Privacy Policy - Yoga Talk

Your privacy is important to us. We understand that providing information online involves a great deal of trust on your part. We take this trust very seriously, and make it a high priority to ensure the security and confidentiality of the personal information you provide to us. Before submitting your personal information to our Website, please read this Policy carefully to learn about our privacy practices.

By visiting and/or joining our Website, www.YogaTalk.com, you are accepting the practices described herein, and you voluntarily and willingly provide YogaTalk certain information, including personally identifiable information, which we collect in order to provide the Services. If you have any hesitation about providing information to us and/or having your information displayed on the YogaTalk website or otherwise used in any manner permitted in this Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service, you should not become a member of the YogaTalk community; and, if you are already a member, you should close your account.

The information you provide to YogaTalk may reveal, or allow others to identify, your nationality, ethnic origin, gender, age, and other aspects of your life. By providing information to us for the purposes of creating your User account or adding any additional details to your YogaTalk profile, you are expressly and voluntarily accepting the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy and YogaTalk’s Terms of Service that allow YogaTalk to process information about you. Supplying information to YogaTalk, including any information deemed “sensitive” by applicable law, is entirely voluntary on your part. You have the right to withdraw your consent to our collection and processing of your information at any time, in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service, by closing your account, but please note that your withdrawal of consent will not be retroactive.

What is Covered Under this Privacy Policy

This Policy applies to all of the Services offered by YogaTalk Inc. (“YogaTalk”, “we”, “us”, “ours”, “our Website”). This Policy describes how we treat personal information that we collect and receive. Personal information is any information about you that is personally identifiable (including your first and last name, telephone number, postal and e-mail addresses, username and password), and that is not commonly, publicly available. This policy does not apply to practices of companies that are not owned or controlled by us, or to people who are not employed, or managed by us.

What Information We Collect From You

We collect and store any information you enter on our Website or provide us with in any other way. This includes information that can identify you (“personal information”). We may also request information about your yoga preferences and experiences, and your year of birth. When you register with YogaTalk and sign in to our Website you are not anonymous to us. You can choose not to provide information to us, but in general some information about you is required in order for you to enjoy the benefits of being a registered User. We may collect information about your transactions with us and with some of our advertisers.

Information About Others

You will have the opportunity to provide contact information for other people through our Website. You should obtain the consent of other individuals prior to providing YogaTalk with their personal information.

YogaTalk does not and will not share any information you provide about other people with any other platform or company, nor with any other users on the YogaTalk website.

Information From Other Sources

We also may periodically obtain both personal and non-personal information about you from affiliated entities, business partners and other independent third-party sources, and add it to other information about you. For example, if you access third party services, such as social media services, through our Website we may collect information made available to us through those services in order to establish your identity, and to improve and personalize your use of our Website.

You can choose to log on to YogaTalk by using your Facebook account. Facebook provides us with information that you have chosen to make available pursuant to your Facebook privacy settings. That information may include your name, profile picture, gender, friends lists and any other information you have chosen to make available. Please note that, if you have Facebook friends who are using YogaTalk, they may also have shared information about you with us through Facebook. If you wish to prevent that sharing, you can do so by editing your Facebook privacy settings.

Automatic Information

We automatically receive and record some information on our server logs when you visit and interact with our Website. Session data can include your IP address (or the proxy server you use to access the World Wide Web), your computer operating system, the type of Web browser software and language, and referring Website; if you are accessing YogaTalk using a mobile device, data we collect may include your mobile device (including your UDID) and mobile operating system, as well as the name of your ISP or your mobile carrier. We may also receive location data passed to us from third-party services or GPS-enabled devices that you have enabled. The link between your IP address and your personally identifiable information is not shared with third parties without your permission, except as described below in “Disclosure of Personal Information” if necessary to comply with a legal process.

We also may collect information about your online activity, such as content viewed and pages visited, ads you clicked, people or places you follow, your participation in polls and surveys, shared content on YogaTalk, etc. The goal in collecting this automatic information is to help us understand the interests of our Users and customize the User experience.

