Effective: 10 December 2020
Version:
This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) describes the personal information which Times Internet Limited (“We” or “Us”, “Our or “Company”) collects from you when you download, access, or use its Website or Mobile Application(“Sites”) ( The Sites applicable in this policy have been listed below in
Annexure 1 and 2 ).
This Policy shall not apply if you access or use Our Sites outside of the European Union (“EU”) and California Region.
This Privacy Policy should be read in conjunction with the Terms of Use applicable to the TIL services you are using.
Please keep in mind that when you provide personal information to Us on a third-party site or platform (for example, via social media login); the personal information We collect is through those third-party sites linked with Our Sites and is covered by this privacy policy, and the personal information third-party site or platform collects is subject to third-party site or platform’s privacy practices. Privacy choices you have made on the third-party site or platform will not apply to Our use of the personal information We have collected directly through our Sites. Please also keep in observance that Our Sites may contain links to other Sites not owned or controlled by Us and We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those Sites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave Our Sites to read the privacy policies of other Sites that may collect your personal information.
All capitalized terms that have not been specifically defined herein shall have the same meaning as provided under the Terms of Use.
User Consent
By using the Sites, you agree to Our terms of collection, storage and use of your personal information which you provide to Us in accordance with this policy. You also provide consent to transfer your personal information outside your country to India. In some cases, particularly if you reside in a country governed by a data protection regulation, We may ask you to provide explicit consent prior collection of personal information as may be required; before processing your personal information. In case you are a roaming user or if you are a traveller visiting various countries around the world and avail vijaya Karnataka’s services, then We will consider the country of registration as your primary country and the consents obtained at the time of registration will be valid for your processing of personal information.
Accessing Website and TIL Services through VPN
You should not access or use the Sites by means of any mechanism or technology which conceals your actual geo-location or provides incorrect details of your location (for example, use a virtual private network (VPN) to access TIL Services).
We will not be responsible or liable for any collection, storage or processing of your personal information if you use any mechanism or technology to access or use Sites which conceals your actual geo-location.
Collection and Use of Personal Information
‘Personal Information’ or ‘PII’ is defined as any information that identifies (whether directly or indirectly) to a particular individual or natural person, such as the individual’s name, postal address, email address, mobile number and any other identifier indicating to that particular person. When anonymous information is directly or indirectly associated with personal information, the resulting information also is treated as personal information.
A. Information you provide to us
Information collected at the time of Registration
You may register on Our Sites using Times Internet Limited (“TIL”) SSO login. During registration, We ask that you provide basic personal information from you to continue to interact with you and to continue providing you the Services. Information that We collect incudes but are not limited to the following-
- Mobile number; Or
- Email Address
You may also refer to Our SSO
Policy for more details regarding the personal information processed while registering on the Sites.
Information collected when you use our Sites
When you use Our Sites, We may collect, including but not limited to, the below information from you-
- Location/IP address for geo-locating accurate up to 300 meters
- Device ID
- SMS for OTP
- In App permissions for capturing location, storage, network connection and Wi-Fi connection
- Android Advertiser ID/ iDFA ID
- City
- State
- SSO ID
- Reviews and comments provided by you
- Your preferences while using the Sites
- Your activities and browsing patterns on the Site
- Articles and Topics, you have read, followed, shared and saved
- People you follow and people following you
Information you provide to Us voluntarily
If you send Us personal correspondence, such as emails or letters, or if other users or third parties send Us correspondence about your activities or postings on the Site, We may collect and store such information.
We may collect additional information at other times, including but not limited to, when you change your content or email preferences, comment on stories, write a movie review of Our services, or communicate with Us.
B. Information automatically collected while browsing/navigating through the Website
Cookies
We use cookies and other similar technologies which are necessary for the functioning of Our Websites. Some of these cookies are used to provide you with essential services while some are used to track your interaction with the Website for an enhanced experience. For more information about cookies We use, please refer to our
Cookie Policy.
Do Not Track
The Website currently do not process or respond to “Do Not Track” requests/signals which some internet browsers have the ability to send out.
C. Inferred Information through usage and log data
We may track certain information about you based upon your behaviour in using TIL services. We use this information for conducting internal research on demographics, devices, interests, and behaviour to better understand, protect and serve Our users.
