Privacy Statement

PRIVACY STATEMENT • SLASHDOT MEDIA

LAST UPDATED: MARCH 15, 2013
(Effective Date May 24, 2008)

Dice Career Solutions, Inc. and Slashdot Media (“Slashdot Media”), subsidiaries of Dice Holdings, Inc., operate the Internet sites SlashdotMedia.com, SourceForge.net, Slashdot.org, feedery.com, and Freecode.com (the “Sites”). Slashdot Media is committed to protecting the privacy of users of the Sites. This Privacy Statement applies to each of the Sites and describes the information Slashdot Media collects about users and how that information may be used.

Slashdot Media complies with the United States (“US”)/European Union (“EU”) and US/Swiss Safe Harbor frameworks as set forth by the US Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use and retention of personal data from European Union member countries and Switzerland. Slashdot Media has certified that it adheres to the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles of notice, choice, onward transfer, security, data integrity, access, and enforcement.

We self-certify compliance with

SafeHarborLogo-FinalLines copy.jpgTRUSTe European Safe Harbor certification

To learn more about the Safe Harbor program, and to view Slashdot Media’s certification, please visit http://export.gov/safeharbor

For additional information about what to do if you have questions or concerns about our Safe Harbor program, please see the enforcement section below.

Slashdot Media reserves the right to update and change this Privacy Statement from time to time. If Slashdot Media makes material changes to its privacy practices, a notice will be posted on this web page. Each time a user uses the Sites, the current version of the Privacy Statement applies. Accordingly, a user should check the date of this Privacy Statement (which appears at the top) and review for any changes since the last version. If a user does not agree to the Privacy Statement, the user should not use the Sites.

Slashdot Media has been awarded TRUSTe’s Privacy Seal signifying that this privacy policy and practices have been reviewed by TRUSTe for compliance with TRUSTe’s program requirements including transparency, accountability and choice regarding the collection and use of your personal information. TRUSTe’s mission, as an independent third party, is to accelerate online trust among consumers and organizations globally through its leading privacy trustmark and innovative trust solutions. If you have questions or complaints regarding our privacy policy or practices, please contact us at privacy@dice.com.  If you are not satisfied with our response you can contact TRUSTe here. The TRUSTe program covers information that is collected through the Sites.

NOTICE

Slashdot Media provides this Privacy Statement to make users aware of Slashdot Media privacy practices, and of the choices a user may make about the way the user’s information is collected and used.

Children

Users represent they are of legal age to create binding and financial obligations for any liability users may incur as a result of their use of the Sites. The Sites are not directed to children under the age of 13. Slashdot Media does not knowingly collect, or wish to obtain, personally identifiable information from children. If Slashdot Media becomes aware that a user is under the age of 13 and has provided personally identifiable information without prior verifiable parental or guardian consent, it will remove user’s personally identifiable information from its files.

What information Slashdot Media collects

Slashdot Media may collect three types of information from users of Sites: “personally identifiable information”, “device information” about the device you are using to access our site, and “aggregate information.”

Personally identifiable information is any piece of information which can potentially be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a user of the Sites (such as name, email address, postal address, telephone number).

Device information is information about the device and its attributes (such as information about how your browser is configured, whether your device has enabled cookies, its Flash settings, the device’s identification number and other characteristics about the device); it also may be personally identifiable information in cases where it is associated with the name or other identifier for a Site user.  We use device information for purposes such as enhancing the user experience.

Aggregate information is non-personally identifiable/anonymous information about users of the Sites (such as frequency of visits to Sites, Site pages most frequently accessed browser type).  Aggregate information also may include pages visited along with any navigation and in-page interactions used during each visit. In-page interactions monitored include: clicks and selections, mouse movement, page scrolling, and form fields focused on (specific keystrokes entered into each field are not collected).  Aggregate information is used in a collective manner and no single person can be identified by that compiled information.

We also use Omniture, comScore and Google Analytics for aggregation and analysis of session information.

  • If you would like to opt-out of the aggregation and analysis of your session information by Omniture, please see the section about browser cookies below for information about how you can control browser cookies.
  • If you would like to opt-out of information collection by comScore, please visit: http://www.scorecardresearch.com/preferences.aspx.
  • If you would like to opt-out of Google Analytics, Google has developed a tool that works with major internet browsers to permit you to opt-out.  For more information and install their opt-out tool please visit: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. If you opt-out of Google Analytics, and Omniture monitoring, we still may collect some device and aggregate information ourselves through log files as discussed below or in connection with our forms.