Cookies and Other Web Technologies

Cookies are small data text files that can be stored on your computer’s hard drive, mobile phone, or other device (if your Web browser permits), and that allow us to recognize you as a User when you return to the YogaTalk Website using the same computer and Web browser.

The Help portion of the toolbar on most browsers should 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 most types of cookies. Please note that if your browser is set to refuse all cookies, some features of our Website may not function properly.

When you visit YogaTalk.com, we may set and access cookies on your computer and use these cookies for the following general purposes:

To improve the quality of our services by helping us to recognize your browser as a previous visitor, and by storing any user preferences that may have been set while your browser was visiting our Website. For example, we may use cookies to remember your registration information, so you do not need to log into our site each time you visit. Please note that member IDs, passwords, and any other account-related data included in such cookies are encrypted for security purposes;
To help us customize the content, the Website experience, and the advertisements shown to you on our Website and on other websites across the Internet;
To track user trends, and to help measure and research the effectiveness of our Website’s features and offerings, advertisements, and e-mail communications (by determining which e-mails you open and act upon).

YogaTalk does not store unencrypted personally identifiable information in the cookies. Our Website may also use Web beacons (also known as clear gifs, pixel tags or Web bugs), which are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies that are placed in the code of a Web page. We use Web beacons to monitor the traffic patterns of users from one page within our sites to another, to deliver or communicate with cookies, to understand whether you have come to our site from an online advertisement displayed on a third-party website, and to improve site performance. We also may allow our service providers to use Web beacons to help us understand which emails have been opened by recipients and to track the visitor traffic and actions on our site. This helps us measure the effectiveness of our content and other offerings.

Display of Advertising

YogaTalk is committed to providing you with relevant content and information across our site. To support the Services we provide at no cost to our Users, as well as provide a more relevant and useful experience for our Users, we target and display our own ads and third-party ads both on and off the site using ad networks. Ad networks include third-party ad servers, ad agencies, ad exchanges, ad technology vendors and research firms. To do this, we may collect information about your yoga-related searches, and use this information to display advertising on our site that matches your apparent interests. We do not share your personal information with third parties when you interact with or view a targeted ad.

The advertisements you see on YogaTalk are served by www.YogaTalk.com, or by third-party service providers. These third parties may include (i) business partners, who may collect information when you view or interact with one of their advertisements on our sites, and (ii) advertising networks, who may collect information about your interests when you view or interact with one of the advertisements they place on many different websites on the Internet. The information gathered by these third parties is used to make predictions about your interests or preferences, and to display advertisements on our Website and across the Internet tailored to your apparent interests. Please note that we do not have access to or control over cookies or other technologies these third parties may use to collect information about your interests, and that the information practices of these third parties are not covered by this Privacy Policy.

How We Use Your Information

YogaTalk uses the information we collect about you for the following purposes:

Registration and management of your account, including facilitating your access to and use of our Website;
Communicating with you in general, including to provide information about YogaTalk and invitations from the YogaTalk community;
Enabling us to publish your reviews, posts, and other content to our community;
Responding to your questions and comments;
Auditing, researching, analyzing, maintaining, protecting and improving our products, Services, and Website;
Notifying you about special offers and products or services available from us or our partners that may be of interest to you;
Customizing your experience on our Website;
Fulfilling your requests for products and services, including the development of new services;
Ensuring the technical functioning of our network;
Soliciting information from you, including through polls and surveys;
Providing reporting for Premium Users of our Website;
Resolving disputes or troubleshoot problems;
Preventing potentially prohibited or illegal activities;
Enforcing our Terms of Service.

When you send us an email or other communication, we may retain those communications in order to process your inquiries, respond to your requests, and improve our Services.
We may present links in a format that enables us to track when the links are followed. We may use this information to improve the quality of our content and advertising.

If you have claimed or created a professional profile in our Yoga Directory, either as a yoga teacher, or owner or manager of a yoga studio, teacher training program, or yoga retreat, we will send you e-mail messages at the email address you provided to us.

