Ancestry.com.au - Privacy Statement

Privacy Information for Ancestry.com.au ("Website")

By accessing the Website you agree to be bound by this Privacy Statement in addition to the Terms and Conditions which define your rights, responsibilities and obligations with respect to your use of the Website. You consent to our use, collection, storage and disclosure of your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Statement. We may amend, edit or update this Privacy Statement from time to time. If we make any material changes we will notify you by way of a prominent notice on the Website announcing such changes.

Ancestry.com Operations Inc., operator of the Website (and referred to as 'Ancestry.com' 'Ancestry' 'we' 'us' 'our'), recognises the confidentiality of information that may be disclosed by members in registering or making purchases from our Website and we are committed to respecting and upholding your rights to privacy protection. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for this Website.

Overview
The personal, private information that is provided to us by individual members is not provided to unrelated third parties save where necessary to perform the functions of this Website; where the terms have been breached; where required by law; or as otherwise set out below.

The Website is owned and operated by Ancestry.com Operations Inc., a Delaware corporation located in the United States of America. You understand and acknowledge that by accessing this Website, your personal information may be transferred, processed and stored outside of Australia. Ancestry may use related entities or other third parties (whether within or outside of Australia) to process the data.

The specifics of our use of personal information are best described in the answers to the following Frequently Asked Questions:

Do you ask for personal information from your members?
Yes. We ask for your name, e-mail address when you sign up as a member and when you use features such as e-mail. In addition we will need to know your postal address when you choose to take out a subscription with us or when you make purchases from us. Much of this information may be entered at your discretion. We may ask for similar information at other times, such as when you enter sweepstakes or other promotions sponsored by us and/or one of our partners.

To facilitate payment and fulfillment in connection with membership and other purchases from us, we will request personal credit card, debit card or other payment information.

As an Ancestry member you can also choose to share further information about yourself, your background and interests with other members. The amount and type of profile information you share in this way is entirely your choice. Information about some of your activity on the site, such as historical records you save, may also be shared with other members in order to help you connect with others researching similar ancestors. See 'Member Profiles' below for more information on how you can edit or control what you allow other members to see about you and your site activity in your public profile or other places on the site.

How do you collect and use my personal information?

We usually collect personal information about you when you submit content through the Website or where you contact us by email or otherwise

Where practical we will collect your personal information from you directly. However, as well as collecting personal information directly from you, we may also collect your personal information from a third party. For example, other members may upload personal information about you (e.g. date of birth, etc) to the Website through their family tree or through other content submissions. While we advise our members to be sensitive to privacy issues and obtain consents and permissions where necessary, we have no control over the content of these posts. If personal information appears on the Website without your permission please contact us at the contact address below and we will work toward resolving the issue.

The primary use of your personal information, other than directly in connection with a purchase, is to efficiently provide you with personalized, relevant information.

We will also use registration information to let you know about new features or other offers of interest from us and to address customer service needs and requests.

In distributing advertiser or sponsor messages, the advertiser is not given access to individual account information. We do not sell, rent or otherwise distribute the personal information you provide us to these advertisers. Advertisers simply provide the advertising message and we then display the ad to appropriate users.

Will you disclose any of my personal information to third parties?
We will not disclose your personal information provided in connection with membership registration or purchases, except with your knowledge and consent as described in (a) this Privacy Statement or (b) where personal information is collected through the Website or (c) as may be required by law, or to protect our rights or property.

Information submitted by you online (such as information about products you purchase from us, your name, address, e-mail address) may be shared with companies with which we have a commercial relationship and through which you reached the Website, for marketing purposes. For example, if you make a purchase with us because of a special offer made through another site acting as a distributor of our products, in that circumstance you will be considered their customer as well. If you object to such use, you may opt-out by e-mail request. We will not, except as may be required by law, share with any other party your password or payment information.

Other circumstances where limited personal information may be disclosed are specifically described when the data is collected, or in the rules of sweepstakes or other promotions.

Demographic information collected through on-site user surveys may be used in aggregate statistical form to attract potential sponsors, partners and advertisers but these statistics will include no personally identifying information. We reserve the right to disclose aggregated user statistics, such as "45% of our users are female" or "47% of our users have attended college" in order to describe our services to prospective partners, advertisers, and other third parties. Under protection of confidentiality agreements, Ancestry may match common user information, such as name, address and phone number with third party data to avoid duplication and prevent errors.

What about purchases from advertisers or other linked sites?
If you click away from the Website to visit the site of any third party advertiser or sponsor, you may be asked for your credit card or other personal information in order to purchase or use products and services offered. These companies have their own privacy and data collection practices. We have no responsibility or liability for these independent policies. You should therefore review their privacy policies carefully if you have concerns about how your information may be used.

Will Ancestry use my information for direct mailings?
We will send electronic mail or other mail to you, for the purpose of informing you of changes or additions to the Website, or of any Ancestry.com or Ancestry related products and services. If you do not want to receive such mailings, you may opt out at any time by using the unsubscribe link listed in the e-mail or at your preferences page.

