Last Updated: February 13, 2023
Recent changes to our Privacy Policy: CPRA modifications
We respect your privacy, and we want you to know how we use the information you provide to us. This is the Privacy Policy (the “Privacy Policy”) of Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC and its affiliates, subsidiary companies or any of its wholly or partially owned subsidiaries (“CSS,” “us” or “we”), and includes the websites www.chickensoup.com, chickensouppets.com, aplus.com, cssentertainment.com, and screenmediafilms.net, halcyonstudios.tv, affiliate sites, subdomains (collectively, the “Sites”), mobile versions (the “Applications”) and blogs (collectively our “Services”), unless a different policy is provided on a particular Site or Application. In this Privacy Policy, we describe the information we collect, how CSS uses and discloses the information, and your choices regarding our information collection practices. If you are using a Chicken Soup for the Soul or Crackle Plus streaming product, please see this Streaming Privacy Policy.
Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By visiting our Sites, our Applications and using our Services, you agree that your information, including your personal information, will be handled as described in this Privacy Policy, which is incorporated by reference into this Terms of Use.
This Privacy Policy explains the following:
We collect information from and about you, including personal information and information about use of the Sites, the Applications, and our Services. Specifically, we collect information: (1) directly from you, such as when you register to use our Sites, request our email newsletters, send submissions or participate in polls, surveys, contests, sweepstakes, or other offers; (2) from third parties, such as when you log in through a social networking (3) automatically, as you move through our Sites and our Applications, such as Sites’ usage, browser types, IP addresses or device IDs, and other data, as discussed below.
Information We Collect Directly From You. We request information from you when you register for an account for our Sites, request our newsletters, participate in our polls, surveys, contests, sweepstakes, story submissions, and other promotions, and when you contact us regarding questions or concerns you may have with the Sites or our Services.
Depending upon the activity, we may request the following information from you:
Some information is optional. You are under no obligation to provide any information. However, if you should choose to withhold requested information, we may not be able to provide you with certain services.
Submissions for Chicken Soup for the Soul Books. If you send us an original story or poem submission to be considered for publication in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book, we ask you for information such as:
Information We Collect About You From Third Parties.
Passive Collection. Each time a visitor comes to the Sites or uses our Applications, our servers collect information, including, Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, the files viewed on our site (e.g., HTML pages, graphics, etc.), operating system, date/time stamp, and/or clickstream data to count, track and aggregate each visitor's activity as part of our analysis of general traffic flows at our Sites and on our Applications (e.g., tracking where traffic comes from, how traffic flows within the Sites and our Applications, etc.). We collect some of this data directly, and we also engage third party service providers (e.g., Google Analytics) who use the technologies described in this section, to collect this information and to assist us with our analytics.
More information on how Google uses data when you use our Site or Applications, if any: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/
With regard to Applications, we may collect your mobile device ID, location and language information; device name and model; operating system, IP address, name and version; your activities within the Applications; and length of time that you are logged into our Applications. We will allow you to opt-in to the tracking of your Location.
In some instances, this information may be associated with your username and may be combined with other information, including personal information that we have collected about you.
Location Information. If you are using our Applications, we also may collect your location. We will request your permission prior to doing so. We may combine your location information with other information that we have collected about you. If you no longer wish to allow us to collect and use your Location Information, you may turn this off at any time at the device level. Our pet food store locator uses third-party services from Storepoint, Mapbox, and Google Maps to provide mapping and location features that allow you to find retailers that carry Chicken Soup for the Soul pet food products.
CSS and its partners use cookies or similar technologies to analyze trends, administer the website, track users' movements around the website, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. To disable cookies through your browser, follow the instructions usually located within the “Help,” “Tools” or “Edit” menus in your browser. Please note that disabling a cookie or category of cookies does not delete the cookie from your browser unless manually completed through your browser function. Please note: if you choose to disable cookies, it may limit your use of certain features or functions on our website or service.
Other companies that place advertising on our Sites also have the ability to assign their cookies to you. You can opt out of the collection of certain information about you by many online advertisers. Please see the section below entitled “Advertising” for additional information.
