Last Updated on: January 15, 2021
This Privacy & Cookie Policy of gifonary.com, LLC (“Dictionary,” “we,” “us,” or “our”)
describes our practices concerning the personal information collected through our websites,
including gifonary.com and Thesaurus.com (the “Sites”) and any related Dictionary products and
services including the gifonary.com mobile app available here, the Grammar Coach tool available here, and Dictionary Academy Tutors available here (provision of the Sites and related products
and services, collectively the “Services.”). It explains how cookies, web beacons, pixel tags,
clear gifs, and other similar files or technologies may be used to collect and store the
information automatically collected about your computer, device, and Service usage and how you
can control the use of these technologies.
If you do not accept the use of cookies, please disable them as described in the Cookie
Controls.
Our Children’s Privacy Policy, discussing the collection of personal information from children through Dictionary Academy Tutors, is available below.
Depending on which of these or any other Services you use, the personal information you provide may include your name, email address, user name, home address, telephone number, demographic information (age, gender, etc.), information posted by you on sites accessed via the Services and/or information provided by you in any help request or inquiry you make to us.
| There is no need to provide to us, and we strongly discourage you from, providing any sensitive information about you or anyone else including, details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership or information about your health. |
Mobile Device Location Information: When you use one of our location-enabled services (for example, when you access Services from a mobile device), we may need to collect and process information about your specific GPS location (including the latitude, longitude or altitude of your mobile device) and the time the location information was recorded, and we may use that information to customize the Services with location-based information, advertising, and features. Some of these services require us to associate location data with your device ID and other information we hold about you.
Cookies can remain on your computer or mobile device for different periods of time. Some cookies are ‘session cookies’, meaning that they exist only while your browser is open. These are deleted automatically once you close your browser. Other cookies are ‘permanent cookies’, meaning that they survive after your browser is closed. They can be used by websites to recognize your computer when you open your browser and browse the Internet again.
Third parties whose products or services are accessible or advertised through the Services, including social networking services, may also use cookies or similar tools, and we advise you to check their privacy policies for information about their cookies and other practices. We do not control the practices of such partners and their privacy policies govern their interactions with you. We encourage you to read their privacy policies.
| TYPE OF COOKIE | WHAT IT DOES |
| Strictly Necessary Cookies | These cookies are essential to operate the Sites and provide the Services by helping us provide basic functionality such as loading and rendering pages on the Sites and enabling your navigation around the Sites and use of certain features. They are also used to identify and prevent fraud and improve security. |
| Functionality Cookies | Functionality cookies record information about choices you’ve made and allow us to tailor the Sites to you. These cookies mean that when you continue to use or come back to the Sites, we can provide you with our Services as you have asked for them to be provided. For example, these cookies allow us to store language preference. They may also be used to provide certain functionality such as playing video content. |
| Performance / Analytics Cookies | We use performance/analytics cookies
to analyze how the Sites are accessed, used, or is
performing in order to provide you with a better user
experience and to maintain, operate and continually improve
the Sites. For example, these cookies allow us to:
|
| Advertising and Tracking Cookies | As you use our Sites, you will notice
that it includes advertising. We allow third party
advertising companies to place cookies on our Sites. These
cookies enable such companies to track your activity across
various sites where they display ads and record your
activities so they can show ads that they consider relevant
to you as you browse the web. Cookies also allow us and third parties to know whether you’ve seen an ad or a type of ad, and how long it has been since you’ve last seen it. This information is used for frequency capping purposes, to help tailor the ads you see, and to measure the effectiveness of ads. |
| Social Media Cookies | Third parties that make their applications available through/on our Sites may set their own cookies in order to track the performance of their applications or customize those applications for you. For example, when you share an article using a social media sharing button on our Sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram), the social network that has created the button will record that you have done this. Because of how cookies work, we cannot access these cookies, nor can the third parties access the data in cookies used by us. Some pages of our website may also contain embedded content, such as video content from YouTube, and these sites may set their own cookies. |
We note that an optional browser setting known as Do Not Track allows you to express your preferences regarding tracking by advertisers and other third-parties. However, we do not recognize or respond to browser-initiated DNT signals, as the Internet industry is currently still working toward defining exactly what DNT means, what it means to comply with DNT, and a common approach to responding to DNT.
