Privacy Policy

Last Revised April 13, 2022

PLEASE READ THIS PRIVACY POLICY AND THE RELATED TERMS OF SERVICE CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS SITE.  BY USING THE SITE, YOU ARE DEEMED TO HAVE AGREED TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE ARBITRATION AGREEMENT AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER DESCRIBED IN PARAGRAPH 19 BELOW.

This Site (as defined herein) is operated by The Puzzler Contest, LLC on its own behalf or in combination with one of its affiliates, parents or subsidiaries (collectively referred to herein, solely for ease of reference, as “Puzzler”, “us” or “we”).  This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) applies to your use of our website located at www.thepuzzlerbook.com and any other online and mobile websites, blogs and interactive applications operated by Puzzler that are related to www.thepuzzlerbook.com (collectively, the “Site”), unless a different policy is provided on any Site, in which case such different policy shall control.  This Privacy Policy includes guidelines for protecting your information and, depending on your jurisdiction, describes your rights under applicable data protection laws. This Privacy Policy discloses what type of information is collected, the methods used to collect it, how we utilize the information to better serve all interested parties and the choices you have about the way your information is collected and used. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. Your use of the Site indicates that you have read, understood and unconditionally agreed to the privacy practices outlined in this Privacy Policy, and any other applicable terms. The Terms of Service for this Site are incorporated herein by this reference. For purposes of this Privacy Policy, personally identifiable information (“PII”) is personal information about an individual, such as a first and last name, phone number or email address or other individually identifiable information under applicable law.  You hereby agree that all information you provide, including but not limited to age, shall be truthful and correct. The information we collect is controlled by The Puzzler Contest, LLC which is headquartered in the United States at 459 Columbus Avenue, Box 609, New York, NY 10024.

  1. Information We Collect

We strive to provide our visitors with information relevant to their particular desires, needs and/or interests. The information we gather helps us to better serve our purpose.  We may ask you to provide us with demographic information, information regarding your interests or other PII.

Although parts of our Site do not require you to be a subscriber and you can use them without submitting any PII, some areas do require you to register and provide information that enables us to identify who you are.  For instance, when you enter a contest, sweepstakes or esports tournament, or when you complete a survey, make a purchase, subscribe to receive updates or register for any portion of our services, you are asked to provide information (e.g., your e-mail address, name or phone number). You can always choose not to provide certain information, but then you may not be able to take advantage of or participate in some of the Site’s features. We actively and passively gathers, analyzes and/or stores PII and other information through various sources and methods, including without limitation: (1) voluntary submissions of PII by users when using or registering to use or receive our services or offers or when creating a user account; (2) voluntary submissions of PII by users when participating in any contests, sweepstakes, esports tournaments and/or other promotions or activities on the Site; and (3) online and mobile data gathered through passive tracking mechanisms described below.

 

 

  1. Usage Information

When your computer or mobile device contacts our web servers (for example, when you visit this Site, or view an HTML e-mail), our web servers automatically collect usage information.  Such usage information includes information about how our visitors use and navigate our Site. It can include the number and frequency of visitors to each page and the length of their stays, the type of mobile device and browser type, referrer data that identifies the web page visited prior and subsequent to visiting our Site, where you are located and your IP address or other device ID’s. We also may determine the applicable technology available in order to serve you the most appropriate version of the Site, a web page, e-mail, advertising or promotional announcement or similar service. This information is used to analyze and improve this Site and to provide you with a more fulfilling and relevant experience.

  1. Browser Cookies

Like many websites, we may use browser “cookies”.  Cookies are a website’s way of remembering who you are.  A cookie is a small text file that is stored on your computer’s hard drive or stored temporarily in your computer’s memory. There are two kinds of cookies: those that are “session” oriented and those that are “persistent”.  Session cookies delete from your computer when you close your browser. Persistent cookies retain information for later use tomorrow, next week, next month, or whenever they are set to expire.  We use cookies to help us identify account holders and to optimize their experience on our Site.  Also, we use cookies to monitor and maintain information about your use of this Site.  Most web browsers accept cookies automatically.  You can delete cookies manually or set your browser to automatically delete cookies on a pre-determined schedule.  If you decline to accept cookies, you may not be able to take advantage of or participate in certain features of this Site.

