Privacy Policy

The Grow! website (“Grow! Site”) is a social platform that allows you to show love for the contents you like and get connected with the publishers and their fans. With the Grow! Site we want you to support the people you like and enable them to continue with what they do. We also want you to add your own contents to it and receive appreciation from others.
Grow! Inc. (“Grow!”, “we”, “us” or “our”), is a U.S. company. Grow! knows that you care about how your personal information is used and shared, and we are committed to treating your information with respect and sensitivity. Please read the following to learn more about this commitment and our privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”). By visiting the Grow! Site you are accepting the practices outlined in this Privacy Policy. The Privacy Policy covers Grow!’s treatment of personal data that Grow! gathers when you are on the Grow! Site and when you use the “Service” (defined in Grow!’s Terms of Use (“Terms”)). The Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of third parties that Grow! does not own or control, or to individuals that Grow! does not employ or manage.
“You”, “your” and “yourself” refer to anyone visiting the Grow! Site or using the Service.

Changes to the Privacy Policy

As the Service evolves we may from time to time amend the Privacy Policy. We encourage you to check the Grow! Site frequently to see the current Privacy Policy, Terms in effect and any changes that may have been made to them. If we make changes to the Privacy Policy we will post the revised Privacy Policy, so you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances (if any) it is disclosed, along with the revised effective date, on the Grow! Site. Please check back here periodically or contact us at http://blog.growbutton.com/contact for the current version of the Privacy Policy.

Children’s Privacy (Under 18 Years of Age)

You must be 18 years or older to register to use the Grow! website. If you are under the age of 18, please do not use or access the Grow! Site or Service in any way. We will not knowingly collect or use any personal information from any children under the age of 18. If we learn that Grow! has collected information from a child under the age of 18, we will delete that information as quickly as possible.

Information Collected by Grow!

We only collect and process information that is relevant to the purpose of our Grow! Site and Service. This information allows us to provide you with a customized and efficient experience. We do not collect and process this information in a way that is incompatible with this purpose. You may choose not to provide us with certain information but then you may not be able to take advantage of many of our features. We collect the following types of information from you:
1. Information You Provide to Us:
Registration: In order for you to use the Services you will provide us with information by filling in forms on the Grow! Site. This may include information provided at the time of registering to use the Grow! Site including your full name and e-mail address (“User Profile”), posting material or requesting further services. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with the Grow! Site.
User Profile: To allow you to express yourself beyond just the information collected during registration, we may eventually enable you to provide additional information, such as a bio or favorites for URLs. In addition, you may eventually be able to include photos of yourself in your profile. As indicated below, in the section titled “Sharing Your Information”, you can control how your information is displayed and used.
Your Use of the Service: Once you start using the Grow! Site, we collect information about your activity on Grow!-enabled sites via cookies in order to recognize you. We do this so you can avoid having to re-identify yourself manually when you visit the sites you have chosen to support. Once activated, the “Grow! Button” (defined in the Terms) also keeps count of your Grow! Button clicks in order to allocate your “Grow!ing Amounts” as “Grow!ing Proceeds” (each defined in the Terms). We may keep details of any such allocations and any disbursements of the Grow!ing Proceeds as well as the information about any Site Owner’s “Designated Account” (defined in the Terms) required for any such disbursements. We encode our cookies so that only we can interpret the information stored in them. You can decline our cookie if your browser permits but doing so will interfere with the use of the Service.
Correspondence: If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.
Surveys: We may also ask you to complete surveys that we use for research and to improve the Service we offer you, although you do not have to respond to them.
2. Automatic Information:
As is true of most websites, we receive and store in log files certain types of information whenever you interact with us. Grow! automatically receives and records certain “traffic data” on our server logs from your browser including your IP address, Internet Service Provider (ISP) information, referring/exit pages, date/time stamps, operating system information, click-stream data, Grow! cookie information and the page you requested. Grow! uses this traffic data to help diagnose problems with its servers, analyze trends and administer the Grow! Site.
Grow! may collect and on any page display the total counts that page has been viewed. This includes User Profile pages. We may use a third-party tracking service, such as Google Analytics, that may use cookies to track non-personally identifiable information about visitors to the Grow! Site in the aggregate for marketing research purposes.
Many companies offer programs that help you visit websites anonymously. While Grow! will not be able to provide you with a personalized experience if we cannot recognize you, we want you to be aware that these programs are available.

E-mail Communications

Grow! is very concerned about your privacy and we will never provide your e-mail address to a third party without your explicit permission, as detailed in the “Sharing Your Information” section below. Grow! may send out e-mails with Grow!-related news, products, offers, surveys or promotions. You may also receive notification e-mails from Grow!, which inform you of actions that have been performed on the Grow! Site. If you do not want to receive e-mails from us, please visit http://blog.growbutton.com/contact/ or follow the instructions contained in the unwanted e-mail message. However, please note that in all cases you will continue to receive all system e-mails (e.g. those regarding forgotten user passwords) and legal notices (e.g. updates to our policies) from us.
Additionally, while we appreciate your feedback and other suggestions about the Grow! Site and Service, we are not responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of any such feedback that you provide us and you agree that we may use your feedback at our discretion without compensation or liability to you.

