imbee.com Privacy Policy

Effective 5/7/08

Privacy Policy Summary for Kids

As a kid on the internet, imbee.com takes special care to protect your personal information.  Your privacy is very important to us and should be very important to you too.

To help protect your privacy, the government has created laws that don’t let websites collect personal information from kids.  Since we don’t want to break the law, we ask for as little information as we can and we don’t share it with anyone without their parent’s permission. We ask for and use your real first name only to identify you to your parent and to include on your imbee exchange cards once your parent has authorized your account.  We use your email address, if you give it to us, only to send information you specifically request from imbee.com  - like if you forget your password and want to reset it.    All other information we ask for - gender and date of birth - is used by imbee.com for research purposes to better understand who our users are.

We also think of all of your content creations within imbee.com as personal information.  That includes trading cards, photos, blog entries, messages to our online support guy (imbian), and anything else you create or upload.  Without your parent's approval, you can't share any of your creations or interact with any other kids in groups, grooves, or other areas of imbee.com. We use the latest and greatest, high-tech security systems to keep your info and creations safe and secure.

Once we have your parent's approval, it is up to you and your parent how your personal creations and information are shared.  It's important for you to learn and remember how easy it is to share information with others on the internet that you may regret.  Be careful what information you put in blogs, groups, pictures, trading cards and messages.  You should never share specific personal information (like your full name, address, phone number and email address) online with anyone. And, if in doubt, talk to your parents, teachers, or other leaders about what is appropriate to create, write, or upload to your imbee.com account.

If for some reason, we change our privacy policy, we’ll let you and your parent know.

Privacy Policy Summary for Parents, Teachers, and Adult Leaders

imbee.com was created with two competing goals in mind.  First, imbee.com provides kids with a true content creation environment where they can explore their identity and be creative in today and tomorrow's internet environment.  Second, imbee.com provides kids and parents with the ability to control the scope of publishing and the degree of monitoring that is appropriate for each specific kid and their situation.  By including an authorized adult in the creation of every kid's imbee.com account, we are partnering with you to educate the kids and protect their privacy. 

Information we collect and how it is used

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA") requires us to inform parents and legal guardians about how we collect, use, and disclose personal information from children under 13 years of age. This policy describes our practices with respect to information we collect from you, as well as from your child.

Under COPPA, we may not, and we do not, condition your child’s participation in an imbee activity on the provision of more information than is reasonably necessary for your child to participate in that activity.

What information we collect from children

imbee is a social networking site. As such, personal information, such as full name, address, phone number, email address, may be read by others if it’s posted in a blog entry, in group blogs, in a message, a comment, or a picture album.

If your child is interested in joining imbee, we directly collect limited personal information, such as first name, gender, date of birth, email address (which is optional) and a parent’s email address in order to process your child’s registration request. If your child does supply us with their email address, it is kept as an encrypted file – meaning that no one can view the email address, not even the employees of imbee.  All other information we ask for – gender and date of birth is used by imbee.com for research purposes to better understand who our users are.

Prior to receiving verified parental consent, we may also use information your child submits, such as email address or his or her imbee username, to respond one time to a direct request, such as a request for password reset or a support question about the operation of the website.

Once a parent provides consent to fully activate a child’s account, we will ask for a child’s last name and mailing address to send the child an imbee exchange card with his or her name on it.

What information we collect from parents

In order for you to provide consent and fully activate your child’s account, we directly collect personal information from parents such as your name, address, email address and year of birth.  Other information we collect depends on what method of consent verification you choose. 

imbee offers three ways to provide consent. A parent can give consent by providing a credit card number for verification, or verify by telephone by giving us their telephone number for us to call them, or verify by faxing us a completed consent form with a copy of a valid government issued photo ID.

We use a parent’s information (name, telephone number, address, government issued ID or credit card number) to verify your identity.  We use your year of birth to verify that you are over 18 years of age.  We use your email address to link you to your child’s account and to communicate with you about support, security, privacy, or administrative issues.

A parent must create an imbee account in order to consent to and fully activate a child’s account.  Adults may also create their own accounts; however, no adult account will be created until imbee uses the information provided to verify their identity.

