• AltaVista products and services are offered through web pages with URL's (for example, www.______.com) ending in altavista.com or av.com. In addition, third parties that have business relationships with AltaVista also offer their products and services through web pages with URL's ending in altavista.com or av.com. These pages are not served by AltaVista, but instead by these third parties. Therefore, this privacy policy applies to web pages ending in altavista.com or av.com that contain a link to this privacy policy at the bottom of the page.
• In addition, the AltaVista site contains links to other sites and sometimes allows other sites to be co-branded with the AltaVista logo. The inclusion of the AltaVista name at the top of a web page does not necessarily mean that this privacy policy applies. While we try our best to ensure that the privacy policies at these other sites are in line with our own, AltaVista cannot represent or guarantee that they are. If you ever have any questions about whether certain information, content or services pertain to us, or are "powered by" a third party, please contact us at privacy-support.

• Other countries have different laws that apply to the collection and use of personal information. If you are a resident of one of the following countries, please click on the appropriate country name to see the privacy policy that applies to you:

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We are concerned about protecting the safety of the children who use our site, so we have created the Family Filter. The Family Filter helps ensure that children can search online without seeing inappropriate material. See our Terms of Use for more information.

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Anonymous Information is information that ordinarily cannot be traced back to a particular person. Anonymous information is data about how you use our site (such as the pages you view and the search terms you query). For example, at AltaVista we know how many people visit this privacy policy Details page each day, but we don't necessarily know the names or any other specific information about those visitors. Anonymous information also includes the domain names and/or IP addresses of Internet browsers that visit our site, the time of day the site was visited, and other non-personal information.

Personally Identifiable Information is information, like your name, mailing address, email address or telephone number, that can be used to uniquely identify you. Anonymous information, such as web pages viewed and search terms queried, becomes personally identifiable information when it is associated with personally identifiable information such that it can be traced back to a particular individual.

What type of anonymous information does AltaVista collect and how is it used?

AltaVista collects anonymous information when people use our site. When you surf the Internet, your Internet browser (such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer) automatically transmits information to AltaVista's web server logs. Examples of this information include the URL of the web page you were on before coming to AltaVista, the Internet Protocol (or IP) address (as explained below) of the computer you are using, the search terms you query, and the web pages you view. If you indicate preferences to us regarding how you would like to view our pages (for example, see 40 search results displayed per page), we will store and record this information in an AltaVista cookie (as explained below).

We use this information to personalize your experience on our site, to show you more relevant advertising messages, and to improve our services in general.

IP Addresses
An Internet Protocol is a set of numbers that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you log on to your Internet service provider or through your company's local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN). Web servers, the powerful computers that provide web pages for viewing, automatically identify your computer by the IP address assigned to it during your session online.

PLEASE NOTE: We will use IP addresses to identify users of our site when we feel it is necessary to enforce compliance with our site's Terms of Use or to protect our service, site or other users from fraudulent behavior. Furthermore, under certain circumstances to comply with court orders and subpoenas, IP address and/or domain names may be linked to personally identifiable information, when said information is stored in databases managed by Internet registrars or registries such as Network Solutions or ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers).

Cookies
A "cookie" is a very small text file that is sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer's hard drive. It assigns a computer a unique identifier. It is essentially your identification card when you return to a web site. Cookies do not damage your computer.

Unless your browser is set to allow third parties to extract information (and the most popular browsers such as Netscape, AOL and Internet Explorer do not allow it), then cookies will not extract information from your hard drive. Rather, cookies save you time when you surf the Internet. They help us to provide you customization while you use our site without your having to remind us of your preferences each time you return to our web pages. For example, if you prefer to see your searches displayed 40 items to a page, an AltaVista cookie on your computer will remember that preference.

You are not required to accept cookies in order to use our site. However, if you do not accept cookies, you will have to tell us your preferences each time you return to our site. You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is set. Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.

Each web site can send cookies to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it, but in the interest of your privacy, your browser will only allow a web site to access the cookies it has already sent to your computer, not the cookies sent to your computer by other web sites.

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Yahoo! uses web beacons to research certain usage and activities of the Yahoo! and AltaVista web sites. The information collected through these web beacons is used to find out more about our users, for more accurate reporting, improve the effectiveness of our marketing, and to make AltaVista better. No personally identifiable information you might have given AltaVista is collected using these web beacons.

What type of personally identifiable information does AltaVista collect?

In order to use our services, we do not require that you provide us with any personally identifiable information. Exceptions to this include various submission services that permit users to submit URLs for inclusion in the AltaVista index and for products and services offered by AltaVista's Business Solutions group which are explained further below.

From time to time, we may conduct surveys about your opinions regarding our site but will not request personal information and all data collected from these surveys will be analyzed in the aggregate. We may seek your consent to participate in promotions conducted on the site. For each such request, we may request that you provide personal information and with each promotion we will state how the information will be used.

We do not run contests on our site but some of our advertisers do run contests through our web pages. If you decide to participate, you should refer to their privacy policy. For further details, see below.

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Are any third parties collecting anonymous information through AltaVista? If so, how is this information used?

