Worlds Unending Privacy Statement
Effective date: October 20, 2020
Thank you for entrusting Worlds Unending LLC (“Worlds Unending”, “we”) with your gaming worlds and your personal information. Holding on to your private information is a serious responsibility, and we want you to know how we're handling it. All capitalized terms have their definition in Worlds Unending’s Terms of Service unless otherwise noted here.
1 Summary
1.1 We use your personal information as this Privacy Statement describes. No matter where you are, where you live, or what your citizenship is, we provide the same high standard of privacy protection to all our users around the world, regardless of their country of origin or location.
1.2 What information Worlds Unending collects. Worlds Unending collects information directly from you for your registration, payment, transactions, and user profile. We also automatically collect from you your usage information, cookies and similar technologies, and device information, subject, where necessary, to your consent. Worlds Unending may also collect User Personal Information from third parties. We only collect the minimum amount of personal information necessary from you, unless you choose to provide more.
1.3 What information Worlds Unending does _not_ collect. We don’t knowingly collect information from children under 16, and we don’t collect Sensitive Personal Information.
1.4 How Worlds Unending uses your information In this section. We describe the ways in which we use your information, including to provide you the Service, to communicate with you, for security and compliance purposes, and to improve our Service. We also describe the legal basis upon which we process your information, where legally required.
1.5 How we share the information we collect. We may share your information with third parties under one of the following circumstances: with your consent, with our service providers, for security purposes, to comply with our legal obligations, or when there is a change of control or sale of corporate entities or business units. We do not sell your personal information and we do not host advertising on Worlds Unending. You can see a list of the service providers that access your information.
1.6 Other important information. We provide additional information specific to universe contents, public information, and Organizations on Worlds Unending.
1.7 How you can access and control the information we collect. We provide ways for you to access, alter, or delete your personal information.
1.8 Our use of cookies and tracking. We use cookies for the overall functionality of our Website, and we use a small number of tracking and analytics services on a few parts of our site. We offer a page that makes this very transparent. Please see this section for more information.
1.9 How Worlds Unending secures your information. We take all measures reasonably necessary to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your personal information on Worlds Unending and to protect the resilience of our servers.
1.10 Worlds Unending’s global privacy practices. We provide the same high standard of privacy protection to all our users around the world.
1.11 How we communicate with you. We communicate with you by email. You can control the way we contact you in your account settings, or by contacting us.
1.12 Resolving complaints. In the unlikely event that we are unable to resolve a privacy concern quickly and thoroughly, we provide a path of dispute resolution.
1.13 Changes to our Privacy Statement. We notify you of material changes to this Privacy Statement 30 days before any such changes become effective.
1.14 Contacting Worlds Unending. Please feel free to contact us if you have questions about our Privacy Statement.
Of course, the Summary doesn't tell you everything, so please read on for more details.
2 What information Worlds Unending Collects
"User Personal Information" is any information about one of our Users which could, alone or together with other information, personally identify them or otherwise be reasonably linked or connected with them. Information such as a username and password, an email address, a real name, an Internet protocol (IP) address, and a photograph are examples of “User Personal Information.”
User Personal Information does not include aggregated, non-personally identifying information that does not identify a User or cannot otherwise be reasonably linked or connected with them. We may use such aggregated, non-personally identifying information for research purposes and to operate, analyze, improve, and optimize our Website and Service.
2.1 Information users provide directly to Worlds Unending
2.1.1 Registration information
We require some basic information at the time of account creation. When you create your own username and password, we ask you for a valid email address.
2.1.2 Payment information
If you sign on to a paid Account with us, we collect your full name, address, and credit card information or PayPal information. Please note, Worlds Unending does not process or store your credit card information or PayPal information, but our third-party payment processor does.
2.1.3 Profile information
You may choose to give us more information for your Account profile, such as your full name or an avatar which may include a photograph. This information may include User Personal Information. Please note that your profile information may be visible to other Users of our Service.
2.2 Information Worlds Unending automatically collects from your use of the Service
2.2.1 Transactional information
If you have a paid Account with us, we automatically collect certain information about your transactions on the Service, such as the date, time, and amount charged.
