Privacy Policy

 

Effective Date: 2/01/2024

 

Except as set out elsewhere in this Privacy Policy, when we refer to ‘Default Chrome Search’, it means Default Chrome Search Inc., the US-established company that supplies the Services to you (and acts as data controller of the personal data Default Chrome Search collects when you use those Services).

 

1. Our Privacy Pledge

 

  • Our commitment is to put users first. We strive to be transparent about how we collect and use your information, to keep your information secure and to provide you meaningful choices.
  • This Privacy Policy is meant to help you understand what information Default Chrome Search, its affiliates and its house of global brands (“Default Chrome Search,” “us,” “our” or “we”) collect, why we collect it and what we do with it. This policy applies to Default Chrome Search brands, websites, apps, advertising services, products, services or technologies (we’ll collectively refer to these as “Services”).

 

2. Information Collection and Use - General

 

  • Certain categories of information collected by Default Chrome Search are necessary to use our Services, such as the information you must provide when registering for some Services. We may collect and combine information when you interact with Default Chrome Search Services information outlined below:
  • Information You Provide to Us. We may collect the information that you provide to us, such as:

    1. When you create an account with a Default Chrome Search Service or brand. (Please note, when you use our Services, we may recognize you or your devices even if you are not signed in to our Services.) Default Chrome Search may use device IDs, cookies, and other signals, including information obtained from third parties, to associate accounts and/or devices with you.

    2. When you otherwise use our Services, such as title queries, watch history, page views, search queries, view the content we make available or install any Default Chrome Search software such as plugins.

    3. When you sign up for paid Services, use Services that require your financial information or complete transactions with us or our business partners, we may collect your payment and billing information.

  • Device Information. We collect information from your devices (computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc.), including information about how you interact with our Services and those of our third-party partners and information that allows us to recognize and associate your activity across devices and Services. This information includes device specific identifiers and information such as IP address, cookie information, mobile device and advertising identifiers, browser version, operating system type and version, mobile network information, device settings, and software data. We may recognize your devices to provide you with personalized experiences and advertising across the devices you use. 
  • Location Information. We collect location information from a variety of sources. You can learn more about and manage your location permissions by visiting the location settings tool on your devices.
  • Information from Cookies and Other Technologies.
    1. We collect information when you access content, advertising, sites, interactive widgets, applications, and other products (both on and off of our Services) where Default Chrome Search data collection technologies (such as web beacons, development tools, cookies and other technologies, etc.) are present. These data collection technologies allow us to understand your activity on and off our Services and to collect and store information when you interact with Services we offer to partners.
    2. This information also includes the kind of content or ads served, viewed or clicked on; the frequency and duration of your activities; the sites or apps you used before accessing our Services and where you went next; whether you engaged with specific content or ads; and whether you went on to visit an advertiser's website, downloaded an advertiser’s app, purchased a product or service advertised, or took other actions. 
  • Information from Others. We collect information about you when we receive it from other users, third-parties, and affiliates, such as: 
    1. When you connect your account to third-party services or sign in using a third-party partner (like Facebook or Twitter).
    2. From publicly-available sources.

    3. From advertisers about your experiences or interactions with their offerings.

    4. When we obtain information from third-parties or other companies, such as those that use our Services. This may include your activity on other sites and apps as well as information those third-parties provide to you or us. 

 

How We Use This Information

 

  • We are able to deliver, personalize, and improve our Services by combining and using the information we have about you (including information we receive on and off our Services) to understand how you use and interact with our Services and the people or things you’re connected to and interested in. We also may use the information we have about you for the following purposes:
    1. Provide, maintain, improve, and develop relevant features, content, and Services.
    2. Fulfill your requests and when authorized by you. 
    3. Help advertisers and publishers connect to offer relevant advertising in their apps and websites.
    4. Match and serve targeted advertising (across devices and both on and off of our Services) and provide targeted advertising based on your device activity, inferred interests and location information.

    5. Contact you with information about your account or with marketing messages.

    6. Associate your activity across our Services and your different devices as well as associate any accounts you may use across Default Chrome Search Services together. We may associate activity and accounts under a single user ID.

