GroupUsUp! Principles
GroupUsUp! was created with the idea that people could create organizations and
groups online to share information with friends and keep in touch with the
people around you. We understand you may not want everyone in the world to have
the information you share on GroupUsUp; that is why we give you control of your
information. Our default privacy settings limit the information displayed in
your profile to your networks and other reasonable community limitations that we
tell you about.
GroupUsUp! follows two core principles:
1. You should have control over your personal information.
GroupUsUp! helps you share information with your friends and people around you.
You choose what information you put in your profile, including contact and
personal information, pictures, interests and groups you join. And you control
the users with whom you share that information through the privacy settings on
the Privacy page.
2. You should have access to the information others want to share.
There is an increasing amount of information available out there, and you may
want to know what relates to you, your friends, and people around you. We want
to help you easily get that information.
Sharing information should be easy. And we want to provide you with the privacy
tools necessary to control how and with whom you share that information. If you
have questions or ideas, please send them to info@groupusup.com.
GroupUsUp! Privacy Policy
GroupUsUp! Privacy Policy is designed to help you understand how we collect and
use the personal information you decide to share, and help you make informed
decisions when using GroupUsUp!, located at www.Groupusup.com and its directly
associated domains (collectively, "GroupUsUp!" or "Website")
By using or accessing GroupUsUp!, you are accepting the practices described in
this Privacy Policy.
If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first
contact our us at info@groupusup.com.
The Information We Collect
When you visit GroupUsUp! you provide us with two types of information: personal
information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected by us and Web
Site use information collected by us as you interact with our Web Site.
When you register with GroupUsUp!, you provide us with certain personal
information, such as your name, your email, zip code, your gender, and any other
personal or preference information that you provide to us.
When you enter GroupUsUp!, we collect your browser type and IP address. This
information is gathered for all GroupUsUp! visitors. In addition, we store
certain information from your browser using "cookies." A cookie is a piece of
data stored on the user's computer tied to information about the user. We use
session ID cookies to confirm that users are logged in. These cookies terminate
once the user closes the browser. By default, we use a persistent cookie that
stores your login ID (but not your password) to make it easier for you to login
when you come back to GroupUsUp!. You can remove or block this cookie using the
settings in your browser if you want to disable this convenience feature.
When you use GroupUsUp!, you may set up your personal profile, form
relationships, send messages, perform searches and queries, form groups, set up
events, add applications, and transmit information through various channels. We
collect this information so that we can provide you the service and offer
personalized features. In most cases, we retain it so that, for instance, you
can return to view prior messages you have sent or easily see your friend list.
When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version
for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that
information.
You post User Content (as defined in the GroupUsUp! Terms of Use) on the Site at
your own risk. Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to
your pages, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or
impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other Users with whom you may
choose to share your pages and information. Therefore, we cannot and do not
guarantee that User Content you post on the Site will not be viewed by
unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy
settings or security measures contained on the Site. You understand and
acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable
in cached and archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored your User
Content.
Any improper collection or misuse of information provided on GroupUsUp! is a
violation of the GroupUsUp! Terms of Service and should be reported to
info@groupusup.com.
If you choose to use our invitation service to tell a friend about our site, we
will ask you for information needed to send the invitation, such as your
friend's email address. We will send your friend an email or instant message in
your name inviting him or her to visit the site, and may send up to two
reminders to them. GroupUsUp! stores this information to send invitations and
reminders, to register a friend connection if your invitation is accepted, to
allow you to see invitations you have sent, and to track the success of our
referral program. Your friend may contact us at info@groupusup.com to request
that we remove this information from our database.
GroupUsUp! may also collect information about you from other sources, such as
groups, discussions, blogs, instant messaging, and other users of the GroupUsUp!
service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to
provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience.
By using GroupUsUp!, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred
to and processed in the United States.
Children Under Age 13
GroupUsUp! does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from
anyone under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to register. If you
are under 13, please do not attempt to register for GroupUsUp! or send any
information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone
number, or email address. No one under age 13 may provide any personal
information to or on GroupUsUp!. In the event that we learn that we have
collected personal information from a child under age 13 without verification of
parental consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you
believe that we might have any information from or about a child under 13,
please contact us at info@groupusup.com.
Children Between the Ages of 13 and 18
We recommend that minors over the age of 13 ask their parents for permission
before sending any information about themselves to anyone over the Internet.
Use of Information Obtained by GroupUsUp!
When you register with GroupUsUp!, you create your own profile and privacy
settings. Your profile information, as well as your name, email and photo, are
displayed to people in the networks specified in your privacy settings to enable
you to connect with people on GroupUsUp!. We may occasionally use your name and
email address to send you notifications regarding new services offered by
GroupUsUp! that we think you may find valuable.