Disclosure of Personal Information

YogaTalk processes personal information only for the purposes for which it was collected and in accordance with this Policy or any other applicable service-specific privacy notice. We retain the right to review our data collection, storage, and processing practices to ensure that we only collect, store, and process the personal information needed to provide or improve our Services. We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we process is accurate, complete, and current, but it is incumbent upon our Users to update and/or correct their personal information whenever necessary.

WE DO NOT RENT, SELL, OR SHARE PERSONAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU WITH OTHER PEOPLE OR COMPANIES EXCEPT WHEN WE HAVE YOUR PERMISSION.

Notwithstanding the above, YogaTalk may share your information with the following entities:

Social Media Websites: you can choose to access certain third party social media websites and services through our site (such as Facebook). When you do so, you are sharing information with those sites, and the information you share will be governed by their privacy policies. You may also be able to modify your privacy settings with these third party social media websites;
Third-party vendors: entities who provide services or functions on our behalf, including business analytics, customer service, marketing, distribution of surveys or sweepstakes programs, and fraud prevention. We may also authorize third-party vendors to operate features of our Website or to facilitate the delivery of online advertising tailored to your interests. Third-party vendors have access to and may collect information only as needed to perform their functions and are not permitted to share or use the information for any other purpose;
Please note that in order to fulfill your requests for any paid Services, we share your payment information with our payment processor;

We also may share your information under the following circumstances, if we have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary:

To satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or enforceable governmental request (which may include, but is not limited to, responding to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process, or establishing or exercising our legal rights or defending against legal claims or as otherwise required by law); in such cases we reserve the right to raise or waive any legal objection or right available to us;
To detect, investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal or suspected illegal activities, fraud, security or technical issues;
To protect and defend the rights, property, or safety of YogaTalk, our Users, or the public, as required or permitted by law, and to protect against potential threats to the physical safety of another person;
To enforce our Terms of Service and other agreements, including investigation of potential violations thereof;
In connection with a corporate transaction, such as a divestiture, merger, consolidation, asset sale, or bankruptcy. We will provide notice to you before your personal information is transferred and may become subject to a different privacy policy.

If you create a profile on YogaTalk, certain information on your profile (such as profile picture, name, location, reviews and other content contributed) will be publicly viewable and identifiable. Additionally, through our member-to-member communications programs, other registered YogaTalk Users may contact you by using YogaTalk as an intermediary. YogaTalk will not display your email address in any public manner, however please note that when you contact another member of YogaTalk, your email address is visible to the person you contacted so that they may reply to your message.

In order to invite others to join our Website, you may use the Services to send invitations to email addresses of people you know if they are not registered Users of YogaTalk. The names and email addresses of people you invite will be used to send your invitations and reminders. Please note that when you send an invitation to connect to another User, that User will have access to your email address because it will be displayed in the invitation.

You should be aware that when you contribute any Content to YogaTalk, you may be identifiable by other Users of our Website. Any personally identifiable information you choose to provide there can be seen, collected, or used by other Users, as well as Developers and other third parties. YogaTalk is not responsible for the information you choose to submit when participating in any area of the Website. Also, some content on YogaTalk may be public and searchable on the Internet. If you would like us to remove one of your reviews, please contact us and we will remove your review. However, please note that ideas you post and information you share may be seen and used by other Users, and we cannot guarantee that other Users have not made copies of or use the ideas and information that you share with others on YogaTalk.

Other than as set out above, you will be notified when personal information about you will be shared with third parties, and you will have an opportunity to choose not to allow us to share such information.

We also may share certain pieces of aggregated anonymous information with third parties, including Premium Members of YogaTalk, advertisers and investors. For example, we may tell our advertisers the number of visitors our website receives, or how many users click on a particular advertisement. This information does not contain any personal information, and is used to develop content and services that we hope you will find of interest.