2.2.2 Usage information
If you're accessing our Service or Website, we automatically collect the same basic information that most services collect, subject, where necessary, to your consent. This includes information about how you use the Service, such as the pages you view, the referring site, your IP address and session information, and the date and time of each request. This is information we collect from every visitor to the Website, whether they have an Account or not. This information may include User Personal information.
2.2.3 Cookies and similar technologies information
As further described below, and subject, where applicable, to your consent, we automatically collect information from cookies and similar technologies (such as cookie ID and settings) to keep you logged in, to remember your preferences, and to identify you and your device.
2.2.4 Device information
We may collect certain information about your device, such as its IP address, browser or client application information, language preference, operating system and application version, device type and ID, and device model and manufacturer. This information may include User Personal information.
2.3 Information we collect from third parties
Worlds Unending may collect User Personal Information from third parties. For example, this may happen if an existing User of the site invites you to their universe, providing your email address in order to send the invitation. Worlds Unending does not purchase User Personal Information from third-party data brokers.
3 What information Worlds Unending does _not_ collect
We do not intentionally collect “Sensitive Personal Information”, such as personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation. If you choose to store any Sensitive Personal Information on our servers, you are responsible for complying with any regulatory controls regarding that data.
If you are a child under the age of 16, you may not have an Account on Worlds Unending. Worlds Unending does not knowingly collect information from or direct any of our content specifically to children under 16. If we learn or have reason to suspect that you are a User who is under the age of 16, we will have to close your Account. We don't want to discourage you from roleplaying games, but those are the rules. Please see our Terms of Service for information about Account termination. Different countries may have different minimum age limits, and if you are below the minimum age for providing consent for data collection in your country, you may not have an Account on Worlds Unending.
We do not intentionally collect User Personal Information that is stored in your universes or other free-form content inputs. Any personal information within a user's universe is the responsibility of the universe owner.
4 How Worlds Unending uses your information
We may use your information for the following purposes:
We use your Registration Information to create your account, and to provide you the Service.
We use your Payment Information to provide you with the Paid Account service and any other Worlds Unending paid service you request.
We use your Profile Information to fill out your Account profile and to share that profile with other users if you ask us to.
We use your display name, from your Account profile, to identify you on Worlds Unending.
We use your email address to communicate with you, if you've said that's okay, and only for the reasons you’ve said that’s okay. Please see our section on email communication for more information.
We use User Personal Information to respond to support requests.
We use User Personal Information and other data to make recommendations for you, such as to suggest Content you may want to follow or contribute to. We learn from your public behavior on Worlds Unending to determine your interests, and we recommend similar Content. These recommendations are automated decisions, but they have no legal impact on your rights.
We may use User Personal Information to invite you to take part in surveys, beta programs, or other research projects, subject, where necessary, to your consent.
We use Usage Information and Device Information to better understand how our Users use Worlds Unending and to improve our Website and Service.
We may use your User Personal Information if it is necessary for security purposes or to investigate possible fraud or attempts to harm Worlds Unending or our Users.
We may use your User Personal Information to comply with our legal obligations, protect our intellectual property, and enforce our Terms of Service.
We limit our use of your User Personal Information to the purposes listed in this Privacy Statement. If we need to use your User Personal Information for other purposes, we will ask your permission first. You can always see what information we have, how we're using it, and what permissions you have given us in your user profile.
4.1 Our legal bases for processing information
To the extent that our processing of your User Personal Information is subject to certain international laws, Worlds Unending is required to notify you about the legal basis on which we process User Personal Information. Worlds Unending processes User Personal Information on the following legal bases:
Contract Performance:
When you create a Worlds Unending Account, you provide your Registration Information. We require this information for you to enter into the Terms of Service agreement with us, and we process that information on the basis of performing that contract. We also process your username and email address on other legal bases, as described below.
If you have a paid Account with us, we collect and process additional Payment Information on the basis of performing that contract.
Consent:
We rely on your consent to use your User Personal Information under the following circumstances: when you fill out the information in your user profile; when you decide to participate in a research project, beta program, or survey; and for marketing purposes, where applicable. All of this User Personal Information is entirely optional, and you have the ability to access, modify, and delete it at any time. While you are not able to delete your email address entirely, you can make it private. You may withdraw your consent at any time.
