Privacy policy

This Privacy Policy describes our policies and procedures on the collection, use and disclosure of information about you on our websites and our products, features, content or applications offered by us. We receive information about you from various sources, such as: (i) when you register for our products, through your user account; (ii) when you use the our products; and (iii) from third party websites and services. When you use our products, you are consenting to the collection, transfer, storage, disclosure and other uses of your information as described in this Privacy Policy. The information you provide may be transferred, processed and/or accessed by us in any country where we (or our service providers) operate.

This Privacy Policy covers the treatment of the information gathered by us when you use or access our products. This Privacy Policy also covers our treatment of any information about you that our business partners share with us or that we share with our business partners.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of other businesses that we do not own or control, including other companies’ websites, services and applications (“Third Party Services”) that you can access through our products, such as Facebook or Twitter, or to individuals that we do not manage or employ. While we attempt to partner with only those Third Party Services that share our respect for your privacy, we cannot take responsibility for the content or privacy policies of those Third Party Services. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any Third Party Services you access.

The information we collect is primarily used to provide our products, to process and complete any transactions, to respond to inquiries, to personalize and improve our products, to monitor and analyze usage and trends of our products, to provide you with related, relevant information, and for any other purpose for which the information was collected. In connection with certain aspects of our products, we may request, collect and/or display some information about you. We collect the following types of information from our users.

Registered User Information:

When you create an Account, we will collect personal information from you, such as your name and email address. If you create an Account using your login from another account, such as Facebook or Twitter, we will access and collect the personal information about you that the account provides (which is based on your privacy settings), so that you can create your Account with us. We use your contact information to send you information about our products. You may unsubscribe from receiving certain types of these messages through your Account settings, although we reserve the right to contact you when we believe it is necessary, such as for administrative and account management purposes.

Note regarding children: We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If we learn that we have collected personal information of a child under 13, we will take steps to delete such information from our files as soon as possible.

URL Information:

One feature of our products is the ability to create shortened uniform resource locators (URLs) of websites. When you create a Short link, we collect and store both the original URL and the shortened URL and, if you are logged in to your Account, we will associate that information with your Account. We also collect and store the time and date on which you shortened the original URL and when you share the Short link, information on the channels through which the Short link was shared.

Metrics and Analytics:

We collect information about accesses (such as clicks) of every Short link created through our products. This information includes, but is not limited to: (i) the IP address and physical location of the devices accessing the Short link; (ii) the referring websites or services; (iii) the time and date of each access; and (iv) information about sharing of the Short link on Third Party Services such as Twitter and Facebook. These metrics and analytics are used by us and our partners to improve their websites and services by, for example, providing value-added features.

User Content:

Some features of our products allow you to provide content to our products, such as written descriptions of URLs, comments, images and video. All content submitted by you to our products may be retained by us, even after you terminate your account, and may continue to be shared by third parties, as described in this Privacy Policy.

Information Collected From Third Party Services:

Some features of our products allow you to share your content and Short links through your accounts with other companies such as Facebook and Twitter. If you choose to connect us to such Third Party Services, we may collect information related to your use of those Third Party Services, such as authentication tokens that allow us to connect to your Third Party Service accounts or the contact information of your friends (if you choose to connect your friends, followers, or contacts from your account) so that you can contact these people when you use our products. We may also collect information about how you are using our products to interact with those connected Third Party Services. Note that Third Party Services may have the ability to restrict the information that is provided to us based on your privacy settings of that account.

Information Collected Automatically:

We automatically receive and record information from your web browser when you interact with our products (including creating or clicking on Short links), such as your IP address, browser type, your general location and cookie information. This information may be used to help us understand how users transit a website, to fight spam/malware, to facilitate collection of data concerning your interaction with our products (e.g., what Short links you have clicked on) and for other similar purposes.
We also automatically receive and record information that your mobile device transmits when you access our products, like a device identifier, device settings, and operating system. This information is used to facilitate your access and use of our products, to access and use other Third Party Services, and for other similar purposes.
Generally, our products automatically collect product usage information, such as the number and frequency of visitors to the product. We may use this data in aggregate form, that is, as a statistical measure, but not in a manner that would identify you personally. This type of aggregate data enables us and third parties authorized by us to figure out how often individuals use parts of the products so that we can analyze and improve them.
We will collect information about your general location (such as your city and state, which is derived from your IP address) when you visit the Site or use our products, such as by clicking a Short link and we may use various technologies to determine your location (if you enable this feature), when you access and use our products through a mobile device.
We may receive a confirmation when you open an email from us. We use this confirmation to improve our customer service.

Cookie Policy:

Cookies are pieces of text that may be provided to your computer through your web browser when you access a website. Your browser stores cookies in a manner associated with each website you visit. We use cookies to enable our servers to recognize your web browser and tell us how and when you visit our Site and use our products through the web.
Our cookies also allow us to track when you have clicked on a Short link. Each click of a Short link is tracked using a unique identifier assigned to you in one or more cookies stored by your web browser and associated with us. We may associate the unique identifier in our cookies with the other information we automatically collect when you use our products, as described above, including your IP address, Short links you click, Short links you create, and information with your Account if you have one.
Most browsers have an option for turning off the cookie feature, which will prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, as well as (depending on the sophistication of your browser software) allowing you to decide on acceptance of each new cookie in a variety of ways. If you disable cookies, you will not be able use most features of our products. Our cookies are set to automatically expire after 12 months from when they are set.
You may also ask us not to place cookies on your web browser. When cookies are disabled in this manner, clicks on Short links are not tied back to or associated with your web browser. However, we will still automatically collect the IP addresses of computers or mobile devices that click on or create Short links.
This Privacy Policy covers the use of cookies by us only and does not cover the use of cookies by any Third Party Services. We do not control when or how third parties place cookies on your computer, such as when you visit the website from a Short link.