Cookies

• Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser to enable our systems to recognize your browser and tell us how and when pages on the Grow! Site are visited and by how many people. This may enable us to customize the Grow! Site according to your individual interests, speed up your searches and recognize you when you return to the Grow! Site.
• The “help” portion of the toolbar on the majority of browsers will direct you on how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to command the browser to tell you when you receive a new cookie or how to fully disable cookies. We recommend that you leave the cookies activated because we believe cookies allow you to better use Grow! Site’s features.
• Some of our business partners, such as advertisers, may use cookies on the Grow! Site. We have no access to, or control over, these cookies.

Sharing Your Information

Because the Grow! Site enables people to discover and share information with one another, information about the people who use the Grow! Site is an integral part of the Grow! experience. We neither rent nor sell your personal information to anyone and we will share your personal information only as described below.
• Grow! Personnel: Grow! personnel and authorized consultants or contractors may have access to your information if necessary in the normal course of Grow! business.
• Protection of Grow! and Others: We may release personal information when we believe in good faith that release is necessary to comply with a law; to enforce or apply the Terms or other agreements and policies; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Grow!, our employees, our users or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
• User Profile Information: Information collected during registration and subsequent visits, such as your full name, may be displayed to other Grow! users in your User Profile.
• Social Sharing of Data: Grow! allows you to permit other users to browse things that you have “Grow!’d” (defined in the Terms), submitted or commented on. You can opt-in to this feature by changing your Privacy options. If you opt-in, this information is made available publicly via your User Profile, via the public API or within the permalink URL of the website on which you performed the action. Grow! may choose to post this data on other site features.
• API: Grow! will allow third parties access to all Grow! data that is already publicly available through the Grow! website. Grow! will keep private any passwords.
• Syndication: Grow! allows for the RSS syndication of all of its public content within the Grow! Site.
• With Your Consent: Except as noted above, we will contact you when your personal information is shared with third parties or used for a purpose incompatible with the purpose(s) for which it was originally collected, and you will be able to opt out to prevent the sharing of this information.

Keeping Information Secure

• All information you provide to us is stored on our secured servers. Any payment transactions will be encrypted using SSL technology. Your “Grow! User Account” (defined in the Terms) information is protected by a password for your privacy and security. It is your responsibility to protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer by logging off once you have finished using a shared computer. We ask you not to share any password with anyone.
• Only employees who need personal information to perform a specific job (for example, a customer service representative) are granted access to it. All such employees are kept up to date on our privacy and security practices.
• Personal information collected through the Grow! Site and/or the Service may be stored and processed in the United States, Japan or in any other country in which Grow! or its providers (or their affiliates or providers) maintain facilities. By using the Grow! Site and/or the Service, you consent to any such transfer and processing of information outside of your country. Grow! will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your information is treated securely and in accordance with the Privacy Policy.
• Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to the Grow! Site and any transmissions are at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorized access.

Uses Made of Information

We use information held about you in the following ways:
• To ensure that content from the Grow! Site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
• To carry out our obligations arising from the Terms.
• To allow you to participate in interactive features of the Service, when you choose to do so.
• To notify you about changes to the Service.

Ways to Control Display and Use of Your Information

• As stated previously you can always opt not to disclose information but then you may be unable to use certain features on our website, such as posting new links.
• By visiting your Setting you can correct, amend, add or delete personal information on the Grow! Site. When you update information, however, we often maintain a copy of the unrevised information in our records.
• You may request deletion of your Grow! User Account here http://blog.growbutton.com/contact.
• As explained earlier, the “help” portion of the toolbar on the majority of browsers will direct you on how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to command the browser to tell you when you receive a new cookie or how to fully disable cookies. Please note, however, that if your browser does not accept cookies, you will not be able to take advantage of some of our attractive features.

Site Owners’ Information

• Grow! Button activity may be publicly available on an opt-in basis: Please be aware that most of the information we collect through the Service related to a Site Owner and Grow! Buttons could be made available to the public on the Service. Except for the Designated Account information and your Grow! User Account login information (user name and password), all other information about activity through the Service involving any Grow! Button(s) could be publicly displayed to everyone with access to the Internet, whether or not they are a registered Grow! User or a Site Owner. This includes information on all monies (i.e. Grow!ing Amounts) received by each of the Grow! Buttons (“Revenue History”) and from which Grow! Users these monies (including amounts) are received (subject only to privacy constraints imposed by the Grow! Users) (“Contribution History”). We only use this information for display and accounting purposes and this information will not be used for any other purpose, and is only publicly visible if you opt-in by changing your Privacy settings.
• Grow! Button activity remains publicly available even after suspension: Even after a Grow! Button is removed from a Site Owner’s site (“Site”) and marked as “inactive” on the Grow! Site, the history of that Grow! Button may remain in the Grow! system on an ongoing basis at Grow!’s discretion. This includes information about the Site, traffic to the Site, Grow! contributions to the Site accrued prior to the removal of the Grow! Button from the Site and other information relating to the Site in connection with the Service, as part of the Service, including the information used for historical financial tracking purposes as well as for publicly displaying the Contribution History of Grow! Users and the Revenue History of Site Owners.

Links to Other Websites

The Grow! Site may contain links to and from other websites. If you follow a link to one of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

Conditions of Use

If you decide to visit the Grow! Site, your visit and any possible dispute over privacy is fully subject to the Privacy Policy and the Terms including but not limited to the provisions within the Terms regarding limitation of liability, dispute resolution and application of Delaware law.
Date of Last Revision: 15 February 2012 PST 22:07