Effective: January 2009

Last Updated: October 2009

Welcome to SuperSecret.com and thanks for visiting our Privacy Policy page. SuperSecret (which we might also call "the SuperSecret world" or "our Website") is a safe, age-appropriate site where tweens can play and learn basic online social skills. On this page, we'll talk about three things:

1. What types of information we collect from our SuperSecret players (and their parents),
2. How we use that information, and
3. How parents can stay in control over their children's activities.

 

Special Message for Parents

At SuperSecret, we believe that children should be able to use the Internet to play, learn, and socialize in a safe, private, and fun environment. To do our part in achieving this goal, we take the following steps:

• Online Safety. We have designed our virtual world to allow for a safe interactive environment. This includes (among other things) educating our players about online safety in this Policy, offering important safety tools such as player reporting and blocking, and using filtering technology and moderation to help protect children from inappropriate or unsafe chat with other players.
• Parental Control. We give parents control over their children's activities on SuperSecret, including the ability to approve or change their child's chat level and to shut down their child's account ( See Section 6 below ).
• Privacy. We ask children for very little information (but nothing personal about them) in order to allow them to play in the SuperSecret world. This means that it is very difficult for us or other players to have direct personal contact with children on SuperSecret.

The rest of this Policy will give your child (and you) more information about the measures above. If you have any questions or concerns about this Policy, please contact
SuperSecret Customer Support.

1. What information we ask for, and how do we use it?

It depends on what you're trying to do on our Website. Below are some examples of when we might ask for information, the types of information we ask for, and how we use the information you give us. No matter what you're doing on SuperSecret, we only ask you for the information we need to provide you with the service or feature you're requesting. In other words, we won't make you give us more information about yourself or anyone else if we don't need it to give you that service or feature.

A. Creating an account

When you first create an account, we ask you to give us the following information:

• Character name and password. This information allows you to create your own SuperSecret account and to login to play in the SuperSecret world. We also use your character name to display it in the SuperSecret world, keep track of the Spenders and Age Points you earn and spend while you play, and link any paid memberships to your account (see paragraph B on "Paid Memberships" below). Your character name and password must not be your real name or other personal information, and you should set up a password that only you and your parent will remember but that's hard for others to guess.
• Birthday. We collect birthday so we can gather the ages of all our players and then tailor the SuperSecret world to our players' interests. Your age information might also be used to direct you to the server that is best for your age group or to determine whether your parent's permission is needed before you can use certain features on SuperSecret.
• Email Address.We only use this email address if you forget your password and need help logging back in to your account. .We do not store the email address provided for this purpose in readable or retrievable form. It is immediately converted into something called a hash (which means we can't actually see the email address) and only used later (if needed) to help you reset your password.

Your account information, which may also include information collected from your parent after registration and tied to your account (such as your parent's email address and billing information - see paragraph B below), could also be used for the following reasons:

• To block your access to SuperSecret if other players are reporting you for valid reasons or if you violate SuperSecret's Terms of Service;
• To allow parents to review and make changes to your account and membership status; and,
• To communicate with your parent about important safety matters, changes to your account, updates to the SuperSecret world, or other similar matters.

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B. Paid Membership

To buy a paid membership on SuperSecret (which might be required to age-up and get certain privileges in the world), we ask your parent for billing information, including your parent's name, email address, phone number, and credit card or other payment information. This information is used to process and confirm payments and to communicate with your parent about your paid membership (for example, if we have a problem charging the credit card, to send membership expiration reminders, etc.). We might also use this information for the reasons listed under Section 1A above ("Creating an account").

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C. "Add/Invite Friend" Features

SuperSecret may offer various "Add Friend" or "Invite Friend" features that allow you to more easily connect or interact with your friends or other players within the SuperSecret world. This could include letting you send emails or in-game messages to others for the purpose of inviting them to join SuperSecret as a first time player, become your friend on SuperSecret, and/or join you for some other specific reason or event (e.g., a dorm party). These features may ask you to enter some information, such as your first name, your friend's email address or SuperSecret character name, and, in some cases, a brief message (using our chat system below) to go along with your request. If you choose to enter your friend's email address for these purposes, we will use it to send them a one-time email invitation or request, but will not keep it for any purpose.