Please be aware that, even if you are able to opt out of certain Interest/behavioral/targeted -based advertising, you may continue to receive other types of ads. Opting out only means that those selected members should no longer deliver certain Interest/behavioral/targeted -based ads to you, but does not mean you will no longer receive any targeted content and/or ads (e.g., from other ad networks). Dictionary is not responsible for effectiveness of, or compliance with, any third-parties’ opt out options or programs or the accuracy of their statements regarding their programs.
We may also aggregate and de-identify your information in such a way that you may not reasonably be re-identified by us or any other company, and may use this information for any other purpose.
HOW WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION. We share user information with others for various reasons. What information we make available to other companies depends on the nature of our relationships with them.
We require all third parties to respect your privacy and to treat your information in accordance with the law. We only permit third parties to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our agreements with them.
RETENTION. We store the personal information we collect for as long as is necessary for the purpose(s) for which we originally collected it or for legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. For example, if you register for an account with us, we will generally maintain your account information as long as needed to service your account. We may also retain personal information as required by law.
In some circumstances we may aggregate and de-identify your information in such a way that you may not reasonably be re-identified by us or any other company in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.
In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see ACCESS, REVIEW, REVISION & DELETION RIGHTS below for further information.
California Consumer Privacy Act
Additional Disclosures Related to the Collection, Use, Disclosure and Sale of Personal Information
Collection and Use of Personal Information: In the preceding 12 months, we have collected the following categories of personal information: identifiers, such as name, email address, mailing address, phone number, and IP address; categories of personal information described in subdivision (e) of Section 1798.80, such as name, address, credit card number, debit card number, or other financial information; characteristics of protected classifications under California or federal law, such as age or gender; commercial information, such as record of purchases; internet or other electronic network activity information, such as log data and information about the devices and computers you use to access the Services; geolocation data, such as GPS, Bluetooth, or WiFi signals, where you have allowed access to that information; audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information such as video recordings of tutoring sessions through Dictionary Academy Tutors; education information such as a student’s name and grade level; other information you choose to provide, such as messages to customer service; inferences drawn from any of this information, including about the content or ads that may be of interest to you. For details about the precise data points we collect and the categories of sources of such collection, please see the section labeled, “INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND MEANS OF COLLECTION” above. We collect personal information for the business and commercial purposes described in the section labled, “HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION” above.
Disclosure of Personal Information: We may share your personal information with third parties as described in Section 5, “HOW WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION” above. In the preceding 12 months, we have disclosed the following categories of personal information for business or commercial purposes to the following categories of recipients.
| Category of Personal Information | Categories of Recipients |
| Identifiers | Advertising networks, data analytics providers, data brokers, operating systems and platforms, email service providers, data storage providers, customer support providers, payment processing providers, account management providers, appointment booking and scheduling providers. |
| Categories of personal information described in subdivision (e) of Section 1798.80 | Payment processing providers |
| Commercial information | Payment processing providers |
| Internet or other electronic network activity information | Advertising networks, data analytics providers, data brokers, operating systems and platforms, data storage providers |
| Geolocation data | Advertising networks, data analytics providers, operating systems and platforms, data storage providers |
| Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information | Video conferencing service providers |
| Inferences | Advertising networks, data analytics providers, operating systems and platforms, data storage providers |
Sale of Personal Information: California law requires that we provide transparency about personal information we “sell,” which for the purposes of the CCPA, broadly means scenarios in which Dictionary has shared personal information with third parties in exchange for valuable consideration. In the preceding 12 months, we have “sold” the following categories of personal information, depending on how the CCPA is interpreted, to the following categories of third parties:
| Category of Personal Information | Categories of Recipients |
| Identifiers | Advertising networks |
| Internet or other electronic network activity information | Advertising networks |
| Inferences | Advertising networks |
We “sell” personal information for the following commercial purposes: to provide you with targeted advertising. California consumers above the age of 16 have the right to opt out of these sales at any time. We do not knowingly sell personal information about consumers under the age of 16. Please visit our “Do Not Sell My Info” webpage here to learn more about how we sell information and to make an opt-out request.
Your Consumer Rights
If you are a California resident, subject to certain limitations, you have the right to (1) request more information about the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected, sold and disclosed for a business purpose in the last 12 months, (2) deletion of your personal information, and (3) opt out of the sale of your personal information, if applicable, and (4) be free from discrimination for exercising your rights under the CCPA. You may make these requests by visiting this webpage or emailing us at [email protected]. To opt out of sales, you can also visit our “Do Not Sell My Info” webpage here. We will verify your request by confirming the email address we have on file for you.
If we receive your request from an authorized agent, we may ask for evidence that you have provided such agent with a power of attorney or that the agent otherwise has valid written authority to submit requests to exercise rights on your behalf. If you are an authorized agent seeking to make a request, please contact us at [email protected].
Shine the Light
If you are a resident of the State of California, under the California Civil Code, you have the right to request from companies conducting business in California a list of all third parties to which the company has disclosed personal information (as defined by California law) during the preceding year for direct marketing purposes. Alternatively, the law provides that if a company has a privacy policy that gives either an opt-out for use of your personal information by third parties for their own marketing purposes, the company may instead provide you with information on how to exercise your disclosure choice options. We qualify for the alternative option. If you are a California resident and you want to opt out of such sharing, please send your request via email to [email protected] and include your name, street address, city, state, and zip code (your street address is optional if you wish to receive a response to your request via email. Please include your zip code for our own record-keeping).
Legal rights applicable to personal data collected in the EEA. Pursuant to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation 2016/679) (“GDPR”) natural persons (called data subjects) are afforded certain rights regarding their personal data, including the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to our use of, and receive a portable copy in a usable electronic format of your personal information. You also have the right to withdraw any consent that you have previously provided to us.
If you would like to exercise any of the rights outlined above, and the law of your jurisdiction requires us to honor that request, please send your request in writing to [email protected]. To assist us in processing your request in timely manner, please make your request in English if you are able to do so. Your request should include any information relevant to your request, including, without limitation: (i) your name, email and postal address; (ii) the specific right you are asserting (e.g., removal); and (iii) if you are requesting removal, a brief explanation of why you believe such information should be removed.
To help us prevent fraudulent removal requests, please also include a legible copy of a document that verifies your identity. You need not provide a government-issued document; a utility bill or similar mailing will suffice. You may also obscure parts of the document such as identifying numbers so long as the document continues to clearly identify you. If you are making the request on behalf of another person, please indicate your relationship to that person and provide evidence of your authority to make such request. All requests for removal will be reviewed by Dictionary’s legal and compliance team and we reserve the right, in compliance with applicable laws, to accept or reject, or make further inquiries regarding, any requests.
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive, or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
We are committed to working with you to obtain a fair resolution of any complaint or concern about privacy. If, however, you believe that we have not been able to assist with your complaint or concern, you may have the right to make a complaint to the data protection authority of your country of residence.
Children’s Privacy. As a general matter, our Services are intended for audiences age 16 and older. We do not knowingly collect information from individuals under the age of 16 years old, except through portions of our Dictionary Academy Tutors. To the extent that we knowingly collect information from children under age 16 (called “children” in this Privacy Policy) through Dictionary Academy Tutors, we do so with the consent of the parent or legal guardian as described in this section of our Privacy Policy. (Teens age 16 and older may participate on their own accord.)
If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 16 without the consent of the parent or legal guardian, we will delete that information. If you believe that a child under 16 may have provided us with personal information without the consent of their parent or legal guardian, please contact us at:
555 12th St, 4th floor
Oakland, CA 94607
Phone: (510) 671-8337
[email protected]
gifonary.com, LLC is the controller (as provided under laws applicable to EEA jurisdictions) responsible for the personal information we collect and process. gifonary.com, LLC takes their clients’ (and the customers of their clients) data protection seriously, and has appointed DPR Group as their Data Protection Representative in the European Union which can be contacted by sending an email to DPR Group at [email protected]. Please note that this email address is only for privacy-related inquiries. General web site assistance can be obtained through our Contact Us web page or by emailing [email protected].