We have updated our Privacy Policy to provide visitors of CBS Interactive Web Sites with a single, uniform policy consistent with our core Privacy Principles. Below, please find answers to some questions about our new Privacy Policy. To review the Privacy Policy, click here.
Why are you updating your Privacy Policy?
As CBS Interactive expands and the laws protecting individual privacy evolve, we update our privacy policy accordingly to ensure that we are adhering to all applicable laws and conform to a consistent set of core Privacy Principles followed by our companies.
Have you made any substantively material changes to the Privacy Policy?
No, we have not made any substantively material changes to the manner in which we handle information about you. But we have simplified our privacy policy, making it uniform across CBS Interactive Web Sites, which now include TVGuide.com web sites and mobile apps, and made it easier to understand.
What are the "core" privacy principles that CBS Interactive follows?
Trust is a cornerstone of our mission at CBS Interactive. We are committed to gaining and maintaining your trust by following five key principles: transparency, choice, access, security and accountability. For more information, click here.
Will you share my contact information with third parties?
Like other businesses, we share contact information (such as name and email address) with vendors who process credit card transactions, with co-branded business partners, and when we have consent from our users. For more information, click here.
Can you give me an example when you will share my information with third parties?
If you enter a sweepstakes that is jointly sponsored by a third party, we will share your contact information with that third party. Also, if you seek to download a free whitepaper or listen to a free webinar about, for example, wireless services, we will ask you to consent to have your contact information shared with third parties who may contact you about wireless services. This allows us to offer you valuable content for free.
Does CBS Interactive share contact information with other CBS Interactive Web Sites?
We will share information within our family of Web Sites so we can better inform our users about products and services in which they may be interested. It is up to you as to whether you want to hear about special offers from us. You can choose not to receive marketing emails from us when you register with us, in any such email we send, or by contacting us.
Do you use my data for advertising on CBS Interactive Web Sites?
Like other web sites, we are able to offer free content and services through the revenue we receive from advertising on our Web Sites. We hope you value the advertising you see on our Web Sites, and we may use some data about you to tailor advertisements to your apparent interests. For example, if you visit a CNET site and view articles about computers, we may serve you with a computer-related advertisement when you visit another CBS Interactive Web Site. This advertising does not result in you seeing more ads; rather, it just means the ads you would otherwise see are more relevant. To learn more, click here.
Does CBS Interactive allow third parties to collect and use data about me for online advertising?
Our advertisers may have relationships with third parties who deliver their advertisements on our Web Sites. As part of delivering these ads, the third parties may collect and use information about your activities on our Web Sites (such as the content you have viewed). These companies may offer you a way to choose not to have your information used for advertising purposes. To learn more, click here.
What are the benefits of the new Privacy Policy to me?
We hope you will find our Privacy Policy easier to read and understand across all CBS Interactive Web Sites. We are committed to gaining and maintaining your trust. If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy, please contact us.
Cookies are small amounts of data that are stored in separate files within your computer's Internet browser. Cookies are accessed and recorded by the web sites you visit, and by the companies that show advertisements on web sites, so they can recognize the same browser navigating online.
Web beacons (sometimes called transparent GIFs, clear GIFs, or web bugs) are small strings of code that provide a way for us to deliver a small graphic image (usually invisible) on a web page or in an email. Web beacons can recognize certain types of information on your computer such as cookies, the time and date a page is viewed, and a description of the page where the web beacon is placed.
How CBS Interactive Web Sites Use Cookies and Similar Technologies
CBS Interactive Web Sites use cookies for the following general purposes:
To help us recognize your browser as a previous visitor and save and remember any preferences that may have been set while your browser was visiting one of our Web Sites. For example, if you register on a CBS Interactive Web Site, the Web Site may save your password, so you do not have to re-enter it each time you visit.
To help us customize the content and advertisements you are shown while visiting CBS Interactive Web Sites and potentially other web sites online. Please read about our online advertising to learn more about our efforts to show you relevant advertising.
To help measure and research the effectiveness of our interactive online content, features, advertisements, and other communications.
Web beacons are used to improve your experience on our Web Sites, including to provide you with content customized to your interests and to understand whether users read email messages and click on links contained within those messages so that we can deliver relevant content and offers. Our web beacons may collect some contact information (for example, the email address associated with an email message that contains a web beacon).
