Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY

Empire Images Media LLC (“Empire” “us”, “we” or “our”) respects the privacy of the visitors to our websites and mobile applications (collectively, the “Site”). This privacy policy (the “Privacy Policy”) is intended to inform you of our policies and practices regarding the collection, use and disclosure of any Personal Information and Anonymous Information you submit to us through our Site and the use of the information, content, materials, messages, and services it makes available (the “Services”). This Privacy Policy will be continuously assessed against new technologies, business practices and our visitors’ and users’ needs. Access to and use of the Site is available only to individuals who can form legally binding contracts under applicable law. If you do not qualify, you may not use the Site. Empire reserves the right to amend the Privacy Policy from time to time at its sole discretion and will provide notice on the home page of the Site when we make material changes to this Privacy Policy. You will be deemed to have been made aware of, and will be subject to, any material changes to the Privacy Policy after such notice has been posted with the following exception

“Personal Information” is information about you that is personally identifiable to you like your name, address, email address, or phone number.

“Anonymous Information” means information that is not associated with or linked to your Personal Information; Anonymous Information does not permit the identification of individual persons. Anonymous Information, such as information regarding your hardware IDs and device type, your carrier, your carrier user ID, basic usage statistics about your device, your location and your use of the Site, does not by itself identify you to Empire, though such information may be unique or consist of or contain information that you consider personal.

User Consent

By submitting Personal Information through our Site or Services you agree to the Site’s Terms of Use, the terms of this Privacy Policy and to our use of your Personal Information for the purposes given where the information is collected. You expressly consent to the processing of your Personal Information according to this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to our Terms of Use and his Privacy Policy, you are not authorized to access or use our Site.

Updating Your Personal Information and Privacy Preferences

You have the right to access and correct your Personal Information and privacy preferences at any time. This may be accomplished by clicking on the link, “My Account”, where you can view and make changes to most of your Personal Information immediately. If you are a contributor, you can change your profile here. For security purposes certain Personal Information can only be changed by contacting support by email.

Information You Provide to Us

Empire collects Personal Information from its online visitors and users on a voluntary basis and only to the extent necessary to fulfill your requests and to create or enhance our relationship with you. We may collect Anonymous Information passively or actively. When you order products or services as an Empire subscriber, we may collect the following Personal Information from you:

  • Contact information such as your name, phone and fax numbers, address and email address; and
  • Billing information such as the number, expiration date, card type and billing address of your credit card; and
  • Demographic information such as your job title, job description and company name and company type.

If you submit content to Empire for licensing, you may be asked to provide the following information:

  • Contact information such as your name, phone number, primary address, and email address. In order to verify this information we will ask you to either: a) upload a scan of a government issued ID (which will be stored on our servers); or b) provide a credit card number. Your credit card number will be used solely for the purpose of verifying your name and address. The credit card number will not be stored.
  • Payment and contributor information including, but not limited to, payout method, payout email, desired display name, skill level, content focus, etc.

Depending upon the activity, some of the information that we ask you to provide is identified as mandatory and some as voluntary. If you do not provide the mandatory data with respect to a particular activity, you will not be able to engage in that activity.

In order to reduce errors in our database, authenticate our users, and prevent abuse of our system, we may on occasion supplement the Personal Information you submit to us with information from third-party sources. For example, we may supplement your contact information with address information provided by the U.S. Postal Service to qualify your information and prevent errors in our database. As permissible, we may also supplement the information you provide to us with demographic and other information (such as age or interest in photography) stored in third-party databases in order to make it more likely that marketing communications we send will be of interest to you.

Information Sharing

Empire may use one or more outside credit card processing companies to bill you for our goods and services. To the best of our knowledge, these companies do not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any other purpose.

We do not sell or otherwise provide Personal Information to other companies for the marketing of their own products or services.

Information Collected Via Technology

We may collect general, aggregated, demographic, and non-personal information from our online visitors and users. The non-personal information will not be linked to any Personal Information of our online visitors or users, through cookies or other means, without consent. This type of anonymous aggregated profiling and session data may include information provided to us through surveys, polls, etc., but will not be tied to any Personal Information without consent. The non-personal information collected may also include aggregated Anonymous Information about site usage and the customer base.

