Privacy Notice

June 7, 2006

The Google Privacy Policy describes how we treat personal information when you use Google's products and services, including information provided when you use Picasa Web Albums. In addition, the following describes our privacy practices that are specific to Picasa Web Albums.

Personal information

You need a Gmail Account to set up an account on Picasa Web Albums and upload photos. Google asks for some personal information when you create a Gmail Account, including your email address and a password, which is used to protect your account from unauthorized access. You may view photos posted on Picasa Web Albums by other users without registering for an account.
Picasa Web Albums stores, processes and maintains your photos, Favorites List and other data related to your Account in order to provide the service to you.
When you use Picasa Web Albums, Google's servers automatically record certain information about your use. Similar to other web services, Google records information such as account activity (including storage usage and number of log-ins), data displayed or clicked on (including UI links); and other log information (including browser type, IP-address, date and time of access, cookie ID, and referrer URL).

Uses

Google maintains and processes your photos and account information in order to provide the Picasa Web Albums service to you and to operate and improve our services.

Information sharing and onward transfer

Other Picasa Web Albums users who view your albums will see information about you including your photos and the user name you have selected. If you do not select an alternate user name, the Gmail username associated with the account will appear as part of the page URL.
If other users add you to their Favorites Lists, those users will see a notification when you upload new photos.

We do not sell, rent or otherwise share your personal information with any third parties except in the limited circumstances described in the Google Privacy Policy, such as when we believe we are required to do so by law.

Your choices

You may change your nickname and other Account information by clicking the “Settings” link in the top right hand corner of the Picasa Web Albums sign-in page.
If you designate an album “public,” anyone who visits your public gallery will see your album. If you designate an album “unlisted,” those photos will not appear in your public gallery but can be seen by someone who knows the URL.
You may organize, modify or delete your pictures, albums, and associated information such as captions following instructions in the FAQ. Such changes will take immediate effect in your account view. Residual copies of deleted photos may take up to 60 days to be deleted from our active servers and may remain in our offline backup systems.

More information

Google adheres to the US Safe Harbor privacy principles. For more information about the Safe Harbor framework or our registration, see the Department of Commerce's web site.
Further information about Picasa Web Albums is available here.
For more information about our privacy practices, go to the full privacy policy. If you have additional questions, please contact us any time. Or write to us at:

Privacy Matters
c/o Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View CA 94043 (USA)