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Welcome
to Sonic Online, owned and produced by Sonic Solutions
and its subsidiary and affiliate corporations, successors,
and assigns (collectively referred to as "Sonic").
Sonic Online Products and Services (collectively,
the "Products and Services") are offered by Sonic
Solutions through web pages at or linked to the
URLs www.sonic.com,
www.dvdit.com,
www.fusion.sonic.com,
www.mydvd.sonic.com,
www.sonicstudio.com,
www.sonicstudiohd.com,
www.dvdcreator.com,
(collectively referred to as "Sonic Online,"
which may expand or change from time to time) are
made available subject to this Privacy Policy. This
statement discloses the privacy practices of Sonic
Online. By using the Products and Services, you
agree, without limitation or qualification, to be
bound by this Privacy Policy or any other privacy
or data collection policy applicable to any individual
Sonic Online web site.
Contact information for questions regarding this
statement should be directed to:
Sonic Solutions Privacy Site Coordinator Privacy
Compliance
Sonic Solutions
101 Rowland Way
Novato , CA 94945-5008
email: privacy@sonic.com
Please note that Sonic Online contains links to
other sites and that these sites' Privacy Policies
may not conform to our own. So bear in mind that
sites that are linked to from Sonic Online sites,
may have privacy policies which differ from that
of Sonic Online.
This policy may be updated from time to time so
please check back periodically.
1. What information of
yours does Sonic Online collect?
The goal of Sonic Online is to provide you with
the information, services and resources that are
most relevant and useful to consumers and professionals
interested in DVD authoring and those who serve
them. To achieve this goal, Sonic Online sometimes
needs to collect information to understand what
differentiates you from its hundreds of thousands
of other unique users. We collect two types of information
from you, "anonymous information" and
"personally identifiable information."
Anonymous information refers to information that
cannot be tied back to a specific individual. Each
time a visitor comes to an Sonic Online site, Sonic
Solutions collects some information to improve the
overall quality of the visitor's online experience.
Sonic Solutions collects the visitor's IP address
(e.g., whether the user is logged on from a .com,
.gov or .edu domain), referral data (e.g., the address
of the last URL a user visited prior to clicking
through to an Sonic Online site), and browser and
platform type (e.g., a Netscape browser on a Macintosh
platform). Sonic Solutions also collects aggregate
search terms from its search services for internal
reporting and targeted content presentation (that
is, web pages which are dynamically displayed based
on your individual interests. Sonic Solutions collects
this user information for purposes of product monitoring,
product improvement, and targeted content.
In addition to this anonymous data, Sonic Solutions
may also collect personally identifiable information.
Personally identifiable information refers to information
that tells us specifically who you are, such as
your name and postal address. Wherever and whenever
Sonic Solutions collects personal information through
registration we make an effort to include a link
to this Privacy Policy on that page. Sonic Solutions
collects personal information in the following ways
from different parts of its network of web sites:
- Most of the personal information is gathered
when you register with one or several of Sonic
Online sites. If you choose to register, you
may provide Sonic Solutions with your name,
postal address, email address, birth date, gender,
sexual orientation, zip code and other information.
While not all of this information may be required,
the more information you volunteer (and the
more accurate it is), the better we are able
to customize your experience. Once you register
you are given an Sonic Online ID and are able
to take full advantage of the many offerings
around Sonic Online, including personalization
services, when they become available.
- If you contact Sonic Online, we may keep a
record of that correspondence, including your
email address. We use that information so that
we may respond to that email, and for future
reference.
2. What are "cookies"
and how does Sonic Solutions use them?
A cookie is a small text file containing a unique
identification number that is transferred from a
web site to the hard drive of your computer so that
the web site may identify you and track your activities
on the web site. This unique number identifies your
browser-- and possibly you -- to computers whenever
you visit a site making use of them. A cookie can,
in fact, let a web site know personally identifiable
information about you, such as your real name and
address.
Many visitors to Sonic Online are consumers and
professionals who are either interested in DVD authoring,
or have already purchased a Sonic DVD authoring
product. Given this, we believe it's essential not
to leave as few records of their visit as possible,
and therefore do not use cookies in any manner.
3. What organization
is collecting the information?
When you register information in any Internet domain
of Sonic Online, that information is generally collected
and maintained solely by Sonic Online unless specifically
stated otherwise at the point of collection.
Be aware that Sonic Online may have links on our
sites that take you to other sites that may collect
personally identifiable information about you. Sonic
Solutions hopes that all third parties involved
adhere to our policies regarding the privacy of
our users. However, this Sonic Online Privacy Policy
does not cover third party data collection practices
and Sonic Online does not assume any responsibility
for any actions of third parties.
4. How does Sonic Online use
the information it collects?
Any personal information you provide to Sonic Solutions
when registering for Products and Services at any
of its sites is maintained and accessible only by
Sonic Online unless specifically stated otherwise.
