Privacy Policy
This policy is effective as of 30th December 2008.
We built AnimalGate to make it easy to share information about you and your pet(s) / animal(s) with your friends and people around you. We understand you may not want everyone in the world to have the information you share on AnimalGate; that is why we give you control of your information. Our default privacy settings show most of the information you add to your Profile however you can change these settings by logging into your account and visiting "Update Profile".
AnimalGate believes that you should have control over your personal information and you should have access to the information others want to share. Sharing information should be easy, and we want to provide you with the privacy tools necessary to control how and with whom you share that information. If you have questions or ideas, please send them to privacy@animalgate.com.
When you visit AnimalGate you provide us with two types of information: i) personal information you provide from various forms (including the registration form) that is collected by us and ii) Website use information collected by us as you interact with our Website.
When you register with AnimalGate, you provide us with certain personal information, such as your name, your email address, your address, as well as pet/animal related information. When you enter AnimalGate, we collect your browser type and screen resolution for proper website display reasons. This information is gathered for all AnimalGate visitors but not stored. In addition, we store certain information from your browser using "cookies." A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's computer tied to information about the user (this may include your IP address). We use session ID cookies to confirm that users are logged in. Most cookies terminate once the user closes the browser. Optionally, we use a persistent cookie that stores your login ID (both your username and password) to make it easier for you to login when you come back to AnimalGate. You can remove or block this cookie using the settings in your browser if you want to disable this convenience feature or if you are using a public PC.
When you use AnimalGate, you may set up your personal Profile, form relationships, send messages, perform searches, create groups, upload photos and videos and transmit information through various channels. We collect this information so that we can provide you the service and offer personalized features. In most cases, we retain it so that, for instance, you can return to view prior messages you have sent or easily see your friend list. When you update or delete information or data (such as messages or photos), we never keep a backup copy of the prior version for increased security/privacy. Although, a copy of the deleted data may exist in past incremental backups, reversion to the prior version of that information is not possible except if there is a major system failure and we need to restore from our backup. In that case, you will be notified for any possible changes.
You post User Content (as defined in the AnimalGate Terms of Use) on the Site at your own risk. Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your pages, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other Users with whom you may choose to share your pages and information. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that User Content you post on the Site will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Site. You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored your User Content.
Any improper collection or misuse of information provided on AnimalGate is a violation of the AnimalGate Terms of Service and should be reported to privacy@animalgate.com. If you choose to use our invitation service to tell a friend about our site, we will ask you for information needed to send the invitation, such as your friend's email address. We will send your friend an email or instant message in your name inviting him or her to visit the site. AnimalGate will never remind again your friends about this invitation. By using AnimalGate, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred and stored in the United States and processed in Greece and the United States.
AnimalGate uses automatic techniques to filter out improper text content added by users but in no case can it guarantee that it will filter out all possible abusive language (swear words and phrases) or mistypings. If a user is offended by another user's message or comment he/she can block that user to prevent any future posts. Any video content uploaded or added by users, although is uploaded directly (usually within a few minutes), we manually monitor and approve this content and may delete the video file entirely if i) content is not relevant to pets & animals or if ii) it contains explicit content. This process may take up to 72 hours and during this period, the video content is not available in animalgate.tv but a visitor can watch it from the user's or animal's profile page. We do not monitor any image content uploaded by users. However, if a user believes a photo or video includes improper content he/she can use our reporting system to trigger a manual monitoring process which may take up to 72 hours.
AnimalGate does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13. If you are under 13, please do not attempt to register on the AnimalGate site or send any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number or email address. No one aged under 13 may provide any personal information to or on AnimalGate. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child aged under 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe you might have any information from or about a child aged under 13, please contact us at privacy@animalgate.com.
We strongly recommend that children between 13 and 18 consult their parents for permission before submitting any information over the Internet.
Each member's name and profile information as well as pet's and animal's information are available through search results across the AnimalGate network as well as third-party search engines.
AnimalGate may send you service-related announcements from time to time through system message, email or announcement on the home page. For instance, if a friend sends you a new message or comment, you will, by default, receive an email alerting you to that fact. However, you can opt out of such emails from your Update Profile page, though AnimalGate reserves the right to send you notice about your account even if you opt out of all voluntary email notifications.
AnimalGate may use information in your Profile without disclosing your name to third parties. We do this for purposes such as aggregating how many people have a specific animal type and personalizing advertisements and promotions so that we can provide you with AnimalGate. We believe this benefits you. You can know more about the world around you and, where there are advertisements, they're more than likely to be interesting to you. We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of AnimalGate, to supplement your profile.
AnimalGate is about sharing yours and your pets'/animals' information while providing you with privacy settings that may restrict other users from accessing your information. We do not provide contact information to third party marketers without your permission. We share your information with third parties only in limited circumstances where we believe such sharing is i) reasonably necessary to offer the service, ii) legally required or iii) permitted by you. We may provide services jointly with other companies on AnimalGate and we may share customer information with that company in connection with your use of that service. If the ownership of all or substantially all of the AnimalGate business, or individual business units owned by Petfive Ltd., were to change, your user information may be transferred to the new owner so the service can continue operations. In any such transfer of information, your user information would remain subject to the promises made in any pre-existing Privacy Policy.
AnimalGate may contain links to other websites. We are of course not responsible for the privacy practices of other websites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by AnimalGate.
Advertisements that appear on AnimalGate are sometimes delivered (or "served") directly to users by third party advertisers. They may receive your IP address when this happens. These third party advertisers may also download cookies to your computer, or use other technologies such as JavaScript and "web beacons" (also known as "1x1 gifs") to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content. Doing this allows the advertising network to recognize your computer each time they send you an advertisement in order to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content. In this way, they may compile information about where individuals using your computer or browser saw their advertisements and determine which advertisements are clicked. AnimalGate does not have access to or control of the cookies that may be placed by the third party advertisers. Third party advertisers have no access to your contact information stored on AnimalGate unless you choose to share it with them.
This privacy policy covers the use of cookies by AnimalGate and does not cover the use of cookies or other tracking technologies by any of its advertisers.
Access and control over most personal information on AnimalGate are available through the Update Profile section. AnimalGate members may modify or delete any of their Profile information at any time by logging into their account. Information will be updated immediately. Individuals who wish to deactivate their AnimalGate account may do so by sending an email to accounts@animalgate.com. Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but will not be generally available to members of AnimalGate.
Where you make use of the communication features of the service to share information with other individuals on AnimalGate, however, (e.g. sending a personal message to another AnimalGate member) you generally cannot remove such communications.
Your use of AnimalGate, and any disputes arising from it, is subject to this Privacy Policy as well as our Terms of Use and all of its dispute resolution provisions including arbitration, limitation on damages and choice of law. We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use at any time. Non-material changes and clarifications will take effect immediately. If we make changes, we will post them and will indicate at the top of this page the policy's new effective date. We encourage you to refer to this policy on an ongoing basis so that you understand our current privacy policy. Unless stated otherwise, our current privacy policy applies to all information that we have about you and your account.
If you have any questions about this privacy policy, please contact us at privacy@animalgate.com . You may also contact us by post at Petfive Ltd., PO Box 78037, 17342, Athens, Greece.