Profile information is used by GroupUsUp! primarily to be presented back to and
edited by you when you access the service and to be presented to others
permitted to view that information by your privacy settings. In some cases where
your privacy settings permit it (e.g., posting to your comments), other
GroupUsUp! users may be able to supplement your profile.
Profile information you submit to GroupUsUp! will be available to users of
GroupUsUp! who belong to at least one of the networks you allow to access the
information through your privacy settings (e.g., friends of friends). Your name,
network names, and profile picture thumbnail will be available in search results
across the GroupUsUp! network and those limited pieces of information may be
made available to third party search engines. This is primarily so your friends
can find you and send a friend request. People who see your name in searches,
however, will not be able to access your profile information unless they have a
relationship to you (friend, friend of friend, member of your networks, etc.)
that allows such access based on your privacy settings.
GroupUsUp! may send you service-related announcements from time to time through
the general operation of the service. For instance, if a friend sends you a new
message, or group makes an announcement, you may receive an email alerting you
to that fact.
GroupUsUp! may use information in your profile without identifying you as an
individual to third parties. We do this for purposes such as aggregating how
many people in a network like a type of restaurant or sport activity and
personalizing advertisements and promotions so that we can provide you
GroupUsUp! targeted advertising. We believe this benefits you. You can know more
about the world around you and, where there are advertisements, they're more
likely to be interesting to you. For example, if you put a favorite movie in
your profile, we might serve you an advertisement highlighting a screening of a
similar one in your town. But we don't tell the movie company who you are.
We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including
but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant
messaging, GroupUsUp! Platform developers and other users of GroupUsUp!, to
supplement your profile. Where such information is used, we generally allow you
to specify in your privacy settings that you do not want this to be done or to
take other actions that limit the connection of this information to your profile
(e.g., removing photo tag links).
Sharing Your Information with Third Parties
GroupUsUp! is about sharing information with others — groups, family, friends
and people in your networks — while providing you with privacy settings that
restrict other users from accessing your information. We allow you to choose the
information you provide to groups, family, friends and networks through
GroupUsUp!. Our network architecture and your privacy settings allow you to make
informed choices about who has access to your information. We do not provide
contact information to third party marketers without your permission. We share
your information with third parties only in limited circumstances where we
believe such sharing is 1) reasonably necessary to offer the service, 2) legally
required or, 3) permitted by you. For example:
• Your Blog and Discussions may aggregate the information you provide and make
it available to your friends and network members according to your privacy
settings. You may set your preferences for your Blog and Discussions on your
Privacy page.
• Unlike most sites on the Web, GroupUsUp! limits access to site information by
third party search engine "crawlers" (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask). GroupUsUp!
takes action to block access by these engines to personal information beyond
your name, profile picture, and limited aggregated data about your profile (e.g.
number of Discussions).
• We may provide information to service providers to help us bring you the
services we offer. Specifically, we may use third parties to facilitate our
business, such as to host the service at a co-location facility for servers, to
send out email updates about GroupUsUp!, to remove repetitive information from
our user lists, to process payments for products or services, to offer an online
job application process, or to provide search results or links (including
sponsored links). In connection with these offerings and business operations,
our service providers may have access to your personal information for use for a
limited time in connection with these business activities. Where we utilize
third parties for the processing of any personal information, we implement
reasonable contractual and technical protections limiting the use of that
information to the GroupUsUp!-specified purposes.
• If you, your friends, or members of your network use any third-party
applications developed using the GroupUsUp! Service ("Service Applications"),
those Service Applications may access and share certain information about you
with others in accordance with your privacy settings. You may opt-out of any
sharing of certain or all information through Service Applications on the
Privacy Settings page. In addition, third party developers who have created and
operate Service Applications ("Service Developers"), may also have access to
your personal information (excluding your contact information) if you permit
Service Applications to access your data. Before allowing any Service Developer
to make any Service Application available to you, GroupUsUp! requires the
Service Developer to enter into an agreement which, among other things, requires
them to respect your privacy settings and strictly limits their collection, use,
and storage of your information. However, while we have undertaken contractual
and technical steps to restrict possible misuse of such information by such
Service Developers, we of course cannot and do not guarantee that all Service
Developers will abide by such agreements. Please note that GroupUsUp! does not
screen or approve Service Developers and cannot control how such Service
Developers use any personal information that they may obtain in connection with
Service Applications. In addition, Service Developers may require you to sign up
to their own terms of service, privacy policies or other policies, which may
give them additional rights or impose additional obligations on you, so please
make sure to review these terms and policies carefully before using any Service
Application. You can report any suspected misuse of information through the
GroupUsUp! Service and we will investigate any such claim and take appropriate
action against the Service Developer up to and including terminating their
participation in the GroupUsUp! Service and/or other formal legal action.
• We occasionally provide demonstration accounts that allow non-users a glimpse
into the GroupUsUp! world. Such accounts have only limited capabilities (e.g.,
messaging is disabled) and passwords are changed regularly to limit possible
misuse.
