Scribd, Inc. Privacy Policy

Scribd, Inc. (“the Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) owns and operates this website (“Site”). We recognize the importance of protecting the privacy of your personal information, and we have prepared this Privacy Policy to provide you with important information about our privacy practices. This Privacy Policy applies when you use the Site. It does not govern or apply to information collected or used by the Company through other means, such as information we collect on our other websites, applications, or your interactions on those services, through an account or otherwise. The Company operates four separate products: Everand™, Scribd®, Slideshare®, and Fable (“Products”), which have their own respective privacy policies. This Privacy Policy also does not apply to data collected by third-party websites and online services developed using our Site.

1. Information We Collect

We may collect personal information about you in various ways. For example, we may collect information that you provide to us, information that we collect through your use of the Site, and information that we collect from publicly available sources or third parties.

a. Information You Provide to Us

When you use or otherwise interact with the Site, you may be invited to provide personal information to us. For example, you may provide us with information when you:

  • Use the Site;
  • Visit or engage with our Site; and
  • Otherwise communicate with us through the Site.

b. Automatically Collected Information

In addition to the information you provide to us directly, we may collect information about your use of the Site or your device. As discussed further below, we and our service providers (which are third party companies that work on our behalf), may use cookies, web beacons, and other technologies, as detailed in the Online Tracking and Advertising section below, to assist in collecting this information.

For example, we may collect:

  • Device Information—such as your hardware model, IP address, other unique device identifiers, operating system version, browser type and settings, such as language and available font settings, and settings of the device you use to access the Site.
  • Usage Information—such as information about your use of the Site, the time and duration of your use of the Site and other information about your interaction with content offered through a Service, customer service interactions, cursor movements and certain screen interactions, and any information stored using cookies, mobile ad identifiers, and similar technologies that we have set on your device.
  • Location Information—such as your computer’s IP address, your mobile device’s GPS signal or information about nearby WiFi access points and cell towers that may be transmitted to us when you use the Site in certain ways.

c. Information from Third-Party Sources

We may receive information about you from publicly and commercially available sources, as permitted by law, which we may combine with other information we receive from or about you.

d. Other Information We Collect

We also may collect other information about you, your device, or your use of the Site in ways that we describe to you at the point of collection or otherwise with your consent. You may choose not to provide us with certain types of information but doing so may affect your ability to use some of the Site.

2. How We Use Information

We use your information for various business and commercial purposes, such as:

  • To provide you with the Site;
  • To respond to your questions or inquiries, including to provide customer support and troubleshooting assistance;
  • To communicate with you;
  • To manage and remember your preferences and personalize the Site;
  • To analyze and improve the Site or any other products and services we provide;
  • To verify your identity;
  • To comply with our legal obligations or as permitted by law;
  • To protect the safety and/or integrity of our users, employees, third parties, members of the public, and/or our Site;
  • To prevent fraud and enforce our legal terms; and
  • To administer and troubleshoot the Site.

We may aggregate and/or de-identify information collected through the Site. We may use de-identified or aggregated data for any purpose, including without limitation for research and marketing purposes and may also share such data with any third parties, including without limitation, advertisers, promotional partners, sponsors, event promoters, and/or others.

3. Sharing of Information

The following provides information about entities with which we may share information. Our practices vary depending on the type of information.

  • Affiliates. We may share information within our family of affiliated companies and our brands, including Scribd, Everand, Slideshare, and Fable.
  • Service Providers. We may share information with vendors providing contractual services to us, such as hosting vendors.
  • Other Parties When Required by Law or As Necessary to Protect Our Users and the Site. We may share your personal information as we believe is necessary or appropriate to protect, enforce, or defend the legal rights, privacy, safety, or property of the Site, our employees or agents or users or to comply with applicable law or legal process, including responding to requests from public and government authorities.
  • Business Transfer. We may share or disclose certain information, in connection with or during negotiations of any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company.
  • Otherwise with Your Consent/At Your Direction. In addition to the sharing described in this Privacy Policy, we may share information about you with third parties whenever you consent to or direct such sharing.

We also may share other information with third parties in a manner that does not identify particular users or entities, including, for example, aggregated data about how users are using our Site.

4. Embedded Content and Links to Third-Party Sites and Services

Our Site may embed content from, or link to, third-party websites and services, including social media platforms, that are outside of our control. We are not responsible for the security or privacy of any information collected by other websites or other services. This Privacy Policy does not govern these third party’s content or services, and we encourage you to review the privacy statements applicable to the third-party websites and services you use.