Accessing Your Information

We take reasonable steps to ensure that your information is relevant to its intended use, accurate, and complete. You can access and edit your information by visiting your Profile administration page on the YogaTalk Website, at any time. You can request that your YogaTalk account be deleted at any time by contacting us. Please note that after you close an account, you will not be able to sign in or access any of your personal information. If you close your account, we have no obligation to retain your information, and may delete any or all of your account information without liability. Please also note that we may retain certain data contributed by you and information associated with your account in our archives, if we believe that it may be necessary to prevent fraud or future abuse, or for legitimate business purposes such as analysis of aggregated, non-personally identifiable data, account recovery, as well as for record-keeping integrity, or if required by law. For example, invitations you sent to other Users via YogaTalk, as well as your contributions to any part of the Website may remain visible to others after you have closed your account. Similarly, other information you have shared with other Users, or that other Users have copied, may also remain visible. YogaTalk disclaims any liability in relation to the deletion or retention (subject to the terms herein) of information or any obligation not to delete the information.

Information Security and Confidentiality

We want you to feel confident about using YogaTalk, and we are committed to protecting the information we collect. We have implemented appropriate administrative, technical, and physical security measures to protect the personal information you provide to us against unauthorized access to and/or unauthorized alteration, disclosure, or destruction. We limit or restrict access to personal information about you to our employees (including our contractors or agents) who we believe reasonably need to know that information to provide or develop services or to otherwise perform their jobs.

In addition, in order to help secure your personal information, access to your data on YogaTalk is password-protected, and sensitive data (such as credit card information) is protected by SSL encryption when it is exchanged between your web browser and the YogaTalk Website. We also employ firewalls and intrusion detection systems to help prevent unauthorized persons from gaining access to your information.

To protect any data stored on our servers, YogaTalk also regularly audits its system for possible vulnerabilities and attacks, and we use a tier-one secured-access data center. However, since the Internet is not a 100% secure environment, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to YogaTalk. There is no guarantee that information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards. It is your responsibility to protect the security of your login information. Please note that emails, direct messaging, and similar means of communication with other Users of YogaTalk are not encrypted, and we strongly advise you not to communicate any confidential information through these means.

YogaTalk Communications

As described in our Terms of Service, we will communicate with you through email, notices posted on our website, messages to your YogaTalk Message Account, or through other means available through the service, which may include mobile text messages. We may send you emails that inform you about the features of the Services, and we may also send you service messages relating to the functioning of the Services. We may also send you messages with promotional information directly or on behalf of our partners, unless you have opted out of receiving promotional information. You can change your e-mail and contact preferences at any time by logging into your account and changing the settings related to your email notification choices.

Please be aware that you cannot opt-out of receiving our service messages while you are a registered User. Also, if we send communications to you via the carrier service with which you have a mobile communications subscription or otherwise have access, you should understand that you will pay any service fees associated with your receipt of such messages on your mobile device (including text messaging charges).

Children’s Privacy

YogaTalk is a general audience site and does not offer services directed to children. Should an individual whom we know to be a child under age 13 send personal information to us, we will delete or destroy such information as soon as reasonably possible.

External Links

Parts of the YogaTalk Website contain links to other websites. Please be aware that those external websites do not operate under this Privacy Policy. We recommend that you examine the privacy statements posted on those other websites to understand their procedures for collecting, using, and disclosing personal information.

Your Obligations

As a User, you have certain obligations to other Users. Some of these obligations are imposed by applicable laws and regulations, and others are commonplace in user-friendly communities of like-minded members such as YogaTalk:

You must, at all times, abide by the terms and conditions of the then-current Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. This includes respecting all intellectual property rights that may belong to third parties (such as trademarks or photographs);
You must not download or otherwise disseminate any information that may be deemed to be injurious, violent, offensive, racist or xenophobic, or which may otherwise violate the purpose and spirit of YogaTalk and its community of Users;
You must not provide to YogaTalk and/or other Users information that you believe might be injurious or detrimental to yourself or others;
You must keep your username and password confidential and not share it with others.

Any violation of these guidelines may lead to the restriction, suspension, or termination of your account at the sole discretion of YogaTalk.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to update and/or change this Privacy Policy in the future. We will notify our members about material changes to this Privacy Policy by either sending a notice to the e-mail address you provided to us or by placing a prominent notice on our Website.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at: hello(at)YogaTalk.com

Last updated: March 27, 2014