Thank you for visiting The Times of Israel website (the “Site”). Your privacy is important to us. This privacy policy (the “Policy”) explains our policy regarding the collection, use, disclosure and protection of your information. This Policy applies to information provided or collected through this Site and in connection with The Times of Israel’s various services and products (collectively, “Services”). If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us via the Contact page.

Information We Collect

You may visit our Site without providing any information that identifies you personally (“Personally Identifying Information”). However, if you wish to receive communications from us, such as a daily digest of news, news alerts or SMS alerts, you will need to register for the site by providing us with certain Personally Identifying Information. You may also choose to provide us with Personally Identifying Information in any communications you send us. The types of Personally Identifying Information that we may collect about you include: name, age, gender, income level, religious affiliation, marital status, address, corporate alliance, e-mail address, telephone number, fax number, and information about your interests in and use of our products. You are not legally required to provide us with Personally Identifying Information, but if you choose not to do so, you may not be able to use certain aspects of the Site or Services.

You may post comments to the Site using Facebook Connect. If you use Facebook Connect, Facebook will send us certain information from your profile, and you authorize us to collect, store, and use such information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You should read Facebook’s privacy policy to understand what information we will receive from Facebook.

We offer you opportunities to engage in public activities on our Site and Services. “Public activities” are any actions you take that are designed to be visible to other users, including comments, recommendations, reviews, ratings or any other items that you submit. We may also, in our sole discretion, permit you to start a blog on our Site. Any information you disclose in your public activities, along with your screen name or ID, or any image or photo, becomes public and may be used for online and offline promotional or commercial uses in any and all media. If you choose to engage in public activities, you should be aware that any personal information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of these areas, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the Personally Identifying Information you choose to submit in these areas and we have no responsibility to publish, take down, remove or edit any of your public activities or any of your submissions that are a result of your public activities. By choosing to participate in public activities, you are electing to share and display such public activities via the Site.

When you share or recommend (with or without adding your own comments) any Site content to your Facebook profile, that action is governed by the Facebook Privacy Policy. We do not track or store a record of those comments or actions.

If you have registered for a TimesofIsrael.com account, we may track and aggregate your public activities on TimesofIsrael.com. If we collect this information, we will use it in connection with our operation of the Site and Services.

We may collect information regarding your activity on the Site, such as your browsing history.

We also may collect certain non-personally identifying information when you visit many of our web pages such as the type of browser you are using, the type of operating system you are using, and access times.

We also may collect your IP address or information about the mobile device or other device you use to access the Services, such as geolocation information, unique device identifiers, browser type, browser language or other information. Information that we collect that does not personally identify you is referred to herein as “Non-Personal Information.”

How We Use Information

We will not share Personally Identifying Information provided to us with third parties without your explicit permission, except as set forth herein or as we believe in good faith is required by law, regulation, subpoena or court order, or to cooperate with any investigation carried out by a law enforcement agency.

We and our affiliates will use Personally Identifying Information for the purpose for which you submitted it to us, such as to respond to your inquiry, to send you information about us and about our products and services, to fulfill a request by you for written materials (such as a daily digest, email news alert or SMS news alert) or to carry out transactions which you have requested. If you no longer wish to receive a specific digest or alert, you can notify us via the Contact page.

We may use the information you provide to provide you with customized reading recommendations or targeted advertising on our site or our mobile applications. We may use information about your device in order to personalize your experience towards the specific device you are using or to send specific advertising. We may use location information to provide you with information-specific content or advertising.

We may use information about your use of the Site or the services, including the history of the pages you view, to analyze usage of the Site or Services.

We may choose to make available mobile applications that can deliver content or advertising based on your current location.

We reserve the right to send you emails relating to your account status or specific to your use of the Site and Services. In addition, we may send you emails inviting you to participate in user surveys or asking for feedback, or other information to better understand our customers.

We may use third parties to provide us information, reports and analysis about the usage, browsing patterns of users of the Site or the Services. .may use third parties to provide us information, reports and analysis about the usage, browsing patterns of users of the Site or the Services. We use a tool called “Google Analytics” to collect information about use of this site. Google Analytics collects information such as how often users visit this site, what pages they visit when they do so, and what other sites they used prior to coming to this site. We use the information we get from Google Analytics only to improve this site. Google Analytics collects only the IP address assigned to you on the date you visit this site, rather than your name or other identifying information. We do not combine the information collected through the use of Google Analytics with personally identifiable information. Although Google Analytics plants a permanent cookie on your web browser to identify you as a unique user the next time you visit this site, the cookie cannot be used by anyone but Google. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to this site is restricted by the Google Analytics Terms of Use and the Google Privacy Policy.  Please see the Google Analytics Terms of Use and the Google Privacy Policy for additional information.

