Last Updated November 22, 2021

Please Read Carefully

This Online Privacy Policy describes the information Participate.Media collects about you through the Participate.Media apps, website and all other services we provide (collectively, the “Services”), how we use and share that information, and the privacy choices we offer. This policy applies to information we collect when you access or use our apps or websites, when you use our Services or when you otherwise interact with us.

Changes to this Online Privacy Policy

We may change this Online Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make changes, we will post the updated policy on our website and revise the “Last Updated” date above. Our posting the changes on our website will serve as your notification. We encourage you to review the Online Privacy Policy whenever you use our Services to stay informed about our information practices and about ways you can help protect your privacy. Please note that changes made to this Online Privacy Policy shall apply to all data collected through our Services on or before that date.

Use of Services

Your access to and use of our Services are subject to certain terms and conditions, which are set forth in our Terms of Use.

Collection of Information

The Participate.Media apps, website and related Services are intended to allow individuals to:

§  access, search and read on-line journalism,

§  save links to on-line journalism in a library,

§  share on-line journalism with others within the app, via text message or email, and have a conversation with those other individuals, respecting all paywalls and depending on your and the recipient’s subscription status with the media owners,

§  view advertisements.

(1)   Information you provide:

(a)   Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

(i)     To use Participate.Media you have to be a legitimate user which requires that you provide Participate.Media with a legitimate email and mobile phone (cellphone) number and create and use a Participate.Media username.

(ii)   Participate.Media will generate and store a Participate.Media address in the form @username that will be associated with you and your account. That address will be your address for sharing in the Conversations Channel in Participate.Media.

(iii)  You create a password to your account that is stored encrypted on Participate.Media servers.

(b)  If you sign up for a Participate.Media paid one-time or subscription product or service, Participate.Media will associate that product or service with your personal information, above. Any additional personal information you voluntarily provide such as address, zip code or other identifiable information will be collected. Note that all personal data is encrypted in storage.

(c)  If you wish to participate in Participate.Media confidential profiling for advertising, Participate.Media will encrypt and confidentially store your profile choices, which you have rights to edit or delete.

(d)   We collect information you provide access to or permission to interact with to Participate.Media support personnel to resolve any technical issues you might have with the Participate.Media apps or Services.

(2)   Information Participate.Media does not collect:

(a)   When you choose a paid product, service or subscription from Participate.Media, the payment or credit card information you provide is not collected by Participate.Media. Credit card information and transactions are handled securely by Participate.Media’s partner, Stripe (www.stripe.com). Participate.Media never manages or maintains credit card information.

(b)  When you search on-line journalism, Participate.Media does not associate your search with your personal information, with the following critical exceptions:

(i)     Do not use Participate.Media for illegal activities or purposes. Please exercise discretion when using the Participate.Media apps, website or our Services. Participate.Media is dedicated to protecting your privacy and will do everything we can to protect your information. If, however, you do something illegal or are suspected of doing something illegal and Participate.Media receives a legitimate, legal, court-ordered request for information associated with that activity, Participate.Media may be compelled to release that information to the legitimate and legal requesting authority and has the explicit and unilateral right to shut down your account and your use of our apps, website and Services. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE PARTICPATE.MEDIA FOR ANY ILLEGAL ACTIVITY OR PURPOSES.

(ii)   Do not use Participate.Media to attempt to access, search for or share inappropriate content or express inappropriate views. Participate.Media apps, website and our Services are intended to access legitimate media only. Participate.Media is a technology service for legitimate journalism; Participate.Media is not itself a news organization. Participate.Media is dedicated to protecting the free speech rights of legitimate journalists but Participate.Media has no responsibility to protect your or any other end-user’s free speech rights when you or they use Participate.Media to create or share content or comments, add comments to the work of journalists or when you or other end-users share journalism with others. You cannot use the Participate.Media apps, website or our Service for expressing, voicing, fostering, threatening, practicing, promulgating or promoting any form of violence, terrorism, act of war, hate, persecution, defamation, hazing, bullying, exploitation, slander, abuse, blackmail, fraud, criminal activity, racism, sexism, sexual abuse, child pornography, political violence, or any similar activities or any activities Participate.Media finds objectionable, under any jurisdiction, anywhere. If you create any content concerning the above or express any of the above using Participate.Media apps, websites or our Services, or anything else that constitutes inappropriate content, with what constitutes any of the above or inappropriate content defined at Participate.Media’s sole discretion, we retain the right to take down and delete such content, and block you from sharing, promoting, promulgating, accessing, searching for or publishing any such content. In addition, we retain the right to and will shut down your account and your use of our apps, websites and Services immediately and permanently. DO NOT USE PARTICIPATE.MEDIA TO ATTEMPT TO ACCESS, SEARCH FOR OR SHARE INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT OR EXPRESS INAPPROPRIATE VIEWS.