You can control the degree to which you accept flash cookies by accessing your Adobe Flash Player management tools directly through the settings manager for Adobe Flash, located at https://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html. (Users running the Windows operating system can generally view flash cookie files in this folder: \Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player. Users running the Apple operating system can generally view flash cookie files in this folder: /users/[username]/Library/Preferences/macromedia/Flash Player. Flash cookies, or LSO files are stored typically with an “.SOL” extension. If you do not allow flash cookies on your computer, you may not be able to take advantage of or participate in certain features of our Services.
Web Beacons. Our Web pages or e-mail messages may contain a small graphic image called a Web beacon, which is sometimes also called a “clear gif,” that allows us to monitor and collect certain information about our users, such as the type of browser requesting the Web beacon, the IP address of the computer that the Web beacon is sent to and the time the Web beacon was viewed. Web beacons can be very small or invisible to the user, but, in general, any electronic image viewed as part of a Web page or email, including HTML-based content, can act as a Web beacon. We may use Web beacons to count visitors to our Web pages or to monitor how our users navigate our Sites, and we may include Web beacons in email messages in order to count how many of the messages we sent were actually opened or acted upon. We use Web beacons to compile aggregate statistics about our Sites and our marketing campaigns.
reCAPTCHA. Some of our Sites use reCAPTCHA, a free service from Google, to help prevent automated spammers from accessing our Sites. For example, you may see reCAPTCHA when you register for a new account, request to reset your password, or submit a contact form message. In order to determine whether a user is a human or a spam robot, the reCAPTCHA service collects hardware and software information, such as device and application data, which is then sent to Google for analysis. reCAPTCHA also creates and sets cookies. As stated by the reCAPTCHA API Terms of Service, the information collected in connection with use of the reCAPTCHA service will be used for improving reCAPTCHA and for general security purposes, and information collected for reCAPTCHA will not be used for personalized advertising by Google. By using our Sites, you acknowledge and agree that your information used by reCAPTCHA will also be subject to the Google Privacy Policy at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/
Mapping Services. Our pet food store locator uses third-party services from Storepoint, Mapbox, and Google Maps to provide mapping and location features that allow you to find retailers that carry Chicken Soup for the Soul pet food products. To provide these features, Storepoint, Mapbox, and Google collect data from us and you, such as IP addresses, latitude/longitude coordinates, zip code, city, state, country, or other search terms, as well as cookies and personal data such as device identifiers. By using Google Maps, you acknowledge and agree to the Google Maps/Google Earth Additional Terms of Service at https://maps.google.com/help/terms_maps.html and the Google Privacy Policy at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. By using our pet food store locator, you also agree to the Storepoint and Mapbox Privacy Policies at https://storepoint.co/privacy and https://www.mapbox.com/legal/privacy/
We use your information, including your personal information, to provide our Services to you and for the following purposes that are reasonably aligned with your expectations:
We may provide information, including your personal information (collectively, “information”), to non-affiliated and affiliated parties for a variety of purposes as described in this section and throughout this Privacy Policy.
Affiliates and Non-Affiliated Third Parties. We may disclose your information to our subsidiaries, affiliates or joint venture partners, subject to the terms of any agreements that creates such a joint venture. Those parties may use your information for any lawful commercial purposes, including marketing and advertising. We may also disclose your information to subsidiaries, affiliates and non-affiliated companies when we believe their products or services may be of interest to you, so that they can contact you with offers. If you respond to an offer and provide information directly to another company, that information will be subject to their privacy policy, not this Privacy Policy. If you later decide that you do not want that third party to use your information, you will need to contact the third party directly. CSS is not responsible for the manner in which other businesses collect or use your personal information. If you no longer wish to allow us to share your personal information with these third parties, please contact us at the email address or mailing address in the “Questions about our Privacy Policy” section below.