We may also collect your Information to track user behaviour and preferences for internal analytics and research. We may also use your information:
- To evaluate your interest for various genres of content, services;
- To perform analytics and conduct customer research, to determine your interest, for identifying content that generate sales and to analyze traffic patterns.
If you choose to post messages on Our social media accounts, pages or leave feedback, We will collect that information you provide to Us. We retain this information as necessary to resolve disputes, provide customer support and troubleshoot problems as permitted by law.
The above information may also be captured by keeping cookies on Our Websites by our affiliates for the purposes mentioned above.
D. Information We collect from third parties
Information obtained from other sources
We may receive personal information about you from other sources, add it to your account information and treat it in accordance with this policy. If you provide personal information to another platform provider or any other partner, whom We provide services, your account information and other personal information may be passed on to Us. We may obtain updated contact information from third parties in order to correct our records or fulfil Our Services and to communicate with you.
Demographic and other information
We may reference other sources of demographic information in order to provide you with more targeted communications and promotions. We use various analytics service providers, among others, to track the user behavior on Our Website. They are used to support display advertising towards helping Us gain understanding of Our users' Demographics and Interests. The reports are anonymous and cannot be associated with any individual personally identifiable information that you may have shared with us. You can opt-out or opt-in by giving a consent to serve you advertisements when you visit our Sites.
Subscription or Paid service data
When you chose any subscription or paid service, Our payment gateway provider may collect your personal information such as address or billing information, including your credit/debit card number and expiration date etc. The subscriptions or paid Services may be on auto renewal mode unless cancelled. If at any point you do not wish to auto-renew your subscription, you may cancel your subscription before the end of the subscription term or contact Us on Our support e-mail.
Transactional/ Billing information
Based on your purchase of a subscription or paid service, Our payment gateway partner may collect information, including but not limited to, your credit/debit card details or other bank account details along with your billing address. This information is stored by the payment gateway partner. For instance, Our Sites will be using third party payment gateway partners to process and facilitate the payment of your subscription fee to provide you access to Our Services; and such payment gateway partners are not controlled by Us. When you visit such payment gateways you do so at your own risk. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the privacy statements provided by such payment gateways prior to providing them with information about you or entering into any transactions with them. We do not assume any responsibility or liability for such payment gateways, the content of such payment gateways and their privacy practices, nor do We endorse them.
We may receive financial or transactional information (for e.g., transaction ID, etc.) from Our payment gateway partners in case of payments, for reconciliation and validation of transactions and for the purpose of resolutions of complaints (in case of failed transactions and refunds).
Disclosure to Third parties
Service Providers
The Sites may include links to other websites or applications (for e.g., links to payment gateways for payment of subscription fees). Such websites or applications are governed by their respective privacy policies, which are beyond Our control. Once you leave Our servers (you can tell where you are by checking the URL in the location bar on your browser), use of any information you provide is governed by the privacy policy of the operator of the application, website you are visiting. That policy may differ from Ours. If you can't find the privacy policy of any of these sites via a link from the application's/website homepage, you should contact the application/website owners directly for more information.
Advertisers
We do not provide any personally identifiable information to third party Websites / advertisers / ad-servers without your explicit consent.
Legal
In the event TIL entity is merged with or acquired by another company or in case of re-organization or re-structuring of business, We and our affiliates may share your personal information, wholly or in part, with the merged entity.
Business transfers
We provide personal information to our affiliates and other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures. For example, We may use service providers to help us with customer support.
Times points
We may share your activity on our Sites both for processing and for calculation of reward points of your profile with Times Points. This information may be stored by them.
Usage of our Mobile Applications
This policy shall also apply to our mobile applications that are available in the European Economic Area (EEA) and California Region. These Mobile applications have been updated to make them compliant to the EU GDPR and California’s CCPA data privacy regulation. Few of our mobile applications providing TIL services have been discontinued in certain platforms in the European region. A list of mobile applications updated can be seen at <
Annexure 2> and list of mobile applications to be deleted can be seen at <
Annexure 3>.