Sonic Solutions may request information from its
users so that users can enjoy customized experiences
across Sonic Online, including personalization services,
interactive communications, discussion groups and
many other types of content and services. Most of
these Products and Services are free to you. In
order to provide great content and services free
of charge, Sonic Solutions may display advertisements.
The following are examples of how Sonic Online may
use the information it collects:
- Sonic Online may offer its users the ability
to personalize content such as news, local resources,
links to other web sites, and more.
- Sonic Solutions may use the aggregate data
collected to inform our sponsors as to numbers
of people who have certain demographic characteristics
and the number of those people who have seen
and "clicked" on specific pages or advertisement(s).
We may also disclose to those third-party sponsors
the overall demographics available regarding
who saw and "clicked" on their advertisement.
No personally identifiable information will
be disclosed to any individual, whatsoever,
as part of this process; only information in
an aggregate form.
- Sonic Solutions also uses the aggregate data
to perform statistical analyses of the collective
characteristics and behavior of our registered
users and visitors, to measure user demographics
and interests regarding specific areas of Sonic
Online and to analyze how and where best to
use our resources. Without such data, we would
not know what the most popular areas of Sonic
Online are, and we would not be able to change
and update the content and services appropriately.
- Sonic Online may, from time to time, use your
information to contact you about changes or
enhancements to Products and Services on Sonic
Online
- If you told Sonic Online that you were interested
in receiving offers or information, Sonic Solutions
may send you email about products and services
that we feel may be of interest to you. For
those who elect to receive such materials from
Sonic Solutions or third parties, and who indicate
that they do in their profile, Sonic Solutions
will release personally identifiable information.
Information released may include your name,
email address and other information supplied
in Sonic Online registration process, and only
when you specifically grant us that right.
- Sonic Online sometimes uses an individual
registered user's data to "pre-populate" forms
that are displayed for the purpose of collecting
individual data by Sonic Online and/or its advertisers
and sponsors.
- Sonic Solutions may be required by law enforcement
or judicial authorities to provide information
on individual users to the appropriate governmental
authorities. In matters involving a danger to
personal or public safety, Sonic Solutions may
voluntarily provide information to appropriate
governmental authorities. If you are a member
of the military, you should not register any
personally identifying information at our site
in the eventuality that it may be subpoenaed.
5. With whom does Sonic Online
share the information that is collected?
At this time Sonic Online DOES NOT share information
that is collected on Sonic Online, be it www.sonic.com
or one of it's affiliates.
6. What kinds of security
procedures are in place to protect against the loss,
misuse or alteration of your information?
Sonic Online has security measures in place to attempt
to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration
of your user data under our control. Only authorized
employees have access to the information you provide
us and strict rules on Sonic Online employees who
have access either to the databases that store user
information or to the servers that host our services.
While we cannot guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration
to data will not occur, we make every effort to
prevent such unfortunate occurrences. Any other
particularly sensitive information, such as your
credit card number collected for a commerce transaction
(donation) at Sonic Solutions or to purchase premium
services from Sonic Solutions Quote, is encrypted
prior to transmission.
You are ultimately responsible for the security
of your Sonic Online ID and password. Please take
care when using and storing them. Sonic Solutions
recommends that you do not divulge your password
to anyone. You should log out of your browser at
the end of each computer session to ensure that
others cannot access your personal information and
correspondence, especially if you share a computer
with someone else or are using a computer in a public
place like a library or Internet cafe.
7. Sonic Online notice regarding
the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act
(COPPA) of 1998
The U.S.
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998
went into effect on April 21, 2000 and sets forth
specific legal guidelines with respect to what personal
information can be collected from a child, defined
to be under the age of 13 years old, by an operator
specifically targetting children with their services.
Sonic Online, in compliance with the U.S. Children's
Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998, provides
notice that:
- Our resources are intended primarily for respondents
13 years and older, although we have younger
individuals make use of them, as well (and everyone,
of any age, is absolutely welcome to use all
of our resources).
- We do not collect a first name, a last name,
an address, an email address, a telephone number,
a social security number, nor any other data
that may identify a specific individual. Some
Sonic Online sites may request the user to create
a User ID, however this can be any designation,
not relating to the individual's actual identity.
- Sonic Solutions is a non-profit organization
and none of our information is sold for commercial
purposes.
This site, therefore, fully complies with the requirements
set forth by COPPA.
8. What you can do to better
protect yourself on the Internet
- Know the risks.
When you communicate with others online, you
should be aware that, when disclosing personal
information such as one's actual name, member
name, email address, etc., on a web page, in
a newsgroup, chat room or forum, that information
may be collected and used by others to send
that person unsolicited email from other parties,
outside Sonic Online. Some of the email you
receive may be useful to you, but some may not.
In an effort to curtail unsolicited email, Sonic
Solutions may block certain email addresses
and domains from sending email to email addresses
at our domains.
- Educate yourself.
We recommend that you read our brochure "Watching
Out for Yourself in Internet Relationships."
- Use PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) http://www.pgp.com
or another encryption program.
Last updated July 16, 2001. |
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