By analyzing the information we collect, including all Non-Personal Information, we may compile certain statistical information, such as anonymous information about how you use the Site and the Services and which content you view (“Statistical Information”). Statistical Information helps understand trends and customer needs so that new products and services can be considered and so existing products and services can be tailored to customer desires, and may include demographic and marketing analyses of our users, as well as their subscribing and purchasing patterns. Statistical Information is anonymous and will not be linked to any Personally Identifiable Information for provision to third parties. We may share such Statistical Information with third parties, without restriction, on commercial terms that we can determine in our sole discretion, without any obligation to you. Nothing in this Privacy Policy is intended to restrict our use of Statistical Information or other de-identified information in any way.

In addition, we may provide you with the opportunity (on an opt-in basis) to receive promotional emails which include content provided by our partners or advertisers which we think may be of interest to you. Such partners and advertisers will not be able to access any of your Personally Identifiable Information. We will not send unsolicited messages to you if indicate that you do not wish to receive such messages. In addition, you may remove yourself from any or all of the electronic newsletters’ mailing lists at any time by following instructions for unsubscribing found at the end of every email.

Other Uses of Your Information

We may disclose personally identifiable information in response to legal process, for example, in response to a court order or a subpoena. In addition, we will fully cooperate with any law enforcement authorities or court order requesting or directing us to disclose the identity, behavior or digital content of any user suspected to have engaged in illegal, infringing or offensive behavior on the Site.

We may exchange information with third parties (including but not limited to merchants) for the purposes of fraud protection.

We may transfer our databases containing your Personal Information if we sell our business or part of it, or merge or partner with other companies and businesses.

We or our affiliates may hire other companies to provide services on our behalf. These companies will have access to only the personal information they need in order to provide such services, and will be obligated to maintain the confidentiality of the information and will be prohibited from using it for other purposes. Personally Identifying Information may be stored and processed in the State of Israel or in any other country in which Times of Israel or its affiliates or service providers maintain facilities. Some countries may not have adequate data protection laws or may offer differing levels of protection of personal information which are not as high as in your country of residence or business. By using our Site, you consent to such transfer of information outside your country.

“E-Mail This Article” Feature

Readers may use this feature to e-mail links to articles or other content. The e-mail addresses that you supply to this service may be saved for your convenience for future articles you may wish to e-mail; these addresses are not used for any other purpose, and will not be shared with any third parties.

Cookies

A cookie is a small piece of text that is sent to a visitor’s browser by a Web site. The browser provides this piece of text to the originating Web server when this visitor returns. The Times of Israel uses cookies to help personalize your experience. In addition, The Times of Israel and certain advertisers may use cookies to identify and track visitors, including the browsing history of a user and the website access preferences of users. Cookies help us understand where our visitors are going and how much time they spend there, and allow us to target our advertising on the Site.

Some of our advertisers may use cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site. Such cookies and web beacons will also send these advertisers information including your IP address, your ISP, and the browser you used to visit our site. We do not have access to, nor control over, advertisers’ or service providers’ use of cookies or other tracking technologies or how they may be used.

Most Web browsers are initially configured to accept cookies, but you can change this setting so your browser either refuses all cookies or informs you when a cookie is being sent. Also, you are free to delete any existing cookies at any time. Please note that some features of The Times of Israel may not function properly when cookies are disabled or removed.

Our Commitment to Security

We have put in place physical and electronic procedures to safeguard and help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security, and correctly use the information we collect online. However, mo method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Identifying Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Although we take appropriate measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that Personally Identifying Information that we collect will never be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Policy. Regardless of the precautions taken by you or by us, “perfect security” does not exist on the Internet. We cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, and you transmit such information at your own risk.

Online Links to Other Sites

You can access other websites of third parties through our Site. Any personal information you provide on the linked pages is provided directly to the third-party website and is subject to that third party’s privacy policy. Except as described above, we and our affiliates are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of Web sites to which we link. Links from our site to third party sites are provided for your convenience. We encourage you to learn about the privacy practices of each Web site before providing them with any personal information.

Children

The Site is intended for use by individuals over the age of 18. We do not knowingly provide children under the age of 13 with access to the Site. If you are under 13, please do not submit any Personally Identifiable Information on our site. Children should always ask a parent or guardian for permission to send any personal information online to anyone.

Policy Update

All updates to this Policy will be posted on this page. You are bound by any revisions or updates. Last update: February 5, 2012.

How to Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns about this Policy, or to update or change your personal information, please contact us via the Contact page.