    7. Carry out or support promotions

    8. Conduct research and support innovation.

    9. Create analytics and reports for external parties, including partners, publishers, advertisers, apps, third-parties and the public regarding the use of and trends within our Services and ads, including showing trends to partners regarding general preferences, the effectiveness of ads and information on user experiences. These analytics and reports may include aggregate or pseudonymized information

    10. Provide location-based Services, advertising, search results, and other content consistent with your location settings.

    11. Combine information we have about you with information we obtain from business partners or other companies, such as your activities on other sites and apps

    12. Detect and defend against fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful activity


How We Share This Information

 

Default Chrome Search shares information within its affiliated brands and companies. We also share information we have about you for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including to provide Services that you have requested (including when you connect with third-party apps and widgets). We do not sell, license or share information that individually identifies our customers with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Default Chrome Search unless one of the following circumstances applies:

  1. With Your Consent. We will share information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Default Chrome Search when we have your consent. 
  2. Within Default Chrome Search. Information may also be shared within Default Chrome Search, including with other Default Chrome Search Services and affiliates. Default Chrome Search affiliates may use the information in a manner consistent with their privacy policies.
  3. With Partners. We may share your information with nonaffiliated companies who are:
    • Trusted Partners. We provide user information to trusted partners who work on behalf of or with Default Chrome Search based on our directions and in compliance with appropriate confidentiality measures.
    • Advertising, Analytics and Business Partners (Limited to Non-Personally Identifiable Information). We may share aggregated or pseudonymous information (including demographic information) with partners, such as publishers, advertisers, measurement analytics, apps, or other companies. For example, we may tell an advertiser how its ads performed or report how many people installed an app after seeing a promotion. We do not share personally identifiable information (like phone number or email address) with these partners, such as publishers, advertisers, ad agencies, or analytics partners.
    • When you use third-party apps, websites or other products integrated with our Services, they may collect information about your activities subject to their own terms and privacy policies. 
    • We allow other companies that show advertisements on our webpages or apps to collect information from your browsers or devices. Other companies' use of cookies and other data collection technologies are subject to their own privacy policies, not this one.
  4. For Legal and Other Purposes. We may access, preserve and disclose information to investigate, prevent, or take action in connection with: (i) legal process and legal requests; (ii) enforcement of the Terms; (iii) claims that any content violates the rights of third-parties; (iv) requests for customer service; (v) technical issues; (vi) protecting the rights, property or personal safety of Default Chrome Search, its users or the public; (vii) establishing or exercising our legal rights or defending against legal claims; or (viii) as otherwise required by law.
    • This may include responding to lawful governmental requests.
  5. New Ownership. If the ownership or control of all or part of Default Chrome Search or a specific Services changes as a result of a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, we may transfer your information to the new owner. 

 

Details for Search Information Collection & Use Practices

 

  • Search: When you conduct a search on a product or service that uses our search technology, we collect information from your experience, such as your search queries.
  • Search Assist: This feature helps you find what you are looking for by automatically suggesting popular search terms and new topics based on aggregated searches and your individual search history.
  • Search History: The Default Chrome Search Search and Chat History tool allows you to see your past Search activities.
  • Privacy Results: When signed in, you may see relevant, private results from other sources, such as your Default Chrome Search Mail. Only you can see these results.
  • Customized Advertising: Some advertising you receive on Default Chrome Search may be customized based on your searches, or related terms at Default Chrome Search.
  • Image Recognition: Default Chrome Search Search uses image recognition algorithms to identify public figures, scenes, actions, or objects to make it easier to search images.

 

Search Partners

 

  • Third-Party Involvement: Various third parties help provide search, and search advertising results for Default Chrome Search. More than one search or search partner may be used simultaneously and may change based on factors such as type of online experience, type of device used, and the country the search is performed from. Search advertising includes paid search and contextual search results.
  • Search Widgets: Search partners may also provide search widgets and features to make your search experience better, such as easy access to information about concert tickets or nearby airline flights.
  • Information Sharing: We may share your search query, IP address, and other pseudonymous information from your web browser or app, such as a unique identifier for your web browser, with these search partners. They may use this information, as well as your search results clicks, to provide more relevant advertising and search results, for search product improvement, research and analysis, and to help detect and defend against fraudulent activity on sponsored or contextual search results.
  • Reformatted Results: We may reformat results provided by these search partners for an enhanced search experience.

