At Teen Ink, we respect your privacy. We do collect information from you, but it is Teen Ink's policy and priority to ensure that all personal information remains private and secure.

To protect your privacy, Teen Ink:

• Provides a privacy notice and/or a link to this Privacy Statement on all pages that ask for personal information;
• Will not release personal identifying information about you without first obtaining consent; and
• Will not knowingly collect or use personal identifying information from children younger than 13.

When you visit the Teen Ink website, we may collect some basic information about your computer, including:

• IP address (your computer's unique signature)
• Operating system (e.g., Windows 95)
• Browser software (e.g., Netscape, Microsoft Internet Explorer)
• Internet Service Provider (e.g., AOL)
• Geographic location (e.g., Philadelphia, PA.)

The information we collect reflects the population as a whole rather than focusing on individuals, and we use it to help us better understand the people who visit Teen Ink. This information helps us identify the most popular areas on Teen Ink's website and determine the effectiveness of Teen Ink's promotional activities. In addition, we may disclose some of this general information to advertisers to inform them of the number of people who have seen and clicked on their advertisements.

For the same purposes, we may use cookies - small text files placed on your computer's hard drive - to help us determine the type of content and sites to which you link, the length of time that you spend at any particular site and the Teen Ink services you use. We use cookies to personalize Teen Ink's members' and visitors' experiences. Without cookies, it would be difficult for us to provide any personalized service or to fully understand Teen Ink readers needs. Cookies also tell us which advertising you have seen on the Teen Ink site, thereby allowing us to offer you a more diverse selection of advertising information.

The cookies used in connection with certain pages may allow Teen Ink to compile demographic data (which is not identifiable to a specific individual) about visitors to Teen Ink.

We do collect the e-mail addresses of people who communicate with us via e-mail to respond to these communications and to send future correspondence. We may archive messages for quality assurance purposes. In cases where Teen Ink may use a third-party vendor to provide a service (such as chat), feedback or questions directed to Teen Ink about that service may be forwarded to the vendor for a direct response to a reader.

For your protection, some of Teen Ink's personnel have access to Teen Ink's bulletin boards, chat rooms and forums to help us maintain a safe and collaborative environment online. Currently, we do not archive chat dialogs, screen names or forum postings. We also do not perform any analysis of chat room discussions. We encourage you not to give personal information or passwords to anyone on the bulletin board, in the chat rooms or forums. When you disclose your personal information, it may be collected and used by others to send you unsolicited e-mail. If you encounter any Teen Ink user who is improperly collecting or using information, please contact Teen Ink.

When you join, enter contests or sign up for other services at Teen Ink, we collect personal identifying information from you, which may include the following:

• First and last name;
• Home or other physical address;
• E-mail address;
• Phone number;
• Any other information that identifies you as a specific individual;
• Any other information that, when tied to the above information, may identify you as a specific individual.
• Name of your school and name of your teacher
• Your age and date of birth

We collect this information on pages where you can submit your work to Teen Ink for publishing consideration or register to join Teen Ink services and at other locations where you can sign up for sweepstakes and contests. We give notice at each location that asks for personal information, and such information will be used only for the purposes stated at the location of the collection and/or within this Privacy Statement.

We use information about Teen Ink members and visitors for administrative and other purposes that we deem necessary to maintain and improve Teen Ink's services. Such uses include data transmission, customer surveys conducted by Teen Ink or third parties, e-mail or chat services and other future services. We reserve the right to use third parties to provide these services. These third parties may receive certain personal identifying information about you in order for them to perform their services.

We send member account passwords only to the e-mail address given during the registration process. All registrants receive e-mail confirming their Registration. NEVER GIVE YOUR PASSWORD TO ANYONE. If someone claiming to represent Teen Ink in an e-mail or chat room asks for your Teen Ink password, DO NOT RESPOND. The only time we ask for your password is when you need to access to the Teen Ink system.

