Company Info

PopCap Privacy Policy

Last updated: January 2010

PopCap Games, Inc. is committed to making our website a fun place to visit. We know that you care how information about you is used and shared. And if you're worried about your privacy - or the security of our site - it's hard to have a good time! That's why we work hard to protect your rights.

Please read the following Privacy Policy to understand how we use any information we may collect from you. The Privacy Policy is current as of the effective date set forth above. We reserve the right to change this policy from time to time, so be sure to check back periodically. If the changes we make to our Privacy Policy are significant, we will notify you on our website that our Privacy Policy has been revised.

This Privacy Policy applies to PopCap.com and all websites owned or controlled by PopCap Games, Inc., including the majority of websites operated by subsidiaries or affiliates owned or controlled by PopCap Games, Inc. (the "Sites"). It does not apply to your use of PopCap’s social networking site applications, which privacy policy may be found here, nor does it apply those websites owned or operated by subsidiaries and affiliates of PopCap Games, Inc. who display their own privacy policy. PopCap Games Inc. and its owned or controlled subsidiaries and affiliates to which this Privacy Policy applies may be collectively referred to herein as "PopCap", "we", or "our", as the context requires.

By visiting any of the Sites, you agree that your personal information will be handled as described in this Privacy Policy, which is incorporated by reference into PopCap’s Terms of Service.

1. What Personal Information About You Does PopCap Gather?

The information PopCap collects from you helps us personalize and continually improve your experience at our Sites. Here are the types of information we gather:

Purchase Related Information: We receive and store any information you enter on our website or that you provide to us when you enter promotions or sweepstakes or use our products or services. Some information, such as a valid email address or credit card billing information, may be necessary to purchase a game, subscribe to a newsletter or one of our services, access particular features, or otherwise transact business with us. You can choose not to provide certain information, but then you might not be able to take advantage of many of our features. We may also occasionally ask you to voluntarily provide information, such as your opinions about games or your demographics none of which is required to access our products and services. As detailed more fully below, we use the information that you provide for such purposes as verifying your right to access products and services, billing, responding to your requests, customer service inquiries, customizing your experience at our Sites, improving our online stores, improving our products and services, and communicating with you.

Information About Other People: On some pages, you can submit information about other people. For example, if you order a gift certificate online and want it sent directly to the recipient, you will need to submit the recipient's name and email address. We use the information you provide about someone else when placing an order only to send the gift certificate and this information may be shared with companies or agents who perform this function on our behalf. We do not otherwise share this information with outside parties.

Information We Collect Automatically: We receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with us. For example, we may automatically send software and other information to your computer and receive non-personally identifiable information from your computer, which we will use to: 1) automatically update (with new features, bug fixes, etc.) our products and services that you have downloaded; 2) perform quality and assurance testing for our products and services; and 3) deliver information about other products and services we offer.
Like many websites, we also use "cookies," and other automated tools to obtain certain types of information when your Web browser accesses our Sites and through your online interactions with our Sites. Please see the section of this Privacy Policy entitled “What About Cookies” for more information about our use of “cookies”.
We may use the information gathered through these methods in anonymous or aggregated form to analyze ways to improve our products and services. In some cases, we may assign a unique anonymous identifier to the PopCap product or service which you have downloaded. By using the non-personally identifiable information that is associated with such identifier, we can personalize your experience, recommend products and services or make special offers to you specifically based on your preferences and usage of our products and services, without personally identifying you.

E-mail Communications: To help us make e-mails more useful and interesting, we often receive a confirmation when you open e-mail from our Sites if your computer supports such capabilities. We may also compare our customer list to lists received from other companies, in an effort to avoid sending unnecessary messages to our customers, and to comply with best practices and applicable legal authority. If you do not want to receive e-mail or other mail from us, please visit http://www.popcap.com/unsubscribe.php or send a written request to the following address:

2. What About Cookies?

Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer's hard drive through your web browser for record-keeping purposes. We use cookies on our Sites. Some cookies allow us to make it easier for you to navigate our Sites, while other cookies provide features such as such as storage of items in your Shopping Cart between visits.

Third parties may also use cookies on our websites to that they can track Shopping Cart activity and direct relevant offers to you to optimize your experience with us. In addition, our third party ad serving networks may use cookies to gather non-personally identifiable information about your visits to our Site as well as other Web sites in order to target advertisements for goods and services.

The Help portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your computer from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. In addition, if a third party ad serving network is a member of the Network Advertising Initiative, you may also opt out of placement of certain ad-serving cookies used by such third party ad serving networks through this link www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp .

However, having cookies enabled allows you to take full advantage of some of our Sites’ coolest features and some of our Sites' features and services will not function properly if cookies are disabled.

3. Member Accounts, Passwords, and Invitations

Your password is unique to your PopCap account and is designed to protect your account from unauthorized use. PopCap is not responsible for any lost, stolen, or otherwise disclosed passwords. Additionally, PopCap will not replace or reinstate any game credits or other awards that are generated or redeemed by unauthorized password activity. You are responsible for keeping the confidentiality of your Account Information and password. PopCap representatives will never ask you for your password.

4. How Does PopCap Use Information it Receives?

PopCap uses the information we gather for the following purposes:

To provide our products and services to you, to bill you for premium products and services, to communicate with you concerning your account, and for other customer service, authorization, account history and billing purposes. This may include credit card authorization and verification, free trial access, location verification for products and services which may have limited geographical access, and the like.

To improve our software and services by providing personalized experiences and recommendations, language and location customization, personalized help and instructions, or other responses to your and other customers’ usage of our products and services.

To track purchases and usage as necessary for the purpose of our making royalty or other payments to third parties. However, your personally identifiable information will not be transferred to such third parties unless you have been notified in advance and given an opportunity to opt out or cancel.

To offer you upgrades, updates, content, services, games or other products and services.

To ask you to participate in surveys about products and services.

To provide you with news and newsletters, special offers, promotions, and targeted advertising.

To better understand how users access and use our products and services, including our Sites and advertising, on an aggregated and individualized basis, for the purposes of improving our products and services, and to respond to customer desires and preferences.

5. When and How Does PopCap Share Information It Receives?

Information about our customers is an important part of our business, and we are not in the business of selling it to others. We share customer information only as compatible with the purposes described above, when we have your permission or as described in this section.

PopCap Subsidiaries: We may share your information with subsidiaries and affiliates that we own or control but only if those entities are either subject to this Privacy Policy or follow practices at least as protective as those described in this Privacy Policy.

Contractors and Agents: We employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include fulfilling orders, delivering packages, sending postal mail and e-mail, removing repetitive information from customer lists, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance (including data concerning marketing and promotional programs), providing search results and links (including paid listings and links), processing credit card payments, providing customer service or for other purposes within the ordinary course of business. These third parties have access to personal information needed to perform their functions on our behalf. We require these companies to agree (1) to provide adequate protections for your personal information that are no less protective than those set out in this Privacy Policy and (2) to use your personal information only for the purposes for which the third party has been engaged by us. We are not liable for the acts or omissions of these third parties, except as provided by applicable law.

Promotional Offers; Third Party Advertising; Third Party Sites: We may send offers to PopCap customers on behalf of other businesses and/or include promotions of third party products and services (with links to third party websites). When we do this, we do not give that business your personal information.

If you do not want to receive such offers, please contact PopCap at http://www.popcap.com/unsubscribe.php . If you respond to such an offer, or if you click on a link that takes you to a third party’s website, you may, at some point, be required to provide personal information to the other business. If so, you will have an opportunity to review that other entity’s privacy policy and decide for yourself whether or not to do business with them. Similarly, third parties that advertise on our site may collect information from you when you navigate away from our site by clicking on another site link or third-party logo.

While we strive to do business only with other reputable entities, we cannot be responsible for how a third party collects or handles personal information obtained directly from you. We believe our Sites and services are designed in such as way as to make clear when you have left a PopCap page or service and are interacting with another entity. Each such third party entity’s use of your information is governed by its own privacy policy and/or terms of service.

Jointly Offered Products and Services: From time to time we may offer products or services jointly with another entity, or may offer an additional product or service from another entity that in some way enhances or is related to a PopCap product or service. Examples include jointly developed or licensed games, another entity’s online service that is based upon a PopCap game, or products or services that may enhance your gaming or computing experience. In such cases, PopCap’s use of your personal information is governed by this Privacy Policy, and the other entity’s use of your personal information is governed by that entity’s own privacy policy and/or terms of service.

Business Transfers: As we continue to develop our business, we might sell or buy online stores, subsidiaries, or other businesses. In such transactions, customer information generally would be one of the transferred business assets but remains subject to the promises made in any pre-existing Privacy Policy (unless, of course, the customer consents otherwise). Also, in the event that PopCap, or substantially all of its assets are acquired, we will provide notice before customer information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Protection of PopCap and Others: We reserve the right to disclose your personal information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, judicial proceeding, court order or other legal process; enforce or apply our Terms of Service and other agreements; or protect the rights, property, or safety of PopCap, our employees, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction purposes. This does not include selling, renting, sharing, or otherwise disclosing personal information from customers for commercial purposes in violation of this Privacy Policy.

6. How Secure Is Information About Me?

We take commercially reasonable precautions to protect your personal information from loss, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction.

We work to protect the security of your personal information during transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information you input.

We will not reveal or store more than the last four digits of your credit card number when you place an order. Of course, we transmit the entire credit card number to the appropriate credit card company during order processing.

Please be aware that despite our best efforts, no data security measures can guarantee 100% security all of the time.

Any information we collect will be securely processed, stored and archived in databases and backups that could reside in either the United States and/or Ireland.

It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer. Be sure to sign off when finished using a shared computer. We strongly recommend that you implement measures to protect your computer from unauthorized access such as firewall protection and anti-virus software.

7. Can I Access My Personal Information?

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we collect and store is reliable, accurate, complete and current.

You may access the personal information you have provided us, except where the burden or expense of providing access to you is disproportionate to the risks to your privacy, or where the rights of others may also be violated. To access your information, please send a written request to:

If the personal information we have about you is inaccurate, you may ask us to correct, amend, or delete your personal information by notifying us at the address above.

8. What Choices Do I Have?

As discussed above, you can always choose not to provide information, but that may prevent you from being able to make a purchase or to take advantage of specific features of our Sites.

If you do not want to receive promotional e-mails or other promotional communications from us, please visit http://www.popcap.com/unsubscribe.php. You may also send mail to:

The Help portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. However, you will not be able to use such important features as the PopCap store if you do not use cookies.

The Federal Trade Commission provides useful information about online privacy on its own website, Site Seeing on the Internet.

9. Children

PopCap does not sell products for purchase by children and does not knowingly collect personal information from children. We sell children's products for purchase by adults. If you are under age 13, you may use our Sites only with the involvement of a parent or guardian.

10. Terms of Service, Notices, and Revisions

If you choose to visit PopCap, your visit and any dispute over privacy is subject to this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service, including applicable limitations on damages, arbitration of disputes, and application of the law of the state of Washington. If you have any concern about your privacy, please contact us with a thorough description or your question or concern, and we will try to resolve it.

11. Does PopCap Participate in the Safe Harbor Program?

Yes. PopCap is a participant in the Safe Harbor program developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Union. We have certified that we adhere to the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles agreed upon by the U.S. and the E.U. For more information about the Safe Harbor and to view our certification, visit the U.S. Department of Commerce's Safe Harbor website. If you would like to contact PopCap directly about the Safe Harbor program, please send an e-mail to safeharbor@popcap.com.

12. Does PopCap Participate in BBBOnLine Privacy Program?

Yes. PopCap participates in the Council of Better Business Bureau's BBBOnLine Privacy Program. We have made a commitment to meet the program's strict requirements regarding how we treat your information and have it verified by BBBOnLine. Further information about this program is available at http://www.bbbonline.org

All BBBOnLine Privacy Program participants are required to work with the program's dispute resolution process. The Privacy Program will only accept complaints regarding the misuse of personally identifiable information by a website operator. For more information about the Privacy Program dispute resolution process visit http://www.bbbonline.org/privacy/dr.asp

13. Contact Us About Privacy

If you have questions about the privacy aspects of our products or services or would like to make a complaint, please contact privacy@popcap.com.

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