You are urged to update to the most current version of mobile applications and/or to delete certain mobile applications listed in Annexure 2 and Annexure 3 that We no longer provide access, service or support so that We do not collect or store personal information of users located in the EEA and California. If you use an older version of these apps and/or access discontinued services, then We may collect, store and process your personal information. In such case We would not be responsible or liable for such collection, storage and processing of your personal information.
Lawful Basis of Processing
We will only collect and process personal information about you where We have a lawful basis. Lawful basis on which We would process Our personal information includes obtaining consent from you for processing your personal information or for fulfilling Our contractual obligations or processing for “legitimate interests” where processing is necessary by Us to provide you with services.
Business or commercial purposes for collecting, processing and disclosing your personal information
We or Our service providers may collect and process your personal information for the following business or commercial purposes
- To provide you and administer our services;
- Enabling registration/sign in and maintaining your accounts on SSO and vijaya Karnataka;
- Providing you location specific content;
- Analyze and understand our audience, improve our service (including our user interface experiences), recommendation algorithms and delivery which may require sharing personal information with our group companies and affiliates or third-party service providers;
- To help advertisers understand our audience and confirm the value of advertising on our Sites and to provide you relevant ads;
- Communicate with you concerning Our service (for example by email), so that We can send you news about TIL, details about new features and content available on Our Services,promotional announcements, and surveys and to assist you with operational requests such as password reset requests;
- Provide you with push notifications on your browser;
- Provide news alerts on your WhatsApp after you click on the hook and provide mobile number;
- Displaying your blogs and comments on the Sites;
- Allow you to participate in interactive features offered through Our Sites;
- Sharing with Our customer support team to resolve your queries/concerns;
- Help you exercise your data subject rights;
- Detecting, protecting against, and prosecuting security incidents and fraudulent or illegal activity;
- Notify you about changes in terms of service or privacy policy;
Information use by the Company
The personal information as supplied by you enables Us to improve the Sites and provide you the most user-friendly experience. In some cases/provision of certain service(s) or utility (ies), We may require your contact address as well. All required personal information is service dependent and TIL may use the above said personal information to, maintain, protect, and improve the Sites and for developing new services. We may also use your email address or other personally identifiable information to send commercial or marketing messages with your consent [with an option to subscribe / unsubscribe (where feasible)]. We may, however, use your email address without further consent for non-marketing or administrative purposes (such as notifying you of major changes, for customer service purposes, billing, for notifying you in case of breach incidents, etc.) If you are interested in opting-out from specific interest-based ads, you can opt-out through the privacy policy page or opt-out page available at
Colombia link If you have opted out, you will not obtain personalized ads from Us via Colombia.
Any personally identifiable information provided by you will not be considered as sensitive if it is freely available and / or accessible in the public domain like any comments, messages, blogs, scribbles available on social platforms like Facebook, twitter etc. Any posted/uploaded/conveyed/communicated by you on the public sections of the Sites becomes published content and is not considered personally identifiable information subject to this Privacy Policy. In case you choose to decline to submit personally identifiable information on the Sites, We may not be able to provide certain services to you. We will make reasonable efforts to notify you of the same at the time of opening your account. In any case, We will not be liable and or responsible for the denial of certain services to you for lack of you providing the necessary personal information.
When you register with the Site, We contact you from time to time about updating your personal information to provide you with features that We believe may benefit/interest you.
Information sharing
The Company shares your personal information with third parties in the following limited circumstances:
- When it is requested or required by law or by any court or governmental agency or authority to disclose, for the purpose of verification of identity, or for the prevention, detection, investigation including cyber incidents, or for prosecution and punishment of offences. These disclosures are made in good faith and belief that such disclosure is reasonably necessary for enforcing these Terms or for complying with the applicable laws and regulations.
