Archive:Wikimedia blog privacy policy

Welcome!

This is the privacy policy for the Wikimedia Blog, the official blog of the Wikimedia Foundation ("WMF") and the Wikimedia movement. We post information about new developments in wiki technology, cool things that members of the Wikimedia community do, and projects that the Wikimedia Foundation undertakes.

By using this blog, you agree to be held to the terms of this blog Privacy Policy and the Wikimedia Terms of Use. If you do not wish to be held to the terms of this Privacy Policy and/or our terms of use, please do not use this blog.

For the sake of clarity, definitions in this blog Privacy Policy take on the same definitions found in the main WMF Privacy Policy. As a separate website with its own Privacy Policy (what you are reading), this blog is not covered by the general Wikimedia Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy applies to our collection and handling of information about you that we receive as a result of your use of any part of the blog. Other WMF sites are covered by other privacy policies. If you have any questions or suggestions about this Privacy Policy or our Terms of Use, please Contact us.

Thank you!

What Information We Collect and What We Do With It

Public contributions

When you make a contribution to or comment on the blog, those contributions or comments may be publicly displayed and attributed to your username. We may use your public contributions or comments, either individually or aggregated with the public contributions and comments of others, to create new features or data-related products for you or to learn more about how the blog is used. Please do not include, in your contributions or comments, any personal information that you do not want to be publicly displayed.

Non-personally identifiable information

Like most website operators, WMF collects non-personally-identifiable information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, including, but not limited to: the browser type, language preference, referring site, and date and time of each visitor request. We collect this non-personally-identifiable information to understand how you interact with the blog and related materials, maintain and improve the blog and related materials, and protect against malicious users. From time to time, WMF may publicly release non-personally-identifiable information in aggregated or anonymized form, e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of any of our sites.

Personally identifying information

Depending on how you choose to use this site, you may disclose different amounts of information that could be used to identify you (such as your IP address, user agent information, or geolocation information). We will keep this information confidential, except as provided in this Privacy Policy. We use this information to understand how you interact with the blog and related materials, maintain and improve the blog and related materials, and protect against malicious users.

For example, if you choose to comment on the page of a blog post or register an account, you may be asked for a username, password, and email address. Your email address and password will be kept confidential, but your username will be publicly viewable.

If you provide an email address, we may use it to contact you or send you surveys so that we can better understand how you use our services and how we can improve our services, or to update you about Wikimedia activities. These surveys are always optional.

Cookies and other data collection tools

We may also use some common technologies, including but not limited to: cookies, local storage, JavaScript, or tracking pixels, including some from third parties, to obtain information that could identify you. We keep this information confidential, except as provided in this Privacy Policy. We use this information to make your experience with the blog safer and better, to gain a greater understanding of user preferences and user interaction with the blog, and to generally improve our services. You may remove or disable some or all cookies and locally stored data through your browser settings, depending on your browser. While cookies and locally stored data may not be necessary to use the blog, some features may not function properly if you disable cookies and/or local storage. You can read more about some of the specific cookies we use, when they expire, and what we use them for in the main WMF Privacy Policy's FAQ.

When We Can Share Information

With Your Permission

We may share your information for a particular purpose, if you agree.

Third-Party Service Providers

As hard as we may try, we cannot do it all. We may share your information (including your email address and geolocation information) with people we work with (e.g., third-party service providers, contractors, community volunteers) in order to help maintain, better understand, or improve the blog or other Wikimedia Projects and sites. In the course of providing their services to us, some of these third-party providers and contractors may also collect and retain user information, including but not limited to user emails and user geolocation information based on IP addresses, in accordance with their privacy policies and any additional requirements we may put in place with them. As necessary, we may put safeguards, such as confidentiality agreements, in place to help ensure that these service providers only use your information in the course of providing their services to us and to make sure they treat your information consistently with, and no less protective of your privacy than, the principles of this Policy.

For Legal Reasons

We may access, preserve, or disclose your personal information if we reasonably believe it necessary to satisfy a valid and legally enforceable warrant, subpoena, court order, law or regulation, or other judicial or administrative order. However, if we believe that a particular request for disclosure of a user's information is legally invalid or an abuse of the legal system and the affected user does not intend to oppose the disclosure themselves, we will try our best to fight it. We are committed to notifying you via email at least ten (10) calendar days, when possible, before we disclose your personal information in response to a legal demand. However, we may only provide notice if we are not legally restrained from contacting you, there is no credible threat to life or limb that is created or increased by disclosing the request, and you have provided us with an email address.