  1. Flash Cookies

Our Site may enable the use of Adobe Flash Player or similar technology.  Adobe Flash Player is used by many websites that offer video and other interactive content.  By default, your use of Adobe Flash Player generates “flash cookies” (also known as “persistent identification elements” or “local shared objects”).  Adobe provides a short disclosure about flash cookies in its End User License Agreement, stating “Use of the web players, specifically the Flash Player, will enable the Software to store certain user settings as a local shared object on our computer.  These settings are not associated with you, but allow you to configure certain settings within the Flash Player.”  Adobe Flash Player (and similar applications) use flash cookies to remember user settings, preferences and usage similar to the browser cookies referenced above, but flash cookies can store more information than browser cookies and are managed through a different interface than the one provided by your web browser.  You can control the degree to which you accept flash cookies by accessing your Adobe Flash Player management tools.  If you do not allow flash cookies to take any space on your computer or device, you may not be able to take advantage of or participate in certain features on the Site.

Adobe Flash Player is not the only technology being used in the ever-shifting online and mobile content environment.  HTML5 is a popular web standard used for presenting content, especially content delivered to mobile devices.  HTML is the mark-up language used for the World Wide Web. A wide range of web pages you visit on the Internet are based around HTML code.  HTML5 is simply the fifth iteration of this mark-up language that allows for more interactive web pages.  One of the real benefits of HTML5 is its potential to standardize the highly fragmented rich-media universe.  Some HTML5 code may allow your response to advertising and other activities to be monitored across websites and such information to be stored on your computer or mobile device.  Technology solutions that allow users to opt-out of or block this sort of tracking are being developed through browser add-ons and other tools.

  1. Web Beacons

Our web pages or e-mail messages may contain a small graphic image called a web beacon, which is sometimes also called a “clear gif”, that allows us to monitor and collect certain limited information about our users, such as the type of browser requesting the web beacon, the IP address of the computer to which the web beacon is sent and the time at which the web beacon was viewed. Web beacons can be very small or invisible to the user, but in general, any electronic image viewed as part of a web page or e-mail, including HTML based content, can act as a web beacon. We may use web beacons to count visitors to our web pages or to monitor how our users navigate our Site, and we may include web beacons in e-mail messages in order to count how many of the messages we sent were actually opened or acted upon. We use web beacons to compile aggregate statistics about our Site and our marketing campaigns.

  1. Use Of IP Addresses

An IP address is a number that is assigned to your computer or network when you are linked to the Internet. When you request pages from this Site, our servers log your IP address. We may use IP address for a number of purposes, such as system administration, to report aggregate information to our business partners or to audit the use of the Site.  We may associate your IP address with the PII you provide.

We also may collect and store information about you that we receive from other sources to enable us to update and correct the information contained in our database and to provide product recommendations and special offers that we think will interest you.

  1. Information Regarding Your Video Viewing Activity

We may also collect information about how you interact with live-streaming, cached and other video content offered through the Site.  This information could be shared as set forth in this Privacy Policy or made public in a variety of ways.  For example, if you are logged into the Site and watching a video, your user name or other information about you could publicly appear on the list of users who are viewing the video at any given time, it could appear if you participate in any chat or other interactive features on the Site, and it and your video viewing activity could appear off the Site as a part of your social media accounts if you have a social media account and/or sign in to the Site using a social media plug in to log into your Site account.  To the extent a user must consent in a signed writing under any specific law to such information collection and sharing activity, you are hereby deemed to have so consented and your agreement to this Privacy Policy in general also constitutes your signed consent to the foregoing.

  1. Sensitive Information

We use modern technology designed to protect the safety of your sensitive information. Unfortunately, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable and no website, internet transmission, computer system or wireless connection is completely secure. We cannot guarantee that unauthorized access, hacking, data loss, or other breaches will never occur. You use the Site and share your information at your own risk. All users should take steps to keep their information safe by selecting strong passwords and logging out of their account when it is not in use. Users should also avoid sharing their passwords with others.