- TIL proposes to share such information within its group companies and officers and employees of such group companies for the purpose of processing personal information on its behalf. We also ensure that these recipients of such information agree to process such information based on our instructions and in compliance with this Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
- When you interact with vijaya Karnataka (such as follow articles, follow other users, follow activities etc.) MyTimes (an affiliate of TIL) will collect your follow activities and create a MyTimes profile against those activities for you to refer to them at a later stage to review your comments on the articles and your activities. MyTimes doesn’t collect any additional personal information but only tracks your activities on various vijaya Karnataka Sites for the articles or topics that you choose to follow or the users you wish to follow. Any comments, views, shares that are performed by you will be available publicly
- In case you are not logged in as a TIL SSO user and wish to comment on any article or topic, We will ask for your name and email address and will be stored by TIL to display them against your comments. Please note that your name and email address against your comment will be stored by vijaya Karnataka for legal and regulatory purposes. Further, vijaya Karnataka reserves the right to delete or disapprove any comment related or unrelated to the respective article or post if We find it defamatory, abusive or illegal.
How long do We store and use your information
We retain personal information which We have collected no longer than is necessary. This is determined on a case by case basis. Normally, We will retain the information as long as you maintain an account with Us and till the time you continue to access and use TIL Services. We will delete your information whenever you request Us to do so. However, We may archive and/or retain some information for legal purposes.
EEA Residents’ Controls and Choices
For any of the below request you may send Us an e-mail to our support team
A. Accessing & rectifying your personal information
When you use Our Services (Sites), We make good faith efforts to provide you, as and when requested by you, with access to your personal information and shall further ensure that any personal information or sensitive personal information found to be inaccurate or deficient shall be corrected or amended as feasible. We ask individual users to identify themselves and the information requested to be accessed or corrected before processing such requests. We may decline to process requests that are unreasonably repetitive or systematic, requiring disproportionate technical effort, jeopardizing the privacy of others, or would be extremely impractical (for instance, requests concerning information residing on backup tapes), or for which access is not otherwise required. In any case, where We provide information access and correction, We perform this service free of charge, except if doing so would require a disproportionate effort.
You can make access requests by sending an e-mail to Our Grievance officer. You will get a link on your registered Email address through which you can access all the information vijaya Karnataka collects and stores about you.
You can ask Us to correct inaccurate or incomplete personal information
- Concerning your login credentials by editing the same through My Accounts section, through the SSO portal. The same shall be reflected across all properties.
- Concerning details that are separately collected and maintained by vijaya Karnataka by sending an e-mail to Our support team to perform the rectification.
B. Data Portability
You may also be entitled to request copies of personal information that you have provided to Us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format; wherever feasible. If you are registered on the vijaya Karnataka Services, then you can download the information which We have collected and stored by using the Download functionality through this
link. Through this, a copy of your information that We have collected and stored will be downloaded on your machine.
C. Information Retention and Erasure
We retain your personal information as long as necessary for Us to provide services to you or you ask Us to not retain your information. If you no longer want Us to use your information then you can request that We erase your personal information and close your TIL account. Please note that if you request for the erasure of your personal information;
- The personal information (Name, E-mail, Mobile No) will be retained as a part of the SSO Login functionality and will be governed by the SSO Login Policy.
- We may retain some of your personal information as necessary for Our legitimate business interests, such as fraud detection and prevention and enhancing safety. For example, if We suspend a TIL account for fraud or safety reasons, We may retain certain information from that account to prevent that user from opening a new account in the future.
- We may retain and use your personal information to the extent necessary to comply with Our legal obligations. For example, We may keep some of your information for tax, legal reporting and auditing obligations.
- Information you have shared with others (e.g., Comments, Reviews, etc.) may continue to be publicly visible on the TIL, even after your account is cancelled. However, attribution of such information to you will be removed. Additionally, some copies of your information (e.g., log records) may remain in Our database, but are disassociated from personal identifiers.
- Because of the way We maintain certain services, after you delete your information, residual copies may take a period of time before they are deleted from Our active servers and may remain in Our backup systems.
You can request for deletion of your information by using the delete functionality through this
Link. Your request will be processed, and you will receive confirmation of the same via email. Please note that this will only perform a deletion of the information that has been collected by vijaya Karnataka and will disable your SSO information for vijaya Karnataka. You will still exist as a user across all the other TIL platforms. In case you also wish to delete your SSO related information, kindly follow the instructions displayed on the screen or please read the SSO privacy policy to understand how to invoke your rights.
Please note that if you have multiple accounts with us, then you will have to raise separate requests for each of the accounts, along with the associated email IDs or phone numbers.
