CNET Australia Security & Privacy Statement
About CNET Australia's Privacy Policy
At CNET Australia we recognise the importance of protecting the privacy of personally identifiable information collected about our customers. We want your on-line experience to be enjoyable and we take care to respect your privacy when you visit our web site. As a member of the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA), we abide by a strict Code of Practice that demands we handle your personal details responsibly.
CNET Australia is bound by the National Privacy Principles contained in the Commonwealth Privacy Act, except for its activities carried out in the course of journalism. CNET Australia is exempt from complying with the Privacy Act in relation to journalism activities.
CNET Australia may, from time to time, review and update this policy to take account of new laws and technology and changes to CNET's operations. All personal information held by CNET Australia will be governed by CNET Australia's most recent policy, posted on the CNET Australia site.
CNET Australia is a wholly owned subsidiary of CBS Interactive and is part of a world wide network of sites providing information about technology. As such CNET Australia also adheres to the policy guidelines set down by CBS Interactive.
What is CBS Interactive?
CBS Interactive is the global source of information and commerce services for the technology industry. We connect buyers, sellers and suppliers throughout the IT supply chain with award-winning content via the web, wireless devices, television, radio and print. Our respected brand portfolio includes CNET, ZDNet, mySimon, TechRepublic, GameSpot, Download.com, News.com, CNET Radio and Computer Shopper magazine as well as CNET ChannelServices, which include CNET DataServices and ChannelOnline. For more information about the company click here.
1. What personally identifiable information does CNET Australia collect?
CNET Australia's primary goal in collecting personal information is to provide you with the best and most useful content and services. Because CNET Australia derives its revenue mainly from advertising, collecting information is essential to keeping our services free to users.
CNET Australia collects personally identifiable information when you provide it to us, such as when you register on our sites, when you subscribe for a print magazine or an e-mail newsletter, when you use certain products or services and when you visit CNET Australia pages and read newsletters. Several of the services that we offer on our sites, such as auctions and message boards, may require registration as a condition of use. Once you register with one of our CNET sites you are no longer anonymous to us.
2. What anonymous information does CNET Australia collect?
Cookies
Your Internet browser has a feature called "cookies" which store small amounts of data on your computer about your visit to any of our sites. However, cookies tell us nothing about who you are unless you specifically give us personally identifiable information. You do not need to have cookies turned on to visit the CNET Australia site, although active participation in certain areas of our site may require cookies. In addition, you may elect not to allow cookies to be collected by selecting certain options on your browser.
Web Bugs & Servers
We use electronic images known as Web bugs - sometimes called single-pixel GIFs, transparent GIFs, or clear gifs- that allow us to track general user traffic patterns. CNET Australia also automatically receives and records information from our servers and from your browser including your IP address, the time, and information about the page you requested.
We use tracking technologies in a variety of ways, including:
- Keeping count of return visits to our site or our advertiser' or partners' sites
- Accumulate and report anonymous, aggregate (data collected in mass), statistical information on Web site and advertisement usage
- Determining which features users like best
- Saving your password so you don't have to re-enter it each time you visit our sites
Third-Party Advertisement Servers
CNET Australia uses the DoubleClick DART technology for serving advertisements on its web pages. To view the DoubleClick privacy policy click here.
Some of our advertisers use third-party companies to serve their advertisements on our sites and, in some cases, in our HTML-formatted newsletters. In both cases, these third-party advertising companies employ cookie and Web bug technologies to measure advertisement effectiveness. We do not give any personally identifiable information to them as part of this relationship. Use of their tracking technology is subject to their own privacy policies. If you would like more information about the privacy policies of the third-party advertising providers including information on how to opt out of their tracking methods, click here.
CNET Australia allows a trusted 3rd party utilising anonymous and aggregated data collection. Cookies may be used by this 3rd party to gather statistical information that will assist us in understanding what uses find interesting and useful on our website. These cookies are known as your "Unique Visitor Cookie", a small piece of data, identifying you only by a random number (eg # 12489). No personal information can be identified about the users through cookies.
Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on your site. Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to your users based on their visit to your sites and other sites on the Internet. Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.