Third party advertisement server agencies, such as DoubleClick, collect anonymous information through AltaVista by way of the cookies they are authorized to send to AltaVista users. These advertisement server agencies place their cookies on your computer when you first view an advertisement served by them (this could happen while you are on our site or another site where their advertisements are also served). These advertisement server agencies use their cookies to control the sequence of advertisements you see and to make sure you don't see the same advertisements too many times. If you do not want DoubleClick to collect anonymous information from your browser while you are viewing pages on the AltaVista site, DoubleClick offers you an opt-out cookie. Click here in order to obtain the DoubleClick opt-out cookie.

Tracking Pixels
Certain advertisers on our web site have from time to time put "tracking pixels" (sometimes also referred to as "web beacons", "web bugs", "sensors", "pings", "spotlight tags" and "clear GIFs") in their advertisements for the purpose of tracking your activities on our site. We do not authorize the use of these devices for any advertisers or advertising services except for advertisement server agencies.

Bear in mind that the only way to ensure your personal privacy whenever you are on the Internet is to make sure your browser is configured so that you are alerted to all cookies. By using this feature of your browser, you should also be alerted to any "tracking pixels" located on our web pages.

Are any third parties collecting personally identifiable information on AltaVista? If so, how is this information used?

Generally third parties do not collect personally identifiable information on the AltaVista site. However, you should bear in mind that several of our products and services are offered through third party web sites, some of which have their own registration process. We offer co-branded pages that are "powered by" third parties. Although these pages display the AltaVista logo at the top, these pages have their own URL that you link to from AltaVista, and the privacy policy of these third parties, not this one, applies to the collection of your information on those web pages.

If you have any questions about whether AltaVista or a third party is collecting information, please contact us at privacy-support.

Some advertisers are able to collect your personal information through a special type of advertisement, which asks you for personal information. Such information is never shared with AltaVista. However, if you agree by checking the "opt-in" box, the advertiser may share your personal information with third parties. In addition, some of these advertisements provide online contests and sweepstakes. If you enter them, you agree that the contest or sweepstakes sponsor may use your name in relation to announcing and promoting the winners of the sweepstakes.

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Personally Identifiable Information

Submission Services
Users of the AltaVista web site may participate in various services to submit URLs to AltaVista for inclusion in the AltaVista index. When you participate in these services, you must provide your first and last name and your email address. We request this information so that we can contact you if necessary in connection with the URLs submitted and to evaluate the quality of the URL submissions. With your permission, AltaVista may also use this information to provide you with information about additional products and services available on our web site. AltaVista will not share this personal information with any third party.

Other Third Parties
In addition to finding co-branded sites, you will find direct links on our site to third party sites offering product and services to AltaVista users. Some of these sites are authorized to use the AltaVista brand and/or logo. The privacy policy of these third parties, not this one, applies to the collection of your information on those web pages.

AltaVista Business Services
AltaVista offers businesses the opportunity to list their products on the AltaVista site and to submit URLs for inclusion in the AltaVista index. In addition, we also offer a wide range of advertising opportunities to drive traffic to your site. In the AltaVista Business Services section of our site, we ask interested businesses to provide us with a contact name, email address, phone number and web site address. We also ask for company name, city, state, country and fax number on an optional basis. We request this information so that we can contact you to reply to your request for information regarding our Business Solutions. We may share this information to the extent necessary to provide you the service that you have requested.

AltaVista does not collect any information in relation to third-party sites and therefore, no third-party sites are covered by this privacy policy. If you feel that a site using the AltaVista brand and/or logo does not follow acceptable privacy practices, please contact AltaVista at privacy-support. Be sure to check the URL that you link to from AltaVista web pages to determine whether this privacy policy applies. If you ever have any questions about whether certain information, content or services pertain to us, or are "powered by" these third parties, again please contact us at privacy-support.

Anonymous Information

In addition to the anonymous information that certain advertisement server agencies collect through the use of cookies, as explained above, we share some of the anonymous information that we collect with them. However, these advertisement server agencies have represented that they have never, and will never collect or use any of your personally identifiable information.

Subpoenas and Court Orders

If a governmental agency requests information in the form of a subpoena, court order, or other legal process, AltaVista will disclose only the information it has collected from its users.

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We operate secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection. We have security measures in place to attempt to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of your user data under our control.

Only certain employees have access to the information you provide us. For example, we impose strict rules on our employees who have access either to the databases that store user information or to the server that host our services. While we cannot guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration to data will not occur, we use our best efforts to prevent such unfortunate occurrences.

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AltaVista may update this privacy policy from time to time. If we are going to use personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time of collection, we will notify you via email. You will have a choice as to whether or not we use your information in this different manner. In addition, if we make any material changes in our privacy practices that do not affect user information already stored in our databases, we will post a prominent notice on our web site notifying users of the change. Bear in mind that the only way to ensure your personal privacy whenever you are on the Internet is to make sure your browser is configured so that you are alerted to all cookies.

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General Counsel
AltaVista
Overture Services, Inc.
74 North Pasadena Avenue, 3rd Floor
Pasadena, California 91103

Policy updated and effective date: May 17, 2004.