CBS Interactive Web Sites may also allow third parties to place their own cookies within your browser in order to serve you with relevant advertising online, to help us measure traffic and effectiveness as described above, to provide you with access to social media networks, functionality and services, and to allow us to conduct any surveys and research in which you agree to participate. For instance, Facebook, Google and Twitter include their cookies on CBS Interactive Web Sites to support social network integration and functionality and for use according to their privacy policies. For more information, please see our overview of third-party social networking services.
CBS Interactive Web Sites also may include third-party web beacons. These web beacons allow third party service providers to collect certain information such as your IP address, your browser type, and the web page that you visited before arriving at our Web Sites. These service providers process the information they collect for purposes of auditing, research, and reporting information about the CBS Interactive Web Sites and advertisements viewed on the CBS Interactive Web Sites. Third parties that use cookies, web beacons and other technologies to help us with traffic measurement, research and analytics include Omniture, Comscore, Nielsen and ConfirmIT. Please note that we do not share contact information with these third parties.
By continuing to use CBS Interactive Web Sites, you consent to our use of cookies, web beacons and other technologies as described above.
To find out more about how you can manage cookies and the other similar technologies, see the Managing Cookies section of this policy.
How Third Parties Use Cookies and Similar Technologies
Some of the advertisements you see on CBS Interactive Web Sites are delivered by third parties who also collect information through cookies, web beacons, and other technologies about your online activities, either on our Web Sites or across the Internet, in an effort to understand your interests and deliver you advertisements that are tailored to your interests. These third parties include advertisers, advertising agencies, and ad networks that may collect information when you view or interact with one of their advertisements. To learn more, please read about third-party online advertising.
In addition, CBS Interactive works with third parties to help us track the ads that are delivered to you, in particular to control the number of times you receive the same ad, and to analyze the effectiveness of advertising on the CBS Interactive Web Sites.
Please note that CBS Interactive does not have access to the information these third parties may collect about your interests to deliver relevant advertising to you, and the information practices of these third parties are not covered by this Privacy Policy.
Third parties that may serve, track and/or analyze ads on our Web Sites, and thereby may collect information about your online activities on such Web Sites include, but are not limited to, the third parties listed on CBS Interactive Third-Party Ad Technology Providers.
To find out more about how you can manage the information collected by these companies, see the Managing Cookies section of this policy.
Mozilla Firefox version 3.5 or later In the "Tools" menu, select "Options" Under the "Firefox will:" dropdown, select "Use custom settings for history" Uncheck the "Accept Cookies from Sites" box to block all cookies Or Click the "Exceptions" button to enter specific websites that you wish to allow/disallow to set cookies Internet Explorer version 6 or later In the "Tools" menu, select "Internet Options" Click the "Privacy" tab Move the "Settings" slider up or down to adjust your cookie acceptance settings (moving the slider all the way to the top will block all cookies) Or Click the "Sites" button to enter specific websites that you wish to allow/disallow to set cookies Google Chrome version 4 or later Click the wrench icon in the top right of your browser window Select "Options" Click the "Under the Hood" tab Click the "Content Settings" button Click the option to "Block sites from setting any data" to block all cookies Or Click the "Exceptions" button to enter specific websites that you wish to allow/disallow to set cookies Safari version 4 or later Click the geared wheel icon in the top right of your browser window. Select "Preferences" Select the "Security" tab Under "Accept Cookies:", click the "Never" option to block all cookies Mobile Safari From your home screen on your iPhone or iPad, click "Settings" Click on "Safari" Click on "Accept Cookies" Select "Never" to block all cookies Android for Mobile From within the Android browser, hit the menu key. Select "More" Select "Settings" Uncheck the "Accept Cookies" option to block all cookies Opera Mini on a Blackberry device From within the Opera Mini browser, press the menu key. Scroll down to access the drop down menu of options Select "Settings" Select "Privacy" Change the "Accept cookies" option to "Off" to block all cookies
Disabling cookies in popular mobile browsers
In order to customize your experience on the CBS Interactive Web Sites, we may use Cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to collect information about the content and advertisements you view on our Web Sites and the web sites of our business partners. Based on this information, and other information we may collect about you as described in the Information Collected ;section of our Privacy Policy, we try to assign you to one or more categories of interests and show content and advertising that is relevant to the categories of interests to which we have assigned you. For example, if you access an article about computers on ZDNet.com, we may show you a computer-related advertisement on CNET.com based on your apparent interests.