Legitimate Interests:
Generally, the remainder of the processing of User Personal Information we perform is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interest, for example, for legal compliance purposes, security purposes, or to maintain ongoing confidentiality, integrity, availability, and resilience of Worlds Unending’s systems, Website, and Service.
If you would like to request deletion of data we process on the basis of consent or if you object to our processing of personal information, please email support@worldsunending.com.
5 How we share the information we collect
We do not sell your User Personal Information for monetary or other consideration.
We may share your User Personal Information with third parties under one of the following circumstances:
5.1 With your consent
We share your User Personal Information, if you consent, after letting you know what information will be shared, with whom, and why. Additionally, you may direct us through your actions on Worlds Unending to share your User Personal Information. For example, if you join a universe, you indicate a willingness to provide the owner of the universe with your display name.
5.2 With service providers
We share User Personal Information with a limited number of service providers who process it on our behalf to provide or improve our Service, and who have agreed to privacy restrictions similar to the ones in our Privacy Statement by signing data protection agreements or making similar commitments. Our service providers provide cloud infrastructure and platform services, payment processing, customer support ticketing, network data transmission, security, and other similar services. While Worlds Unending processes all User Personal Information in the United States, our service providers may process data outside of the United States or the European Union. If you would like to know who our service providers are, please see our page on subprocessors.
5.3 For security purposes
If you are a member of an Organization, Worlds Unending may share your display name, Usage Information, and Device Information associated with that Organization with an owner and/or administrator of the Organization, to the extent that such information is provided only to investigate or respond to a security incident that affects or compromises the security of that particular Organization.
5.4 For legal disclosure
Worlds Unending strives for transparency in complying with legal process and legal obligations. Unless prevented from doing so by law or court order, or in rare, exigent circumstances, we make a reasonable effort to notify users of any legally compelled or required disclosure of their information. Worlds Unending may disclose User Personal Information or other information we collect about you to law enforcement if required in response to a valid subpoena, court order, search warrant, a similar government order, or when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to comply with our legal obligations, to protect our property or rights, or those of third parties or the public at large.
For more information about our disclosure in response to legal requests, see our Guidelines for Legal Requests of User Data.
5.5 Change in control or sale
We may share User Personal Information if we are involved in a merger, sale, or acquisition of corporate entities or business units. If any such change of ownership happens, we will ensure that it is under terms that preserve the confidentiality of User Personal Information, and we will notify you on our Website or by email before any transfer of your User Personal Information. The organization receiving any User Personal Information will have to honor any promises we made in our Privacy Statement or Terms of Service.
5.6 Aggregate, non-personally identifying information
We share certain aggregated, non-personally identifying information with others about how our users, collectively, use Worlds Unending.
We do not sell your User Personal Information for monetary or other consideration.
Please note: The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) requires businesses to state in their privacy policy whether or not they disclose personal information in exchange for monetary or other valuable consideration. While CCPA only covers California residents, we voluntarily extend its core rights for people to control their data to all of our users, not just those who live in California. You can learn more about the CCPA and how we comply with it here.
6 Other important information
6.1 Universe contents
Worlds Unending personnel do not access private universes unless required to for security purposes, to assist the universe owner with a support matter, to maintain the integrity of the Service, or to comply with our legal obligations. However, while we do not generally search for content in your universes, we may scan our servers and content to detect certain tokens or security signatures, known active malware, or other content known to violate our Terms, such as violent extremist or terrorist content or child exploitation imagery based on algorithmic fingerprinting techniques. Our Terms of Service provides more details.
If your universe is public, anyone may view its contents. If you include private, confidential or Sensitive Personal Information, such as email addresses or passwords, in your public universe, that information may be indexed by search engines or used by third parties.
6.2 Public information on Worlds Unending
Some Worlds Unending services and features are public-facing. If your content is public-facing, third parties may access and use it in compliance with our Terms of Service, such as by viewing your profile or universes or pulling data via our API. We do not sell that content; it is yours. However, we do allow third parties, such as research organizations or archives, to compile public-facing Worlds Unending information. Other third parties, such as data brokers, may scrape Worlds Unending and compile data as well.
Your User Personal Information associated with your content could be gathered by third parties in these compilations of Worlds Unending data. If you do not want your User Personal Information to appear in third parties’ compilations of Worlds Unending data, please do not make your User Personal Information publicly available and be sure to configure your email address to be private in your user profile. We set Users' email address to private by default.
