Kids Privacy Policy

Nationalgeographic.com respects and protects the privacy of our users.

Collection, Use, and Disclosure of Information

At our kids' sites (kids.nationalgeographic.com, nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer, littlekids.nationalgeographic.com, nationalgeographic.com/ngyoungexplorer, extremeexplorer.org) and online features specifically designed for kids (collectively referred to as NG Kids Sites), the only use we make of personal information (usually email addresses) collected from children without prior parental consent is to respond one time to a question or request for information from a child, to allow a child to send an e-card to a friend, to award prizes in a game or sweepstakes feature on our site, or to contact a child’s parent or guardian for the purpose of obtaining consent for further collection and use of the child’s personal information. Without prior parental consent, we do not otherwise make use of personal information collected from children, nor do we provide it to third parties.

Parental Consent

For any personal information that we collect from children, parents and guardians may request information on the type of data being collected, view their child’s information, and, if they choose, prohibit us from making further use of their child’s information. We will not provide personal information collected from children to third parties except when we believe that doing so is required by law, may be necessary to protect a person’s property, rights, or safety, or to investigate a potential violation of law, or in the event of a corporate transaction, such as a divestiture, merger, consolidation, or asset sale.

NG Kids My Shot

National Geographic Kids My Shot is a moderated photo sharing community where young photographers can tell their stories through pictures. Visitors to kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/my-shot can register to join the community. A parent or guardian must agree to our Terms of Service and activate their child's membership before a child may proceed to upload photos, comment, or rate photos. The comments and photos are monitored by the NG Kids staff. Photos are viewable by visitors to the site and via public search engines.

We will collect only information (such as display name, user name, password, birthday, gender and parent’s or guardian’s email address) that is necessary to participate in the photo sharing community where children can upload photos, rate other photos, and comment on photos submitted by others. The display name is visible to visitors to NG My Shot and in public search results. We use the provided parent’s or guardian’s email address in order to send an email notifying the recipient that his or her child would like to become a member of NG Kids My Shot and informing the recipient of the child’s user name and password. Parents will also receive email notification when their child uploads or edits a photo. We do not use the parent’s or guardian’s email address for marketing purposes or share them with third parties except in accordance with this policy.

If you have any questions about NG Kids My Shot, please email us at kids@nationalgeographic.com.

Games

Some games require non-personally identifiable information such as a username and password in order to generate high score tables. This non- personally identifiable information is stored on third-party servers and cannot be connected to an individual user.

Blogs

National Geographic Kids Blogs allows a group of children, who are selected and monitored by NG Kids staff, to share their unique thoughts and experiences online, through words, pictures, and videos. Visitors to kidsblogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs can make comments on what they have read in the blogs if they register and log in with a user name and password. These comments are also monitored by, and may be edited by, the NG Kids staff.

It is our policy to collect only information (such as user name, password, birthday, gender and parent’s or guardian’s email address) that is necessary to participate in the comment section of the Kids Blogs. We use the provided parent’s or guardian’s email address in order to send an email notifying the recipient that his or her child has created a Kids Blog account and informing the recipient of the child’s user name and password. We do not use the parent’s or guardian’s email address for any other purpose.

If you have any questions about Kids Blogs or your child’s account, please contact kidsblogs@nationalgeographic.com.

E-Cards

All kids' e-cards (electronic postcards) request that users furnish email addresses. This is necessary to send the postcards. The email addresses are deleted from our servers and not distributed to third parties or used for any other purposes.

Sweepstakes and Contests

If a child participates in a kids’ sweepstakes or contest or submits a winning story idea, we will retain his or her email address for the duration of the contest until a winner is chosen. The winner will be notified by email or another method, as described in the rules. After the contest all participants' email addresses will be deleted from our system. We will not use participants’ email addresses in any other way, and we will not provide them to any third party.

U.S. federal law prohibits us from requiring kids to give any more personal information than is necessary to participate in a given activity.

Cookies, Log Data and Third-Party Advertisements

Certain areas of the NG Kids Sites require cookies to "remember" users. Cookies are small text files that are stored on a user's computer and allow websites to remember information about users. We do not store any personal information in these cookies. We may use cookies to personalize your experience (e.g., to recognize you by name when you return to the site, save your password in password-protected areas and save your online game.) You can choose to remove cookies through your browser options. However, if you do so, some functionality will be limited (e.g. your ability to upload, comment, and rate photos in NG Kids My Shot may be limited, your high scores in Games may not be stored, you may be unable to comment on Blogs without logging in.)

For more information on cookies and how to remove them from your computer, visit http://epic.org/privacy/cookies/flash.html.

We also use web beacons, which are small pieces of code placed on the websites to collect advertising and log data usage metrics, such as counting page views, promotion views, or advertising responses.

We have a relationship with one or more third party advertising companies, including Doubleclick, which display the advertisements that appear on NG Kids Sites. Our advertising partners may use information about you that we provide, such as your age, gender, or interests, or the features within the website that you choose to use, to target and serve advertisements to you and to analyze the delivery of advertisements However, we will not provide personally identifiable information about you to our advertising partners, except as otherwise permitted under this policy. These third party advertising partners also collect information through use of cookies and web beacons to serve ads based on a user’s prior visits. For more information about how to opt out of DoubleClick’s use of cookies, please visit Doubleclick or the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page.

We also may share aggregated information with third parties (such as third-party sponsors) to help us develop content and services we hope you will find of interest. This aggregated information cannot be used to identify you personally. We are not using any tracking technology in the NG Kids Sites to specifically target (or remarket) to kids on or off our sites, nor do we sell our data.

Additional information on deleting, disabling, rejecting or turning off log data technology may be available through your browser's support feature. Please consult the "Help" section of your browser for more information.

Links to Other Sites

When children click on links from the NG Kids Sites to other sites, we may open the other sites in a new browser window.

We make every effort to link to appropriate outside sites for kids. However, our Privacy Policy does not apply to your interactions with other websites, even if you find a link to them on our site, and so you should read the privacy policy of the third-party website provider to see how your personally identifiable information will be treated on its site.

Contact Information

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about our privacy policy—or to review, change, or modify personal information collected previously—please contact NG Kids, Digital Media at the National Geographic Society, 1145 17th Street, Washington, D.C. 20036-4688. You may also email us at kids@nationalgeographic.com.

For magazine subscription inquiries, please call 800-NGS-LINE (800-647-5463). For all other inquiries, call 1+ 202-857-7000.

Disclaimer

Due to the changing nature of the Internet, this policy may be changed at any time at National Geographic’s discretion.

This policy was last updated on 11/05/2010.