As you navigate our Site, certain information may also be collected passively, including your Internet protocol address, browser type, and operating system. We also use “Cookies” and navigational data like Uniform Resource Locators (URL) to gather information regarding the date and time of your visit and the information for which you searched and viewed. This type of information is collected to better understand how you use our community and make the community and the services we provide more useful to you. Most browsers are automatically set to accept Cookies. Personal information collected through the use of cookies and other technology will be handled in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you would like more information about cookies and how to control and delete cookies in various browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome, please visit http://aboutcookies.org/.

An “Internet protocol address” or “IP Address” is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer when you use the Internet. In some cases your IP Address stays the same from browser session to browser session; but if you use a consumer internet access provider, your IP Address probably varies from session to session. We may track IP Addresses solely in conjunction with session cookies to analyze our web page flow.

“Cookies” are small pieces of information that a website sends to your computer’s hard drive while you are viewing a website . We may use both session Cookies (which expire once you close your web browser) and persistent Cookies (which stay on your computer until you delete them) to provide you with a more personal and interactive experience on the Site. Persistent Cookies can be removed by following Internet browser help file directions. If you choose to disable Cookies, some areas of the website may not work properly.

Use of Information

In general, Personal Information you submit to us is used by us either to respond to requests that you make, to improve our services and to better tailor the features, performance and support of our services and Site, and to offer you additional information, opportunities, and functionality. We may also use your Personal Information to provide you with electronic newsletters or promotional emails, should you request to receive such communications from us.

Empire collects your information in order to record and support your participation in the activities you select. Empire or one of our trusted partners may use this information to:

  • Process your financial transactions.
  • Send you order / renewal confirmations.
  • Register your rights, if any, to technical support or other benefits that may be made available to registered users.
  • Respond to customer service requests, questions and concerns.
  • Administer your account.
  • Investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities and/or violations of our Terms of Service.
  • Meet our research and product/service development needs and to improve our Site, services and offerings; and
  • Customize your experience, including targeting our services and offerings to you.

We also use the information we collect to send you updates (such as when certain activity, like comments, happen on the Site), newsletters, marketing materials and other information that may be of interest to you. For example, depending on your email notification settings, we may send you weekly updates that include Services you may like. You can decide to stop getting these updates by updating your account settings (or through other settings we may provide).

We store information that we collect through cookies, log files, transparent images, and/or third party sources to create a summary of your preferences. We tie your personally identifiable information, and/or your membership usage history, to information in the summary, in order to provide tailored promotions and marketing offers, to improve the content of the site for you and/or to determine your preferences.

We may create Anonymous Information records from Personal Information by excluding information (such as your name) that makes the information personally identifiable to you. We may use this Anonymous Information to analyze usage patterns so that we may enhance our Site and services. We reserve the right to use and disclose Anonymous Information to third parties in our discretion.

Feedback

If you provide feedback to us concerning our Site or its content or services, we may use and disclose such feedback for any purpose, provided that we will not associate such feedback with your Personal Information. We will collect any information contained in such communication and will treat the Personal Information in such communication in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You acknowledge and agree that all feedback provided by you is the sole and exclusive property of Empire and may be used by Empire (or its affiliates, partners and licensees) for any purpose.

Disclosure of Personal Information

Except as otherwise stated in this Privacy Policy, we do not trade, rent, or share your Personal Information with third parties, unless you ask or authorize us to do so, provided, however, that we may provide your Personal Information to third party service providers who work on behalf of or with us to provide some of the services and features of the Site and to help us communicate with you. However, these service providers do not have any independent right to share this information (except pursuant to a legal requirement such as a subpoena or warrant). Additionally, we may share some or all of your Personal Information with our affiliates, subsidiaries, joint ventures, partners or other companies under a common control (each, an “Affiliate”), in which case we will require our Affiliates to honor this Privacy Policy.

You understand that we may enter into strategic marketing alliances, partnerships or agreements with third parties who may be given access to Personal Information you have provided to us, including, but not limited to, your name and email address, for the purpose of providing you with information regarding products and services that we think will be of interest to you or for other business services. In connection with any such arrangements, we intend to enter into agreements with these third parties regarding the maintenance of confidentiality, security, and integrity of any information that we share with them. We expect the third parties to protect the information that is shared with them by having developed and implemented privacy policies.

