Privacy policy
Last updated: October 17, 2018
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About Us
We are Groundspeak, Inc., the owner and operator of the following websites, apps and discussion forums:
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GEOCACHING.COM website and mobile applications;
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SHOP.GEOCACHING.COM website;
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WAYMARKING.COM website;
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WHERIGO.COM website and mobile applications;
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GROUNDSPEAK.COM, including discussion forums
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BLOG.GEOCACHING.COM website;
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GEOCACHING ADVENTURES webpages and mobile applications; and
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MYGEOCACHINGPROFILE.COM website.
For the purpose of this privacy policy, we refer to the services provided by us in relation to each of the above as our "Services". References in this privacy policy to "we", "us," or "our" are references to Groundspeak, Inc.
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How to contact us
If you have any questions about this privacy policy, or about the personal information we hold about you, you may contact us by clicking here.
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About this privacy policy
When you use our Services, we collect personal information about you. The purpose of this privacy policy is to explain the types of information we collect, and how we use them.
This privacy policy is divided into the following sections:
- What personal information do we collect about you?
- How do we use your personal information?
- What is our legal basis for using your personal information?
- With whom do we share your personal information?
- What rights do I have in relation to my personal information?
- How long do we keep your personal information?
- How do we protect your personal information?
- Transfers of your personal information outside the European Economic Area.
- Do I have to be a certain age to use the Services?
- Complaints and questions.
- Changes to this privacy policy.
- How we use cookies.
- Details of our EU data protection officer and EU Representative.
- Privacy Shield
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What personal information do we collect about you?
Personal information you give us
We collect and store the following personal information you give to us when you interact with us or our Services, including when you access our Services through applications provided by third parties (“Authorized Developers”) that connect with our websites using our software interface, known as an API.
When you create an account with us, or when you use our Services, we collect and store:
- Account details (including your name, email address(es), passwords, and other identification information).
- Profile information you provide such as your location, your home location, your profile photo, your cover photo, any other photo uploads, your “about” me information, your Forum title and Forum signature, etc.
- Information you provide to us when you sign up to receive our newsletter or other communications from us.
- Information you provide when you enter a competition, prize drawing, or other promotion (for example, your name, email address, address, and other contact details, such as your telephone number).
- Content and information you provide through the Geocaching Forums, your geocache and trackable logs, or by email to us.
- Email addresses of people you know when you participate in a referral program.
- Messages you send or receive through our communications Services.
- Information you provide to us if you apply for a job, including information in your resume or application form.
- Any information you provide as part of a survey.
Personal information we collect automatically
When you use our Services, we automatically receive and record information from your browser or mobile device for purposes of providing you Services that are personalized, relevant and useful to you:
- Your location.
- The unique identifier for your mobile device.
- Your IP address.
- Time and date of access ofthe Services.
- The name of the application you're using if you're accessing our Services through the application provided by one of the Authorized Developers.
- Your user ID for the account through which you are accessing our Services.
- Membership data, including whether you are a Premium or Basic member.
- Your search data, including the latitude and longitude of any location-based search you perform.
- Files, listings, and content that you access.
- Which version of our application you're using.
- Cookie information (click here to find out more information about how we use cookies).
- Information about the pages you request.
- If you choose to link your account with us to your social media account (e.g. Facebook), we may collect personal information about you through your social media account.
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How do we use your personal information?
We use your personal information for the following purposes:
- To provide our Services to you and to administer your account with us.
- To authorize, process, and track payments and through secure third party credit card and payment processing gateways.
- To enable your Premium membership status and follow up with you in connection with your membership.
- Communicating through any of our communications Services.
- For our own internal business purposes, such as analyzing the use of our Services (via services like Google Analytics and others), market research, and website and mobile application optimization.
- To enable Authorized Developers to provide geocaching-related websites and applications that extend and enhance the geocaching experience beyond our Services.
- To communicate with you about things we think will be of interest to you such as our products and Services, and location-based entertainment-related activities.
- To verify your identity.
- To provide customer service and review issues with your account or your use of our Services.
- To enable other users to receive and enjoy the Services.
- To allow you to share your experiences using our Services with others.
- To update you on changes to our Services, this Privacy Policy, or our Terms of Use and other administrative communications.
- To improve our products and Services.
- To customize the content available through our Services.
- To allow you to login and share information through a social network site account, such as Facebook and Twitter.
- To create a convenient and easy-to-use shopping process on Shop.Geocaching.com that includes an online shopping cart.
- To restrict access to our Services or communicate with users who have violated our Terms of Use Agreement, or otherwise violated our rights or the rights of others.
- Sometimes, websites that link to or from our Services may collect personal information about you, including any social networking sites to which you choose to link your account.
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What is our legal basis for using your personal information?