Joint Marketing Events/Partners. We also may partner with third parties for joint marketing events. If you participate in such an event, including a promotion as discussed below, we may share your information with the third party. If you no longer wish to allow us to share your personal information with these third parties, please contact us through our email or mailing address in the “Questions about our Privacy Policy” section below.
Third parties providing services on our behalf. We may engage third parties to perform services in connection with the operation of our business. Examples of these services include: (a) distribution of marketing and promotional material; (b) website evaluation and analytics; (c) fulfilling magazine, newsletters or other subscriptions; (d) payment transactions; (e) data collection, storage, management, analysis and, where applicable, cleansing, and (f) any other services designed to assist us in maximizing our business potential. These third parties may have access to information about visitors to our Sites and our Applications, including personal information, for the purpose of performing their duties and functions.
Investigations and security. We may release information about you when legally required to do so, at the request of governmental authorities conducting an investigation, in response to a subpoena or other legal process, or to verify or enforce compliance with the policies governing our Sites, Applications, and applicable laws. We may also disclose such user information whenever we believe disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of CSS, or any of our respective affiliates, subsidiaries, business partners, customers or others.
Aggregate Information. We may disclose aggregated user statistics to third parties for a variety of purposes, including describing our services to prospective partners and other third parties, such as advertisers, and as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy. Examples of such non-personal information include the number of users who visited this Sites or Applications during a specific time period or purchased a specific product through this Sites or Applications.
Promotions. If you choose to enter a contest, sweepstakes or promotion offered by CSS, your information may be disclosed to third parties for purposes of posting your entry with attribution or otherwise as permitted in the official rules for the contest, sweepstakes or promotion in question, fulfilling your prize or including your name on a winners list, or as otherwise necessary for purposes of the contest, sweepstakes or promotion. We may also require you to consent to the use of your information, such as name, voice or likeness, in advertising, promotional and marketing materials, in which case the rules will state so. In addition, we may offer promotional content, including sweepstakes and promotions, sponsored by or co-branded with a third party, who may obtain the personal information that you submit. Please refer to the rules of the particular contest, sweepstakes or promotion for additional information. All promotional information offered by CSS will come with instructions on how to opt-out from receiving further information in the future.
Surveys. CSS may from time to time conduct voluntary surveys of visitors to the Sites to obtain aggregate demographic information about them. Such information may be compiled and shared in the aggregate with advertisers and other third parties.
Business Transfers/Bankruptcy. If we are acquired by or merged with another company, if substantially all of our assets are transferred to another company, or as part of a bankruptcy proceeding, we may transfer the information we have collected from you to the acquiring company. You will be notified via email and/or prominent notice on our website, of any change in ownership, uses of your personal information, and choices you may have regarding your personal information.
The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once it is received. If you have any questions about the security of your personal information, you can contact us at the email address or mailing address in the “Questions about our Privacy Policy” section below.
We will hold information about you on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant services, as long as your account is active, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with CSS, subject to any applicable laws and/or regulations, or to resolve disputes and enforce our agreements. In the case that you wish to cancel your registration as a member of any of our Sites, once an account is deleted, we will not use the information about you other than for administrative purposes. Nonetheless, it stays on the system for a period of one year for administration purposes before being deleted.
Where you contribute to the Sites, we will generally only keep your content for as long as is reasonably required for the purpose(s) for which it was submitted. See User Generated Content below.
Certain portions of our Services permit users to post content in contexts that do not have a restricted audience, including, for example, profile pages, discussion forum messages, blogs, commenting on an article, posting a picture, etc. Any information that you post using these features to our Services may be viewable by other visitors to our Services. We are not responsible for the privacy of your submissions, or for the accuracy of any information contained in those submissions. Any information that you disclose becomes public information. We cannot prevent such information from being used in a manner that may violate this Policy, the law or your personal privacy.
If you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content anywhere on or to the Sites, or otherwise engage in any disruptive behavior on the Sites, we may use the personal information we hold about you to stop such behavior. Where we reasonably believe that you are or may be in breach of any applicable laws (for example, but without limitation, content you have posted may be defamatory), we may use the personal information we hold to inform relevant third parties such as your employer, school email/Internet provider, or law enforcement agencies about the content and your behavior.
