co-branded with our partners, such as Oracle and Yahoo search.
Contact and TRUSTe
Bebo is a licensee of the TRUSTe Web Privacy Seal Program. TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to build users trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices. This privacy statement covers the Web site www.bebo.com. Because this Web site wants to demonstrate its commitment to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe.
Bebo abides by the EU Safe Harbor framework as set forth by the Department of Commerce regarding collection, use, and retention of data from the European Union.
If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact us on the Contact Us page or write to:
Customer Support
Bebo, Inc.
795 Folsom St, 6th Floor
San Francisco
CA 94107
USA
or via email to customerservice@bebo.com.
If you do not receive acknowledgement of your inquiry or your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, you should contact TRUSTe at http://www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php TRUSTe will then serve as a liaison with us to resolve your concerns.
Effective Date and Last Revision Date
This Privacy Policy was first posted on July 15, 2005
This Privacy Policy was last revised and is effective as of November 29, 2007