3. How does CNET Australia use the information?
CNET Australia uses the information we gather for four general purposes:
- To customise the advertising and content you see, which helps keep our services free to users
- To enhance the user experience in our network of sites. We use tracking information to determine how well each page performs overall based on aggregate user demographics and traffic patterns to those pages. This helps us continue to build a better service for you
- To fulfil your requests for certain products and services, such as sending out electronic newsletters and enabling users to participate in polls, contests, message boards, and auctions
- To send you information you agreed to receive about topics we think will be of interest to you
4. How does CNET Australia share the information?
Personally Identifiable Information
CNET Australia will make your personally identifiable information available to other companies or people when:
- We have your consent to share the information
- We have engaged companies to work with or on behalf of CNET Australia to provide a product or service that you have requested, such as opt-in e-mail announcements
- You use co-branded services. When you use a co-branded service within our network of sites you grant us permission to pass your registration information back to that service partner. Their use of your information is subject to their applicable privacy policies
- We respond to subpoenas, court orders or legal process; or we believe that your actions violate applicable laws, CNET Australia's Terms of Use or any usage guidelines for specific products or services, or threaten the rights, property or safety of CNET Australia, our users, or others
Aggregate Information
CNET Australia aggregates personally identifiable information and discloses such information in a non-personally identifiable manner to advertisers and other third parties for marketing, promotional and other purposes. We do not disclose to these entities any information that could be used to identify you personally.
Business Transfers
We are always seeking to improve our network of Web sites and our business. In accomplishing these objectives, we may buy or sell a company, or one or more of the companies in our corporate family may merge with or be acquired by another company. If we sell a business, we may transfer some or all of your information as a part of the sale in order that the service being provided to you may continue or for other business purposes. In that event, we will seek to give you notice of that change in control and we will seek to get assurances that the purchaser will honour any opt-out requests you might make of us.
5. What are my options?
Users who would rather not provide any of the user data requested by our registration process do not need to register with us. You can still view much of the content and use many of the services offered by our sites without registering.
We provide users with the following options:
- Opting not to receive our electronic newsletters or those of third parties when registering. Users who opt-in may remove themselves from mailing lists at any time through the subscription management pages or by following the instructions at the end of the e-mail they received from us;
- Opting not to provide certain personal information when registering for a site
6. How can I update my personally identifiable information?
You can correct or change the information collected during registration for any site (see above for a description of the registration process). The instructions for doing this can be found in our newsletter registration area. Users may change this information at any time and as often as necessary. Users who are experiencing problems or who have questions about how our services work can contact us using the e-mail addresses at the bottom of this page. To amend your data go to CNET Australia Membership Centre.
7. How will I know if the privacy policy is changed?
Any modifications to our privacy practices will be reflected first within this area of our network of Web sites. If there is a material change in our privacy practices, we will indicate on our sites that our privacy practices have changed and provide a link to the new privacy statement. If we are going to be using the information collected from users in a manner materially different from that stated at the time of collection we will send affected users written notice of the change. We will also post the changes in our privacy statement 30 days prior to a change, where practicable.
8. How does CNET Australia manage and ensure security of personal information?
CNET Australia strives to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of personally identifiable information of our customers. We have take steps to ensure your personal information is safe by using a variety of physical and electronic security measures including restricting physical access to our offices and firewalls and secure databases to keep personal information secure from misuse, loss or unauthorised loss or disclosure.
9. How can you find out what personal information CNET Australia holds about you?
You have the right to seek access to the personal information held about you and to advise CNET Australia of any inaccuracy. There are some exceptions to this right set out in the Privacy Act. If you make an access request, CNET Australia will ask you to verify your identity and specify what information you require.
10. Any questions or comments?
Questions regarding this privacy policy should be sent via e-mail to enquiries@cnet.com.au or to our corporate offices at Level 12, 50 Goulburn St, Sydney, NSW 2000 Australia. We read every message submitted and try to reply promptly to every one. We may also file your comments to improve the site, or review and discard the information.
Questions regarding any other aspects of our network of Web sites should be directed to our corporate offices at 235 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94105.