We use third parties such as network advertisers to serve advertisements on our Sites and email newsletters. Network advertisers are third parties that display advertisements based on your visits to our Site and other websites you have visited. This enables us and these third parties to target advertisements to you for products and services in which you might be interested. Third party ad network providers, advertisers, sponsors and/or traffic measurement services may use cookies, JavaScript, web beacons (including clear GIFs), Flash LSOs and other technologies to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content to you. These third-party cookies and other technologies are governed by each third party’s specific privacy policy, not this one. We may provide these third-party advertisers with information about your usage of our Sites and our Services on an aggregated basis.
Our third-party advertising vendors include Google, and formerly included LiveIntent and Jeeng.
To opt out of personalized advertising from Google, visit the Google Ad settings page at https://www.google.com/settings/ads.
LiveIntent’s privacy policy: https://liveintent.com/services-privacy-policy/
Jeeng’s privacy policy: https://www.jeeng.com/privacy-policy/
You may opt-out of third-party ad networks. The website https://optout.networkadvertising.org/ provides information regarding this practice by Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) members, and your choices regarding having this information used by these companies, including how to “opt-out” of third-party ad networks operated by NAI members. You also may contact the Digital Advertising Alliance at https://www.aboutads.info/choices/ for information about opting out of targeted advertising and your choices regarding having information used by About Ads member companies, including how to “opt-out” of third-party ad networks operated by About Ads members. Opting out of one or more NAI members or DAI members (many of which will be the same) only means that those members no longer will deliver targeted content or ads to you, but it does not mean you will no longer receive any targeted content or ads on our Sites or other websites. You may continue to receive advertisements, for example, based on the particular website that you are viewing. Also, if your browsers are configured to reject cookies when you visit this opt-out page, or you subsequently erase your cookies, use a different computer or change web browsers, your NAI or DAI opt-out may no longer, be effective. Additional information is available on NAI’s and DAI’s websites accessible by the above links.
CSS services are not directed to nor intended for children under the age of 13. CSS does not permit the registration of, nor does CSS knowingly collect, use, or disclose PII from anyone under 13 years of age. If we determine upon collection that a user is under this age, we will not use or maintain that PII without parental or guardian consent. If we are notified that we have collected PII from a child under the age of 13, we will make reasonable efforts to delete such information from our records.
Users in the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK):
As an EU or UK resident, you have a number of rights when it comes to your personal information. Further information and advice about your rights can be obtained from the data protection regulator in your country of residence within the EU. You can exercise any of these rights by submitting a request online or contacting us through our email or mailing address in the “Questions about our Privacy Policy” section below:
We may disclose your information to Crackle Inc. and its affiliates, subject to the terms of the agreements that created our joint venture, Crackle Plus, for as long as Crackle Inc. owns any interest in the joint venture. Crackle Inc. and its affiliates may use your information for any lawful commercial purposes, including marketing and advertising.
Other than sharing your information with Crackle Inc., as described above, we will only knowingly share your information with non-affiliated third parties for their own direct marketing purposes if you specifically opt-in, or are offered the opportunity to opt-out and elect not to opt-out, to such sharing at the time you provide personal information. If you do not opt-in or if you opt-out at that time, we will not knowingly share the information that was collected, but we may continue to seek your consent to sharing with the same or other non-affiliated third parties for their own direct marketing purposes from time to time. Each consent notice and opportunity will be treated separately so it is possible that you may consent to some sharing but not to others.
The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) affords the Californian consumer specific rights regarding personal information. These rights have been described in California Privacy Notice overall and are further highlighted in this section. If you have a specific question or concern about your rights, or questions about our policy in support of your rights as a Californian consumer, please contact us through our email or mailing address in the “Questions about our Privacy Policy” section below.
You can make an access, deletion, or correction request by submitting a request online or contacting us through our email or mailing address in the “Questions about our Privacy Policy” section below. You may also appeal our decision regarding a request related to these rights.