• We may be required to disclose user information pursuant to lawful requests,
such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. We do
not reveal information until we have a good faith belief that an information
request by law enforcement or private litigants meets applicable legal
standards. Additionally, we may share account or other information when we
believe it is necessary to comply with law, to protect our interests or
property, to prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through the
GroupUsUp! service or using the GroupUsUp! name, or to prevent imminent bodily
harm. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents
or government agencies.
• We let you choose to share information with marketers or electronic commerce
providers through on-site offers.
• We may offer stores or provide services jointly with other companies on
GroupUsUp!. You can tell when another company is involved in any store or
service provided on GroupUsUp!, and we may share customer information with that
company in connection with your use of that store or service.
• In order to provide you as a GroupUsUp! user with clear disclosure of the
activity information being collected on third party sites and potentially shared
with your friends on GroupUsUp!, we collect certain information from that site
and present it to you after you have completed an action on that site. You have
the choice to have GroupUsUp! discard that information, or to share it with your
friends.
Like many other websites that interact with third party sites, we may receive
some information even if you are logged out from GroupUsUp!, or that pertains to
non-GroupUsUp! users, from those sites in conjunction with the technical
operation of the system. In cases where GroupUsUp! receives information on users
that are not logged in, or on non-GroupUsUp! users, we do not attempt to
associate it with individual GroupUsUp! accounts and will discard it.
• If the ownership of all or substantially all of the GroupUsUp! business, or
individual business units owned by GroupUsUp!, were to change, your user
information may be transferred to the new owner so the service can continue
operations. In any such transfer of information, your user information would
remain subject to the promises made in any pre-existing Privacy Policy.
When you use GroupUsUp!, certain information you post or share with third
parties (e.g., a friend or someone in your network), such as personal
information, comments, messages, photos, discussions, classified listings or
other information, may be shared with other users in accordance with the privacy
settings you select. All such sharing of information is done at your own risk.
Please keep in mind that if you disclose personal information in your profile or
when posting comments, messages, photos, discussions, classified listings or
other items , this information may become publicly available.
Links
GroupUsUp! may contain links to other websites. We are of course not responsible
for the privacy practices of other web sites. We encourage our users to be aware
when they leave our site to read the privacy statements of each and every web
site that collects personally identifiable information. This Privacy Policy
applies solely to information collected by GroupUsUp!.
Third Party Advertising
Advertisements that appear on GroupUsUp! are sometimes delivered (or "served")
directly to users by third party advertisers. They automatically receive your IP
address when this happens. These third party advertisers may also download
cookies to your computer, or use other technologies such as JavaScript and "web
beacons" (also known as "1x1 gifs") to measure the effectiveness of their ads
and to personalize advertising content. Doing this allows the advertising
network to recognize your computer each time they send you an advertisement in
order to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising
content. In this way, they may compile information about where individuals using
your computer or browser saw their advertisements and determine which
advertisements are clicked. Groupusup! does not have access to or control of the
cookies that may be placed by the third party advertisers. Third party
advertisers have no access to your contact information stored on GroupUsUp!
unless you choose to share it with them.
This privacy policy covers the use of cookies by GroupUsUp! and does not cover
the use of cookies or other tracking technologies by any of its advertisers.
Changing or Removing Information
Access and control over most personal information on GroupUsUp! is readily
available through the profile editing tools. GroupUsUp! users may modify or
delete any of their profile information at any time by logging into their
account. Information will be updated immediately. Individuals who wish to
deactivate their GroupUsUp account may do so on the Settings page. Removed
information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but
will not be generally available to members of GroupUsUp!.
Where you make use of the communication features of the service to share
information with other individuals on GroupUsUp!, however, (e.g., sending a
personal message to another GroupUsUp user) you generally cannot remove such
communications.
Security
GroupUsUp! takes appropriate precautions to protect our users' information. Your
account information is located on a secured server behind a firewall. When you
enter sensitive information (such as credit card number or your password), we
encrypt that information).. Because email and instant messaging are not
recognized as secure communications, we request that you not send private
information to us by email or instant messaging services. If you have any
questions about the security of GroupUsUp! Web Site, please contact us at
info@groupusup.com
Terms of Use, Notices and Revisions
Your use of GroupUsUp!, and any disputes arising from it, is subject to this
Privacy Policy as well as our Terms of Use and all of its dispute resolution
provisions including arbitration, limitation on damages and choice of law. We
reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use at any time.
Non-material changes and clarifications will take effect immediately, and
material changes will take effect within 30 days of their posting on this site.
If we make changes, we will post them and will indicate at the top of this page
the policy's new effective date. If we make material changes to this policy, we
will notify you here, by email, or through notice on our home page. We encourage
you to refer to this policy on an ongoing basis so that you understand our
current privacy policy. Unless stated otherwise, our current privacy policy
applies to all information that we have about you and your account.