 

Sponsored Search Results

 

  • Paid Placement: Search results may include sites that have paid for placement.
  • Tracking URLs: Search results may contain tracking URLs provided by Default Chrome Search Search Marketing and/or our search partners to identify clicks from the search results page.

 

European Residents

 

URL Dereferencing: Users who are European residents can request that certain URLs be dereferenced against a Default Chrome Search Search for their name in certain circumstances in Default Chrome Search Search domains across EEA/UK.

 

Information Security and Data Retention

 

Default Chrome Search has technical, administrative and physical safeguards in place to help protect against unauthorized access, use or disclosure of customer information we collect or store. 

 

Default Chrome Search will retain your personal information for as long as necessary to provide the applicable Default Chrome Search Services to you. In some cases, Default Chrome Search has certain business or legal requirements that result in an obligation to retain your personal information for an extended period of time. These obligations may include financial record keeping, ensuring continuity of our products or services, security, fraud, and abuse prevention, or compliance with our legal obligations. In some limited cases, we may keep data for longer than needed for the purposes such as: (i) replicating or backing up certain data to “offline” storage for disaster recovery purposes; (ii) truncating, redacting or summarizing raw data, log files and database records into statistical aggregate data or probabilistic data structures to understand long term trends; (iii) maintaining de-identified data for varying periods for research, reporting and product testing or development (in these cases, unique identifiers and linkages to existing data about you are broken or removed so that this data is no longer associated with you, your browser, or device); or (iv) keeping and using certain data to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes or enforce our agreements (for example, we might keep data associated with an account subject to litigation or a request from law enforcement).

 

Protecting Children’s Privacy

 

Our Services are for a general audience. We do not knowingly collect, use, or share information that could reasonably be used to identify children under age 13 without prior parental consent or consistent with applicable law.

 

Our Legal Bases for Processing Information.

 

We mainly rely on three separate bases to lawfully process your information. First, we need to process your information in certain ways to provide our services to you, in accordance with our Terms of Service. This processing is necessary to perform the contract between you and us. Second, where you have given us consent to use your information in certain ways, we will rely on your consent. Third, in certain cases, we may process your information where necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of third parties, where those legitimate interests are not overridden by your rights or interests. Occasionally, Default Chrome Search may rely on other legal bases to process your information, such as to protect a user’s vital interests (such as where there is a risk of imminent harm) or to comply with a legal obligation.

 

Data Processing and Transfers

 

  1. When you use or interact with any of our Services, you consent to the data processing, sharing, transferring and uses of your information as outlined in this Privacy Policy. Regardless of the country where you reside, you authorize us to transfer, process, store and use your information in countries other than your own in accordance with this Privacy Policy and to provide you with Services. Some of these countries may not have the same data protection safeguards as the country where you reside. 
  2. Default Chrome Search processes information related to individuals in the EU/EEA/UK/Switzerland and receives that information from the EU/EEA/UK/Switzerland through various compliance mechanisms, including the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF), the UK Extension to the DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. DPF. Where appropriate, we also rely on other transfer mechanisms such as data processing agreements based on Standard Contractual Clauses adopted by the European Commission or the United Kingdom.
  3. The United States and other non-EU/EEA/UK countries have different laws on data protection and rules in relation to government access to information. If you are based in the EU/EEA/UK, when your data is moved from your home country to a third country outside the EU/EEA/UK, some of these countries may not have the same data protection safeguards as your home country.

 

Other Important Information

 

This Privacy Policy Applies Only to Default Chrome Search. This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of companies that Default Chrome Search does not own or control, or to people that Default Chrome Search does not employ or manage. In addition, some affiliated products may have different privacy policies and practices that are not subject to this Privacy Policy. 

 

Changes

 

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time, so you should check it periodically. If we make changes that are material we will provide you with appropriate notice before such changes take effect.

 

Questions & Suggestions

 

If you have questions, suggestions, or wish to make a complaint, please fill out our contact form or email us at support@defaultchrome.com