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D. Chatting

There are two types of chat on SuperSecret: Simple Chat and Super Chat (explained below). Please note that both kinds of chat are designed not to allow you to post or share personal information, like your home address or phone number. We do this to help protect your safety, and we hope you never share this type of information with strangers on the Internet.

• Menu Chat or "Simple Chat" which is available to all registered players, allows you to chat with other SuperSecret players by choosing from a menu of words, short sentences, and emotions that we at SuperSecret created ahead of time. These may also be called "phrases," "emoticlouds," or other similar names. If you only have access to Simple Chat, you can only post messages using the Simple Chat menu, and you can only get messages from other players using the Simple Chat menu. You cannot create your own chat messages or get the chat messages created by other players.
• Text Chat or "Super Chat" which is available to players who've reached a certain age in the world and only with parental permission, allows you to chat with other players by writing your own chat messages. In other words, you don't have to choose from the Simple Chat menu (you can if you still want to). If you have access to Super Chat, you can only send your Super Chat messages to other players who also have access to Super Chat. To make Super Chat safer, we use something called "real-time filtering technology." This is software that helps us stop players from posting chat messages that might contain bad words, personal information like your phone number or home address, or other information we think could be harmful or offensive to our players. We also have real people (not just computers) who review what is happening in the SuperSecret world for safety purposes.

You can use Simple Chat or Super Chat either in a "scene" where the messages are displayed in bubbles above each character's head, or on your SuperSecret "phone," where messages are sent only between you and a friend. Chat that is sent through your SuperSecret phone cannot be seen by other players in the SuperSecret world.

No matter what form of chat you use, we keep a log of your chat messages for at least 90 days. We do this mostly for safety reasons. We also do this so you can see a history of all the chat messages posted in a scene during your play session (including your own messages). This is available by clicking on the "Chat Log" arrow that appears right above the chat box. Please remember that the Chat Log history can be viewed by all of the players in a scene at the time of your play session. If you don't want everyone else to see what you post, don't use chat or chat only with a friend using your SuperSecret phone.

We've designed our chat features so that the Chat Log history should not contain any personal information about you or others. Also, in the Chat Log history, each player can see only the chat messages he/she has access to. For example, if you only have access to Simple Chat, your Chat Log history will show only the messages posted by other players using Simple Chat. You will not see messages posted by other players using Super Chat.

Please note that unless you only use Simple Chat, we can't guarantee that personal information will never get through our filters. So please be smart when chatting and follow the tips we give you on our Safety page under the section ("Keeping it Safe: Your Part").

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E. Blocking or reporting players

When you block or report another player, we do not ask for any personal information about you or the player you're reporting. You simply click on the player you want to block or report and then click on "block" or "report". Blocking a player makes that other player invisible to you and makes you invisible to that other player. To unblock a player, you have to contact
Customer Support. If you report another player, we might ask you to tell us why you're reporting the other player so we will know what type of action to take.

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F. Other Website forms

Once in a while, we might have forms on our Website that you (or your parent or other adult) could fill out and, in some cases, send back to SuperSecret. These forms will probably ask for very little information, and will have a specific purpose that is made clear on the form itself. Examples might include forms that are used to contact SuperSecret (e.g., for customer support or to send in a suggestion), enter an online contest, sign-up for a one-time email announcement, apply to be a one-day game designer, or forward a special greeting card, wish list, or other message to a friend or family member. If any of these activities require that we get your parent's permission, we will be sure to do that first.

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2. How do we keep your information safe and secure?

SuperSecret does many things to help keep your account information safe and out of the hands of the wrong people. We've listed some of them below.

• We store your account information on secure servers behind firewalls. This is just a fancy way of saying that we put up very strong walls between the outside world and your account. These walls are very hard to break down.
• We process and store credit card information through a vendor who uses standard security techniques, like encryption, to keep such information secure. We, at SuperSecret, do not even have access to full credit card numbers and we do not display any portion of your parent's credit card number on your parent's billing information page.
• We make you create an account with a password so that hopefully only you and your parents know how to get into your account. Your password is the key to your account, so please make sure to keep your password a secret and never share it with anyone except your parents.
• We only allow some people at SuperSecret and at our vendors (but nobody else) to see your account or any other personal information, like your parent's billing information, tied to your account. These are people who need to be able to see this information to do their job and to make SuperSecret work for you. Please read Section 4 below for more information.
• We have designed our chat features with your safety in mind. To find out more, please read Section 1D above.
• We expect you (with your parents' help) to be smart about what you do on SuperSecret. Please read "Keeping it Safe: Your Part" on our Safety page for some tips on how to stay safer on SuperSecret and other Internet sites.
  

