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Privacy Policy

Effective January 1st, 2022 
You can view our previous privacy policy (last updated December 23rd, 2022) here.

Table of Contents

  1. Who We Are & Privacy Policy Overview
  2. Registering an account at BleepingComputer
  3. What data BleepingComputer collects from you
  4. What data third-parties may collect
  5. The rights you have to your data
  6. Reasons BleepingComputer will contact you
  7. California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”)
  8. How to contact BleepingComputer regarding privacy concerns

About Us & Privacy Policy Overview

BleepingComputer® is a news and support site with technology news, tutorials, tips, reviews, and support forums to receive help from volunteers. BleepingComputer was founded in 2004 by Lawrence Abrams and the site is located at the URL https://www.bleepingcomputer.com. We are physically located in the United States of America.

BleepingComputer is strongly committed to protecting the privacy of its visitors and members. This privacy policy ("Privacy Policy") is designed to inform you about the type of information that Bleeping Computer LLC ("BleepingComputer", "we" and "us" ) may gather or collect from you in connection with your use of this site ("Website", "site"). It also explains the conditions under which we use and disclose that information, and your rights in relation to that information.

As a rule, BleepingComputer does not collect personally identifiable information other than IP addresses unless you register for an account on the site. If you register for an account, you will be required to provide a display name and login name of your choice (we suggest that you do not use your real names), and an email address. There are also fields for specifying your location, birthday, and gender, but these are optional.

We also work with third-parties to display advertisements, social sharing links, article comments, affiliate marketing, and analytics. All third party partners have assured BleepingComputer that they are working within the laws and guidelines of a BleepingComputer visitor's country. All third party partners will be outlined later in this document.

We are also committed to offering GDPR compliance, allowing our users to opt out of data collection, and to understand their rights.

If at any time you wish to change your GDPR compliance, you can do so by clicking on the button below.

 

This policy will be updated from time to time in order to list new features on the site, new third-party services that we use, or updates to comply with privacy regulations. When changes are made we will update the date at the top of this Privacy Policy and retain a link to the previous policy. It is advised that you periodically check this policy to see if anything has been changed.

Registering an account at BleepingComputer

BleepingComputer provides the ability for visitors to register a free account so that they can make comments to news articles or make posts in the forums. When registering an account it is required to provide an email address, a login name, and a display name that is publicly visible. When selecting the Display Name, you should not use your real name unless you do not care if it is publicly displayed.

In addition to this information, in order to register an account you will be required to validate your account's email address, agree to BleepingComputer's User Agreement, provide consent to this privacy policy, and agree to our Forum Rules.

It should be noted that when you register an account, you agree to allow BleepingComputer to display your forum posts indefinitely. We will be happy to remove any personal information or disassociate posts with an account at the request of the member.

As a benefit of registering an account, you will no longer see advertisements on the site when you are logged in.

What data we collect and how we use it

When you use BleepingComputer, there is certain data that is automatically collected by our server and web site. As previously stated, if you decide to register an account, additional data is also collected in order to create the account. This data is necessary for the proper operation of the site and to provide the features you would expect from it.

Any personal data collected by BleepingComputer at registration is used for the operation of the site. We do not use this data for advertising and it is not sold to third-parties.

We have described what data is collected by BleepingComputer below.

Registration Information

When a user registers an account on the site to become a member, they must provide a login name, display name, and email address. When registering, their IP address at the time of the registration will be associated with the account for security purposes. This IP address is not publicly displayed.

Once registered, a member can optionally add their birthday, gender, location, and other information. This information can be removed at any time.

Forum Posts & Status Updates

A registered and logged in member may create new topics or reply to existing topics in the forums. When posting to the forums, their IP address is associated with the post for security reasons, such as the proper operation of spam filters and moderation tools. This IP address is not publicly displayed.

Any data that is posted to the site is completely up to the member and should be sanitized of all personal data. If a member posts content that contains personal information by accident they can edit the post and remove the personal information themselves within 24 hours. Otherwise they need to contact us to edit the post and remove the personal information.

Registered members also have the ability to post status updates in their user profiles. Like posts, what content is posted is up to the user. Status replies can be removed by the member or they can contact us to have it removed.