On the Sites, users may order products or services, and register to receive materials. Personally identifiable information collected on the Sites includes community forum content, diaries, profiles, photographs, name, unique identifiers (e.g., passwords), contact and billing information (e.g., email address, postal address, telephone, fax), and transaction information. In order to tailor Slashdot Media’s subsequent communications to users and continuously improve the Sites’ products and services, Slashdot Media may also ask users to provide information regarding their interests, demographics, experience with its products, and detailed contact preferences.

Social Network Login

 

If you chose to use third-party social networking sites, such as Facebook or Twitter, to log into one of our sites that offers that login feature, we may collect information, such as your basic profile information, gender, age, interests, and other demographic and geographical information, from the social networking site you use to interact with our site.  If you do not want to share information from your social networking account with us you can either decline to use these features or check your social networking site’s current privacy setting options to see what options they provide for limiting disclosures when you use login sharing features.

This privacy policy will apply to our use of information collected about you through these offerings. We do not control the privacy practices of your social networking sites. As a result, we want you to be aware that when you use these offerings you may be providing information to both us and the social networking site, and you should review your social networking site’s privacy policy to be sure that you know how it will use any data that it collects.  Similarly, if you choose to post content from our site through your social networking accounts, you will be sharing information about your activities with your social networking provider.

 

Web beacons

Slashdot Media uses web beacons from time to time. Such web beacons may be provided by Slashdot Media’s third party advertising companies to help manage and optimize Slashdot Media’s online advertising. To opt out of targeted advertising delivered by Network Advertising Initiative members, click here: http://www.networkadvertising.org/consumer/opt_out.asp  A web beacon is a string of code that provides a method for delivering a graphic image on a web page or in an email message for the purpose of transferring data, or determining how many times a specific web page has been viewed. Web beacons enable Slashdot Media to recognize a browser’s cookie when a browser visits a Site, and to learn which banner ads bring users to each Site. For example, when a user visits a web page, the code for the page may include instructions to go to another server to gather a single pixel graphic image. Web beacons are not placed on a user’s computer.

Cookies

Slashdot Media uses cookies on the Sites. A “browser” or “HTTP” cookie is a unique text file that may be used for data analysis, and enables a web site to tailor information presented to a user based on a user’s browsing program. Slashdot Media may use browser cookies to personalize a user’s pages at a Site or Sites, to remember a user when the user registers for products or services, for fraud prevention, or to track visits to a Site or across our Sites. If a user does not want Slashdot Media or its partners to deploy browser cookies in the user’s browser when the user visits the Sites, the user may set the browser to reject cookies or to notify the user when a web site tries to place cookies in the browser program. Rejecting cookies may affect a user’s ability to use some of the products, features, functions, or services on our Sites.

Our Sites also may use local shared objects, also known as “Flash cookies” to store your preferences or display content based upon what you view on our website to personalize your visit. Flash cookies are different from “browser” cookies because of the amount of, type of, and how data is stored. Cookie management tools provided by your browser will not remove Flash cookies. To learn how to manage privacy and storage settings for Flash cookies, including how to delete Flash cookies, click here for additional information: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html#117118.

The ads appearing on the Sites may be delivered to visitors by third parties, such as Google. The third party advertising technology that Slashdot Media uses on the Sites uses information derived from a user’s visits to the Sites to target advertising within the Sites. In addition, Slashdot Media’s advertisers may use other third party advertising technology to target advertising on the Sites. In the course of serving advertisements to the Sites, our partners may place or recognize a unique cookie on a user’s browser. Information about users’ visits to the Sites, such as the number of times users have viewed an ad (but not users’ names, addresses, or other personally identifiable information), are used to serve ads to visitors. The use of cookies enables our partners to serve ads to users based on such user’s visit to Slashdot Media’s sites and other sites on the Internet. As with other cookies, and consistent with Slashdot Media’s policy on cookies stated above, the user may block or delete such cookies from the user’s drive or memory. For more information about Google, Google’s use of cookies, and how to “opt out” of Google’s email/information lists, please click here: http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html. As noted in the Web Beacon discussion above, users also can opt-out of receiving these types of targeted network advertisements from many advertising networks by visiting the National Advertising Initiative website identified above. For a more detailed discussion, please see Slashdot Media’s Cookies and Opt-Out Choices Statement.

Log files

Slashdot Media web servers may automatically log aggregate information, such as a user’s IP address, domain name, browser type, date and time of access, and other log file data. This information may be used to analyze trends or administer the Sites.