Currently, your child’s account allows him or her limited access to the website. He/she can create trading cards and design a personalized imbee spot which includes choosing a theme and avatar. They have no contact with other imbee users. 

If you fully activate your child’s account by providing consent, your child can begin to create content such as blogs and upload pictures which can be viewable by you and any friends of your child on imbee. We provide tools to allow you to monitor or approve your child’s interaction with other imbee members.  These tools include specialized security settings that have been developed so that you, as the parent, can control and monitor your child’s imbee experience to however strict or lenient as you want depending on your comfort level.  Parents and teachers have the ability to "shadow" their children’s activities on imbee.com. For example, if a child posts a blog entry, the parent will see that entry. If the child sends a message to a friend, the parent has the option to see that message.

For added safety, since parents, teachers and sponsored adults also have the ability to interact on the website, adult indicators have been created so that you and your child know when you are interacting with an adult.  A pink border will appear around the avatar and a pink character will appear beside the name in messages.

We allow imbee members to provide us with non-member friends’ first names and email addresses to have imbee send an invitation to the non-members to join imbee. You may request that imbee not send invitations by sending a message to optout@imbee.com. imbee will only send one invitation per email address, regardless of how many requests to send an invitation it receives from imbee members.  All email addresses are kept encrypted on our website.

In the course of providing web-based products and services (such as web based games and applications) and in order to provide the highest quality user experience for our members, imbee passively tracks the activity of users accessing our site. This information includes IP addresses of users, page views, unique visitors, and repeat visitors. This data is not correlated in any way with any personally identifiable information.

We also use cookies, which are stored on your computer, to enhance your user experience. This cookie passively tracks your preferences, whether you are logged in, and some of your activities while on our site. You may choose to reject these cookies, but if you do, you may be unable to take advantage of all the imbee features and services. Refer to your browser’s help information to learn how to disable cookies.

From time to time, imbee may run promotions or special offers that may require you to provide certain information, such as your name, email address, or shipping address. These promotions and special offers are optional, but if you decide to participate, the personal information you provide may be shared with a third party in order to deliver awards or special offers to you.

Parents, legal guardians, or teachers given permission by a parent, may request that we remove children’s personal information at any time. They can do this by writing us at the address below, sending an email to privacy@imbee.com.

Security and protection of information we collect

Information we collect is stored in a secure data facility, and is only available to authorized personnel on a need-to-know basis.

We take additional reasonable precautions to secure and protect the information we collect. For example, all personal information is password protected. Additionally, certain data, such as financial information, is collected via a SSL connection. However, no information collected over the Internet can be guaranteed to be completely secure. If we become aware of a security breach that may affect your personal information, we will notify you via the email address you provide.

If you have any questions or concerns about how imbee secures personal information, contact privacy@imbee.com.

Information we share

imbee is a social networking site. As such, personal information may be read by others if it’s posted in a blog entry, in group blogs, in a message, a comment, or a picture album. If a parent objects to any information posted by their child, they may delete it or contact imbee and we will delete it.

imbee is not in the business of renting and selling personal information to any entity outside of Industrious Kid websites. imbee will share your and your child’s personal information under the following circumstances:

• To comply with a subpoena, court order, or other legal proceeding, or if otherwise requested by a legitimate law enforcement body to cooperate in their investigations.
   
• To prevent, investigate, or to take some other action against illegal activities, potential fraud, potential physical threats to any person, violations of our terms of service, or in any other way as required by law.
   
• If we sell all or part of our business, personal information may be disclosed as part of the sale or transfer of the business assets. Entities we sell or transfer these assets to will be bound by this privacy policy.
   

Contacting imbee

If you have any questions or concerns about the imbee privacy policy, you can contact us at:
Industrious Kid, Inc
Customer Support – Privacy Policy Issues
311 Oak Street
Suite 104
Oakland, CA, 94608
(510) 295-4380
privacy@imbee.com.

Changes to the privacy policy

From time to time imbee may make changes to this privacy policy. We will notify you of any material changes that may impact how we use your information or the information of your child by sending an email to the primary email address of each registered adult user or by placing a prominent notice on our site.

NOTICE: Visit www.ftc.gov/privacy for information from the Federal Trade Commission about protecting children’s privacy online.

Visit www.OnGuardOnline.gov for social networking safety tips for parents and youth.