Images, Documents, and Attachments

If you register an account and make a post in our forums, depending on the forum you may have the ability to upload images, data files, and text files. This is completely optional and up to the member, but if a member does upload content, they should make sure to strip any personal information from it. Members can manage their attachments and delete any that they wish.

Contact Information

When registering an account or using the Contact Us form on the site, users may provide contact information such as their name, address, and email address. This information is used only to contact the member as necessary and is never shared with third parties.

Registered members have the ability to subscribe to articles, topics, or forums to receive notifications when new content has been posted to BleepingComputer.com. BleepingComputer will send these notifications to the email address associated with the account. Users can disable these notifications at any time in their settings.

From time to time, BleepingComputer may host contests that requires personal information to be submitted. This information will only be shared as needed to enter the contest and send a prize if the member wins.

Comments

We use a custom commenting system for some of our articles and Disqus for others. For our custom commenting system, only registered and logged in users may post a comment. When doing so, they can edit their comment within 24 hours of its creation and must contact us afterwards to delete it.

Embedded 3rd party content

BleepingComputer, and its users, may embed content such as images, Tweets, videos, and more from third-party sites into articles, forum posts, tutorials, and other user submitted content. When a visitor browses to a page that contains embedded content it will be retrieved from a third-party site. BleepingComputer has no control over what tracking and cookies these third-party sites may utilize.

Analytics and Server Logs

When anyone, regardless of whether you are a member or guest, visits BleepingComputer, our server will automatically record the IP address of the visitor, the requested page, the referring page, and the browser's user agent to our server logs.

The browser user agent string is created by a visitor's browser and may contain information about the browser version, operating system, and computer hardware. BleepingComputer has no control over the data sent by a visitor's browser.

The storing of this data is common practice for all web servers and we only use this information for the technical operation of the site, security reasons, or when required to legally.

These server access logs are only saved for 7 days.

BleepingComputer also uses Google Analytics to provide anonymized and aggregated data about our visitors. This allows us to see what content our visitors like the most, what sections get the most traffic, and allow us to provide the experience you expect to receive from BleepingComputer.com. In order to anonymize the collection of data in Analytics, we have enabled the "IP Anonymization" feature and disabled the "Remarketing" and "Advertising Reporting Features" features.

Cookies

We now get to the everyone's favorite snack, but biggest annoyance when it comes to browsing the web.

When it comes to browser cookies, BleepingComputer only sets cookies that are required for the proper operation of the site. This includes cookies that keep track of what forums you have read, session cookies that allow you to stay logged into the site as you browse it, cookies related to Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule ("COPPA"), and cookies that provide information needed by various sections of the site. None of these cookies, though, are used to track you on the site.

There are other cookies, though, that will be added to your browser through third-parties. These third-party cookies are described in the next section.

What data third-parties may collect

It is important to note that BleepingComputer does not share your data with anyone unless to comply with the law. We do, though, work with third party services that may collect data from users that visit BleepingComputer.com and place their own cookies in a visitor's browser.

Below we have outlined each of the companies we work with and how they may collect data as you use the site.

Advertising

In order to continue providing the terrific news and support you have come to love, we need to pay the bills and therefore display ads. The good news is that if you do not want to see any ads, just register a free account, login to the site, and *poof* they are gone :)

The advertisers we are currently working with, their privacy policies, and any opt-out information is below:

Google specific cookie information:

  • Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to your website or other websites.
  • Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to your users based on their visit to your sites and/or other sites on the Internet.
  • Users may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Ads Settings. (Alternatively, you can direct users to opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for personalized advertising by visiting www.aboutads.info.)

If you would like more information about Google's use of cookies and to understand your choices, you can read the https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites page.

The other advertisers may drop their own cookies, including tracking cookies, use tracking pixels, or perform interest based advertising as allowed in a visitor's country.

Affiliate Marketing

BleepingComputer also uses affiliate links, which allow BleepingComputer to earn a commission if you purchase a product from an affiliate linked page. While we have many affiliate partnerships, the main ones that we work with are:

The above companies may drop their own cookies to track which affiliate referred a user to a product page or site.

Analytics

As previously described, BleepingComputer uses Google Analytics to provide anonymized and aggregated statistics about how visitors use the site. Google Analytics will place cookies that allow it to track how a user uses the site, but these cookies are not shared with any third-parties.