If you would like to compile Worlds Unending data, you must comply with our Terms of Service regarding scraping and privacy, and you may only use any public-facing User Personal Information you gather for the purpose for which our user authorized it. For example, where a Worlds Unending user has made an email address public-facing for the purpose of identification and attribution, do not use that email address for commercial advertising. We expect you to reasonably secure any User Personal Information you have gathered from Worlds Unending, and to respond promptly to complaints, removal requests, and "do not contact" requests from Worlds Unending or Worlds Unending users.
Similarly, universes on Worlds Unending may include publicly available User Personal Information collected as part of the collaborative process. If you have a complaint about any User Personal Information on Worlds Unending, please see our section on resolving complaints.
6.3 Organizations
You may indicate, through your actions on Worlds Unending, that you are willing to share your User Personal Information. If you collaborate on or become a member of an Organization, then its Account owners may receive your User Personal Information. When you accept an invitation to an Organization, you will be notified of the types of information owners may be able to see.
Please note, Worlds Unending may share your display name, Usage Information, and Device Information with the owner(s) of the Organization you are a member of, to the extent that your User Personal Information is provided only to investigate or respond to a security incident that affects or compromises the security of that particular Organization.
Please contact the Account owners for more information about how they might process your User Personal Information in their Organization and the ways for you to access, update, alter, or delete the User Personal Information stored in the Account.
7 How you can access and control the information we collect
If you're already a Worlds Unending user, you may access, update, alter, or delete your basic user profile information by editing your user profile or contacting Worlds Unending Support. You can control the information we collect about you by limiting what information is in your profile, by keeping your information current, or by contacting Worlds Unending Support.
If Worlds Unending processes information about you, such as information Worlds Unending receives from third parties, and you do not have an account, then you may, subject to applicable law, access, update, alter, delete, or object to the processing of your personal information by contacting Worlds Unending Support.
7.1 Data portability
As a Worlds Unending User, you can always take your data with you. You can export your universes to your desktop, for example, or you can use our API to download information we have about you.
7.2 Data retention and deletion of data
Generally, Worlds Unending retains User Personal Information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services.
If you would like to cancel your account or delete your User Personal Information, you may do so in your user profile. We retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements, but barring legal requirements, we will delete your full profile (within reason) within 90 days of your request. You may contact Worlds Unending Support to request the erasure of the data we process on the basis of consent within 30 days.
After an account has been deleted, certain data, such as contributions to other Users' universes and comments in others' issues, will remain. However, we will delete or de-identify your User Personal Information, including your display name and email address, from the author field of entries and comments by associating them with a ghost user.
8 Our use of cookies and tracking
8.1 Cookies
Worlds Unending uses cookies to make interactions with our service easy and meaningful. Cookies are small text files that websites often store on computer hard drives or mobile devices of visitors. We use cookies (and similar technologies, like HTML5 localStorage) to keep you logged in, remember your preferences, and provide information for future development of Worlds Unending. For security purposes, we use cookies to identify a device. By using our Website, you agree that we can place these types of cookies on your computer or device. If you disable your browser or device’s ability to accept these cookies, you will not be able to log in or use Worlds Unending’s services.
We provide a web page on cookies and tracking that describes the cookies we set and the needs we have for those cookies. It also lists our third-party analytics providers and other service providers, and the services they provide us.
8.2 Tracking and analytics
We use third-party analytics and service providers to help us evaluate our Users' use of Worlds Unending, compile statistical reports on activity, and improve our content and Website performance. All of our service providers have data protection agreements with us that limit the type of User Personal Information they can collect and the purpose for which they can process the information. In addition, we use our own internal analytics software to provide features and improve our content and performance.
9 How Worlds Unending secures your information
Worlds Unending takes all measures reasonably necessary to protect User Personal Information from unauthorized access, alteration, or destruction; maintain data accuracy; and help ensure the appropriate use of User Personal Information. Worlds Unending enforces a written security information program. Our program:
aligns with industry recognized frameworks;
includes security safeguards reasonably designed to protect the confidentiality, integrity, availability, and resilience of our Users' data;
is appropriate to the nature, size, and complexity of Worlds Unending’s business operations;
includes incident response and data breach notification processes;
and complies with applicable information security-related laws and regulations in the geographic regions where Worlds Unending does business.
