Privacy & Data Practices
Privacy-first policies ensure a trusted web experience and build confidence for a personalized Internet moving forward. Your privacy is important. Here's how we respect it.
Here's a quick summary, please review our full Privacy Policy for more detail.
Our industry has created standards to ensure that users can see how their data is being collected and choose what they share. We are active members of the two industry organizations that guard user privacy – the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) and the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA). We comply with the NAI's Code and the DAA's Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, and we implement the Evidon best practices for opt-outs and notifications. Read more about our partnerships.
The only time AddThis has access to any browsing data is when you visit a website that uses AddThis. If you use one of our browser extensions, we don't send your browsing activity to our servers.
For example, if you ask us to send an email on your behalf, we will use the email addresses in order to deliver that message. We will not share this information, and it will be removed from our system automatically after a short period. We do not have access to other personal information.
All web sites, including those with AddThis installed, receive information such as which web page you came from, which type of browser you are using, and your general geographic location. When you and others use our tools to share content, we aggregate data about what pages are shared, when, and how. We also assign your web browser a unique identifier. This ID doesn't, and can't, say anything about you, it's just a random series of numbers and letters we use to distinguish users from each other.
We provide analytics to help website owners better understand their visitors. For example, we use a randomly generated ID assigned to each web browser to tell a website publisher how many people are sharing content. We also use aggregate browsing data to tell a website publisher whether the people most likely to share their content with their friends, for example, are sports fans.
We believe more relevant advertising provides a better Internet experience. This is also how we support our business with a service that is free to you. For example, we may help an advertiser reach people who are interested in technology. In some cases, this may mean that you receive a "cookie" from an advertising partner. You can manage your industry-wide advertising preferences at AboutAds.info.
You can easily stop AddThis from collecting any information about you for online behavioral advertising by opting out. This will prevent advertisers from receiving any data that could be used to tailor advertising for you. This will also prevent websites that use AddThis from learning about your interests in order to personalize their content or services for you.
As a blogger or an operator of a website that uses AddThis* to enable sharing features and in-depth social analytics, here are the things you should know about what data we collect and how we use it. Please review our full Privacy Policy and Terms of Service for more details.
Our industry has created standards to ensure that users can see how their data is being collected and choose what they share. We are active members of the two industry organizations that guard user privacy – the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) and the Direct Advertising Alliance (DAA). We comply with the NAI's Code and the DAA's Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, and we implement the Evidon best practices for opt-outs and notifications. Read more about our partnerships.
For example, if one of your visitors asks us to send an email on his or her behalf, we will use email addresses in order to deliver that message. We will not share this information, and it will be removed from our system automatically after a short period. We do not have access to any other personal information.
This includes information to which you also have access, like where visitors came from (the "referrer"), which type of browser they are using (the "user agent"), and their IP address (from which its possible to determine general geographic location). None of this information is specific to your own site or application. When your visitors use our tools to share content, we aggregate data about what pages are shared, when, and how. We also assign their web browser a unique identifier. This ID is just a random series of numbers and letters we use to distinguish browsers from each other.
The only time AddThis has access to any data about your visitors is when they visit a website that uses AddThis.
For example, in order for us to tell you how many people shared content on your site, we use a randomly generated ID assigned to each web browser to count them. For us to tell you whether the people most likely to share your pages to their friends are sports fans, we may use aggregate browsing data. This allows you to better understand your visitors, and better tailor your site and its content for their needs and interests.
We believe more relevant advertising provides a better Internet experience. This is also how we support our business with a service that is free to you. For example, we could help an advertiser reach people who are interested in technology. In some cases, this may involve your visitors receiving a "cookie" from an advertising partner. They can manage their industry-wide advertising preferences at AboutAds.info.
Visitors can easily stop AddThis from collecting any information about them for online behavioral advertising by opting out. This will prevent advertisers from receiving any data that could be used to tailor advertising to them. This will also prevent you from learning about the interests of these visitors, as well as personalizing your content or services for them.
The latest industry best practices and the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising recommend that users be made aware any time data may be used for the purposes of OBA. In support of those principles and our membership in the NAI, our Terms of Service require you to provide such notice. If you don't already notify your visitors, Section 10 of our Terms of Service includes sample language recommended by the NAI.