We sometimes share general, demographic, or aggregated (non-personal) information with third parties about our user base, but that information will not include any Personal Information.

If Empire or our assets are acquired by a third-party, that third-party will possess the Personal Information collected by us and it will assume the rights and obligations regarding your Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy.

Finally, we may disclose your Personal Information if we believe in good faith that such disclosure is necessary to (a) comply with relevant laws or to respond to subpoenas or warrants served on us; or (b) to protect and defend the rights or property of us, users and visitors of our Site or third parties.

By using the Site, you hereby agree and consent to the transfer or assignment of your Personal Information as provided herein, and you further waive any claims that could be made against us in relation thereto.

Data Retention

We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services. If you wish to delete your account or request that we no longer use your information to provide you services contact us at [______________]. We will respond to your request within 30 days. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

Your Choices Regarding Your Personal Information

We offer you choices regarding the collection, use and sharing of your Personal Information. When you receive newsletters or promotional communications from us, you may indicate a preference to stop receiving further communications from us and you will have the opportunity to “opt-out” by following the unsubscribe instructions provided in the email you receive or by contacting us directly (please see contact information below).

Despite your indicated email preferences, we may send you administrative emails regarding the Site or notices of any updates to our terms of service for the Site or this Privacy Policy.

You may change any of the Personal Information in your Site profile by editing your information in your profile.

Online Community

We enable you to create a profile for accessing blogs or online communities for sharing information such as messages, photos and videos. Please note that we cannot control the actions of others with whom you may choose to share your pages and information. Any information you post to a public bulletin board or chat room, such as the Forum For Contributors (the “Forums”), is available to all persons accessing that location.

Your email address will not automatically be posted on the Forums unless you modify the default setting to permit that. Your email address will then be available to all persons accessing the Forums. In addition, any information that you choose to include in your profile can be viewed by all visitors to the Forums. You can change your profile here.

Referral Program Emails

If you choose to use our referral service to tell a friend about our Site, we will ask you for your friend’s name and email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the Site. Empire stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and tracking the success of our referral program.

Your friend may contact [______________] to request that we remove this information from our database.

Regarding Children

Our Site is not directed toward anyone under the age of 18. If you are under the age of 18, you may not give us any Personal Information and you may not create a user profile or register on our Site. Except as may be required by law, we will not knowingly collect, maintain, or disclose any Personal Information from children under the age of 13. If you are a parent or guardian who has discovered that your child has submitted his or her Personal Information without your permission or consent, we will take reasonable steps to promptly remove that information from our database at your request. To request removal of your child’s information, please Contact Us and be sure to include in your message the same account name, password, and email address that your child submitted.

Security

We recognize our responsibility to protect the Personal Information you entrust to us. We use reasonable administrative, technical, personnel and physical measures to safeguard your Personal Information in our possession against loss, theft and unauthorized use, disclosure or modification. While we take precautions against possible breaches in our Site and customer databases, no Site or Internet transmission is completely secure. Accordingly, we cannot guarantee that unauthorized access, hacking, data loss, or other breaches will never occur and cannot be held liable for any unauthorized access or use of the data you have supplied to us. Your use of our Site is at your own risk. We urge you to take steps to protect your Personal Information when you are on the Internet. Change your passwords often using a combination of letters and numbers, and make sure you use a secure Internet browser.

Contact Us

If you think that the use of your Personal Information is not in alignment with the purpose for which you have provided it to Empire, or if you have any questions or suggestions regarding this Privacy Policy, please visit our Contact Us page to send us an email. We will duly process your questions, requests and suggestions.

Privacy Policy Updates

This Privacy Policy is subject to occasional revision, and changes will be posted on this page.  If we make any substantial changes in the way we use or disclose your Personal Information, we will notify you at the email address you have provided to us and obtain your consent to a change in the use or disclosure of your Personal Information. Please check back from time to time to ensure you are aware of any such notices of changes in our privacy practices. Your continued use of our Site will signify your acceptance of these changes. If you object to any such changes, we will delete your user profile.

This Policy was last updated March 2015.