What Information is Shared?

Our products are designed to help you share information with others. As a result, much of the information generated through our products is shared publicly or with third parties.

Short links and Usage Information:

Much of your activity on and through our products is public by default. This includes, but is not limited to:

The original URLs you have shortened, their corresponding Short links, the time and date those URLs were shortened, and metrics and analytics information for your Short links, as described above;
Aggregate non-personal information about what Short links you have clicked on and associated metrics and analytics information, as described above;
Any assets you have created, along with content added to those assets, if you have elected to make those assets public.

Registered users may have some of this information associated with their Accounts. Unregistered users will not have this association, but, as described above, we collect and stores information concerning their use of our products (such as what Short links they click on, when they clicked, the IP address of their computers when they clicked, etc.) through the use of cookies and automatically collected information.

For registered users, some of this information is publicly accessible through a unique URL, which you can make non-public through your Account settings when you are logged in. Removing access to the unique URL does not, however, make this information non-public, and it may still be accessible through other means, such as our API services.

We may share Short links and the information we automatically collect from use of our products with our customers and business partners. This information enables them to do things like better understand how people use their products and services and other products and services, to learn about the interests their users have and how our products interoperate with their services, to do product development, research, and to improve the relevancy of any online advertisements or marketing that is displayed through their services (or to tailor it to your interests).

Please also remember that if you choose to provide information about yourself using certain features of our products, then that information is governed by the privacy settings of those particular features and may be publicly available to others.

IP Address Information:

While we collect and store IP address information, that information is not shared publicly. We do at times, however, share IP address information we collect when you create or click a Short link with our partners, service providers and other companies with whom we conduct business.

Information You Elect to Share:

When creating a Short link, you can share that Short link through Third Party Services. Any information that you elect to distribute through Third Party Services is provided to them and may then become accessible to users of those services. You can also access other Third Party Services through our products, for example by clicking on links in the Statistics page for a Short link. We recommend that you review the terms of services and privacy policies of such Third Party Services that you access through our products, since we do not control and is not responsible for the privacy practices of these Third Party Services.

User Profile Information:

User profile information including your username, Twitter handle and Facebook account name (to the extent you have linked your Account with those services), and other information you enter may be displayed to other users to facilitate user interaction within our products. Users’ email addresses will not be directly revealed to other users by us.

Information Shared with our Service Providers:

We may employ and contract with people and other entities to perform certain tasks on our behalf and under our direction (our “Service Providers”). We may need to share information about you with our Service Providers in order to provide products or services to you. Unless we tell you differently, our Service Providers do not have any right to use the information we share with them beyond what is necessary to assist us.

Information Disclosed Pursuant to Business Transfers:

We may transfer and/or provide information about our users in connection with an acquisition, sale of company assets, or other situation where user information would be transferred as one of our business assets. In such a case, the acquirer may continue to use your information as set forth in this policy.

Information Disclosed for the Protection:

We also reserve the right to access, read, preserve, and disclose any information as it reasonably believes is necessary to (i) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, (ii) enforce these Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations hereof, (iii) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, (iv) respond to user support requests, or (v) protect the rights, property or safety of us, our users and the public. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and spam/malware prevention.

Information We Share With Your Consent:

We will share information about you when you instruct us to do so, such as when you share Short links or content with others through our products or if we notify you that the information you provide will be shared in a particular manner and you provide such information (like sharing/posting it with a Third Party Service).

Your Account information is protected by a password for your privacy and security. You can prevent unauthorized access to your account by selecting and protecting your password appropriately and limiting access to your computer and browser by signing off after you have finished accessing your account.

We endeavor to protect the information we collect about our users using industry-standard security processes and controls, however, despite these efforts, no security measure is perfect or impenetrable and we do not guarantee or warrant that such measures will prevent unauthorized access to the information about you that is stored by us. In the event we experience a breach of security, we will promptly notify you if your personal information has been compromised, in accordance with applicable law.

You don’t need an account to create Short links and you can use many of the features of our products without registering, thereby limiting the type of information that is collected about you individually.

If you are a registered user, you can access information associated with your Account by logging into the Site. This information includes a history of the URLs you have shortened, and access to the metrics pages for those URLs. You can deactivate your Account at any time through your Account settings page. If you deactivate your Account, you will no longer be able to access or use our products.

Please note that in the interest of ensuring that existing Short links continue to function for all of our users, the Short links that you have created and shared cannot be deleted or disabled (even if your Account is deactivated), and any shortening and sharing activity that has already occurred on your Account also cannot be deleted (but your user history can be set to private from within your Account settings). If you have concerns about any unauthorized usage of your Account, please contact us and we will disable future shortening activity on your Account.

We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. Use of information we collect now is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time such information is used. If we make material changes in the way we collect or use information, we will notify you by posting an announcement on our products or sending you an email and we will indicate when those changes will become effective. You are agreeing to be bound by any changes to the Privacy Policy when you use our products after those changes become effective.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding privacy using our products, please contact us a detailed message. We will make every effort to resolve your concerns.