  1. External Links

The Site may contain links to, or advertisements about, non-Puzzler websites.  Other sites may also reference, advertise, or link to Puzzler Sites. We do not endorse or sponsor non-Puzzler websites, is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of non-Puzzler sites, expressly disclaims any statements or assertions made on such websites, and denies all liability associated with your use of, and the content on, such other websites and advertisements.  Please be advised that the practices described in this Privacy Policy do not apply to information that is shared with or gathered through other websites.  We encourage you to be aware of when you leave this Site and to read the privacy policies of each and every website that you visit.

  1. Consent to Processing

By using our Site, participating in any of our services and/or providing us with your information, you consent and agree to the collection, transfer, storage and processing of your information to and in the United States.

  1. Sharing Information

We may provide information to select outside companies when we believe their products or services may be of interest to you.  If you opt in to receive communications from a third party, your information will be subject to the third party's privacy policy and not this Privacy Policy.  Therefore, if you later decide that you do not want that third party to use your information, you will need to contact the third party directly.  In addition, we may share your PII with third parties under the following circumstances:

Third parties providing services on our behalf: We may engage third parties to perform services in connection with the operation of our business.  Examples of these services include: (a) content providers and technology plug-ins (including third party video and other media players); (b) product customization, (c) marketing and promotional material distribution, (d) website evaluation, (e) data collection, storage, management, analysis and, where applicable, cleansing, and (f) any other services designed to assist us in maximizing our business potential. These third parties may have access to this Site’s user information, including PII, to the extent it is needed to perform their duties and functions.

Payment Services.  We may use an unaffiliated payment service to allow you to make payments (“Payment Service”).  If you wish to make a payment using a Payment Service, you will be directed to a Payment Service webpage.  Any information that you provide to the Payment Service will be subject to the applicable Payment Service’s privacy policy, rather than this Privacy Policy.  We have no control over, and are not responsible for, any Payment Service’s use of information collected through any Payment Service.

Puzzler Security:  We may release information about our users, including PII, when legally required to do so, at the request of governmental authorities conducting an investigation or to verify or enforce compliance with the policies governing our Site and applicable laws.  We may also disclose such user information whenever we believe disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of The Pizzler, or any of our respective affiliates, business partners, customers or others.

Aggregate Information: We may disclose de-identified or non-identifying, aggregated user statistics to third parties for a variety of purposes, including describing our services to prospective partners and other third parties. Examples of such non-personal information include the number of users who visited this Site during a specific time period or purchased a specific product through this Site.

Promotions: If you choose to enter a competition, tournament, contest, sweepstakes or promotion, your PII may be disclosed to third parties that are involved with the event or activity in question.  For example, your PII may be shared as permitted in the official rules for the promotion in question, for purposes of contacting you to participate in advanced rounds of a tournament, publicly posting your entry and attributing it to you or your username or gamertag, fulfilling your prize or including your name on a winners list. Also, by entering a promotion, we may require you to consent to the use of your PII or other information, such as name, voice or likeness, in advertising, promotional and marketing materials. In addition, we may offer certain promotional content, such as a sweepstakes or esports tournament, sponsored by or co-branded with a third party, who may obtain the PII that you submit and will use that PII in accordance with its own independent privacy practices.

Corporate Change: In addition, we reserve the right to disclose, share and/or otherwise transfer user information, including without limitation PII, in connection with a corporate merger, acquisition, consolidation, the sale of a portion of our business or the sale of substantially all of our assets, or other fundamental corporate change, whatever form it may take. You may be notified via e-mail or prominent notice on our Site prior to a change of ownership or control of your personal information, if your personal information will be used contrary to this policy. For clarification and the removal of doubt, we specifically reserve the right to transfer or share a copy of PII collected pursuant to this Privacy Policy from this Site, off-line or otherwise, to the buyer of that portion of its business relating to that information.

