Okay, so here's the deal regarding your privacy and CinemaNow, Inc. ("CinemaNow").
We respect your privacy. We realize that in this day and age this is a serious issue and we take it seriously. This document will set forth CinemaNow's privacy policy. Because privacy concerns are so important, we have tried to write this policy in an easy to understand, non-lawyer-like manner. If you do want to make our lawyers happy, feel free to check out our
Terms of Use as well. If you have any questions about this or don't understand something, please let us know by clicking on the customer support link at the top right of the website.
The first thing that you should know is that we are collecting information about you.
Naturally, we know (and keep records of) any information that you provide to us. For example, if you complete a form on our site to enter a contest, provide us information via e-mail or the telephone, rate movies, enter search terms or otherwise interact with our service or personnel.
In order to watch paid content on our site you will need to register with us. You will also need to register if you would like to submit a question to customer support, participate in our contests, and purchase or redeem pre-paid cards or gift certificates. As part of the registration process we will ask you a few questions. Here's what we ask that you provide: your full name, a valid e-mail address and year of birth. We will also ask for you to create a username and password for your account. You will have the option to sign up for one or more of our newsletters when you register (but don't worry, you can always unsubscribe from these, or decide to join later). Finally we ask that you accept our
Terms of Use (lawyers again, we know, sorry).
If you decide to purchase or rent something on our website we will ask you for a bit more information. For purchases, we will collect your credit card information including billing address, and expiration date. To protect the use of your card we also require the 3-digit CSC code the first time you make a purchase with us.
When you subscribe to our website your billing information is retained in the
My Account section of our website. When you make purchases you have the option to save your billing information. This is so that the next time you come back to make another purchase, you don't have to enter all of your information again. Like we said, this is your choice. If you do have a subscription, or have chosen to save credit card information it will display in the My Account section of the site. This section requires your login and is https secure.
We want to note that your Credit Card Number is encrypted immediately when it is submitted over the website. This is good to remember because your information is actually safer with us than it is, say, on a receipt for a purchase you may have made where the numbers are clearly displayed. Customer support representatives do not have access to your full un-encrypted credit card information, just in case you were wondering. Also, our representatives will only ask you to provide any personal information if you call us. We do not solicit phone calls to customers. If someone calls saying they are from CinemaNow, and you have not contacted us first, please don't give out your personal information. If you want more information about how we will and will not contact you, please go to Customer Support > Find Answers and check out answer 63 "Security Notification from CinemaNow"
When you make use of our services, we do obtain a bit more info about you. For instance, we keep track of what films you watch. We do this so that we can send you information about other films that we think you would enjoy. We also keep track of how much time you spend on our site, what parts of our site you visit, where you came from (as in which site you were at before coming to CinemaNow) and what site you go to when you leave CinemaNow. We also obtain automatic information from your computer such as know what kind of a browser you use, what type of an operating system your computer uses, your IP address and other information regarding your computer system.
The other thing you should know is that we have advertisements on our site. The company that serves the ads uses "cookie" technology. A "cookie" (we're going to stop putting that word in quotes from now on) is a small file that is placed on your computer and uniquely identifies your computer to the ad server that reads it. The cookie doesn't identify you as a person, it only your computer.
The ad company has relationships with lots of web sites. And they all use cookies. So the ad company knows what sites (at least those that they have a relationship with) your computer surfs at. Now, the ad company doesn't know who is operating the computer and they don't collect personal identifying information about you (such as your name, etc.) so your privacy is protected in that regard. Your computer's privacy, however, is not protected. The ad company keeps track of what your computer is doing.
We also use cookies to keep track of you when you sign in to the CinemaNow site. So that you don't have to log in every time you visit CinemaNow, we use cookies to keep track of your log in information. And, as you know, that includes personal identifying information such as your username. However, the info that our cookies get pertaining to your log-in information is separate and distinct from the information that the ad serving cookies get about you.