With respect to SourceForge.net, Slashdot Media contracts with third party mirror providers, who deliver integrated communications services, including Internet access services, to deploy mirrors of downloads in order to make file downloading via SourceForge.net faster and more convenient. The logging practices and other policies of mirror sites may differ from those set forth in this Privacy Statement.

How Slashdot Media uses the information collected

Slashdot Media may use the personally identifiable information a user submits for any purposes related to Slashdot Media’s business, including, but not limited to:

  1. To understand a user’s needs and create content that is relevant to the user;
  2. To generate statistical studies;
  3. To conduct market research and planning by sending user surveys;
  4. To notify user referrals of Slashdot Media services, information, or products when a user requests that Slashdot Media send such information to referrals;
  5. To improve services, information, and products;
  6. To help a user complete a transaction, or provide services or customer support to users and to recipients of Slashdot Media products;
  7. To communicate with the user and with recipients of Slashdot Media products;
  8. To update users and recipients of Slashdot Media products about services, information, and products;
  9. To personalize a Site for the user;
  10. To notify the user of any changes with a Site which may affect the user;
  11. To enforce terms of use on a Site; and
  12. To allow the user to purchase products, access services, or otherwise engage in activities the user selects.

User names, identifications (“IDs”), and email addresses (as well as any additional information that a user may choose to post) may be publicly available on a Site when a user voluntarily and publicly discloses personally identifiable information, such as when a user posts personally identifiable information in conjunction with content subject to an Open Source license, or as part of a message posted to a public forum or a publicly-released software application. Users may not be able to change or remove public postings once posted. Such personally identifiable information may be used by visitors of these pages to send unsolicited messages. Slashdot Media is not responsible for any consequences which may occur from the use of personally identifiable information that a user chooses to submit to public pages.

With respect to surveys, in the event that responses are publicly disclosed, users will be notified at the time they take the survey. Slashdot Media will disclose only aggregate information regarding its users, i.e., anonymous information that does not identify any specific individual. Circumstances under which Slashdot Media would publicly disclose such aggregate information include, but are not limited to, sharing survey results with the site population, providing data to Slashdot Media advertisers on user preferences and/or demographics, and publicizing overall usage data in press communications. Where surveys allow users to submit written comments, and where Slashdot Media advises users of the possibility of such disclosure at the time they take the survey, Slashdot Media reserves the right to disclose any information provided by users, provided that no personal information identifying a specific user is disclosed. Participation in surveys is at a user’s option; Slashdot Media does not conduct mandatory surveys.

CHOICE/OPT OUT

A user makes the decision whether to proceed with activities that request personally identifiable information, such as online contact us and order forms. If a user does not provide requested information, the user may not be able to complete certain transactions.

Users who use the personally identifiable information of other users agree to use such information only for:

  1. Using services offered through a Site;
  2. Site transaction-related purposes and not for unsolicited commercial messages; or
  3. Other purposes that the other user expressly chooses.

Users are not licensed to add other users to a Site, even users who entered into transactions with them, or to their mail lists without consent.

Slashdot Media encourages users to evaluate privacy and security policies of any of the Sites’ transaction partners before entering into transactions or choosing to disclose personally identifiable information.

Email

Slashdot Media will not use the personally identifiable information provided to it online in ways unrelated to the purposes identified in the “How Slashdot Media uses the information collected” section above without first letting a user know and offering the user a choice. If a user no longer wishes to receive direct marketing materials, Slashdot Media will provide instructions in its marketing email messages on how to be removed from any lists. Slashdot Media will make commercially reasonable efforts to honor such requests. For information about how Slashdot Media may share personally identifiable information, please see the Onward Transfer section below.

Users may have the opportunity to use a service to send electronic mail to another user or email list. In such cases, a user’s valid email address and real name will be included with such messages. In order to prevent abuse, users may not opt out of such a display, but may choose to refrain from using such service to transmit an email message.

Slashdot Media sites may offer an email alias service that allows a user to create an email alias that forwards to the user’s personal email account. Slashdot Media does not publish a user’s personal email address, but does publicize email aliases which may allow an individual to identify or contact a user. A user who obtains an email alias may not opt out of such publication of the email alias. Please note, however, in certain cases, such as a “bounced-back” email message, it is possible that the user’s personal email address could be exposed to other parties to the communication.

Profile or User ID Display

A user’s personally identifiable information may be publicly available through a user’s profile or user ID display. Depending upon which of the Sites the user visits, the user may have the option to opt out of publicly displaying their real names by changing their display name under the Sites’ user preferences. Profile or user ID display may allow other users to see a user’s activities, including purchase and sales content, ratings, and comments.