For more information on cookies, web beacons, and other technologies, please Click here.
Some of the advertisements you see on CBS Interactive Web Sites are delivered by third parties. To learn more, please read about third-party online advertising.
We also may receive information from third parties about you and your activities on other sites for the purpose of serving relevant advertisements to you on CBS Interactive Web Sites. For example, if you access an article on a third-party site about computers, we may use that information to serve you with a computer-related advertisement on a CBS Interactive Web Site. This CBS Interactive privacy policy does not cover the practices of third parties, including those that may disclose information to CBS Interactive.
In addition, our service provider, BlueKai, may use cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to collect information about content you view on business partner web sites to customize advertising on CBS Interactive Web Sites. You may choose to opt out of our use of data that BlueKai collected about your visits to our business partners’ sites to customize advertising that we serve. To opt out visit the BlueKai Opt-Out page or review the CBS Interactive Business Partner Advertising Opt-Out page for additional information.
Please note that we may share information about our users with advertisers so that they can measure the effectiveness of advertisements viewed on the CBS Interactive Web Sites. For example, we may tell advertisers the number of users who clicked on a particular advertisement. Except in the circumstances described in the Disclosure of Information section of our privacy policy, such as with your consent, this information will be anonymized or aggregated.
These online advertising efforts across CBS Interactive Web Sites do not result in you seeing more advertisements, just more relevant advertising, and they allow us to provide you with free content and services on our Web Sites. We hope you value our efforts to show you content and advertising that more closely reflects your interests.
When you visit the web sites of certain CBS Interactive business partners, we may use a service provider, BlueKai, to record information about the visit and may use that information to customize advertising that we serve. If you don’t want us to use this information in this way, please visit the BlueKai Opt-Out page. To learn more, please read about CBS Interactive Online Advertising. For the full CBS Interactive Privacy Policy click here. For the BlueKai privacy policy click here.
This means that your preferences are not being tracked by BlueKai. For more information about opting out of other companies’ customized advertising, click here.
Some of the advertisements you see on CBS Interactive Web Sites are delivered by third parties who also collect information through their own cookies, web beacons, and other technologies about your online activities, either on our Web Sites or across the Internet, in an effort to understand your interests and deliver you advertisements that are tailored to your interests. These third parties include advertisers, advertising agencies, and ad networks that may collect information about you when you view or interact with one of their advertisements and may collect information about your online activities over time and across different Web sites.
Third parties that may serve, track and/or analyze ads on our Web Sites, and thereby may collect information about your online activities on such Web Sites include, but are not limited to, the third parties listed on CBS Interactive Third-Party Ad Technology Providers. These companies may offer you a way to choose not to have your information used for advertising purposes. You can find more information by clicking on the company names listed on CBS Interactive Third-Party Ad Technology Providers and following the links to each company's web site.
In addition, some of these companies are members of the Network Advertising Initiative ("NAI"), which offers a single location to opt out of receiving tailored ads from member companies. To opt out of information collection by NAI member companies, or to obtain information about the technologies they use or their own privacy policies, please visit the NAI consumer opt out page.Also, through the Digital Advertising Alliance ("DAA"), several media and marketing associations have developed an industry self-regulatory program to give consumers a better understanding of and greater control over ads that are customized based on their online behavior across different Web Sites. CBS Interactive is committed to complying with the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising. To learn more and make choices about interest-based ads from participating third parties, please visit the DAA consumer opt out page.
For visitors from Australia, please select this link to find out more about opting out from receiving targeted advertising. Visitors from the UK should select this link. Visitors from Canada should select this link.
Please note that if you choose to opt out of having your information used to deliver advertisements tailored to your interests, you will continue to see advertisements on our Web Sites, but these advertisements may not be as relevant to you.