Teen Ink cooperates with law enforcement agencies in identifying those who use Teen Ink services for illegal activities. We reserve the right to release information about members who we believe are in violation of Teen Ink's content guidelines, even without a subpoena, warrant or court order. We also reserve the right to report to law enforcement agencies any activities that we reasonably believe to be unlawful. We save your personal information indefinitely since we may need to contact you in the event we want your permission to publish your work in the future. If you would like us to remove you from our data base, please contact us at administrator@TeenInk.com. We maintain information on members who have been removed for violating Teen Ink's content guidelines in order to identify repeat offenders. From time to time, we may contact members to inform them of improvements or enhancements to Teen Ink services.

Teen Ink will use your credit card number in order to provide you with the subscription or goods or services that you request. It may also be used for other purposes stated at the time of collection, which may require disclosure of your credit card number and other personal identifying information about you to third parties. Information collected by Teen Ink is securely stored on Teen Ink's computers, which are called servers. Credit card transactions take place solely on servers that offer a higher level of security.

The transactions are handled by a third-party financial institution, which receives the credit card number and other personal identifying information in order to verify the credit card number and process the transaction. Only authorized Teen Ink employees have access to this information, in a manner consistent with industry standards. Third-party vendors may also sell products and services on Teen Ink, and their policies may differ from those of Teen Ink.

Teen Ink encourages parents and guardians to spend time online with their children and to participate in the interactive activities offered on the sites. Teen Ink encourages parents and guardians to advise their children not to talk to strangers, and to teach children not to give out their names or other personal information. Parents and guardians should also teach their children never to fill out online registration forms without the parent's or guardian's knowledge and consent. No information should be submitted to or posted at the Teen Ink web sites by children without the consent of their parent or guardian. In addition, when a child registers, his/her parent or guardian receives an e-mail about Registration and providing instructions on how the parent or guardian can delete the Registration if so desired.

Although children are allowed to participate in contests, if such a guest wins, notification and prizes are sent to the parents or guardians identified in the initial Registration process. Teen Ink does not knowingly collect or use any personal information from children under age 13 without obtaining express parental consent. Express parental consent means that Teen Ink obtains affirmative agreement from a parent or legal guardian that the child may divulge personal information by transmitting a signed statement by postal mail or fax.

All general information collected from children is used only for statistical analysis, editorial participation, feedback and those purposes described above and in the registration process. We do not give children's personal information to third parties, regardless of whether or not the children choose to allow us to disseminate their personal information for promotional opportunities.

Note: Teen Ink defines "children" as minors younger than age 13.

When you join Teen Ink, you have the option of signing up to receive information from Teen Ink's third party sponsors. Teen Ink may also hosts promotions and sweepstakes that may be sponsored and administered by outside parties. The fact that Teen Ink merchandise may be given away as prizes does not mean that Teen Ink is the sponsor. We require that outside parties conducting promotions and sweepstakes on Teen Ink site clearly identify who is conducting the promotion and state their practices concerning the use of personal identifying information. We will post privacy information in the rules and/or login area for the promotions and sweepstakes that we host. To the extent that the privacy information relating to the promotion or sweepstakes conflicts with Teen Ink's Privacy Statement, the specific privacy information regarding the promotion or sweepstakes will govern that particular promotion or sweepstakes.

Third parties that receive information about you from Teen Ink at your request are obligated to:

1. Clearly indicate the sender of the e-mail message; and
2. Provide you with a method of opting out from receiving future communications.

If you receive e-mail from a third party stating that is associated with Teen Ink, yet you do not want to receive promotional materials from Teen Ink or its sponsors, please follow the third party's removal procedures. If this procedure is not successful, please contact us at administrator@TeenInk.com.

We do not control the actions of Teen Ink's members and visitors. If you disclose personal information on a bulletin board, in a chat room, forum or anywhere else on the site, it may be collected and used by others. Additionally, be aware that when you click on ad banners, they may lead you to other sites not operated by Teen Ink. These outside parties may have different privacy policies from ours. Teen Ink does not assume any responsibility for actions of third parties.