D. Withdrawing Consent and Restriction of Processing
For withdrawing your consent at any time during the tenure of your services with Us, you may choose to do so by sending Us an e-mail to Our support team. We shall review your request and may ask you to verify your identity. Post verification We will withdraw the consent for which request was made by you and stop any further processing of your personal information.
E. Objection to Processing
Where your personal information is processed for direct marketing purposes or any contests or promotions or other services, you may, at any time ask Us to cease processing your information for these direct marketing purposes by sending an e-mail to Our support team.
Please be aware that if you do not allow Us to collect personal information from you, We may not be able to deliver certain experiences, and services to you, and some of Our services may not be able to take account of your interests and preferences. If collection of personal information is mandatory, We will make that clear at the point of collection so that you can make an informed decision whether to participate. If you have questions about the specific personal information about you that We process or retain, and your rights regarding that personal information, please contact Us at the below mentioned e-mail address.
We may take 30 days from the date of receipt of request to complete your requests. However, if the nature of the requests are excessive in nature or would require significant effort then may ask for an extension of 60 days by giving a prior notice to you with the reason for the extension.
We ask individual users to identify themselves and the information requested to be accessed, corrected or removed before processing such requests, and We may decline to process requests that are unreasonably repetitive or systematic, require disproportionate technical effort, jeopardize the privacy of others, or would be extremely impractical (for instance, requests concerning information residing on backup tapes), or for which access is not otherwise required. In any case, where We provide information access and correction, We perform this service free of charge, except if doing so would require a disproportionate effort.
F. Complaints
You can write to Us in case of any grievance or compliant at the support e-mail address. If you have any complaints regarding processing of your personal information you may contact Our data protection officer or Our grievance officer at the below mentioned e-mail address. You have the right to complaint about the data processing activities carried out by TIL before the competent data protection authorities.
Children’s Privacy
TIL is not intentionally designed for or directed at persons less than 18 years of age. TIL does not knowingly permit any person who is under 18 years of age to register with the services or to provide any other personally identifying information. If TIL becomes aware that any personally identifiable information of persons less than 18 years of age has been collected on TIL Services without verified parental consent, then TIL will take the appropriate steps to delete any such information and notify the parent.
However, We consider it the responsibility of parents to monitor their children’s use of Our services. Nevertheless, it is Our policy not to collect and process any personal information from children below 18 years of age or offer to send any promotional materials to persons in that category. TIL does not seek or intend to seek or receive any personal information from children. Should a parent or guardian have reasons to believe that a minor has provided TIL with personal information without their prior consent, please contact Our customer support team to ensure that the personal information is removed from the TIL services.
Data transfer, storage and processing globally
We operate globally and may transfer your personal information to individual companies of the TIL affiliated companies or third parties in locations around the world for the purposes described in this privacy policy. Wherever your personal information is transferred, stored or processed by us, We will take reasonable steps to safeguard the privacy of your personal information. Additionally, when using or disclosing personal information transferred from the European Union, We use standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission, adopt other means under European Union law for ensuring adequate safeguards.
Security measures
We take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data. These include internal reviews of Our data collection, storage and processing practices and security measures, including appropriate encryption and physical security measures to guard against unauthorized access to systems where We store personal information. All information gathered on the Site is securely stored within the TIL controlled database. The database is stored on servers secured behind a firewall; access to the servers is password-protected and is strictly limited. However, as effective as Our security measures are, no security system is impenetrable. If you know or have reason to believe that your TIL account credentials have been lost, stolen, altered, or otherwise compromised or in case of any actual or suspected unauthorized use of your account, please contact Us by contacting Our customer support team.
Updates & Changes
We may alter Our privacy policy from time to time to incorporate necessary changes in technology, applicable law or any other variant. We reserve the right to amend the terms of this Policy from time to time. Any changes We make will be effective immediately on notice, which We may give by posting the new policy on the Site. We may also make reasonable efforts to inform you via electronic mail. In any case, you are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically on the Site.
