Game Jolt Privacy Policy

This privacy policy was last updated on May 10, 2021

We ask that you read this privacy notice carefully, as it contains important information on who we are, how and why we collect, store, use, and share personal information, your rights in relation to your personal information and on how to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

Who we are

Game Jolt Inc. (“Game Jolt,” “We,” or “Us”) collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you, as part of the Game Jolt website, software application, and embedded widgets found on other sites (collectively, the “Service”).

For those in the European Union, we are regulated under the General Data Protection Regulation which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as controller of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.

The Personal Information we collect and use

Information collected by us: In the course of providing you with the Service, we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:

• Your username, email address, and password during the creation of your account on the Service or in communicating with us on or off the Service (your “Account Information”).
• Your billing address, PayPal account information, and credit card information, during the setup of purchasing methods on the Service (your “Billing Information”).
• Your physical address, phone number, birth date, business name and information (including names of owners and management), IRS tax withholding form information, PayPal and bank account information, identification card number, and tax ID/social security number, during the setup of withdrawal methods on the Service (your “Withdrawal Information”).
• Your display name, profile images or photographs, biographical information, location, gender, website links, and social media information during the setup of your public profile on the Service (your “Profile Information”).
• Your IP address, browser type, and information about your activities on the Service are collected automatically while you use the Service (your “Automatic Information”).
• Your driver’s license or other government-issued identification information, and certain other information may be collected if we need to verify your identity for legal purposes (your “Identity Information”).
• Your display name, full name, profile images or photographs, biographical information, location, website links, social media information, and any other information and materials which accompany your entry submissions, during your entry into a contest, sweepstakes, or Game Jam hosted on the Service (your “Contest Information”).

Information we collect from third parties: We may collect personal information from our affiliates and third parties. Here are a few examples:

• If you link a social media account to Game Jolt, or sign up with one, we’ll receive information from that social media profile, including Profile Information defined above and information about your friends and contacts that you share with us.
• Advertisers may let us know you installed a new app or game or made a purchase, so we can determine whether we showed you an ad for it.
• If you interact with one of our advertisers, they may share information with us to help target or measure the performance of ads.

How we use your Personal Information: We use your personal information as follows:

• Your Account Information is used to create and maintain your account on the Service, to communicate with you about Service-related issues (including receiving and responding to communications that you send us through the Service), and to send you Service-related communications about new products and services.
• Your Billing Information is used to allow you to purchase products on the Service.
• Your Withdrawal Information is used to allow you to withdraw money earned from ad revenue, by selling products on the Service, or through the use of Partner affiliate links, if you’re a developer or an affiliate partner.
• Billing Information and Withdrawal Information is also used for VAT and other tax compliance, and to prevent fraud on the Service.
• Your Profile Information is used to allow you to customize your Game Jolt profile, which is visible to other users of the Service when you publish games on the Service, comment, rate games, post blogs and articles, and participate in other communications and activities through the Service. Be aware that your profile and your communications and activities on the Service are publicly viewable once posted.
• Your Automatic Information is gathered and pooled with other users’ information, and used for the purposes of improving the Service, such as tracking the total number of visitors to the Service, their aggregate activities on the Service, the number of messages, comments, and other communications users send, and tracking the sites that refer visitors to Game Jolt.
• Your Identity Information is used to verify your identity for the purposes of selling products on the Service, signing up as an affiliate, withdrawing funds earned from sales and ad revenue, and to comply with other legal obligations as necessary.
• Your Contest Information is used to operate contests, sweepstakes, and Game Jams on the Service, to communicate with you about contest-related issues (including receiving and responding to communications that you send us through the Service), and to send you contest-related communications about prizes, rules, and other messages.

Who we share your Personal Information with: We share your Personal Information with certain third parties as part of our operation of the Service. This data sharing enables us to provide you with the Service in the optimal way, from serving you personalized, relevant advertisements to allowing you to make purchases and sell products on the Game Jolt Marketplace.

Some of those third-party recipients may be based outside the European Economic Area — for further information, including how we safeguard your personal data when this occurs, see their individual privacy policies linked to above and the section entitled “Transfer of your Information out of the EEA,” below.

We share your Personal Information with the following third parties:

Advertisements: We share your Account Information and Profile Information with advertisers to display advertisements on the Service that are relevant to your interests. These third-party advertisers (and their relevant privacy policies) are listed on our Advertising Providers page here.

If you would like more information about online advertising and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please see: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp

Payment Processing and Bank Transfers: We share your Billing Information with our third-party payment processors Stripe and PayPal, in order to allow you to make purchases on the Service, and to withdraw earnings from selling products on the Game Jolt Marketplace and from the Game Jolt Partner Program.

The Service uses Stripe for fraud prevention and payment processing. Stripe’s anti-fraud services are designed to prevent your credit card and other Personal Information from being used in a fraudulent purchase through the Service. Stripe utilizes several tools to minimize fraud losses and to help us determine if a transaction is fraudulent. These include tools that allow Stripe to auto-reject suspicious transactions and notify businesses of potentially-suspicious charges so that we can make the most informed decision possible as to whether accept a charge. Thus, in an effort to protect you against credit card fraud, the Service does not honor "do not track" signals when you use the Service. Stripe may also track your activity over time and over a network of sites. We encourage you to learn more about Stripe and read their privacy policy on their website at https://stripe.com/us/privacy.

The Service also uses PayPal for payment processing and bank transfers. You can view PayPal’s privacy policy here.

Google Analytics: We may use third party website analytic tools such as Google Analytics on the Service, that employ cookies to collect certain information concerning your use of the Service. If you wish to opt out of Google Analytics, please click here.

Contest Partners: In order to operate contests, sweepstakes, and Game Jams on the Service in conjunction with third-party partners, we need to share your Contest Information with our partners. The event’s Official Rules will list any partners we are working with on that event and sharing the Contest Information with.

Other Sharing:

We will share your Personal Information if we have a good faith belief that (i) access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process, such as a court order or subpoena, or a request by law enforcement or governmental authorities, (ii) such action is necessary to detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues associated with the Service, or (iii) such action is appropriate to protect the rights, property or safety of Game Jolt, its employees, clients, or users of the Service.

We will not share your personal information with any other third party.

How long your Personal Information will be kept: We will keep your Personal Information for the length of time required to provide you with the Service, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law. Afterwards, we delete all aforementioned data in our possession within a reasonable timeframe. We do not verify the correctness of personal data that we collect or you provide.

Please note that some data may be retained if necessary to resolve disputes, enforce Game Jolt user agreements, and comply with technical and legal requirements and constraints related to the security, integrity and operation of the Service.

Reasons we can collect and use your Personal Information: The laws in some jurisdictions require that we notify you of the lawful basis for collecting your Personal Information.

To the extent that such laws apply, we rely on the following as the lawful basis on which we collect and use your personal information:

• Consent: At times we may collect, process, store, transfer or disclose your personal data on the basis of your implied or explicit consent.
• To fulfill our contractual obligations: In order to fulfill our contractual obligations to you, we must collect, process, and store your personal data and information. We must handle your personal data in this manner to create your account on the Service, to process purchases on the Service, verify your identity for fraud and tax compliance reasons, and to allow withdrawals of funds in your account to your connected withdrawal method specified in your account.

Additionally, we may at times have to transfer or disclose your personal data to third parties, in order to fulfill other contractual obligations to you. For example, we may have to transfer certain information concerning your account and billing information to our payment processors for any purchases you make.

• Furtherance of legitimate interests: We may collect, process, store, transfer or disclose your personal data in furtherance of those legitimate interests of ours which are not overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms as set forth in the applicable laws. These legitimate interests include, but are not limited to, (i) providing you with the Service, (ii) protecting our users, staff, and property from fraud and other harm, (iii) collecting information on how you use the Service in order to optimize the design and functionality of the Service, (iv) display personalized advertisements, and (v) communicating with you via e-mail for communications you have explicitly opted into (e.g., notifications about new products and services) or for communications regarding your account on the Service.

• Legal compliance: We may collect, process, store, transfer or disclose your personal data to comply with our legal obligations.

Cookies: When you use the Service, a number of cookies are used by us and by third parties to allow the Service to function, to collect useful information about visitors, and to help to make your user experience better.

Some of the cookies we use are strictly necessary for our Service to function, and we don’t ask for your consent to place these on your computer. For more information about our use of cookies, please see our cookie policy.

Depersonalized Information: We may make your Personal Information non-personally identifiable by either combining or aggregating it with information about other users, or by removing characteristics (such as your name or email address) that make the information personally identifiable. This process is known as de-personalizing your information and is used to analyze usage and improve the Service.

Children’s Privacy: We do not knowingly collect any personal information from children under the age of 13, allow them to create accounts, sign up for newsletters, make purchases, or browse the Service. In addition, we may limit how we collect, use, and store some of the information of EU users between 13 and 16. Game Jolt takes children’s privacy seriously and encourages parents to play an active role in their children’s online experience at all times. We urge parents to instruct their children never to give out their real names, addresses, or phone numbers, without parental permission, when on-line. If you have any concerns about your child’s personal information, please contact us at [email protected].

Links to Other Sites: The Service may contain links to other sites. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that site. These external sites are not operated by us. Therefore, we strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of these websites. We have no control over, and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services.

Social Media Features: The Service includes certain social media features, such as social media sharing buttons, embedded videos, or interactive mini-programs that run on the Service. These features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting, what video is being watched and where it is embedded, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on the Service. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.

Transfer of your Information out of the EEA

Game Jolt is based in the United States. No matter where you are located, you consent to the processing, transfer and storage of your information in and to the U.S., and other countries, in accordance with the privacy policies of third parties with whom we share your Personal Information. The laws of the U.S. and other countries governing data collection and use may not be as comprehensive or protective as the laws of the country where you live.

If you would like further information, please contact us (see “How to contact us” below).

EU Residents - Your Rights

Under the laws of some jurisdictions, including the General Data Protection Regulation in the EEA, you have a number of important rights with regard to your Personal Information.

• By law, you can ask us what information we hold about you, and you can ask us to correct it if it is inaccurate. If we have asked for your consent to process your personal data, you may withdraw that consent at any time.
• If we are processing your personal data for reasons of consent or to fulfill a contract, you can ask us to give you a copy of the information in a machine-readable format so that you can transfer it to another provider.
• If we are processing your personal data for reasons of consent or legitimate interest, you can request that your data be erased. This process may take as much as 30 days for full erasure of your data, and in some cases, we may be required to retain some of your data for the purposes of stopping fraud or other legal and contractual requirements.
• You have the right to ask us to stop using your information for a period of time, if you believe we are not doing so lawfully.
• Finally, in some circumstances, you can ask us not to reach decisions affecting you using automated processing or profiling.

For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals rights under the General Data Protection Regulation.

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please email us at [email protected]. We may ask for additional verification information, such as your username, email address, and any other information required to be sure that you are the owner of that data.

If you would like to unsubscribe from any email communication from us, you can also click on the unsubscribe button at the bottom of the email. It may take a few days for this to take effect.

California Residents - Your Rights

If you are a California resident, beginning on January 1, 2020, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) gives you the following rights:

Right to Know: You can ask us what personal data we hold about you and request a copy of the information. This information includes:

• The categories of personal information we have collected about you.
• The categories of sources from which we collect the personal information.
• The business or commercial purpose for collecting your personal information.
• The categories of third parties with whom we share that information.
• The specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you.

Right to Delete: You can request that your personal information be erased. However, there are some exceptions to this right, in situations where we:

• Need to complete the transaction for which the personal information was collected, provide a good or service that you requested, or that is reasonably anticipated within our ongoing business relationship with the consumer, or to otherwise perform a contract between us.
• Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity; or prosecute those responsible for that activity.
• Debug to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
• Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their right of free speech, or exercise another right provided for by law.
• Need to comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act pursuant to Chapter 3.6 (commencing with Section 1546) of Title 12 of Part 2 of the Penal Code.
• Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the businesses’ deletion of the information is likely to render impossible or seriously impair the achievement of such research, if the consumer has provided informed consent.
• Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with the expectations of the consumer based on the consumer’s relationship with us.
• Need to comply with a legal obligation.
• Otherwise use your personal information, internally, in a lawful manner that is compatible with the context in which you provided the information.

Right to Opt Out: Game Jolt does not sell any of your personal information for any purposes.

The CCPA allows California residents to “opt out” of the sale of your personal information, and if you are under the age of 16, it gives you the right to “opt in” to any sale of your personal data. You can reach the opt out page by clicking here: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp

Other Rights: In addition to the rights above, you also have the right to request certain information about our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing purposes during the calendar year preceding your request. This request is free and may be made only once a year.

You also have the right not to be discriminated against for exercising any of the rights of California residents listed in this section.

If you would like to exercise any of the rights listed above, please contact us at the addresses below in the section entitled “How to contact us” or email us at [email protected].

Keeping your Personal Information secure

We have taken steps to put appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorized way.

For example, we limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorized manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so. We use SSL encryption and other technologies to keep data safe when we transfer and store it.

If you are an EU citizen and you want more detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit http://www.getsafeonline.org.

How to complain

We hope that we can resolve any questions or concern you raise about our use of your Personal Information. Please contact us via the methods listed below in the section entitled “How to contact us” to let us know about any of your questions or concerns, and we will get back to you to resolve the issue.

If you are an EU citizen, the General Data Protection Regulation also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the European Union (or European Economic Area) state where you work, normally live, or where any alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred.

You can find a list of the supervisory authorities and their contact information by clicking here.

Changes to this Privacy Notice

We may change this privacy notice from time to time. When we do, we will inform you via email to the email address you have provided us with through your account, or by sending a message to your account on the Service.

How to contact us

Please contact us if you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information we hold about you.

If you wish to contact us, please send an email to [email protected].