If you are accessing our Services in Europe, then applicable law requires us to ensure that we only process your personal information where we have a legal basis to do so. When we process your personal information, we will only do so where at least one of the following applies:
- We need to use your personal information to perform our responsibilities under our contract with you (e.g. processing payments for Services, and administering the Services);
- If it is in our legitimate interests and/or those of third parties to use your personal information. For example, it is in our legitimate interests to use your personal information to improve our website, to preserve the historical record of the game for other users, to allow our Authorized Developers access to geocache and public profile data to create websites and applications that extend the geocaching experience beyond what we are able to provide, to preserve other user’s messages, to ensure that our Services are secure, to tell you about new Services, products or offers, and to develop our business; or
- Sometimes we will ask for your consent to use certain types of personal information, such as by asking you to tick an online box or when you sign up to access certain geocaching related services including those provided by our Authorized Developers. In these circumstances, your consent will be our legal basis for processing your personal information for those purposes. If you have provided consent, you may withdraw it at any time. You may do this by "opting out" where we give you the opportunity to do so, by changing your profile settings, or by contacting us using the contact details below.
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What rights do I have in relation to my personal information?
Your rights in relation to how we use your information
You can choose how we use your personal information in the following circumstances:
- You can add, update, or delete certain personal information by signing in to your account and accessing your Account Settings. Click here to find out more about how to do delete information from your profile and here to find out more about how delete your geocache and trackable logs.
- You can choose to opt-out of allowing our Authorized Developers to share your Geocaching.com public profile with their users by changing your Authorizations in Account Settings.
- If you do not want to receive our newsletter or marketing messages from us, you can click the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of the email or message you receive adjust your email preference in Account Settings.
- If you do not want to receive emails from us about specific geocaches or trackables, you can change your preferences by logging into your account and removing these geocaches and/or trackables from your Watchlist or Lists Click here to find out more about how to do this. Please note that you cannot disable notifications related to geocaches or trackables owned by you.
- If you have granted us access to your Facebook or Twitter account by linking, you can disconnect the link by logging into your account, accessing your profile and clicking the Facebook or Twitter icon to disconnect. Click here to find out more about how to remove app and social media authorizations.
If you choose not to provide personal information, we may not be able to provide you with our Services, or certain aspects of our Services.
Other rights in relation to your personal information if you are accessing the Services in Europe:
In addition to the choices described above you also have the following rights under the European General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) if you are accessing the Services in Europe:
- Right of access to your Personal Data (Art. 15 GDPR): You have the right to ask us for confirmation on whether we are processing your Personal Data, and access to the Personal Data and related information on that processing (e.g., the purposes of the processing, or the categories of Personal Data involved). “Personal Data” is defined in the GDPR as any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural, or social identity of that natural person;
- Right to rectification (Art. 16 GDPR): You have the right to have your Personal Data corrected, as permitted by law.
- Right to erasure (Art. 17 GDPR): You have the right to ask us to delete your Personal Data, as permitted by law. This right may be exercised among other things: (i) when your Personal Data is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was collected or otherwise processed; (ii) when you withdraw consent on which processing is based on your consent and where there is no other legal ground for processing; (iii) when you object to processing which is necessary for our legitimate interests (pursuant to Art. 21 (1) GDPR) and there are no overriding legitimate grounds for the processing, or when you object to your Personal Data being used for direct marketing purposes (pursuant to Art. 21 (2) GDPR); or, (iv) when your Personal Data has been unlawfully processed.
- Right to restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR): You have the right to request the limiting of our processing under limited circumstances, including: when the accuracy of your Personal Data is contested; when the processing is unlawful and you oppose the erasure of your Personal Data and request the restriction of the use of your Personal Data instead; (and, when you have objected to processing which is necessary for our legitimate interests (pursuant to Art. 21 (1)) GDPR pending the verification whether the legitimate grounds of Groundspeak override your grounds.
- Right to data portability (Art. 20 GDPR): You have the right to receive the Personal Data that you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, and you have the right to transmit that information to another controller, including to have it transmitted directly, where technically feasible.
- Right to object (Art. 21 GDPR): You have the right to object to our processing of your Personal Data, as permitted by law. This right is limited to processing which is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller or processing which is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests (Art. 6 (1) (e) or (f) GDPR), and includes profiling based on those provisions, and processing for direct marketing purposes.
Contacting us to exercise your rights and with any questions
If you need help or wish to exercise any of the above rights or have questions about them, please email us by clicking here, or write to us at Geocaching HQ, 837 N. 34 th Street, Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98103. For specific requests to remove or change your profile information on Shop Geocaching (shop.geocaching.com), please email Shop Geocaching directly via https://shop.geocaching.com/default/contact.
We will consider all such requests and provide our response as soon as we can. Please note, however, that some personal information may be exempt from such requests in certain circumstances, which may include if we need to keep processing your personal information for our legitimate interests, to protect the privacy of others, or to comply with a legal obligation. Please note that we may request you provide us with information necessary to confirm your identity.
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How long do we keep your personal information?
