User Privacy

Peakabou is a fun website that lets you refer your buddies to sign up and communicate with each other. Like any website that offers a service where you register and provide information about yourself or your opinions, it is wise to pay attention to your personal information. At Peakabou we understand this, and have established this Privacy Policy to explain how information is collected on our website, and how this information is used. Members Must Be 13 years of age or older. Peakabou is intended solely for use by persons 13 years of age or older. All persons under 13 are prohibited from registering on Peakabou.

How Does Peakabou Protect Children's Privacy?

The safety and privacy of children is extremely important to us.

Peakabou is a general audience web site that complies with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Our registration process is designed to restrict children under the age of 13 from becoming members of Peakabou and using our site. We've also designed the tone and style of the site to appeal to teenagers. If we receive information suggesting that a user who has registered with Peakabou is under the age of 13, we require the user to provide evidence confirming that the user is at least 13 years old. If the user fails to provide such information within 48 hours, we immediately terminate the user's account and nullify all personally identifiable information displaying on the site and collected from such user.

What Is the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act?

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) requires that commercial web sites obtain parental consent (under most circumstances) prior to the collection of any personally identifiable information from children whom they know to be under the age of 13. In addition, COPPA requires that web sites that collect personal information from children under the age of 13 provide parents with:

·         Notice. Parents must be provided notice regarding what information is collected, how the information will be used, and with whom the information may be shared.

·         The ability to prevent further use of the information collected about the child and prevent any future collection of personal information from the child.

·         The ability to access and review their child's personal information.

COPPA also limits the amount of personal information a web site can collect from a child. Web sites may not collect any more personal information than is necessary to participate in a given game or activity.

For more information about COPPA, please visit the Federal Trade Commission's web site.

Parents: If your child is under the age of 13 and has joined Peakabou using a false age, please notify Peakabou Customer Support at support@peakabou.net, and we will immediately cancel your child's account and nullify all personally identifiable information displaying on the site and collected from them. If you would like to know more about our site, information practices, stored information about your child, or how to close your child's account, please contact Peakabou Inc., P.O. Box 1133 , Sacramento , CA   95812-1133 . We will happily respond to all letters from parents with Privacy questions or concerns.

User Information Collected by Peakabou

Personally Identifiable User Information

All users begin using Peakabou's services by registering on the Peakabou website. When registering, users provide personally identifiable information, which includes their first and last name, email address, mailing address, which school they attend, a user-chosen password, and date of birth, and other personal information. During registration, users also complete survey questions that provide information that is helpful for us to understand the demographics and consumer behavior of our users, such as identifying the users' eye color, style, personality type, favorite color, sport, food, activity or TV show, post-graduation plans or graduation year. Users may also provide journal entries to an online journal. To complete the registration process, Peakabou sends a validation email message to each user, with a URL link back to our website. This URL contains an alphanumeric identifier and a user-specific numeric passcode that allows us to confirm the user's identity.

Cookies and Passive Data Collection

Peakabou logs standard user information and clickstream data for all users, including a user's IP address, operating system, and page views. When users visit particular pages within Peakabou, a UserID may be placed in the URL, allowing customized features for the user. Users should be aware that other websites visited before entering Peakabou might place personally identifiable information within a user's URL during a visit to their website, and Peakabou has no control over such websites. Accordingly, some of this information may be logged by a subsequent website that collects URL information. In addition to the standard log information, Peakabou uses a variety of technologies to create a more personalized experience for its users. Cookies are small data files sent by websites to a user's browser and hard drive that identify the computer to the website. We use cookies to allow enhanced features, such as allowing registered users to bypass typing their passwords before entering the website. We may also use cookies to enable customizable content for users, as they become available. Users have the option, within their Internet browsers, to disable cookies and continue to access the Peakabou website. Pixel tags are tiny graphic files that are included in HTML-encoded e-mail messages. We use pixel tags to gather information about the e-mails we send to our registered users. When such a message is opened in an HTML-capable e-mail program, the recipient's computer accesses our server to retrieve the pixel tag file, and allows us to record and store the date and time, the recipient's e-mail address, and other standard logging information. The pixel tag also may read cookies. Peakabou web pages may also contain similar pixel tags that allow us to count users who have visited those pages, to compile aggregated statistics about site usage, and to deliver co-branded services as they become available. Peakabou pixel tags collect only a limited set of information including a cookie number, time and date of a page view, and a description of the page on which the pixel tag resides. Peakabou web pages may also contain pixel tags placed there by third party ad servers, to monitor the effectiveness of their advertising. We do not have access to, nor control over, advertisers' cookies or how they may be used. If you would like more information about advertisers' use of cookies, and about your option not to accept these cookies, please click here.

Document Retention Schedule

All personal information collected by Peakabou in connection with your use of the Peakabou website, including, without limitation, your name, location, email address, pictures, buddy connections, messages, comments, login information, ip addresses and other data, will be stored by Peakabou indefinitely in a safe and secure manner.