(iii)  Do not attempt to register, open, establish or use an illegitimate Participate.Media account. If Participate.Media determines in any way that you or your account are not legitimate, with what constitutes legitmate defined at Participate.Media’s sole discretion, we retain the right to block you from use of Participate.Media apps, our websites and any of our Services. In addition, we will shut down such account and associated use of our apps, websites and Services immediately and permanently. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO REGISTER, OPEN, ESTABLISH OR USE AN ILLEGITIMATE PARTICIPATE.MEDIA ACCOUNT, IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM.

(iv)  Do not attempt to generate, promote, propagate, share, feature, disseminate or distribute false news, statements or information on Participate.Media. Participate.Media is dedicated to legitimate and factual journalism and the protection of legitimate and factual free speech from journalists and editorial writers. Participate.Media is a technology service, not a news organization. Participate.Media is not a free speech platform for whatever you or other end-user’s wish to express or wish to promote as news. What constitutes legitimate factual journalism, news and opinion is at the sole discretion of Participate.Media. If you attempt to generate, promote, propagate, share, feature, disseminate or distribute false news, statements or information, Participate.Media retains the right to take that content down, delete it and, at our sole discretion, shut down your account and your use of our apps, website and Services immediately, and keep your account shut down temporarily or permanently. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO GENERATE, PROMOTE, PROPAGATE, SHARE, FEATURE, DISSEMINATE OR DISTRIBUTE FALSE NEWS, STATEMENTS OR INFORMATION ON PARTICIPATE.MEDIA.

(V) Do not attempt to distribute, publish or alter in any way, content from Participate.Media without the express permission of the original author, publisher or rightful owner of that content. Respect all content ownership, copyright and intellectual property rights of all authors, journalists, media companies and publishers, including paywalls and subscriptions. If you distribute, publish or alter any content in violation of the statement above using Participate.Media apps, websites or our Services, at Participate.Media’s sole discretion, we retain the right to take down and delete such content, request that content be removed from any other off-line or on-line publisher, website, social media, media, data source or database and block you from sharing, promoting, promulgating, accessing, searching for or publishing any such content. In addition, we retain the right to and will shut down your account and your use of our apps, websites and Services immediately and permanently. DO NOT USE PARTICIPATE.MEDIA TO ATTEMPT TO ACCESS, SEARCH FOR OR SHARE INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT OR EXPRESS INAPPROPRIATE VIEWS.

(c)   Information on children 13 years of age or less:

Participate.Media does not knowingly collect or maintain personally identifiable information from persons under 13 years of age without verifiable parental consent. If you are under 13 years of age, then please do not use Participate.Media apps, our websites or any of our Services without the express consent of your parents or guardians. If Participate.Media learns that personally identifiable information of persons less than 13 years of age has been collected without verifiable parental consent, then Participate.Media will take the appropriate steps to delete this information. If you or someone you know is concerned that someone less than 13 years of age has provided us with personal information or anyone has provided information on someone less than 13 years of age, please contact us immediately at support@participate.media.