You should know that you do have the right to disable or delete the cookies. Doing so, however, will diminish your experience on CinemaNow and may make it impossible for us to provide certain (maybe even any) services to you. One thing that can happen by disabling or deleting your cookies is that you won't have access to movies that you have rented from us. This is important, let me say it again. If you delete your cookies, when you click on "My Videos" the videos that you already purchased will likely NOT be there.
We think it best that you not disable or delete the cookies. If you really don't like cookies, it's probably best that you not use our site as we cannot (and do not) take any responsibility for our site or service not working properly due to a lack of cookies. That said, if you really want to disable or delete your cookies we suggest that you take a look at
http://www.helpwithpcs.com/tipsandtricks/disabling_cookies_explorer.htm or
http://www.cookiecentral.com/c_concept.htm. You can also go to
Google™ or
Yahoo!® and search for the term "disable cookies" to get a list of other sites with pertinent information. Our Customer Support interface also has information about how cookies are used with regards to your CinemaNow account.
When you register for CinemaNow we have the sign-up for our E-mail Newsletters pre-checked (we figure you'd like to get this info so we've pre-checked the boxes for you). Of course if you don't want the info (or if you change your mind) simply un-check the box before you submit your registration. If this box is un-checked, we won't send you e-mail newsletters and promotions. You can change your newsletter preferences at any time by clicking on the
My Account section of our site and clicking on the
E-mail Newsletters link on the left-hand side of the page. From here you can add more e-mail notifications or unsubscribe.
If you choose to receive emails from our partners we will send you information about products from other companies that we have a relationship with. We won't give them your e-mail address (or other personally identifying data) but we will send you info on their behalf. Of course if you get tired of getting our e-mails, just tell us to stop, by unsubscribing, and we will.
The other thing that you should know is that should CinemaNow be sold (whether or not as part of a bankruptcy proceeding), CinemaNow's assets and files, which may include your personal information, may be sold to the company or companies that acquire CinemaNow's assets.
Also, since we acquire all of the movies on our site from third parties, we need to let them know how their movies are performing. And, as part of that process, we will tell them how often their films played, how much of the film was watched each time. We do not, however, provide any of these companies any of your personal information as part of our communication.
If you visited our site from a third party partner of ours, we will be sharing with that partner some, or all, of the information (whether personally identifiable or not) that we obtain when you visit or use our site, all in accordance with the privacy policy of that third party site. Also, your personal information may be shared within companies that are owned by, in whole or in part, CinemaNow, Inc. Currently, those companies include CinemaNow UK Ltd. and CinemaNow Japan, Inc. As you might infer from this, your personal information may be transferred into or out of different countries including (but, of course, without limitation) the United States, Japan and/or the United Kingdom.
It's also important to note that we use third parties to provide certain services for us such as sending e-mails, providing marketing assistance, search functionality, processing credit card payments and other matters. These third parties might need to access your personal information to do their job for us and, as such, will have access to your personal information but only for that purpose and none other. Remember however, when it comes to credit card processing, and your billing information, everything we submit via the web is "https" secure (that whole encryption thing we were talking about earlier).
We will also release some or all of your account and personal information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law; enforce or apply our
Terms of Use, and other agreements; or protect the rights, property, or safety of CinemaNow, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction. This does not include, however, providing your personal information for commercial purposes in violation of the commitments set forth in this Privacy Notice.
One final thought regarding your personal information. CinemaNow will retain that information indefinitely. Like any other business, we need to retain records of purchases made with our company for tax purposes etc& If you are no longer using our service and want us to remove your information from displaying in the My Account section of the website feel free to contact customer support by logging in and submitting a question. Our representatives can remove your information so that it no longer displays on the site.
So that's our privacy policy. Please check back here often because we do reserve the right to modify this policy by posting the changes to our website. If you have any questions or comments, you can always contact customer support. If you have trouble filling out our web-form you can instead send an email to
custhelp@cinemanow.com. You might also want to take a look at our
Terms of Use. It's not the most exciting reading in the world (we prefer to watch movies) but it does contain important information that you should know.