Photographs

Users may have the opportunity to submit photographs to the Sites for product promotions, contests, and other purposes to be disclosed at the time of request. In these circumstances, the Sites are designed to allow the public to view, download, save, and otherwise access the photographs posted. By submitting photographs, users waive any privacy expectations users have with respect to the security of such photographs, and Slashdot Media’s use or exploitation of users’ likeness. All photographs submitted to Slashdot Media become the property of Slashdot Media and will not be returned.

ONWARD TRANSFER

With whom may Slashdot Media share information?

Unless Slashdot Media has a user’s permission, as otherwise described in this Privacy Statement, or as required by law, such as to comply with a subpoena, Slashdot Media will only share the personally identifiable information a user provides online with other entities that are part of the Slashdot Media corporate family and/or outside service providers who may be used to ship products, process credit cards, provide technical support, handle order processing, or otherwise act on Slashdot Media’s behalf. These third party service providers are prohibited from using users’ information for any other purpose, including their own marketing.

When Slashdot Media uses third parties to assist in processing a Site user’s personally identifiable information, Slashdot Media requires that these third parties establish safeguards to protect the confidentiality of the information that we provide them. For processing that involves information subject to Safe Harbor, we take steps to confirm that they subscribe to Safe Harbor, are subject to the EU Directive or another adequacy finding, or we enter into a written agreement requiring that they provide at least the same level of protection as required by the relevant Safe Harbor principles.

Sites may share personally identifiable information with third parties for marketing purposes, but will provide users with choices about disclosures of personally identifiable information for marketing purposes.

Please be advised that in certain instances, it may be necessary for Slashdot Media to disclose a user’s personally identifiable information without a user’s permission to government officials or otherwise as required by legal obligations. Slashdot Media may disclose such personally identifiable information when responding to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process, or to establish or exercise legal rights or defend against claims, including fraud or infringement investigations.

Data collected online may be combined with information a user provides through other means of communication, such as postal mail or third parties to further carry out the purposes described above under the heading “How Slashdot Media uses the information collected.” When users choose to provide Slashdot Media with personally identifiable information, users consent to the transfer and storage of such information by Slashdot Media servers in the United States.

In addition, Slashdot Media reserves the right to share aggregate information collected from users of the Sites, without prior notice, with entities that are part of the Slashdot Media corporate family and unrelated third parties. Aggregate information is used in a collective manner and no single person can be identified by such compiled information.

Slashdot Media may share certain data from SourceForge.net, Freecode.com, Feedery.com, and Slashdot.org with researchers and research organizations for the sole purpose of supporting academic and scholarly research on free and/or open source software.  Slashdot Media may further choose to establish agreements, as in the case of University of Notre Dame, for these parties to act in a clearinghouse capacity and authorize them to share this data with other researchers studying free and/or open source software.  When data from these websites is transmitted to researchers, Slashdot Media makes commercially reasonable efforts to remove personally identifiable information from data fields designed to capture personally identifiable information (other than user names and information that users have made publicly available through one of the sites).  Slashdot Media, however, does not guarantee the complete removal of information that may identify a user, particularly in cases where the user has provided that information in comment fields or other fields not specifically designed for the collection of identifiers.

Slashdot Media may make presentations, white papers and other content from other organizations available to the users of Slashdot Media sites.  To obtain access to this content you may be asked to provide personal information, such as your name and contact information.  This personal information may be shared with the organization that is making the content available and their use of the personal information will be subject to their own privacy policies.

If you choose to make information available to other people through instant messages, status updates, group forum discussions or lists, electronic mail messages, bulletin boards, blog postings, or by joining groups or using other networking functions that we may offer on the Sites (either our own or through third party applications such as Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin), this information will be visible to these third parties. Please take care in deciding what information you choose to make available through these mechanisms, as we do not control the manner in which recipients or persons who may see the information may use, retain, or re-disclose the information that you choose to provide.  In addition, if you use third party social networking sites to interact with our sites, we may exchange information with those social networking sites.  Whether to use social networking sites to interact with our Sites, when that capability is offered, is your choice.  In addition, you may restrict the sharing of information from your social networking accounts to the extent permitted by your social networking site’s privacy settings.

Service Orders

To purchase services, users may be asked to be directed to a third party site, like PayPal, to pay for their purchases. If applicable, the third party site may collect payment information directly to facilitate a transaction. None of this information will be captured or stored by Slashdot Media.