  1. Connecting To Your Player Accounts and Social Media Accounts

The Site may offer you the possibility to connect your accounts from third party social media sites, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or your player accounts with a game developer or publisher - through an application programming interface (API) or other software.  This facilitates our ability to track your performance and ranking in esports tournaments and other competitions that are administered through the Site.  By allowing the Site to connect with the accounts you have on such third party sites, you consent to our accessing the information in those accounts, which information may include PII. You likewise consent to our publishing on the Site any game results or other information or actions that is available through the API. Additionally, you understand that by accessing the Site via your social media account or your player account, activity you engage in through the Site may be published on the applicable third party site.  It is your choice whether to use any such third party sites, and you understand that in some instances such third party sites may request to access and publish information about you or your friends from our sites.

 

  1. 13. Third Party Advertisements

 

We may from time to time use various outside ad-serving or other companies to serve advertisements on our Site and/or provide certain technology plug-ins (e.g., third party video and other media players). In the process of serving advertisements or providing the applicable technology, such companies may use cookies and other tracking and analytics technologies, and may use information about your use of their technology and/or your visits to our Site and other sites in order to provide advertisements about products and services that may be of interest to you.  By delivering ads on our Site, and using cookies and other tracking and analytics technologies, the ad-server or other third party is able to record what ads a user has seen, what pages or content the user was viewing when the ads were delivered, and other usage information.  This usage information may be combined with other ad delivery information the ad-server or other third party has collected from your visits to our Site, your use of their technology and your activity on other websites not affiliated with us. This information is commonly used as part of the ad-serving process for reporting, and to select and direct the ads you see on our Site, on the technology platform you are using and on other websites not affiliated with us.

 


  1.  Your Choices/Unsubscribe

You will have an opportunity to unsubscribe from receiving promotional material from this Site by clicking on an “unsubscribe” hyperlink contained in promotional emails we send you.  Additionally, we may provide you with the opportunity to send us a message using our “Contact Us” or similar page. We will process your request as quickly as we reasonably can, but it may not be possible to update our systems immediately.  We appreciate your patience and understanding in giving us time to carry out your request.

In addition, you should be aware that it is not always possible to completely remove or delete all of your information from our databases without some residual data because of backups and other reasons.

If you want to opt out of having your PII shared with third parties for marketing purposes, you must consistently opt-out at our Site where you register and whenever you provide PII to us.  Please bear in mind that this opt-out choice for “third parties” will not apply to us, our licensees and/or co-branding partners, as set forth below.  Please also keep in mind that any opt-out choices you make will not apply in situations where (a) you either have made, simultaneously make, or later make a specific request for information from us, or (b) we use your PII for either operational purposes (e.g., to complete transactions requested by you, or to send you administrative communications either about your account with us or about features of our Site, including any future changes to this Privacy Policy, or any other policy or terms that affect you and your use of our Site) or fulfillment purposes (e.g., sharing with companies that facilitate transactions with you).

Finally, if you do not exercise your opt-out choices upon registration or otherwise at the time the PII is provided, it may take some time to process your opt-out choices. Our systems require time to update, and promotional mailings using PII shared before your opt-out may already be in process. Thus, your PII might continue to be shared with third parties for promotional purposes for some time after you make your request.  For similar reasons, once your PII is shared with a third party, we largely or completely lose control over how that information is used.  Thus, even after you have opted out of allowing us to share your PII, you might continue to receive promotional materials from third parties that had theretofore received your PII unless and until you duly register your opt-out request with each third party in question.

  1. Notice to California Residents/Your California Privacy Rights

California residents are entitled once a year to request and obtain certain information regarding our disclosure, if any, of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes during the immediately prior calendar year (e.g., requests made in 2019 will receive information about 2018 sharing activities). As set forth in this Privacy Policy, we comply with this law by offering our visitors the ability to tell us not to share your personally identifiable information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, consistently exercise your opt-out choice whenever you provide PII to us or send us a message using the “Contact Us” page.  You must include this Site as the subject line, and your full name, e-mail address, and postal address in your message.  Please see the “Your Choices/Unsubscribe” section of this Privacy Policy for additional information.  Please note that under California law, businesses are only required to respond to a customer request once during any calendar year. 

We may allow third-party companies to serve ads and/or collect certain anonymous information when you visit our Site. These companies may use non-personally identifiable information (e.g., click stream information, browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over) during your visits to this and other web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of interest to you. These companies typically use a cookie or third party web beacon to collect this information. Our Site does not recognize browser “Do Not Track” signals, but to learn more about how to opt out of the behavioral advertising you can visit http://www.networkadvertising.org.

  1. Forums/Message Boards

 

Please review our restrictions on use and guidelines for user forums in our Terms of Use.  In addition, please note that this Privacy Policy does not apply to any information you may disclose publicly in user forums (such as in chat rooms, message boards, or similar web pages).  You should keep in mind that whenever you publicly disclose information about yourself online, that information could be collected and used by people that you do not know.  In addition, certain message boards (and similar user forums) may display IP addresses and possibly PII along with the message poster's name and message.  We assume no responsibility for any action or policies of any third parties who collect any information users may disclose in user forums or other public areas, if any, of this Site.


  1.  Revisions to Privacy Policy

We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to modify, update, add to, discontinue, remove or otherwise change any portion of this Privacy Policy, in whole or in part, at any time.  When we amend this Privacy Policy, we will revise the “last updated” date located at the top of this Privacy Policy.  For changes to this Privacy Policy that we consider to be material, we will place a notice on the Simon Cup website located at www.SimonCup.com by revising the link to read substantially as “Updated Privacy Policy” for a reasonable amount of time.  If you provide information to us or access or use the Site in any way after this Privacy Policy has been changed, you will be deemed to have unconditionally consented and agreed to such changes.  The most current version of this Privacy Policy will be available on the Site and will supersede all previous versions of this Privacy Policy.

  1. Choice of Law

This Privacy Policy, including all revisions and amendments thereto, is governed by the internal laws of the United States, State of New York, without regard to its conflict or choice of law principles which would require application of the laws of another jurisdiction.

  1. Arbitration

By using this Site in any way, you unconditionally consent and agree that: (1) any claim, dispute, or controversy (whether in contract, tort, or otherwise) you may have against us and/or our parent, subsidiary and affiliated companies, its tournament or other promotional partners and each of their respective members, officers, directors and employees (all such individuals and entities collectively referred to herein as the “Puzzler Entities”) arising out of, relating to, or connected in any way with the Site or the determination of the scope or applicability of this agreement to arbitrate, will be resolved exclusively by final and binding arbitration administered by JAMS and conducted before a sole arbitrator in accordance with the rules of JAMS; (2) this arbitration agreement is made pursuant to a transaction involving interstate commerce, and shall be governed by the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), 9 U.S.C. §§ 1-16; (3) the arbitration shall be held in New York, New York; (4) the arbitrator’s decision shall be controlled by the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy and any of the other agreements referenced herein that the applicable user may have entered into in connection with the Site; (5) the arbitrator shall apply New York law consistent with the FAA and applicable statutes of limitations, and shall honor claims of privilege recognized at law; (6) there shall be no authority for any claims to be arbitrated on a class or representative basis, arbitration can decide only your and/or the applicable Puzzler Entity’s individual claims; the arbitrator may not consolidate or join the claims of other persons or parties who may be similarly situated; (7) the arbitrator shall not have the power to award punitive damages against you or any Puzzler Entity.  In addition, if you are able to demonstrate that the costs of arbitration will be prohibitive as compared to the costs of litigation, we will pay as much of your filing and hearing fees in connection with the arbitration as the arbitrator deems necessary to prevent the arbitration from being cost-prohibitive; and (9) with the exception of subpart (6) above, if any part of this arbitration provision is deemed to be invalid, unenforceable or illegal, or otherwise conflicts with the rules of JAMS, then the balance of this arbitration provision shall remain in effect and shall be construed in accordance with its terms as if the invalid, unenforceable, illegal or conflicting provision were not contained herein.  If, however, subpart (6) is found to be invalid, unenforceable or illegal, then the entirety of this Arbitration Provision shall be null and void, and neither you nor Puzzler shall be entitled to arbitrate their dispute.  For more information on JAMS and/or the rules of JAMS, visit their website at www.jamsadr.com.

If any provision of this Privacy Policy shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from these terms and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.