Sharing of Information

i)      Participate.Media does not scan, sell or share your personally identifiable information in any way.

ii)     Participate.Media uses the information that you make available to Participate.Media solely to provide you with Participate.Media Services. 

iii)   All individual, non-third-party media or periodical subscription views or sharing are anonymous, and your personally identifiable information will not be shared with those media or periodicals. 

iv)     Aggregate profile information across users, specifically excluding personally identifiable information, will be shared with Participate.Media media and periodical partners for account reconciliation, revenue cycle management and statistical purposes.

v)   Aggregate profile information across users, specifically excluding personally identifiable information, will be shared with Participate.Media advertising partners for account reconciliation, revenue cycle management and statistical purposes. This is to allow Participate.Media subscription end-users to participate anonymously in Participate.Media advertising but earn credits for participating in advertising views.

Protecting Your Information

Participate.Media uses industry best practices to protect your information. Connections to and from Participate.Media servers are secured using HTTPS. Firewalls, malware and virus detection are provided to protect your data on our and our third-party partner’s servers to the best of our ability. Encryption is used where appropriate or necessary to protect specific types of information such as passwords. Participate.Media uses standards-based and validated security technologies wherever possible. Industry best practices and the best current technologies are not a guarantee of absolute protection. Participate.Media does its best to protect against data breech, cyber-attack, and hacking, and against physical access to data servers or infrastructure, but there can be no absolute guarantee of absolute protection. Participate.Media utilizes Amazon Web Services (AWS – aws.amazon.com) for its infrastructure and is dependent on the integrity of AWS security and infrastructure safeguards.

Cookies and Other Electronic Technologies

“Cookies” are small computer files transferred to your computing device that contain information such as user ID and local copies of submitted information. Participate.Media uses Cookies to help improve or tailor Participate.Media Services by storing your authentication status, so you do not have to re-enter your credentials each time you use the Services, customizing your experience with the Services, and for analytics. For more information on cookies, visit https://www.allaboutcookies.org.

Use of Information

We use the information that we collect for the following purposes:

(1)   For the purposes for which you provided the information;

(2)   To contact you when necessary or requested;

(3)   To provide, maintain, administer, improve, or expand the Services, perform business analyses, or for other internal purposes to support, improve or enhance the Services, and other products and services we offer;

(4)   To customize and tailor your experience of the Services;

(5)   To analyze trends and usage in connection with the Services; 

(6)   To develop and improve algorithms and software;

(7)   To prevent, detect, and investigate security breaches, fraud, and other potentially illegal or prohibited activities;

(8)   To enforce the legal terms that govern your use of the Services; 

(9)   To protect our rights or property;

(10)   To administer and troubleshoot the Services; and

(11)    For any other purpose disclosed to you in connection with our Services. 

Your Privacy Choices

(1)   How You Can Access and Update Your Information

(a)   You may update or correct information within the Participate.Media app about yourself at any time or by emailing us at support@participate.media.

(2)   Cookies

(a)   Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can choose to set your browser to remove or reject cookies; however, our Services may not function properly if you do so.

(3)   Options for Opting out of Cookies

(a)   If you are interested in more information about how you can generally control cookies from being put on your computer, visit https://www.allaboutcookies.org.

(4)   How Company Responds to Browser “Do Not Track” Signals

(a)   We do not currently recognize or respond to browser initiated Do Not Track (DNT) signals, as the Internet industry is currently still working on Do Not Track standards, implementations and solutions. For more information about Do Not Track DNT signals, visit https://allaboutdnt.com/.

(5)   Links to Other Websites

(a)   Our Services may contain links to other websites and those websites may not follow the same privacy practices as Participate.Media. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party websites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of such third parties to learn more about their privacy practices.

Your California Privacy Rights

While we do not provide your personal information to marketers, we want you to know your rights. California law permits users who are California residents to request and obtain from us once a year, free of charge, a list of the third parties to whom we have disclosed their personal information (if any) for their direct marketing purposes in the prior calendar year, as well as the type of personal information disclosed to those parties. If you are a California resident and would like to request this information, please submit your request in an email to support@participate.media.

No Rights of Third Parties

This Online Privacy Policy does not create rights enforceable by third parties.

How to Contact Us

Please contact us with any questions or concerns regarding this Online Privacy Policy at:

Company Participate.Media
Email support@participate.media