Links to third party web sites

Links to third party web sites or widgets to enable sharing of information through social networks on the Sites are provided solely as a convenience to the user. When a user uses these links, the user leaves the Sites. Slashdot Media has not reviewed all of these third party sites, does not control, and is not responsible for, any of the third party sites, their content or privacy practices. Slashdot Media does not endorse or make any representations about the third party sites, or any information, services, or products found on the sites. If a user decides to access any of the linked sites, Slashdot Media encourages the user to read their privacy statements. The user accesses such sites at user’s own risk.

Project Web

SourceForge.net offers web hosting services that permit project teams to share information among developers and end users (“Project Web”). The project web services include a pool of web servers which serve project related web content and support common scripting language. Slashdot Media hosts these web servers, but does not review or control any of the web content, including personally identifiable information, which may be created by project teams; nor are we liable for any data breach related to a Project Web application. Web content created by Project Web teams may implement the collection of personally identifiable information; thus the Project Web teams are responsible for any required breach notification. Before linking to, accessing or otherwise using the project web services, a user should take those steps necessary, in such user’s discretion, to protect his or her privacy, including not using the Project Web services.

Bankruptcy or Sale of business

Slashdot Media reserves the right to share or transfer personally identifiable information and aggregate information to a third party should Slashdot Media ever file for bankruptcy or in the event of a sale, merger or acquisition of Slashdot Media, provided such third party agrees to adhere to the terms of this Privacy Statement.

DATA INTEGRITY AND ACCESS

Should a user find inaccuracies in such user’s information, or desire to close an account or view or remove the personally identifiable information Slashdot Media may have regarding the user, the user may contact Slashdot Media through the communication methods described below, or when technically feasible, directly on a Site. Slashdot Media will make commercially reasonable efforts to respond to requests for access, updating or removal within thirty (30) days of receiving requests. Slashdot Media may decline to process users’ access, updating or removal requests concerning their personally identifiable information if the requests require disproportionate technical effort, jeopardize the privacy of other users, are inconsistent with our legal obligations, or are impractical (for instance, requests concerning information residing on backup tapes).

SECURITY

To prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the appropriate use of information, Slashdot Media implements physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information Slashdot Media collects. Slashdot Media uses encryption when using the Internet to transfer or receive requested sensitive personally identifiable information. However, Slashdot Media does not guarantee that unauthorized third parties will never defeat measures taken to prevent improper use of personally identifiable information.

Internal Slashdot Media access to users’ nonpublic personally identifiable information is restricted to Slashdot Media’s administrators and individuals on a need-to-know basis. These individuals are bound by confidentiality agreements.

User passwords are keys to accounts. We use unique numbers, letters, and special characters for passwords and do not disclose passwords to other people in order to prevent loss of account control. Users are responsible for all actions taken in their accounts and are responsible to notify Slashdot Media of any password compromises, and change passwords periodically to maintain account protection. In addition to passwords, SourceForge.net users also obtain encryption keys for the release of files for download, development of web content, and other services. Users are responsible for all actions taken with encryption keys, and must promptly notify Slashdot Media of any security compromises involving such encryption keys.

Data Retention

We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services. If you wish to cancel your account or request that we no longer use your information to provide you services contact us at privacy@dice.com and we will deactivate your account and will retain and use your information only as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

ENFORCEMENT

In the event Slashdot Media becomes aware that the security of a Site has been compromised or user’s personally identifiable information has been disclosed to unrelated third parties as a result of external activity, including but not limited to security attacks or fraud, Slashdot Media reserves the right to take reasonable appropriate measures, including but not limited to, investigation and reporting, and notification to and cooperation with law enforcement authorities. In the event of a data breach, Slashdot Media will make reasonable efforts to notify affected individuals if Slashdot Media believes that there is a reasonable risk of harm to the user as a result of the breach or if notice is otherwise required by law.

If you have comments or questions about Slashdot Media’s privacy statement, please contact:

Email: privacy@dice.com
Telephone: 888-321-3423

Postal Mail:
Dice Career Solutions, Inc.
12150 Meredith Drive
Urbandale, IA  50323

If you have questions or concerns regarding this Policy, you should first contact privacy@dice.com. If contacting us does not resolve your complaint, you may raise your complaint with TRUSTe by Internet here, or by fax at 415-520-3420 or mail to TRUSTe Safe Harbor Compliance Dept., click for mailing address.  If you are faxing or mailing TRUSTe to lodge a complaint, you must include the following information: the name of company, the alleged privacy violation, your contact information, and whether you would like the particulars of your complaint shared with the company. For information about TRUSTe or the operation of TRUSTe’s dispute resolution process, click here or request this information from TRUSTe at any of the addresses listed above. The TRUSTe dispute resolution process shall be conducted in English.