CBS Interactive does not have access to the information these third parties may collect about your interests to deliver relevant advertising to you, and the information practices of these third parties are not covered by this Privacy Policy.
In addition, CBS Interactive works with third parties to help us track the ads that are delivered to you, in particular to control the number of times you receive the same ad, and to analyze the effectiveness of advertising on the CBS Interactive Web Sites. Third parties that use cookies, web beacons and other technologies to help us with traffic measurement, research and analytics include Omniture, Comscore, Nielsen and ConfirmIT. We do not share contact information with these third parties.
For more information about relevant advertisements delivered by CBS Interactive, please read about CBS Interactive online advertising.
If you send a written communication (including an email) regarding the programming or operation of a CBS Radio Station, your communication may be placed in the public inspection file of that Radio Station or made available via electronic file access at the Radio Station. In either case, your communication may be subject to review by members of the general public, as required by United States Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") regulations. Be advised that we are not responsible for information that may be disclosed if your communication is made available for review by members of the general public in compliance with FCC regulations.
CBS Interactive Web Sites recognize the need to provide additional privacy protections when children visit the sites on which this Children's Privacy Policy is posted. The following guidelines supplement our general Privacy Policy and follow the rules set by the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and other applicable laws. "Child" means an individual under 13 years of age or an individual under 18 where the collection, use or disclosure of personal information about such an individual is restricted by applicable law. When we use the term "parent" below, we mean to include legal guardians.
Information We Collect
Children can enjoy content and features on CBS Interactive Web Sites without directly providing contact information. However, children who wish to participate in sweepstakes, contests, and certain other special activities may need to provide information such as first name, user name, password, email address, date of birth, city and state of residence, and gender.
In the course of participating in interactive features such as chat rooms and message boards, a child may provide us with additional information about himself or herself, such as the contents of his or her postings. Some information, including information collected throughcookies, web beacons, and other technologies, may be collected automatically. For more information, see the Information we collect automatically section of our general Privacy Policy.
If we knowingly collect, use, or disclose contact information collected from a child, we will provide notice and obtain parental consent in accordance with applicable law.
We do not condition a child's participation in an online activity on the child's providing more contact information than is reasonably necessary to participate in that activity.
Use of Information
We use the information we collect consistent with the services requested by the child. For example, we may use information provided by the child to:
Send a newsletter, electronic card, and other communication requested by the child;
Enable a child's participation in certain interactive features such as games, contests, message boards, chat rooms, song requests, and online scrolling tickers; and
Respond to correspondence sent by the child.
In addition, we may use a parent's contact information to communicate with the parent regarding the child's activities on CBS Interactive Web Sites. For example, if a child wins a sweepstakes or contest, we may use the parent's contact information to conduct prize fulfillment.
Disclosure of Information
Information collected from children will be disclosed in the same ways described in the Information we collect automatically section of our general Privacy Policy. Third parties who receive contact information collected by CBS Interactive have agreed to maintain the confidentiality, security, and integrity of that information. Parents have the option not to consent to the disclosure of their child's contact information to third parties. Parents may consent to CBS Interactive's collection and use of their child's contact information while refusing to permit the disclosure of that information to third parties.
Parents' Choices and Access to Children's Information
Parents may review the contact information we have collected from their child, refuse to permit us to collect further contact information from their child, and request that any contact information we have collected be deleted from our records.
To review, update, or delete your child's contact information, please contact us. You may also send your request to the postal address listed below. To protect your child's safety, we ask for proof of your identification. We may deny access if we believe there is a question about your identity.
Certain information cannot be deleted because of other legal obligations, such as FCC requirements
Changes to the Children's Privacy Policy
We may amend our Children's Privacy Policy at any time. We will provide parents with notice of any material changes in the way we intend to collect, use, and share children's contact information. Please note that, at all times, parents should update their contact information to provide us with current email addresses. We will apply material changes in our Children's Privacy Policy only in conformance with applicable law.
Contact Us
If you need further assistance, please contact us. If you would prefer to submit your questions or comments by mail, please send a letter to the address below:
CBS Interactive Inc.
235 Second Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
Attn: Legal Department
For international users, please select this link to find the address of your closest CBS Interactive office. We are committed to working with you to obtain a fair resolution of any privacy concern.