In the event of a data breach that affects your User Personal Information, we will act promptly to mitigate the impact of a breach and notify any affected Users without undue delay.
Transmission of data on Worlds Unending is encrypted using SSH, HTTPS (TLS), and universe content is encrypted at rest. We work with cloud service providers with a high level of physical and network security, and when data is stored with a third-party storage provider, it is encrypted.
That said, no method of transmission, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
10 Worlds Unending’s global privacy practices
Worlds Unending LLC is the controller responsible for the processing of your personal information in connection with the Service, except (a) with respect to personal information that was added to a universe by its contributors, in which case the owner of that universe is the controller and Worlds Unending is the processor (or, if the owner acts as a processor, Worlds Unending will be the subprocessor).
We store and process the information that we collect in the United States in accordance with this Privacy Statement, though our service providers may store and process data outside the United States. However, we understand that we have Users from different countries and regions with different privacy expectations, and we try to meet those needs even when the United States does not have the same privacy framework as other countries.
We provide the same high standard of privacy protection—as described in this Privacy Statement—to all our users around the world, regardless of their country of origin or location, and we are proud of the levels of notice, choice, accountability, security, data integrity, access, and recourse we provide. We work hard to comply with the applicable data privacy laws wherever we do business.
In particular:
Worlds Unending provides clear methods of unambiguous, informed, specific, and freely given consent at the time of data collection, when we collect your User Personal Information using consent as a basis.
We collect only the minimum amount of User Personal Information necessary for our purposes, unless you choose to provide more. We encourage you to only give us the amount of data you are comfortable sharing.
We offer you simple methods of accessing, altering, or deleting the User Personal Information we have collected, where legally permitted.
We provide our Users notice, choice, accountability, security, and access regarding their User Personal Information, and we limit the purpose for processing it. We also provide our Users a method of recourse and enforcement.
Worlds Unending processes personal information both inside and outside of the United States and relies on Standard Contractual Clauses as the legally provided mechanism to lawfully transfer data from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland to the United States. SCCs are contractual commitments between companies transferring personal data, binding them to protect the privacy and security of such data. Worlds Unending adopted SCCs so that the necessary data flows can be protected when transferred outside the EU to countries which have not been deemed by the European Commission to adequately protect personal data, including protecting data transfers to the United States.
11 How we communicate with you
We use your email address to communicate with you, if you've said that's okay, and only for the reasons you’ve said that’s okay. For example, if you contact our Support team with a request, we respond to you via email. You have a lot of control over how your email address is used and shared on and through Worlds Unending. You may manage your communication preferences in your user profile.
Depending on your email settings, Worlds Unending may occasionally send notification emails about changes in a universe you’re following, new features, requests for feedback, important policy changes, or to offer customer support. We also send marketing emails, based on your choices and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. There's an “unsubscribe” link located at the bottom of each of the marketing emails we send you. Please note that you cannot opt out of receiving important communications from us, such as emails from our Support team or system emails, but you can configure your notifications settings in your profile to opt out of other communications.
Our emails may contain a pixel tag, which is a small, clear image that can tell us whether or not you have opened an email and what your IP address is. We use this pixel tag to make our email more effective for you and to make sure we’re not sending you unwanted email.
12 Resolving complaints
If you have concerns about the way Worlds Unending is handling your User Personal Information, please let us know immediately. We want to help. You may contact us at support@worldsunending.com.
12.1 Dispute resolution process
In the unlikely event that a dispute arises between you and Worlds Unending regarding our handling of your User Personal Information, we will do our best to resolve it. Additionally, if you are a resident of an EU member state, you have the right to file a complaint with your local supervisory authority, and you might have more options.
13 Changes to our Privacy Statement
Although most changes are likely to be minor, Worlds Unending may change our Privacy Statement from time to time. We will provide notification to Users of material changes to this Privacy Statement through our Website at least 30 days prior to the change taking effect by posting a notice on our home page or sending email to the primary email address specified in your Worlds Unending account.
14 Contacting Worlds Unending
Questions regarding Worlds Unending’s Privacy Statement or information practices should be directed to support@worldsunending.com.