Please refer to our Privacy Policy for all disclosures of categories of personal data processed, the purpose of processing, and disclosures.
CSS may contain links to, or advertisements about, non-CSS websites. Other sites may also reference, advertise or link to the Site. CSS does not endorse or sponsor other websites, is not responsible for their privacy practices or content, expressly disclaims any statements or assertions made on such websites, and denies all liability associated with your use of, and the content on, such other websites and advertisements. Please be advised that the practices described in this Privacy Policy do not apply to information gathered through other websites. We encourage you to be aware of when you leave our Services and to read the privacy policies of each website that you use.
Our Services are operated in the United States. By providing any information to CSS, all users, including, without limitation, users in the member states of the European Union, Canada or elsewhere outside of the United States, fully understand and consent to this Privacy Policy. That means by using our Sites, participating in any of our Services and/or providing us with your information, you consent to the collection, transfer, storage, use and processing of your personal information to and in the United States in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you are visiting from the European Union or other regions with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from United States law, please note that you are transferring your personal information to the United States. The laws of some countries may not provide the same levels of protection of personal information as your home country, particularly if you are resident in the European Union. We will take reasonable steps to ensure that information about you is treated securely in accordance with this Privacy Policy, and that all information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers or those of our service providers.
YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES TREAT YOUR INFORMATION IN A MANNER THAT MAY BE SUBSTANTIALLY DIFFERENT FROM, AND LESS PROTECTIVE THAN, THE TREATMENT REQUIRED UNDER THE LAWS OF OTHER COUNTRIES AND JURISDICTIONS. IF YOU DO NOT WANT YOUR INFORMATION TRANSFERRED TO THE UNITED STATES, YOU SHOULD NOT SHARE YOUR INFORMATION WITH US, OR MAKE USE OF THESE WEBSITES.
TO THE EXTENT ALLOWED BY THE LAW OF THE COUNTRY IN WHICH YOU ARE LOCATED, YOU EXPRESSLY WAIVE ANY RIGHT YOU MAY HAVE TO REQUIRE US TO TREAT YOUR INFORMATION IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF ANY COUNTRY OR JURISDICTION OTHER THAN THE UNITED STATES. HOWEVER, THE FOREGOING WAIVER MAY NOT BE LEGALLY BINDING IN SOME COUNTRIES, SUCH AS THE MEMBER STATES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. TO THE EXTENT IT IS NOT LEGALLY BINDING IN THE COUNTRY IN WHICH YOU ARE LOCATED, THIS FOREGOING WAIVER DOES NOT APPLY TO YOU.
We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to modify, update, add to, discontinue, remove or otherwise change any portion of this Privacy Policy, in whole or in part, at any time. When we amend this Privacy Policy, we will revise the “last updated” date located at the top of this Privacy Policy. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices. By providing information to us or using our Services in any way after this Privacy Policy has been revised, you consent and agree to the revised Privacy Policy. The most current version of this Privacy Policy will be available on the Sites and will supersede all previous versions of this Privacy Policy.
This Privacy Policy, including all revisions and amendments thereto, and any disputes arising from or relating to this Privacy Policy or your use of our Services, is governed by the laws of the State of Connecticut without regard to any conflict or choice of law principles that would require application of the laws of another jurisdiction.
Legal disclaimer
We are not responsible nor will be liable to you in any way for events beyond our direct control. Because of the complex and constantly changing nature of our technology and business, we cannot guarantee nor do we represent that our performance will be error free, and to the maximum extent permitted by law we will not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential or punitive damages or other loss suffered by you and relating to the use or release of your information.
If you have any further questions or concerns about CSS’s privacy policies and use of information, please send them to [email protected] and include the name and/or website addresses of the Sites or Applications in your message, so we may better assist you with your inquiry.
You can also write us at:
Attn: Data Privacy Officer
Chicken Soup for the Soul
P.O. Box 700
Cos Cob, CT 06807-0700
United States.
All rights reserved.