Privacy Statement

This Privacy Statement was last updated on July 15, 2009.
If you have not reviewed it since that date, please do so.
You will not receive any other notice of changes to this statement.

Privacy Information for Ancestry.com.

Overview:
Ancestry.com Operations Inc., operator of this Website (Site), (and referred to as 'Ancestry.com' 'Ancestry' 'we' 'us' 'our'), recognizes the confidentiality of information that may be disclosed by members or other visitors in registering or making purchases from our Website and we are firmly committed to protecting your privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for this Website.

Consent:
Unless permitted by law, no personal information is collected, without first obtaining your consent to the collection, use and dissemination of that information. However, we may seek consent to use and disclose personal information after it has been collected in those cases where we wish to use the information for a new or different purpose where you have not already consented to such a use of your personal information.

By providing personal information on this website, you agree and consent that we may collect, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with this Policy  In addition, where appropriate, specific authorizations or consents may be obtained from time to time.

In most cases, and subject to legal and contractual restrictions, you are free to refuse or withdraw your consent at any time, upon reasonable advance notice.  Note that in certain circumstances, products or services can only be offered or provided if you provide personal information. Consequently, if you choose not provide us with any required personal information, we may not be able to offer or provide the products or services requested.

Some of the specifics of our Privacy Policy are best described in the answers to the following Frequently Asked Questions:

Does Ancestry.com ask for personal information?
Yes. Ancestry.com asks for your name, e-mail address, and other limited personal information when you sign up as a member and use features such as e-mail, and make purchases at the Ancestry.com online store. Most of this information may be entered at your discretion. We may ask for similar information at other times, such as when you enter sweepstakes or other promotions sponsored by Ancestry.com and/or our many partners.

To facilitate payment and fulfillment for membership and purchases at the Ancestry.com online store, Ancestry.com will request personal credit card or debit card information. In order to take advantage of other value-added family services that may be offered by Ancestry.com in the future, users may be required to supply financial information.

As a member of Ancestry, you can also choose to share further information about yourself, your activity on our site, your background and interests with other members, The amount and type of the profile information you share in this way is entirely your choice. Information about some of your activity on the site, such as historical records you save, may also be shared with other members in order to help you connect with others researching similar ancestors. See Member Profiles below for more information on how you can edit or control what you allow other members to see about you and your site acitivity in your public profile or other places on the site.

How Does Ancestry.com use my personal information?
Our goal is to provide you with the most personalized, relevant, user-friendly Web experience possible. The primary use of all your personal information is to efficiently provide you with relevant information or services.

Ancestry.com will also use registration information to let you know about new features or other offers of interest from Ancestry.com, or to address customer service needs and requests.

In distributing advertiser or sponsor messages, the advertiser never has access to individual account information. Ancestry.com does not sell, rent or otherwise distribute the personal information you provide us to these advertisers. Advertisers simply provide an insertion order for the advertising message and Ancestry.com then displays the ad to appropriate users based on the criteria specified in the order.

Will Ancestry.com disclose any of my personal information to third parties?
Ancestry.com will not disclose any of your personal information, except with your knowledge and consent, or as described in this policy or as may be required by law, or to protect the rights or property of Ancestry.com.

We may disclose your personal information to individuals or organizations who are our service providers.  Where Ancestry.com discloses personal information to organizations that perform services on our behalf, we will require those service providers to use such information solely for the purposes of providing services to you or Ancestry.com and to have appropriate safeguards for the protection of that personal information.

Other circumstances where limited personal information may be disclosed are specifically described when the data is collected, such as in the User Agreement, or in the rules of sweepstakes or other promotions. So, in all cases you control what, if any, information you disclose.

Ancestry.com reserves the right to disclose aggregated user statistics, such as "45% of our users are female" or "47% of our users have attended college" in order to describe our services to prospective partners, advertisers, and other third parties.

Under protection of confidentiality agreements, Ancestry.com may match common user information, such as name, address and phone number with third party data to avoid duplication of promotional mailings, to comply with CAN SPAM and other laws and to prevent errors.

As our business continues to grow, we might buy or sell subsidiaries or business units. In these transactions, customer information is often one of the transferred assets, remaining subject to promises made in existing privacy statements. Also, in the event that Ancestry, or substantially all of its assets are acquired, customer information will as a matter of course be one of the transferred assets.

Additionally, if you click away from Ancestry.com to visit the site of any third party advertiser or sponsor, you may be asked for your credit card or other personal information in order to purchase or use products and services offered. These companies have their own privacy and data collection practices. Ancestry.com has no responsibility or liability for these independent policies. You should therefore review their privacy policies carefully if you have concerns about how your information may be used.

Where does Ancestry.com keep my information?
Currently, the principal place in which Ancestry.com holds personal information is in the city of Provo, Utah , Unites States of America, and nearby municipalities where off-site hosting or storage facilities may be located.

Will Ancestry.com use my information for direct mailings?
Ancestry.com will send electronic mail to you, for the purpose of informing you of changes or additions to Ancestry.com, or of any Ancestry.com related products and services. If you do not want to receive such mailings, you may opt out at any time by using the unsubscribe link listed in the e-mail or by making appropriate selections in the MyAccount tab on the Site.