Website search

BleepingComputer uses a Google Custom Search Engine for searches conducted from the top header bar of the site, except for the forums.

When using this search, Google will return search results from their index that match the search query. However, Google may also track what searches are conducted when you use this service.

Social Sharing

We use AddThis to provide a method for our visitors to share content on various social networks or via email. AddThis may store their own cookies in our visitor's browsers. AddThis provides opt out choices through their Privacy Policy.

Comments

While we have our own commenting system for our news articles that does not use cookies, we also utilize Disqus for our Download and Tutorial sections. Disqus may drop their own cookies as described in their Privacy Policy.

Web Site Security and Content Delivery

We use Cloudflare for DDoS attack mitigation, web site security, and as a Content Delivery Network (CDN). When our traffic flows through their service, Cloudflare will add cookies to a visitor's browser in order for some of their security features to work. You can read about their cookies here.

In order to stay compliant with current regulations, BleepingComputer has entered into a EU GDPR Data Processing Addendum with Cloudflare, which can be read here.

Law Enforcement

We may disclose personally identifiable information if legally required to do so, if requested to do so by a governmental entity or if we believe in good faith that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to legal requirements or comply with legal process; (b) protect the rights or property of BleepingComputer or its affiliated companies; (c) investigate or prevent a crime or protect national security or cooperate in investigating any incident in which we believe that you have abused the Site by using it to attack other systems or to gain unauthorized access to any other system, to engage in spamming or otherwise to violate applicable laws; or (d) protect the personal safety of users or the public.

Don't do anything wrong and we won't have to worry about the above :)

The rights you have to your data

There is no data that we keep for those who have not registered an account on the site.

If you have registered as a member then you have access to all of your posted data by viewing your profile, examining your preferences, seeing the content you follow, viewing your posts and topics, viewing your personal messages, and viewing your subscribed news articles.

It should be noted that as a member, you agreed to allow BleepingComputer to indefinitely display any posts or topics you created in the forums. With that said, we do not want you to be concerned about any personally identifiable information and if you find any, you can always contact us and request that we remove the personal information.

Any submitted content will be associated with your profile until you either delete it or we delete your account. When an account is deleted, your submitted content may stay on the site, but be shown as if it was from a guest.

California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”)

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) grants California residents five new rights regarding how websites collect personal data, regardless of whether the visitor is a customer or any other relationship with the covered company.

These five rights are explained below:

  • The right to request disclosure of your business' data collection and sales practices in connection with the requesting consumer, including the categories of personal information you have collected, the source of the information, your use of the information and, if the information was disclosed or sold to third parties, the categories of personal information disclosed or sold to third parties and the categories of third parties to whom such information was disclosed or sold;
  • The right to request a copy of the specific personal information collected about them during the 12 months before their request (together with right #1, a "personal information request");
  • The right to have such information deleted (with exceptions);
  • The right to request that their personal information not be sold to third parties, if applicable; and
  • The right not to be discriminated against because they exercised any of the new rights.

We believe that our existing privacy and data collection practices are in line with the CCPA.

California residents have the right to request the personal information collected by BleepingComputer twice in a period of 12 months.

You can also Request to delete the data we have collected from you. We may deny your request under certain circumstances, such as if we need to comply with our legal obligations or complete a transaction for which your Personal Information was collected. If we deny your request to delete, we will let you know the reason why.

To make a request to know or a request to delete, please select the “California Consumer Request” option in the BleepingComputer contact form.

Reasons BleepingComputer will contact you

BleepingComputer will only contact you for the following reasons:

  • Service updates and policy changes
  • Breach notifications will be sent to all registered users within 72 hours of the incident.
  • New topic, reply, or forum subscription notifications will be sent if a user requested them.
  • Newsletters will be sent only to those who subscribed to our newsletter.
  • Marketing content will be sent to members who opt into it during registration. This is disabled by default.

How to contact BleepingComputer with privacy concerns

We are committed to protecting your data and addressing any privacy concerns that you may have. You can always contact us using our Contact Us form or you can snail mail us at:

Lawrence Abrams
Bleeping Computer, LLC.
273 Walt Whitman Road #255
Huntington Station, NY 11746
Tel: +1-646-980-4190

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