Others Online Privacy Policy

March 23, 2007

About Others Online

Others Online connects like-minded people across the Internet in real time, based on their interests and intentions. We maintain an “opt-in” online database of Internet users, their interests, online context and behaviors, personal Web site links and online presence. The Others Online browser toolbar matches users’ interests and behaviors with others and on every pageview displays contextually relevant profiles of people. Users can also go to our Web site to search and browse profiles of people by keyword phrase. In either case, Others Online allows those users to instantly communicate with each other by instant message or email. Others Online users can change their profile information at any time, in order to control who they see and when they’re seen by others, and canalso control how others communicate with them.

At Others Online we believe that privacy is of paramount importance. This Policy applies to the products, services and websites offered by Others Online Inc. (collectively, Others Online's "services"). If you have any questions about this Policy, please feel free to contact us through our website or write to us at Others Online Inc., 2101 9^th Avenue, Suite 201, Seattle, Washington, 98121 USA.

Information we collect and how we use it:

The Others Online website does not require you to register or provide any personal information to us. The Others Online toolbar service, however, requires you to sign up for an Others Online account and provide limited personal information. In order to provide our services, we may collect the following types of information:

• Information you provide - When you sign up for an Others Online Account, we ask you for personal information (such as your birth date, gender, email address, country, post code and an account password), which we use to authenticate users and to send notifications to those users relating to the Others Online service. The service is anonymous – we do not request your name or your physical address. We do request other information from you on your interests, hobbies and any other keyword you wish to add, plus links to your personal websites, in order to assist you in finding and communicating with other users, as well as assist them in finding you. User profile information including users’ pictures, screen names, website links and interestes are displayed to users in order to facilitate user interaction. Email addresses are used for the purposes of inviting new friends to join Others Online, adding them to your Favorites and to send notifications related to the service. With the exception of inviting friends, a user's email address is never shared or displayed to other users. Users communicate with each other through the Others Online toolbar service without disclosing their email and IM addresses. To facilitate searching and finding other members on the service, Others Online may allow users to search for others by keyword, age, gender, geographic location or screen name. We may combine the information you submit under your account with information from third parties in order to provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of our services. For certain services, we may give you the opportunity to opt out of combining such information.
• Information we collect though our toolbar – When you sign in and use the Others Online toolbar service, the application sends information about the websites you visit (including the URL and relevant content keywords) to our servers in order for us to assist you in finding and and communicating with other users relevant to those websites. As a result, your profile may be displayed to those other users as well. We do not send website information from pages that are secured and protected by Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Your web browsing behavior is not made accessible to Others Online without your explicit permission. When signed out, no information about the websites you visit is sent. Over time, we may associate certain recurring content keywords to your anonymous profile as an “implicit interest” of yours, in order to provide a more relevant user experience. For instance, we may define “golf” as an interest of yours even when you haven’t indicated it as an interest, simply because you keep going to websites about “golf”. At any time, you may delete these implicit interest keywords from our servers, or you may elect to turn off this feature. If you turn off this feature, we will still send information about the websites you visit but we will not associate recurring content keywords to your profile. When you install the Others Online toolbar and register, we create a unique installation ID and a unique user ID, which are sent to the Others Online servers after every page view, while signed in. The toolbar also occasionally polls the Others Online service to update user online status. The Others Online toolbar stores application data and components on your computer and automatically checks to see if there are updated components available and if so, will attempt to update them automatically. The unique installation and user IDs are required for the toolbar service to work and cannot be disabled.
• Others Online cookies – The Others Online toolbar service does not use cookies. When you visit the Others Online website, we may send one or more cookies - a small file containing a string of characters - to your computer that uniquely identifies your browser. We may use cookies to improve the quality of our service by storing user preferences and tracking non-personally identifiable user trends. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some Others Online web site features may not function properly if your cookies are disabled. Please note that Others Online allows 3rd party advertisers that are presenting advertisements to set and access their cookies on your computer. Advertisers' use of cookies is subject to their own privacy policies, not the Others Online Privacy Policy.
• Log information - When you use Others Online services, our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website. These server logs may include information such as your web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request, certain toolbar application data and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser.
• User communications - When you send email or instant message communication to Others Online, we may retain those communications in order to process your inquiries, respond to your requests and improve our services. When you send email or instant message communication to other users, Others Online brokers that communication so that each user doesn’t know the others direct contact information. However, Others Online does not store nor utilize for any purpose email or instant message communications between users.
• Affiliated sites - We offer some of our services in connection with other web sites. Personal information that you provide to those sites may be sent to Others Online in order to deliver the service. We process such information in accordance with this Policy. The affiliated sites may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies.
• Links to other sites - Others Online may present links in a format that enables us to keep track of whether these links have been followed. We use this information to improve the quality of our profile matching technology and advertising. This Privacy Policy applies to web sites and services that are owned and operated by Others Online. We do not exercise control over the sites displayed as links from within various user profiles. These other sites may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you.

Accessing and updating personal information

Others Online registered users may modify and in some cases remove their personal information at any time by logging into the service and accessing features such as Manage Profile and User Options.

Uninstalling the Others Online toolbar

You can uninstall the Others Online toolbar service at any time through the "Add or Remove Programs" Control Panel. When you uninstall the software, the toolbar and its copies of all items are deleted from your computer. Your other files and applications remain unaffected. Should you wish to install and user the toolbar service again, we will retain your account information on our servers for future use.

Information sharing and disclosure

Except as otherwise described in this privacy statement, Others Online will not disclose personal information to any third party unless we believe that disclosure is necessary: (1) to conform to legal requirements or to respond to a subpoena, search warrant or other legal process received by Others Online, whether or not a response is required by applicable law; (2) to enforce the Others Online Terms of Use Agreement or to protect our rights; or (3) to protect the safety of members of the public and users of the service. Others Online reserves the right to transfer personal information to a successor in interest that acquires rights to that information as a result of the sale of Others Online or substantially all of its assets to that successor in interest. For more information see the "Changes in Our Privacy Policy" section below.

We may share with third parties aggregated, non-personally-identifiable information (information that is recorded about users and collected into groups so that it no longer reflects or references an individually identifiable user), such as the number of users who have a specific interest or go to websites that relate to a specific topic.

Third Party Advertising

Ads appearing on the Others Online website or within the toolbar service may be delivered to users by Others Online or one of our advertising partners. In order to make the advertising as unobtrusive and relevant as possible to our users, we target the advertising based on the same keywords used to connect you with other people, which you have full control over. Our advertising partners may set cookies. These cookies allow the ad server to recognize your computer each time they send you an online advertisement. In this way, ad servers may compile information about where you, or others who are using your computer, saw their advertisements and determine which ads are clicked on. This information allows an ad network to deliver targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you. This privacy statement covers the use of cookies by Others Online and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.

Information security

Others Online member accounts are secured by member-created passwords. Others Online takes precautions to insure that member account information is kept private. We use reasonable measures to protect member information that is stored within our database, and we restrict access to member information to those employees who need access to perform their job functions, such as our customer service personnel and technical staff. Please note that we cannot guarantee the security of member account information. Unauthorized entry or use, hardware or software failure, and other factors may compromise the security of member information at any time For any additional information about the security measures we use, please contact us at privacy@othersonline.com

Changes to this policy

From time to time we may make changes to our privacy policy. If we make changes, we will post them on our site to make users aware of what the changes are so users will always be aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and when we may disclose it. A user is bound by any minor changes to the policy when she or he uses the Others Online services after those changes have been posted.