Archives Privacy Policy

What This Privacy Policy Covers

This policy covers how Ancestry.com Operations Inc. (“Archives,” “we”, “us”, “our”), operating the website Archives.com ("Website"), treats personal information that we collect and receive, including information related to your use of the Website and/or our products or services. This Privacy Policy applies to visitors and new users registering on the Website on or after June 25th, 2015, and to all users already registered or subscribing to the Website on or after July 25th, 2015. For the previous version of the Privacy Policy, please click here.

By using the Website you consent to the collection, processing, use, storage, transfer and disclosure of your personal information by us in accordance with this Privacy Policy. This policy does not apply to the practices of companies that we do not own or control or to people that we do not employ or manage.

Archives has received TRUSTe's Privacy Seal signifying that this privacy policy, our practices, and the Website have been reviewed for compliance with the TRUSTe program viewable here or on the validation page available by clicking the TRUSTe seal. TRUSTe’s program does not cover information that may be collected through any downloadable software that may be available on our Website or from third party sites, which are covered by their own privacy policies, which you should review. If you have questions or complaints regarding our privacy policy or practices, please contact us via the information below. If you have an unresolved privacy or data use concern that we have not addressed satisfactorily, please contact TRUSTe here.

Archives also complies with the U.S. – E.U. and U.S. – Swiss Safe Harbor Framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use and retention of personal data from European Union member countries and Switzerland. Archives has certified that it adheres to the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles of notice, choice, onward transfer, security, data integrity, access, and enforcement. To learn more about the Safe Harbor program, and to view our certification, please visit http://www.export.gov/safeharbor. With respect to processors outside Europe, we attempt to ensure adequate safeguards for your personal information, as required by applicable law and endeavor to confirm that they have adopted, are subject to, or are contractually obligated to comply with the principles and objectives of this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy should be read in conjunction with the Archives Terms and Conditions.

1. Collection of personal information

• We collect personal information about you when you purchase a subscription, when you use the Website and/or our products or services and your browser interacts with us, when you visit the Website pages or the pages of certain of our partners, and when you enter third party personal information to conduct certain searches.
• The personal information we collect about may include, but is not limited to: your name, email address, password, and billing information. Once you register with us and sign in to our services, you are not anonymous to us
• When you use the Website, we may also collect information that you voluntarily enter, such as personal profile information, names of family members you search for, data you enter into any family trees you create on the Website, and any comments or feedback you submit through the Website.

2. Use of personal information

We use personal information for the following purposes:

• To provide you with relevant information, such as appropriate search results, information about content releases and product updates, updates that you have requested through the Website, or to address customer service needs and requests.
• To operate the Website, including customizing the advertising and content you see, fulfilling your requests for products and services, contact or communicate with you, publishing search data, and to fulfill the purposes for which you have provided personal information, such as processing your subscription and verifying your identity. We may also combine information that we have about you with information we obtain from business partners or other companies, such as data providers and billing companies, to help better provide the services to you.
• To verify your identity, so you can, for example, carry out transactions, change account information, or retrieve a forgotten username or password.
• For internal business purposes, including to improve our services, conduct research, and provide reporting for internal and external clients.
• We will maintain procedures consistent with applicable law for individuals to gain access to their collected personal information and, when appropriate, correct or delete their personal information. Users of the Website may update, correct or delete their profiles online. However, please note that where you or we delete content or your account, copies of that information may remain viewable elsewhere to the extent any such copy has been shared with others, was otherwise distributed pursuant to your privacy settings, or was copied or stored by other users, but you will no longer be identified with that content. Additionally, we may retain certain information to prevent identity theft and other misconduct even if deletion has been requested. If you have given third party applications or websites access to your information, they may retain your information to the extent permitted under their terms of service or privacy policies but they will no longer be able to access the information through our platform after you disconnect from them.

3. Sharing and disclosure of personal information

We do not rent, sell, or share personal information about you with third parties except under the following circumstances or with your permission:

• Under the protection of appropriate agreements, we use third parties to perform various tasks for us including for the purposes of data storage, consolidation, retrieval, analysis or the effective management of customer information. For example, we use third parties to process payments from you and to help manage our Website and relationships with you. These third-parties are only given access to that information needed to perform their support functions, and are prohibited from using it for other purposes. Processors include affiliated and unaffiliated service providers in in the United States, Europe and in other jurisdictions.
• We may have to respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process, or to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims.
• We believe it is necessary to share information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of our Terms and Conditions, or as otherwise required by law.
• We may transfer information about you if we are acquired by or merged with another company. In this event, we will notify you by sending a notice to the primary email address specified in your account or by notifying you through the Website before information about you is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
• We may share your personal information with our group companies so that they may use personal information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. Archives is responsible for the management of the jointly used personal information. Our group companies use personal data subject to similar privacy policies.

4. Your ability to edit and delete your account information and Preferences

• You can edit your Account Information within our members' area by clicking "My Account" and then clicking on “Account Information” on the upper right-hand side of the page. From that page, you can change your name, email address, password, location, email options, and payment method.
• To exclude yourself from commercial emails sent by us, simply click the "Unsubscribe" link provided in any commercial email message. If you would like to stop receiving newsletters, alerts, and/or marketing messages from Archives, please provide us with the email address you would like to unsubscribe by emailing [email protected] or calling 1-888-896-4442. Please note that you may still receive account and billing notices from us, if applicable.
• We reserve the right to send you certain communications relating to our service, such as service announcements, administrative messages and customer receipts without offering you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving them.
• Archives allows you to suppress your personal information from living person search results displayed on this website. To do this, please submit the opt-out request form. Your request will be processed in 7 business days.

5. Confidentiality and Security

• We limit access to personal information about you to our employees and employees of the third parties we have told you about in this Privacy Policy who we believe reasonably need to come into contact with that information to provide products or services to you or in order to do their jobs.
• We have physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with federal regulations to protect personal information about you including 128-bit SSL encryption of all credit and debit card transactions between you and our servers as well as the servers of our partners. All customer payment data is protected using dedicated network attached encryption devices with full PCI DSS compliant audit logging. All of our data storage is housed in secure locations allowing access to only authorized personnel who can pass a multi-factor identification process.

6. Non-Personal Information and Cookies

When you visit our Website, we may automatically collect information or computer-generated data that does not personally identify you (“Non-Personal Information”). Because Non-Personal Information does not personally identify you, we may use such information for any purpose, including sharing that information with our group companies and with other third parties, unless we are required to treat any such information as personal under applicable law. For example:

• We automatically receive and record Non-Personal Information on our server logs from your browser, including the website from which you have come to our Website, your Media Access Control address, computer type, screen resolution, operating system and Internet browser, as well as information based on your interaction with the Website, such as web log information, IP addresses our cookie information, search activity, and the pages you request. We also collect information about your transactions with us and with some of our business partners, such as billing partners, including information about your use of search products and information we offer. We also use Non-Personal Information to deliver the Website and our Services to you and to help diagnose problems with our server.
• We may also collect Non-Personal Information such as demographic data, age groups, and your geographic areas, etc. Non-Personal Information also includes personal information that has been aggregated in a manner such that the end-product does not personally identify you or any other user of the Website, for example, by using personal information to calculate the percentage of our users who have a particular telephone area code or who are female. This technology helps us compile aggregated statistics about our users and their use of the Website. We use these statistics to improve the design and content of the Website and to prepare and deliver our marketing programs. In some instances, we may combine Non-Personal Information with personal information (such as combining your name with your geographical location). If we do combine any Non-Personal Information with personal information, the combined information will be treated by us as personal information, as long as it is combined, and its use by us will be subject to this Privacy Policy.
• We (either ourselves or our appointed third parties) may place and access cookies, tags, beacons, and/or scripts on your computer to analyze the use of the Website and optimize and customize the Website and your experience. These technologies do not extract any private contact information or other personal information from your computer's memory, but rather record only limited information your computer sends us when you visit our Website, such as your IP address. Cookies enable our server to recognize or "remember" who you are each time you return. Archives may make limited use of cookies to deliver content and advertisements specific to your interests. For instance, they may be used to retain your personal preferences, hold session information for a "shopping basket," or save your password so it doesn't have to be re-entered each time you login. These technologies may also be used to see how you move around and interact with the Website or may be used to show you relevant ads either on or off the Website.
• You can erase or block cookies from your computer if you want to (your help screen or manual should tell you how to do this), but certain portions of the Website may not work correctly or at all if you set your browser not to accept cookies. To learn more about cookies, please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.
• If you access the Website using a mobile device (e.g. your phone or tablet), we may collect mobile device identifiers such as the device type, IP address and the operating system. We use mobile analytics software to allow us to deliver you the Website and better understand the functionality of our Website and services.

7. About our advertisements

• We strive to show you relevant advertisements both on our Website and elsewhere on the Internet. We use some third parties to show you Archives-related advertisements that are tailored to you based upon your interests or online behaviors. We do not provide any personal information to the advertiser when you interact with or view a targeted advertisement. However, by interacting with or viewing an advertisement you are consenting to the possibility that the advertiser will make the assumption that you meet the targeting criteria used to display the advertisement – for example, women ages 18-24 from a particular geographic area.
• Any such targeted ads placed on our behalf will contain information on or near them that informs you about the third party delivering you the ads and how to opt-out of receiving such ads in the future. If you wish to not have your information used for the purpose of serving you targeted ads from third parties, you may opt-out by clicking here.
• Please note that the above links do not opt you out of being served advertising. Because occasionally the Website may be partially advertiser supported, you may not "turn off" the advertising that appears on the Website pages. You will continue to receive generic ads that may not be as relevant to you. If you are concerned about other interest-based ads you are receiving on other websites, you may want to visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ or http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ for additional opt-out information. Also, please note that if you delete, block or otherwise restrict cookies, or if you use a different computer or Internet browser, you may need to renew your opt-out choice.

8. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this policy. From time to time, we will review our information collection, use, and disclosure practices in order to assure that we are complying with our Privacy Policy and all applicable laws and regulations. We will notify you about significant changes in the way we treat personal information by sending a notice to the primary email address specified in your account or by placing a notice on the Website.

9. How You Can Contact Us about Privacy Questions

If you have questions or concerns regarding this policy or wish to request access to and receive information about the personal information we maintain about you (note please that the right to access personal information may be limited in some circumstances), update and correct inaccuracies in your personal information, have the information blocked or deleted, as appropriate, or oppose (in case of legitimate reasons) the processing carried out with respect to your personal information, you can contact us via the information below. We will respond to all access requests within 30 days. You can contact us by emailing [email protected], calling 1-888-896-4442 or writing to us at Archives.com, Attn: Privacy Department, 360 W 4800 N, Provo, UT 84604.

Official correspondence must be sent via postal mail to:

Archives.com
Attn: Customer Solutions
360 W 4800 N
Provo, UT 84604