May I refuse to provide personal information to you or to accept advertising?
Visitors may access the Website free services by providing a first name, last name, and e-mail address or other information that we may deem appropriate to that purpose. To gain full access to the members-only areas, a username, e-mail address and appropriate billing information are required. Because the Website is partially advertiser supported, you may not "turn off" the advertising that appears on the Website pages, but you may opt to be excluded from any e-mail advertising.

Family information
Where you choose to invite other family members to view and edit your family tree, we will ask you for the family member's e-mail address. You must first make certain that you have obtained the consent of the family member to the passing of their details by you to Ancestry. Ancestry will only use this information for the purpose of contacting the relative with their access details and will not use the information for marketing purposes. In addition you should also make sure that information or material you wish to place on the site about your living relatives is only posted with their prior knowledge and consent.

Do you use "IP Addresses" and cookies?
IP Addresses:
We do use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer our Web site. Your IP address is also used to gather broad demographic information such as geographic distribution of our members and may be used to “geolocate” our members to allow us to provide services appropriate to your place of residence.

Cookies:
Contrary to popular myth, cookies do not extract private or personal information from your computer’s memory, but rather, record only information you volunteer to us upon registering or visiting the site. Cookies are tiny files placed onto the hard drive of your computer when you register at our Web site that enable our server to recognize or "remember" who you are each time you return. We may make limited use of cookies to deliver content specific to your interests. For instance, we may use cookies to retain your personal preferences, hold session information for a "shopping basket," or save your password so it doesn’t have to be re-entered each time you login.

Advertiser Cookies:
We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads on our behalf. These companies may employ cookies and action tags (also known as single pixel gifs or web beacons) to measure advertising effectiveness. Any information that these third parties collect via cookies and action tags is completely anonymous. If you would like more information about this practice and your choices, click here.

When do you distribute or publish information on the living on your Sites?
Posts contributed by our members to message boards and other community areas may include information on the living. While we advise our members to be sensitive to privacy issues, we have no control over the content of these posts. If such a post violates our Terms and Conditions, you may notify us at “report abuse” and we will help work toward resolving the issue.

We do republish databases that contain published information on the living, such as white pages, people finder directories and some birth, death and marriage records. The information in these databases has been gathered from public records released by governmental and other agencies, and is available elsewhere, often on the Internet.

What else should I know about privacy?
The following details a few key issues mentioned in context above:

Member Profiles
You may provide information about yourself to the community and other areas of our sites, but only at your option. If provided in a public community area, the data is, of course, public. Participation in public areas and community services is at your discretion.

Your Public Profile
When you sign-up as a member you are provided with a public member profile pre-populated with your chosen username. Your user name and location will be displayed on the site when you post, comment or interact with other Ancestry members. If you want additional privacy you can edit your username within your public profile to one that does not include any personally identifiable information. You can also enhance your public profile to provide additional information about yourself. Any information including any sensitive personal information that is disclosed in this area becomes public and you should therefore exercise caution when deciding what personal information you choose to disclose. You can customize your settings about how other members can contact you as well as what displays on your Public Profile. If you do not do this then the default setting is that the information within your Public Profile and also certain elements of your recent activity on the site will be publicly accessible by other members. To edit your preferences click here

Through the Community Preferences link in the Ancestry 'My Account' section of the site, you can choose either to display your e-mail address with other members or ensure that your e-mail is withheld so that you are only contacted anonymously through the Ancestry Connection Service. You can also control when you are contacted or block certain people from contacting you.

You can also customize what other members can learn about your Ancestry site activity. To help you connect with other members researching similar ancestors, by default new accounts are set up to allow other members to learn about things you publicly add or post to the site, as well as some personal research activities (such as saving historical records to your Shoebox or private member tree). To customize these settings, simply go to the “Activity Preferences” link on the Community Preferences page

Contests & Promotions
We may occasionally run contests or other special promotions on our site in which we ask members or visitors for contact information (like an e-mail address) or demographic information (like a zip code, age, or income level). We use this data to send users promotional material about our company or our partners. The participant’s contact information is also used to contact him or her when necessary and may be shared with other companies for promotional purposes, but only with your prior permission and under the terms and conditions specified when you take part in the promotion. At any time, you may opt-out of receiving future mailings of this kind, or simply decline to take part in the promotions.

Public forums - Ancestry Community
This site makes forums, message boards and/or newsgroups available to its members. Any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should take care when deciding what personal information to disclose to others.

Protection of my personal information
We have taken reasonable steps to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of your personal information. We use a variety of physical and electronic measures to keep personal information secure from misuse, loss, unauthorised use or disclosure.

Can I access and request correction of my personal information?
Yes, you can gain access to your personal information held by us by contacting us at support@ancestry.com, or write to us at the address below. If we refuse to provide you with access to the information, we will provide you with valid reasons for the refusal.

If you believe that personal information that we hold about you is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate, then you may contact us and request amendment of it.

Contacting Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Statement, the practices of or your dealings with this Website, you can contact:

Ancestry.com
360 W 4800 N Provo, UT 84604
United States of America

This Privacy Statement was last updated on July 15, 2009.