Contact us
Support
If you require any information or clarification regarding the use of your personal information or this privacy policy or grievances with respect to use of your personal information, please email Us at grievance[dot]it[at]timesinternet[dot]in
Data Controller Officer
The data protection officer (DPO) appointed by Times Internet Limited is Sumit Malhotra who can be contacted at
[email protected]You can also write to:
Times Internet Limited
Express Building, 9-10, Bahadurshah Zafar Marg, New Delhi - 110002If you have any queries, complaints regarding the collecting, processing, transfer of personal information or regarding this policy please do contact Our Data Protection Officer.
Last Updated – 1st March 2021
ADDITIONAL NOTICE TO CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS
This supplemental Privacy Notice is an addendum to the information provided in Our Privacy Policy above and applies solely to California residents. This section of the Privacy Policy applies to
https://vijaykarnataka.com/ and other Websites or mobile applications (“Sites”)that link to this Privacy Policy, listed in Annexure 1 and 2.
Please note that this section does not apply to any Third-Party Website or application (not listed in Annexure 1 and 2) that you may access via the Sites. These third-party services are governed by the privacy policies that appear on their Sites. As used in this section of the Privacy Policy, “personal information” means any information that can identify, relate to, describe, be associated with, or be reasonably capable of being associated with a particular consumer or household
A. Do Not Sell My Info
Under CCPA, users based out of California have the right to “Opt Out” of such sale of their information at any time. Please be advised that vijaya Karnataka does not sell personal information for monetary consideration; however, we may share certain personal information with third parties under circumstances which might be deemed a “sale” under the California Consumer Privacy Act
Therefore, if you would like to proceed with your “Do Not Sell My Info” request, use the following button.
![](https://docs.google.com/drawings/u/0/d/sIIgoDTgtnkWmHiXU_WnHIA/image?w=236&h=32&rev=1&ac=1&parent=1p26BG_nO2ZqlojhNJt5GrlViGaB-DmNW)
Alternatively, you can submit a request via <email> that includes your name, registered email id or mobile number.
Please note that we do not knowingly sell the personal information of minors under 16 years of age without legally required affirmative authorization.
B. California Residents’ Rights
Residents of California are entitled to certain rights under CCPA.
- Right to Know - You can request and receive a copy of the specific pieces of the personal information that We have collected from you in the last 12 months of making the request.
You will receive the copy of your requested information electronically in a portable and technically feasible format, free of charge. This request can be made by the user twice in a period of 12 months.
- Right to Delete - You can request deletion of your personal information that We have collected except where an exemption applies
We take reasonable steps to verify your identity before responding to any of the above requests, which may include, at a minimum, depending on the sensitivity of the information you are requesting and the type of request you are making, verifying your name, email address or mobile number.
You are also permitted to designate an authorized agent to submit certain requests on your behalf. In order for an authorized agent to be verified, you must provide the authorized agent with signed, written permission to make such requests or a power of attorney. We may also follow up with you to verify your identity before processing the authorized agent’s request.
C. Non-discrimination for exercising your rights
CCPA prohibits discrimination against California residents for exercising their rights under CCPA. vijaya Karnataka holds the practice of non-discrimination strongly and does not denies or provides a different level or quality of services or charges different rates or penalties on residents who exercise their CCPA rights.
D. Metrics
California law requires Us to compile metrics for the previous calendar year regarding consumer requests and responses catered. vijaya Karnataka will disclose the metrics with relevant details by July every year
https://navbharattimes.indiatimes.com/,
https://maharashtratimes.com/,
https://eisamay.indiatimes.com/,
https://vijaykarnataka.com/,
https://malayalam.samayam.com/,
https://telugu.samayam.com/,
https://tamil.samayam.com/ANNEXURE 2
List of applications to be updated:
Website/Mobile App
| Platform
| Supported Version
|
Navbharat Times
| Android/Iphone
|
|
Maharashtra Times
| Android/Iphone
|
|
EIS
| Android/Iphone
|
|
Vijay Karnataka
| Android/Iphone
|
|
Telugu Samayam
| Android/Iphone
|
|
Tamil Samayam
| Android/Iphone
|
|
Malayalam Samayam
| Android/Iphone
|
|
Iamgujarat
| Android/Iphone
|
|
ANNEXURE 3
List of applications no longer supported: