OVERVIEW
Eccky™ is a game in which users can create and raise a virtual character – an Eccky – either alone or with other players. Eccky, creator of Eccky™, is dedicated to providing users with a fun, entertaining, and safe website in which to play the game.

Part of the creating a fun and personalized gameplay experience includes the collection by Eccky  of some personal information from our users. We urge everyone, Eccky players and their parents alike (if players are under the age of 18), to enjoy our website and to use it responsibly and safely. Safe and responsible use of the Eccky website includes exercising caution when providing this personal information and taking the time to understand exactly how your personal information is handled. We at Eccky respect the privacy concerns of our users, and take measures both to safeguard our users’ privacy and to outline to our users explicitly what personal information is, what specific personal information is collected by Eccky, how this personal information is used and how it is not used, including, when such information is or is not disclosed to third party affiliates. Eccky  does reserve the right to collect and disclose information in accordance and/or compliance with any applicable law.

Further, we take additional measures with respect to the privacy of children’s personal information. Specifically, Eccky™ is intended for users who are over 13 years of age, which means that Eccky does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 years of age. The matter of possible collection and/or removal of personal information from children under 13 from Eccky's databanks is discussed in Section 3, “Special Notice about COPPA”.

The following Privacy Policy explains Eccky's procedures in handling the personal information of our users and the measures taken by Eccky to protect our users’ privacy in connection with their use of the Eccky website and other sites owned and operated by Eccky (to be known collectively as “Eccky sites”).

PRIVACY POLICY
1) What is “personal information”?
“Personal information” is individually identifiable information that and can be used to identify an individual. In the context of Eccky, personal information is collected by us from our users online. Personal information can include, but is not limited to: first and last name, physical and/or e-mail address, telephone number, instant messenger screen names, username, etc.

2) What personal information is collected by Eccky?
Upon registration, Eccky users are required to provide the following pieces of personal information: birthdate, first name, last name, gender, town/city of residence, MSN Messenger address, e-mail address (if different from MSN Messenger address). Users are also asked to create and enter a password. Users have access to their personal profile – containing their personal information – when logged into the game, and may change their personal information or delete their Eccky account (and all its associated information) completely and at any time. A user must be aware, however, that deletion of an Eccky user account and all its associated information will also result in the deletion of all that user’s Ecckies (if the user has any Ecckies at the time of deletion) and the deletion of any credits that that user may have accumulated. These credits – whether given as a part of a user’s daily allowance or earned separately – will not be reimbursed or credited back to the user in any way.

Eccky gameplay includes raising an Eccky whose appearance is determined in large part by how the user customizes his/her personal Eccky avatar and, whose personality is determined in large part by how a user distributes a number of “DNA” points given to the user at the beginning of the game and distributable over a certain number of personality trait scales. This input goes into determining Eccky’s appearance and personality, is adjustable by the user, and is not considered to be a user’s personal information.

3) Special Notice about COPPA
Eccky cares about the treatment of all personal information on the internet and, in particular, about the safety of children using the internet and their personal information and privacy. Eccky complies with The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in our collection of personal information. Our site and services are intended for users who are over the age of 13. We therefore do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of 13, unless we believe such collection to be permitted by law.
If you believe that your child under the age of 13 is using or has used our Services, has provided his/her personal information to us, and you would like to have your child’s personal information removed from our databanks, please contact us at privacy@eccky.com or at the mailing address indicated in Section 11, “Privacy Issues Contact Information”.

4) Is it legal for Eccky to collect and disclose personal information?
Eccky reserves the right to collect and disclose personal information and information about user behavior for our own purposes and to share with affiliate third parties, to the extent permitted by applicable law (including, without limitation, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act [COPPA]), in compliance with legal processes, law enforcement requests, requests from governmental agencies), and as specifically restricted in this Privacy Policy or in the Terms of Use.

5) How is personal information used?
Eccky collects personal information from Eccky users, in general, with the goal of providing users with customized game experience.
User e-mail addresses are used, generally, for the purpose of sending gameplay-related notifications of various types to Eccky users. The sending of e-mails to Eccky Platinum Members periodically throughout the six-day gameplay period is an integral part of the gameplay experience. These e-mails include, but are not limited to:

• Initial automatically generated confirmation of registration
• Confirmation of the creation and arrival of a new Eccky
• Warning if a user’s Eccky needs particular care
• Automatically generated notification that someone has left a message on an Eccky user’s profile page
• Notification to one player that another player is sending an invitation to make an Eccky
• Notification that one player is asking another to babysit his/her Eccky
• End-of-game confirmation after the six-day gameplay period
• A “40-year” notice from a user’s Eccky to the user
• Password change e-mail
• Other system e-mails
• Newsletters

There can also be instances in which non-user personal information may be provided to Eccky, as with:

• Questions or comments from non-Eccky users sent to the Eccky Customer Service department via e-mail;
• When Eccky users send an invitation to make an Eccky with a non-Eccky user, or;
• When Eccky users send an request to someone (an Eccky user or a non-Eccky user) to babysit their Eccky

In all of the above cases, an e-mail address and name are requested. In the case of an non-Eccky user submitting a question or comment to Eccky via e-mail, the sender will be submitting his/her own personal information to Eccky, and in the case of an Eccky user sending an invitation either to make an Eccky or to babysit an Eccky, he/she will be submitting the personal information of another person (either an Eccky user or a non-Eccky user). All personal information collected in the above three cases is deleted from our system once a response or e-mail invitation has been sent.

6) Third Party Affiliates and Sponsors
Eccky works with sponsors and advertisers, and other third-party affiliates for a variety of reasons. We may at times use external agents or contractors to help provide a particular service to our users on our site (e.g., to administer a contest, sweepstakes, or sponsor campaign) and these agents or contractors may be charged with the responsibility of collecting user personal information. In such cases, the agent or contractor will be required to abide by Eccky’s Privacy Policy, to treat the users’ personal information with strict confidentiality and to use it only in the context of the services they are performing for us on our site. For further information, please review Section 7, on Opting-In and Opting-Out, for a description of the limited instance in which personal information collected on the site may be supplied to third parties with the consent of the user.

7) Opting-In and Opting-Out
Eccky believes that our ability to share our users’ personal information with our affiliates ultimately helps us to provide better quality, more personalized services to our users. To that end, we reserve the right to share our users’ personal information with our third-party affiliates and sponsors. Our right notwithstanding, Eccky  understands and respects the rights of our users, specifically the right choose whether or not their personal information is shared with third-party affiliates. To that end, Eccky WILL NOT share a user’s personal information without express permission from the user. Users have the possibility of giving Eccky  permission to share their personal information with third party affiliates by “opting-in”, i.e., clicking on the checkbox, “Eccky may share my personal information with third party affiliates,” that appears at the final step of registration. By doing so, you give permission to Eccky to transmit your personal information to third-party affiliates, advertisers, and sponsors. If you choose to opt-in during the registration process, and then decide at a later time that you would like to rescind permission, you may do so at any time by going into the Settings tab and then clicking on “Profile Settings”, when logged into the Eccky game, and unchecking the box labelled, “Eccky may share my personal information with third party affiliates.” Please note that opting-in to sharing your personal information with third-party affiliates includes permission for such third parties to contact the user directly by e-mail.

Beyond sharing of specific personal information, a user should be aware that third parties will sometimes use cookies on their sites, in order to collect information about user internet usage preferences. Please be aware that Eccky has no control over user activity on third-party affiliate sites, nor of the use of cookies by third-party affiliates on their own sites. (Please see Section 9 on Cookies.)

Eccky may, in the future, buy or sell assets, or the company in its entirety to another party. Your personal information may be part of the assets transferred in connection with a sale, merger, transfer, exchange or other disposition (of assets, stock or otherwise) of all or a portion of Eccky. You have the right to opt-out of your personal information being transferred in such a transaction, and can opt-out by completing our Opt-Out Form.

A user may also opt-in or opt-out to receiving e-mail newsletters from Eccky. Eccky  periodically sends newsletters to users about new Eccky features, updates to the game, and other Eccky-related offerings. Users will by default be opted out of receiving these newsletters. Users may, if they wish to receive these newsletters, click on the checkbox at the final step of registration that reads, “I would like to receive periodic newsletters from Eccky.” A user may opt-in or out of receiving newsletters at any time by going into the Settings tab and then clicking on “Profile Settings”, when logged into the Eccky game, and checking or unchecking the box labelled, “I would like to receive periodic newsletters from Eccky.” Opting out of receiving newsletters does not include opting out of receiving mail correspondence from Eccky that is necessary for the user to receive as part of the gameplay experience.

8) Using caution when providing personal information
We encourage users (and the parents of users, for users who are under the age of 18) to inform themselves to the fullest extent possible about the use of their personal information online and, further, to exercise caution in providing personal information in any situation in which personal information may be asked of the user, for example, by third parties a user may encounter through the use of Eccky's services. Eccky’s Privacy Policy does not apply to any affiliate or sponsor site a user may visit via the Eccky site. We therefore urge users (and their parents, if applicable) to familiarize themselves not only with this Privacy Policy but also, separately, the privacy policies of any other site a user may visit through the Eccky site, and to exercise caution while providing personal information on any site.

9) What are “cookies” and how does Eccky use them?
“Cookies” are text files that are placed in a user’s internet browsers and that contain information about that user’s personal web use. Cookies do not contain any personally identifiable information, but they do help websites like ours to cater to a user’s personal web preferences. We use cookies for enabling you to login to the Eccky site for a game session. Also we use persistent cookies for our advertisement and statistics software.

10) Is my personal information treated securely?
Eccky takes reasonable measures to protect against possible loss, misuse, and/or unauthorized access to the data in our possession. Some of these measures include the implementation of a firewall, limiting the number of people who have physical access to our database servers, as well as electronic security systems and password encryption, all of which guard against unauthorized access. Please see below for specific data security methods.

• Server communication encryption: All communication, containing any personal information, between your internet browser and our servers is encrypted using SSL. All communication within the Flash client application is encrypted.
• Passwords: All user passwords are stored encrypted.
• Security of hosting environment: We use firewall and other industry-standard methods to keep your data safe in our environment.
• Payment-related information: We do not store any payment-related information in our systems. Any payment related information collected by us is handled by our payment solution partners and will never be used for any other purposes than processing the purchase.

PLEASE NOTE: Despite our best efforts to protect collected data, we cannot guarantee the security of any information transmitted to or from us over the internet. We therefore assume no responsibility should any information, to or from Eccky, be unintentionally disclosed to another party during transmission, and always encourage users to exercise caution when sending data through the internet.

 11) Financial Information

If you decide to purchase an Eccky Platinum membership via the options presented on the site, we store the type/length, start and expiry date of the purchased membership. Credit card details are not collected or stored by us but are handled by our payment solution partners and will never be used for any other purposes than processing the purchase. Please read their privacy policies for further details on what information is collected.

12) Privacy Issues Contact Information
Eccky welcomes correspondence from our users regarding privacy issues, or from anyone with concerns about privacy on our website. If you have concerns or questions about our Privacy Policy, please contact us using any of the following contact information:

privacy@eccky.com
Eccky

Herengracht 386
1016 CJ Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Phone: (+0031) (20) 797 7900
Fax: (+0031) (20) 797 7901

13) Effective Date
This Privacy Policy is effective as of 26/06/2007.

14) Privacy Policy Changes
Eccky reserves the right to change its privacy at any time and at its sole discretion. For users’ information and convenience, users will be notified of changes and/or additions to the Eccky Privacy Policy on the Eccky site when they are published. Changes and/or additions to the Privacy Policy become effective immediately upon publication and an updated effective date will be indicated.