May I refuse to provide personal information to Ancestry.com or to accept advertising?
Visitors may access Ancestry.com’s free services by providing a first name, last name, and e-mail address. To gain full access to the members-only areas, a username, e-mail address and appropriate billing information are required. Because the Ancestry.com site is partially advertiser supported, you may not "turn off" the advertising that appears on Ancestry.com pages, but you may opt to be excluded from any e-mail advertising.

Family information
Where you choose to invite other family members to view and edit your family tree, we will ask you for the family member's e-mail address. You must first make certain that you have obtained the consent of the family member to the passing of their details by you to Ancestry. Ancestry will only use this information for the purpose of contacting the relative with their access details and will not use the information for marketing purposes. In addition you should also make sure that information or material you wish to place on the site about your living relatives is only posted with their prior knowledge and consent.

How does Ancestry.com protect my information?
Ancestry.com endeavours to maintain appropriate physical, procedural and technical security with respect to its offices and information storage facilities, so as to prevent any loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, or modification of personal information. This also applies to our disposal or destruction of personal information.

Ancestry.com further protects personal information by restricting access to it to those of our personnel who have a need to know that information in order that we may provide our products or services.

May I access and review my personal information held by Ancestry.com?
Ancestry.com permits the reasonable right of access and review of your personal information held by us by allowing you to access account information via the MyAccount tab on the site.

Ancestry.com reserves the right to decline to provide access to personal information where the information requested:

a)  Would disclose (i) personal information, including opinions, about another individual or about a deceased individual; or (ii) trade secrets or other business or confidential information that may harm Ancestry.com or the competitive position of a third party;

b)  Would interfere with contractual or other negotiations of Ancestry.com or a third party;

c)  Is subject to solicitor-client, litigation or other legal privilege;

d)  Is not readily retrievable and the burden or cost of providing the information would be disproportionate to the nature or value of the information;

e)  Does not exist, is not held, or cannot be found by Ancestry.com;

f)  Could reasonably result in (i) serious harm to the treatment or recovery of the individual concerned, (ii) serious emotional harm to the individual concerned or another individual, or (iii) serious bodily harm to another individual;

g)  May harm or interfere with law enforcement activities and other investigative or regulatory functions of a body authorized by law to perform such functions; or

h)  May be withheld or is requested to be withheld under applicable legislation.

Where information will not or cannot be disclosed, you will be provided with the reasons for non-disclosure.

Does Ancestry.com use "IP Addresses" and cookies?
IP Addresses: We do use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer our Web site. Your IP address is also used to gather broad demographic information such as geographic distribution of our members.

Ancestry.com Cookies:
Contrary to popular myth, cookies do not extract private or personal information from your computer’s memory, but rather, record only information you volunteer to us upon registering or visiting the site. Cookies are tiny files placed onto the hard drive of your computer when you register at our Web site that enable our server to recognize or "remember" who you are each time you return. Ancestry.com may make limited use of cookies to deliver content specific to your interests. For instance they may be used to retain your personal preferences, hold session information for a "shopping basket," or save your password so it doesn’t have to be re-entered each time you login.

Advertiser Cookies:
We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads on our behalf. These companies may employ cookies and action tags (also known as single pixel gifs or web beacons) to measure advertising effectiveness.

What else should I know about privacy?
The following encapsulates a few key issues mentioned in context above.

Member Profiles
When you sign-up as a member you are provided with a public member profile pre-populated with your chosen username. Your user name and location will be displayed on the site when you post, comment or interact with other ancestry members. If you want additional privacy you can edit your username within your public profile to one that does not include any personally identifiable information. You can also enhance your Public Profile to provide additional information about yourself. Any information including any sensitive personal information that is disclosed in this area becomes public and you should therefore exercise caution when deciding what personal information you choose to disclose.

Through the Community Preferences link in the Ancestry 'My Account' section of the site, you can choose either to display your e-mail address with other members or ensure that your e-mail is withheld so that you are only contacted anonymously through the Ancestry Connection Service. You can also control when you are contacted or block certain people from contacting you.

You can also customize what other members can learn about your Ancestry site activity. To help you connect with other members researching similar ancestors, by default new accounts are set up to allow other members to learn about things you publicly add or post to the site, as well as some personal research activities (such as saving historical records to your Shoebox or private member tree). To customize these settings, simply go to the “Activity Preferences” link on the Community Preferences page.

To make other changes to your Public Profile or site preferences go to "My Public Profile" or "My Site Preferences" sections of the site.

Public forums – Ancestry Community
This site makes forums, message boards and/or newsgroups available to its members. Any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should take care when deciding what personal information to disclose to others.

Contests & Promotions
Ancestry.com may occasionally run contests or other special promotions on our site in which we ask members or visitors for contact information (like an e-mail address) or demographic information (like a zip code, age, or income level). We use this data to send you promotional material about our company or our partners. Your contact information is also used to contact you when necessary and may be shared with other companies for promotional purposes, but only with your prior permission and under the terms and conditions specified when you take part in the promotion. At any time, you may opt-out of receiving future mailings of this kind, or simply decline to take part in the promotions.

Contacting the Website
If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, access to your personal information or your dealings with this Website, you can contact:

Ancestry.com
360 W 4800 N
Provo, UT 84604

Contact Ancestry