How Peakabou Uses the User Information

Personally Identifiable Information

Peakabou uses personally identifiable user information for the purposes of the Peakabou website, the Peakabou referral and buddy list building. Personally identifiable information including members' pictures and names are displayed to people in order to facilitate user interaction on Peakabou. Email addresses are used for the purposes of inviting new buddies to join Peakabou and to add users to members' buddy networks. To facilitate searching and finding buddies and acquaintances on the service, Peakabou allows users to search for other members using first and last name, email address, location and schools where users may have attended. We also use email addresses to send useful information to all registered users regarding the Peakabou website.For example, we use email addresses of users, and of those persons provided on their referral lists, to send an invitation to the referred buddy and encourage them to sign up on Peakabou. When a user lists an email address on the referral page, an email is automatically sent from that registered user to the referral address, encouraging the referral to sign up on the Peakabou website. If the referred person does not sign up within a few days, we also send a reminder from the registered user to the referral address. All registered users will be able to view other users Stats, Profiles, Journals and buddy list pages, which may include personal information and responses to survey questions. From time to time, Peakabou may share the email address and/or other personally identifiable information of any registered user with third parties for marketing purposes. In addition, Peakabou may share a registered user's email address with third parties to target advertising and to improve user experience on Peakabou's pages in general.

Cookies and Passive Data Collection

Peakabou uses cookie, IP address, clickstream and URL information to improve the content of the Peakabou website, the quality of Peakabou servers, and to provide enhanced features to users, where available. We use cookies to save UserIDs, session validators, and on users' browsers and hard drives, and may use them to provide tailored products or services to those users, as they become available. We also cross-match user information with information collected from cookies and clickstream data in order to test features of the Peakabou website, and to better personalize our various offerings for users. IP Addresses also help us to diagnose problems with our server, to administer the Peakabou site, and to otherwise provide the Peakabou service to its users. IP addresses may be disclosed to a third party if we believe in good faith that the law or legal process so requires, or to protect the rights or property of Peakabou or others. From time to time we may extend various offers from various partner companies, including news or additional details on products and services. A user's usage history may result in specifically tailored special offer screens or products. We may also produce aggregate reports for advertisers. For example, we may report to advertisers the number of users who clicked on an ad, or the number of users that visited different portions of the Peakabou website. This information will not include personally identifiable information about a user, or a specific user's online usage patterns.

Profile Information

Peakabou allows Members to provide information to a profile and/or journal entries that is accessible to other users. We use this profile information for the purposes of providing our services to you, such as to analyze demographics, to better personalize our various offerings for users, or to enable other users to find your profile. All information, including any personally identifiable information, which is disclosed by users in his or her public profile and journal entries are available for others to see. Please do not post direct contact information in either your profile or your journal, such as your email addresses, URLs, instant messenger IDs, phone numbers, full names, or addresses. We also caution you not to share sensitive information (such as social security numbers, credit card numbers, and driver's license numbers) with other users whom you do not know or place such information in your profile.

Invitations

The Invite Buddies feature is an easy way for Peakabou users to invite buddies through email. The email address(es) that you supply to use this service will only be used to send invitations to connect with you on Peakabou.

Surveys and Contests

At various times we may offer surveys or contests to users. Surveys may ask for contact, demographic or unique identifying information to increase the value of the results. Contests may require contact information or other demographic or personally identifiable information in order to determine eligibility. Peakabou may use information collected from surveys and contests for the entertainment of users, and to determine, notify and contact winners of various contests. In addition, users' demographic and/or personally identifiable information and responses to survey and contest questions may be used by Peakabou and/or shared with third parties in order to provide specifically tailored special offers or advertisements. Peakabou will not share a user's email address with third parties unless the user specifically opts-in to such sharing during the completion of or registration for a survey or contest.

Third Party Links and Ad Servers

Please be aware that links to third party websites and third-party ad server advertisements that are found on Peakabou may, or may not, use cookies, pixel tags and web tags. Peakabou may provide links to third party websites, which may, or may not, use cookies, pixel tags and web tags. Ad servers may also use these tools to compile information about where users saw particular advertisements, and to determine which ads were clicked on. We are not responsible for, or have any control over, the privacy policies of those third party websites and ad servers, and encourage all users to read the privacy policies of each and every website visited when linking directly from Peakabou.

Protection of Peakabou and Others

Peakabou may disclose personally identifiable user information if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to respond to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process. Peakabou may also disclose information about its users to law enforcement officers or others, in the good faith belief that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to: enforce our Terms of Service; respond to claims that any posting or other content violates the rights of third-parties; or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of Peakabou, its users or the general public.

Security

Peakabou uses industry standard security measures to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. Although we make good faith efforts to store the information collected by the Peakabou website in a secure operating environment that is not available to the public, we cannot guarantee complete security. Further, while we make every effort to ensure the integrity and security of our network and systems, we cannot guarantee that our security measures will prevent third-party "hackers" from illegally obtaining this information.

Updating or Removing User Information

As a registered user, you may, at any time, choose to correct or update the information you have submitted to us. This may be done by the following method: