Privacy Policy

Introduction

Welcome to Taptu, a mobile information aggregator [and search engine] that helps you find information and share it with your friends. Taptu can be accessed from your mobile phone, tablet or PC. The Taptu service is operated by Taptu Limited (“Taptu/we/us/our”) and consists of the Taptu website, application and other related features and services offered by Taptu, such as the information aggregator, search engine and discussion forum within which search results and other content can be shared (collectively, the “Taptu Service”).

We take your privacy seriously. This privacy policy (together with our Terms of Service) sets out the basis on which any personal information we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read through this privacy policy carefully to understand exactly how we will treat your personal information.

We may, at our sole discretion, make changes to our privacy policy at any time. Although we try to keep you up-to-date on all of these changes, we may amend the privacy policy without notice to you. Please make sure you check this page from time to time to review any changes that have been made.

Personal Information

In providing the Taptu Service, we may collect any or all of the following information from you:

  • Your mobile phone number: When you visit the Taptu Service for the first time, you may provide us with your number so that we can send a URL to your mobile phone or tablet. This enables you to access the WAP version of the Taptu Service.
  • Username and password: To register with the Taptu Service, you will need to provide us with a username and password.
  • Email address: If you decide to participate in one of our online discussion forums (“forums”), we may ask you to provide us with a valid email address so that we can respond to any queries that you may have.
  • Surveys: We may ask you to complete surveys that we will use for research purposes, although you do not have to respond to them. The type of information that we may ask you to provide us with may include, but shall not limited to you name, age, gender and certain other demographic information.
  • IP Address (mobile, tablet and computer) and other browser information: When you access the Taptu Service, 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, IP address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser. More information about cookies is provided at Section 6 below.
  • Communications with Taptu and other users: When you participate in one of the forums or provide feedback and comments through the ‘Feedback’ section in the Taptu Service, we may retain these communications to process your enquiries, respond to your requests and/or to improve our services.

Please note that even if you do not provide any personal information to the Taptu Service (for example, by providing us with an email address), if you choose a username that reveals your name or any other personal information, this information may be available to other users of the Taptu Service and to the general public.

For the purpose of this privacy policy, the terms “personal information” and “personally identifiable information” shall mean all information provided during your initial registration, and subsequent use of the Taptu Service, including, for example, your real name, email address, location information, your age, gender and certain other demographic information that may enable online or offline contact with you.

Use, Storage and Disclosure of Information

We use your personal information to operate the Taptu Service and improve your experience. In addition:

  • We will use your email address (if provided) to contact you from time to time. This may be for security reasons (so that we can check that you are who you say you are), to ask your opinion about the Taptu Service or simply to keep you updated on the features currently available through the Taptu Service and those that we intend to launch in the future. We may also use your email address to send you notices, on behalf of others and ourselves, about products and services that we think you may be interested in.
  • We may use the information collected automatically, such as your IP address, information stored via cookies and information about how you use the Taptu Service, to develop statistics and aggregate information about the number of people who visit the Taptu Service. We may also use this aggregate information to customise the content and layout of the Taptu Service or share the information with third parties to help us improve the Taptu Service.
  • Advertisements that appear on the Taptu Service are delivered to you by Taptu’s advertising affiliates and partners. Taptu may transfer information about you and your use of Taptu your IP address, information stored via cookies and other demographic information about you) to our advertising affiliates, partners and other third parties. This information may be used to provide targeted advertisements, promotions and other similar initiatives [which will appear on the Taptu Service]. We will not permit any third parties to contact you directly on an unsolicited basis regarding their own products and services, unless you have provided explicit consent to this when signing up to the Taptu Service. You may ‘opt-out’ of receiving marketing and promotional emails or text messages from Taptu or any third party at any time by changing or editing your account preferences [when available].
  • Our advertising and promotional partners will not have access to your name or personal information unless you choose to share it with them. Taptu does not provide your name or personal information to any advertising partner when you interact with or view a targeted advertisement.
  • We will disclose users’ personally identifiable information if we reasonably believe we are required to do so by law, regulation or any other government authority to protect Taptu’s rights and property and/or the general public. We may also co-operate with law enforcement agencies and, where required, may disclose users’ personally identifiable information.

No transmission of information via the internet is completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data (including using encryption algorithms), we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

We may use third-party partners to help operate Taptu Services, and we may share your information with our affiliates, service providers and other third parties that provide products or services for or through the Taptu Service or for our business (such as web site or database hosting companies, address list hosting companies, e-mail service providers, analytics companies, distribution companies, fulfillment companies, and other similar service providers that use such information on our behalf).

Forums/Communications with other Users

The Taptu Service currently offers forums functionality. Please remember that all personal information you display or communicate using this functionality becomes public information, and we are not responsible for any information that you voluntarily make available to the public. We have no obligation to monitor these discussions, but we may sometimes check the forums to ensure that no obscene, defamatory or abusive language is being used. We reserve the right to remove any content from any other part of the Taptu Service which offers forums functionality at our complete discretion. If you choose to voluntarily give out personal details to another user through the Taptu Service, you do so at your own risk and Taptu shall not be held responsible for any consequences resulting from this action. We suggest you use extreme caution when posting information about yourself on the Internet.

When you carry out searches through the Taptu Service, you may decide to send the results to a friend by clicking on an “Email this”, “SMS to Mobile” or similar button on the Taptu Service. In some of these cases, you, or your friend, may be able to provide your friend’s, or your, email address to us. This information, including the email address, will be treated in accordance with this privacy policy and applicable law. If you receive emails from friends via the Taptu Service and you do not want to receive them anymore, we will provide an automated unsubscribe link which you should click on.

Links

This privacy statement applies only to information collected by Taptu. The Taptu Service, as a mobile information aggregator [and search engine], provides links to other websites and services that are not owned or controlled by Taptu. These websites have their own privacy policies and we cannot control or be held responsible for the way in which they treat information about their users. We encourage you to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information.

Cookies & localStorage

Cookies are small files that are written or downloaded to your computer’s hard drive or phone’s memory when you access a website. Many websites use cookies to provide useful features for their users. Taptu web app (www.taptu.com) does not use cookies, instead it uses a feature within HTML5 called localStorage to store the following information about our users if the user logs in on Taptu:

  • the user’s Taptu ID
  •  the user’s root provider – what they used to login – either Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Google
  •  the user’s oauth tokens for each logged in provider
  •  queued oauth errors, if any were encountered during authorisation
  • the user’s last location on the Taptu app before proceeding to authorisation
  •  the user’s application details, which contains a list of read articles read on Taptu, a list of bookmarks and a list of streams added by the user
  • a flag indicating that user has approved the privacy policy

For anonymous browsing, we only store the last two:

  • the user’s application details, which contains a list of read articles read on Taptu, a list of bookmarks and a list of streams added by the user
  • a flag indicating that user has approved the privacy policy

You can ask your browser not to store any of the above information within the Options/Settings menu. However you must understand that by doing so you will not be able to use the taptu.com website as storing the above information is a necessary part of the websites functionality.

By agreeing to this privacy policy you are agreeing to Taptu using localStorage to store the above information about you.

If you want to find out more about cookies then go to http://aboutcookies.org/ . For further information about localStorage go to http://www.w3schools.com/html5/html5_webstorage.asp

Third-Party Advertising

We may use third-party advertising companies to target and display advertisements when you visit the Taptu Service. Taptu and its advertisers may also use third party advertising networks to help present and manage advertisements. These advertising networks may use general [demographic] information (generally not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to the Taptu Service to provide advertisements about goods and services that may be of interest to you. They may also use cookies, web beacons (which are electronic files that allow a website to count users who have visited that page or to access certain cookies) or similar mobile technologies to help present, target and measure the effectiveness of their advertisements, using data gathered over time and across their networks of web pages to determine or predict the characteristics and preferences of their audience.

Certain third party individuals or organisations may be granted access to your personal information [(excluding your email address)] as a result of agreements between Taptu and its preferred partners. [(However, if you provide your e-mail address and/or username directly to any such third parties, they may use your information for their own purposes.)] Such partners may use such information for their own purposes, which may be either commercial or non-commercial in nature and which may also include targeted advertising or direct marketing. These third parties may be based in the United Kingdom or abroad (including outside of the EEA).

Certain third-party advertisements on the Taptu Service may enable you to submit your username and/or other personal information within the advertisement in order to receive information or services provided by third parties. Such advertisements are provided by third parties, and, the collection and use of the information submitted via the advertisements is by such third parties and is subject to their privacy policies.

Taptu cannot guarantee that all third parties will abide by the restrictions contained within this Privacy Policy. You If you suspected your personal information is being or, has been misused them you can report this to us by emailing us at [email protected] and we will endeavour to investigate your claim. Where we deem it appropriate, we will take appropriate action against such third party, which may include terminating their access to personal information.

If you are accessing Taptu on your computer, please visit the Internet Advertising Bureau’s consumer website at www.youronlinechoices.co.uk for more information about how to opt out of targeted advertising delivered by IAB member advertising networks. Please note that use of cookies, web beacons or similar technologies by advertisers and advertising networks will be subject to their own privacy policies. We encourage you to read these privacy policies if you should have any concerns about how they will look after your information.

Security and Confidentiality

Taptu employs a variety of measures to help protect your personal information, including technical, administrative and physical controls. We employ firewalls and store all of our files and information on password protected terminals. Please understand that whilst we employ good industry practices to keep your personal information safe and secure, no security system is completely secure. You acknowledge that there will be circumstances in which your personal information will be accessed by unauthorised persons.

The security of your personal information depends partly on your protection of your account password. You should never disclose this to unauthorised people.

If you become aware of any breach of data security or have any other questions about the security of our website, please contact us at [email protected]. If we believe that the security of your personal information in our possession may have been compromised, we may seek to notify you and endeavour to do so as quickly as possible under the circumstances. We may notify you by email if we have your email address. If you would prefer us to use another method to notify you in this situation, please email us at [email protected] with the alternative contact information you would like us to use.

Phishing attacks attempt to steal consumers’ personal identity data and financial account credentials. ‘Phishers’ use ‘spoofed’ emails to lead consumers to counterfeit websites designed to trick recipients into divulging sensitive personal information such as credit card numbers, account usernames, passwords, and social security numbers. WE DO NOT SEND EMAILS ASKING YOU TO PROVIDE OR CONFIRM SENSITIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION OR YOUR USERNAME OR PASSWORD. if you receive such email communication, please forward it immediately to Taptu’s privacy administrator at [email protected], and then immediately delete the fraudulent email from your computer or mobile device.

Persons under the age of 12

The Taptu Service is not intended for use by persons under the age of 12. They must not register with the Taptu Service and/or submit any personal information to us. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from any person who is under the age of 12 or allow them to register. If we become aware that we have collected personal data from a person under the age of 12, we will delete this information as quickly as possible. If you have reason to believe that this has occurred, please contact us at [email protected], and we will delete all relevant information.

Data Protection

Taptu aims to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 (the “Act”), including all UK amending legislation and E.U. Directives. In accordance with the Act, you have the right to be informed of, and to have access to, all of the personally identifiable information we hold about you, and you may do so by accessing your user profile when logged-in to your account on the Taptu Service, or by e-mailing us at [email protected].

Changes to Privacy Policy

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are fully aware of what information is collected, how it is used and under what circumstances it will be disclosed (if any). If you are concerned about how your information is collected, used or disclosed, we recommend that you check this page periodically.

We reserve the right to modify this privacy policy at any time, so please review it regularly. If you decide that you do not want us to use your personal information in the way described in this privacy policy, you can send us a notice to withdraw your consent by emailing [email protected]. If you do not provide your consent, or if you withdraw your consent, you should not use the Taptu Service as a registered user, which means that many features may be unavailable to you.

If you have questions about our privacy policy or if you do not understand any information about how we collect, maintain, use or share your personally identifiable information, you may contact us directly by sending an e-mail to [email protected]

Changes to Business

If Taptu becomes involved in a merger, acquisition or sells all or a portion of its assets to another company, it is likely that user information will be a part of the assets transferred. If as a result of such a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, personal information becomes subject to a different privacy policy, Taptu will endeavour to provide notice to users of these changes beforehand.

Effective Date

This privacy policy is effective as of 1st November 2010.