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3. Do we use cookies or log files on SuperSecret?

Like many other websites on the Internet today, we use cookies to help make our Website work properly and to save you time. Cookies are basically text files (which look like a long string of numbers, letters, or other characters) that we place on your computer. For example, cookies might remember certain things about your SuperSecret account, like your character name for faster login and your paid membership status or level.

We might also use something called "log files" to gather important information about your computer, like your computer's IP address, the type of Internet browser you use (Internet Explorer, Mozilla, etc.), and the type of software your computer runs on (Windows, Mac OS, etc.). Log files might also tell us things about your visit to our Website, like which website you came from to get to ours ("referring URL"), the date and time of your visit ("timestamp"), and more information about where and what you clicked on in the SuperSecret world. We use log file information to improve the way our Website works, fix technical problems, do research and Website analysis, and make SuperSecret safer.

We do not use cookies or log files to collect any personal information about you or others. We might combine information in a cookie or log file together with personal information we might have gotten from you or your parent somewhere else on our Website (like when you created an account or when your parent bought a paid membership).

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4. Who collects your information on SuperSecret?

Our company, called SuperSecret, Inc. and located in the United States, collects your information. This is true no matter where you live or from where you access our Website. By using SuperSecret, you agree that it's okay for us to collect or transfer your information outside of your home country.

In some cases, your information is collected and stored by other companies that we hire to help us run the Website, like the companies who help us filter text chat and process membership payments. These companies may be located inside or outside of the United States. We call these other companies "vendors" because they are only allowed to collect and use your information the ways we tell them to, and no other way. If any vendor is allowed to see or access your personal information, we make sure they agree in a written contract to protect your personal information the same way we do or as the law requires. If you have any questions or concerns about our Website, please contact SuperSecret
Customer Support at:

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5. Do we share your information with other companies or people ("third parties")?

No, unless we have to for safety or legal reasons or because another company buys or takes over our company. These types of events don't happen very often. If we had to share any of your personal information because we were bought or taken over, we would make sure that the new company agrees to treat your personal information the same way we did, unless they get your parent's permission to use it differently.

Once in a while, we might put together a lot of information about SuperSecret players and the different ways our players use SuperSecret (but nothing "personal" like names or email addresses) and then share this information with third parties. This is what we call "aggregate data sharing." We might do this so that third parties can help us figure out what parts of our Website are most popular, what types of individuals are playing on our Website (demographic analysis), and ways we can continue to improve our service.

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6. Can parents review or make changes to their child's account?

As a parent, you have the ability to do the following:

• Identify your child's character name in the SuperSecret world. You can find your child's character name either in the parental consent email we send you when your child requests to use Super Chat or by contacting
  Customer Support.
• Change your child's account password. To do this, go to the SuperSecret login screen, click on "Forgot your password," fill out the short form, and then click the Reset button. You will need to know your child's character name and have access to the email address your child gave us during registration.
• Change your child's membership status or update your billing information.. To do this, you will need to login to your child's account and go to the account information page under "Membership."
• Change your child's permitted chat level. To do this, please contact
  Customer Support.
• Shut down your child's account or delete your child's account information. To do this, please contact
  Customer Support.
• If relevant, request that SuperSecret stop any further collection or use of the child's personal information. To do this, please contact
  Customer Support.

If you email or call us for any of the requests above, please be prepared to give us (for verification purposes) your email address and a telephone number where we can reach you. For some requests, you may also need to know your child's account password or (if your child has a paid membership) the last 4 digits of any credit card number that was used to pay for membership.

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7. How do we let you know about changes to this Policy?

For changes that aren't very important (what we call "non-material changes"), we'll post them on this page and list the date the updates were made at the top of this page. For changes that are more important (what we call "material changes"), we'll do the same thing, plus get your parent's permission before making the changes. An example of a material change would be if we wanted to take personal information you might have given us in the past (like your name, address, or email address) and use it or share it in a way you wouldn't expect us to or that we didn't already tell you about in this Policy.

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