If you want to permanently delete your account or following your explicit request for deletion of any of your personal information, we will delete your account and/or help you to delete your personal information as requested. Due to the nature of the game and the way that users interact, you will need to take all steps necessary to facilitate the deletion, including adopting or removing any geocaches you own and disabling your account. We will then complete the deletion process as soon as possible. The way our systems are structured, in some cases, it may take up to 30 days for records to be deleted or overwritten. In some circumstances (set out below) we may keep your personal information for longer.
If you stop playing or temporarily disable your account, without taking any further steps or asking us to permanently delete your account or personal information, we will keep your information as long as needed to ensure the integrity of the game and the enjoyment of other players. As an example, if you temporarily disable your account without removing or adopting out your geocaches, we will keep your information until it is clear that your geocaches are no longer available to be found. Your geocache and trackable logs and any images associated with them will remain as part of the historic record of the geocache or trackable with which they are associated unless you delete them or explicitly request the permanent deletion of your account. If you have provided personal information or content which other users need to use in relation to the Services (for example information about a particular geocache you have logged, or placed; if you have moved or logged a particular trackable; or if you have left instructions or goals about a particular trackable) we may retain that information for as long as we need to provide the Services to our other users but we will delete the information or help you to delete the information upon your request. For more information about trackables please click here.
We know that sometimes users take a break from the game and come back at a later time, which is why we don’t automatically permanently delete your account and personal information if you stop playing or temporarily disable your account. We will contact you if you have stopped playing or temporarily disabled your account to check if you would like us to permanently delete your information. Please note that once your account and personal information has been deleted we cannot get it back. If you don’t ask us to permanently delete your account and personal information, we will keep it until you want to reactivate your account and we will store it securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.
If you have provided us with personal information for a specific purpose, we will keep your personal information for as long as we need to fulfill that purpose. For example, if you have provided address information as part of a competition entry, we will keep that information for as long as necessary to administer the competition.
We will retain your contact details if you have an account with us or if we think you may be interested in marketing messages, offers, promotions, or new Services. You will always have the choice of opting out of receiving these messages. If you do so, we will remove you from our email marketing lists as soon as we can but within 10 business days.
If you have posted content online in the Geocaching Forums, we will retain that content for as long as we think the topic is relevant. After this time, we may delete the post or archive it.
Where we have obtained personal information automatically about your use of our apps or website (e.g. analytics), we will keep this information for as long as we feel it may be useful to us to improve and develop our business. We will delete it when it is no longer useful. This will normally be within 24 months of completion of the purpose for which it was originally collected. As an example, we may conduct a test for two months during which one group of users is shown our current home page and one group is shown a new version of our home page to determine which is preferable to users. Twenty-four months after completion of the two-month test, we would delete personal information associated with the test.
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How do we protect your personal information?
Groundspeak has implemented many security measures to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of your information. We protect your account information through the use of a password. To protect the confidentiality of your information you MUST keep your password confidential and not disclose it to any other person. We also work to protect the security of your credit card information during transmission through the use of third party payment processors using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts the information you input. However, keep in mind that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable.
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Transfers of your personal information outside the European economic area
If you are accessing our Services from Europe, then the Personal information which you provide to us, or which we collect about you, will in most cases be stored and processed in the U.S.
In order to ensure your personal information is protected we have signed up to the EU-US "privacy shield" framework. Please click here to see our Privacy Shield Policy, which will apply to all personal information transferred to the U.S. Please click here to find our more information about the privacy shield framework.
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Do I have to be a certain age to use the services?
Our services are not intended for use by children under the age of 13. If we learn that personal information of someone less than 13-years-of-age has been collected through our services, then we will take the appropriate steps to delete this information. If you are a parent or guardian and discover that your child under the age of 13 has obtained an account then you may alert us via email and request that we delete that child's personal information.
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Complaints and questions
If you have any complaints or questions about how we use your personal information, you may contact us using the contact details set out above. We will then get in touch with you to see how we can help.
If you have a complaint about how we use your personal information, we would always prefer you to contact us first. However, you may also make a complaint to the data privacy regulator if you wish to do so. If you would like more information about how to contact the relevant data privacy regulator, please contact us.
Details of our EU data protection officer and EU-based representative
We are located in the U.S. However, we have an EU based data protection officer and EU-based representative whose details are as follows:
Email: DPO@geocaching.com
Address: Osborne Clarke, ATTN: Groundspeak, Inc. DBA Geocaching Data Protection Officer, Innere Kanalstr. 15 50823 Cologne, Germany
Our EU-based representative, MCF Legal Technology Solutions Limited, can also be contacted at: Email: EURepresentative@geocaching.com
Address: MCF Legal Technology Solutions Limited, ATTN: Groundspeak, Inc. DBA Geocaching EU Representative, Riverside One, Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin 2, D02 X576
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Changes to this privacy policy
We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we post changes to this Privacy Policy, we will revise the "last updated" date at the top of this page. Please review this Privacy Policy periodically to be informed of how we use and protect your information. If we have your email address, we may also email you with information on those changes.