Nothing in this Privacy Policy is intended to limit any legal objections or defenses you may have to a third party's request (whether it be civil, criminal, or governmental) to disclose your information. We recommend seeking the advice of legal counsel immediately if such a request is made involving you.

Transfer of WMF

In the extremely unlikely event that ownership of all or substantially all of the Foundation changes, or we go through a reorganization (such as a merger, consolidation, or acquisition), information collected under this Privacy Policy may transferred to the new owner(s) of the Foundation or becomes subject to a different privacy policy such as the privacy policy of an acquirer.

To Protect You, Ourselves, or Others

We may need to share your personal information if it is reasonably believed to be necessary to: enforce or investigate potential violations of our Terms of Use or this Privacy Policy; investigate and defend ourselves against legal threats or actions; prevent imminent and serious bodily harm or death to a person; protect our organization, employees, contractors, users, or the public; or detect, prevent, or otherwise assess and address potential spam, malware, fraud, abuse, unlawful activity, and security or technical concerns.

To Learn and Experiment

We may share non-personal or aggregated information with researchers, scholars, academics, and other interested third parties who wish to study the Wikimedia Sites, including this blog. Sharing this information helps them understand usage, viewing, and demographics statistics and patterns. They then can share their findings with us and our users so that we can all better understand and improve the Wikimedia Sites.

When we give access to personal information to third-party developers or researchers, we put requirements, such as reasonable technical and contractual protections, in place to help ensure that these service providers treat your information consistently with the principles of this Policy and in accordance with our instructions. If these developers or researchers later publish their work or findings, we ask that they not disclose your personal information. Please note that, despite the obligations we impose on developers and researchers, we cannot guarantee that they will abide by our agreement, nor do we guarantee that we will regularly screen or audit their projects. (You can learn more about re-identification in the main WMF Privacy Policy's FAQ.)

In general, WMF does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described in this Privacy Policy.

Information You Share with Third Party Services

The WMF blog may allow you to access third-party services through its interface. For example, if you click on a "Share this post" button or a link contained in an article, you may be connected to an external website such as a Twitter post or a New York Times article. Additionally, if you give us permission (such as by linking your account with another service), we may send information to you or to a third party automatically. Please note that this Privacy Policy only governs information we collect, and you are responsible for reading and understanding privacy policies and practices of the third-party services that you use.

How Do We Protect Your Data?

We strive to protect your information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. We use a variety of physical and technical measures, policies, and procedures (such as access control procedures, network firewalls, and physical security) designed to protect our systems and your personal information. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as completely secure data transmission or storage, so we cannot guarantee that our security will not be breached (by technical measures or through violation of our policies and procedures).

Transfer of Information to the United States

If you decide to access or use the blog, whether from inside or outside of the U.S., you consent to the collection, transfer, storage, processing, disclosure, and other uses of your information in the U.S. as described in this Privacy Policy. You also consent to the transfer of your information by us from the U.S. to other countries, which may have different or less stringent data protection laws than your country, in connection with providing services to you.

Our Response to Do Not Track

Because we protect all users in accordance with this Privacy Policy, we do not change our behavior in response to a web browser's "do not track" signal. For more information regarding Do Not Track signals and how we handle them, please visit the main WMF Privacy Policy's FAQ.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

Because things naturally change over time and we want to ensure our Privacy Policy accurately reflects our practices and the law, we reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will provide notice of changes to this Privacy Policy in a reasonable time and manner.

We ask that you please review the most up-to-date version of this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of the blog after any subsequent version of this Privacy Policy becomes effective constitutes acceptance of that version of the Privacy Policy on your part.

Contact Us

If you have questions or suggestions about this Privacy Policy, or the information collected under this Privacy Policy, please email us at privacy@wikimedia.org or contact us directly.

Thank You!

Thank you for reading our Privacy Policy. We hope you enjoy using the Wikimedia blog and appreciate your participation in creating, maintaining, and constantly working to improve the largest repository of free knowledge in the world.

Original version: June 25, 2015

Last updated: June 25, 2015

Parts of the section "What information We Collect and What We Do With It" are adapted from the Automattic Privacy Policy, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.