5. Data Security

We have in place physical, electronic and managerial procedures to protect the information we collect online. However, as effective as these measures are, no security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of our database, nor can we guarantee that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the Internet.

6. Children’s Privacy

We do not knowingly collect any personal information from children under the age of 18 without parental consent, unless permitted by law. If we learn that a child under the age of 18 has provided us with personal information, we will delete it in accordance with applicable law.

7. Online Tracking & Advertising

We, our service providers, and third parties that provide content, advertising, or functionality may use cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies to facilitate administration and navigation on the Site, to better understand and improve our Site, to determine and/or improve the advertising shown to you, and to provide you with a customized online experience.

For information on how to accept or reject cookies (including third-party cookies), please click the “Your Privacy Choices” link (or “Cookie Preferences” in the EU) in the footer of the Site. If you do not allow our Site’s cookies, then the Site may not work properly.

If you would like to opt-out of certain of these Technologies, you may do so by blocking, deleting, or disabling them as your browser or device permits, though this may impact the Site. Visit https://optout.networkadvertising.org/ to learn more about opting out of interest-based advertising. For additional ways to opt-out of targeted advertising activities under applicable law, see the “Your Rights and Choices” section below.

Please note that these opt-outs apply per browser and per device, so you will have to opt out for each device—and each browser on each device—through which you access our Site.

8. International Transfers

The information that we collect or receive about you may be transferred to, and processed by, recipients that are located inside or outside the EEA+ and which are not recognized from an EEA+ law perspective as providing for an adequate level of data protection. When interacting with our site or contacting us, you transfer information to the United States, and Scribd may then transfer your information back to the originating country. To the extent your information is transferred to countries that do not provide for an adequate level of data protection from an EU, Swiss or UK law perspective, we will base the respective transfer on appropriate safeguards, such as standard data protection contractual clauses adopted by the European Commission. You can ask for a copy of such appropriate safeguards by contacting us as set out in the contact section.

9. Users in the EEA, United Kingdom, and Switzerland

Under applicable law in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland, Scribd, Inc. located at 460 Bryant St #300, San Francisco, CA 94107, United States of America is considered the “data controller” of the personal information we handle under this Policy.  In other words, Scribd, Inc. is responsible for deciding how to collect, use and disclose this information, subject to applicable law. Scribd Netherlands BV is our EU representative. Persons in the EU/EEA+ should contact Scribd Netherlands BV by email at privacy@scribd.com or by postal mail at Schiphol Boulevard 195, 1118 BG Schiphol, The Netherlands (Attention: Data Privacy). 

Legal Bases for Processing

Legal bases for our processing of your information are:

  1. The performance of a contract, where we have entered into a contract with you and need to process your information in order to fulfill our contractual obligations to you,

  2. Our legitimate interests for the transfer of your information which are the following:

    1. for internal administrative and support purposes;
    2. compliance with a legal obligation to which Scribd is subject, for example if we are required by law to disclose information to law enforcement agencies or governmental authorities;
    3. for the purposes of exercising our legal rights or defending legal claims;
    4. our legitimate interests for the transfer of your information in connection with a transfer of all or part of our organization or assets; and
    5. our legitimate interests to protect and defend the rights or property of the Company or third parties, including enforcing Policies, Terms, and Guidelines and in an emergency including to protect the safety of our employees or any person which are the following: to protect the property, rights, and safety of any person and to prevent fraud.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us as described in the “Contact Us” section below. In addition to those rights, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority. However, we encourage you to contact us first, and we will do our very best to resolve your concern.

10. Users in California

If you are a user that is a California resident, the following information applies with respect to personal data collected through your use of our Site.

Additional Disclosures.

The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) requires us to provide you with some additional information.

  • We may collect, use, and disclose for our business and commercial purposes, the following categories of information about our business contacts and associates:

    • Identifiers (such as name, address, email address, phone number); commercial information (such as transaction data); financial data (such as masked credit card number, credit card expiration date, and billing address); user-generated content; device information and identifiers (such as IP address); internet or other network or device activity (such as browsing history or app usage); professional and employment related information; location data; audio or visual information (such as if you participate in a phone survey or submit a photo); demographic data (such as gender, birthday, and physical address); inference data; Arc account username and passwords; and other information that identifies or can be reasonably associated with you (including data you input in the platform in author pages or custom fields not monitored by Arc).
  • We may use these categories of information for the purposes described in Section 2 above.

  • We may disclose your information to:

    • any of the above categories of information we collect with: our affiliates; business partners to provide you with services that you request; service providers; analytics providers; other parties, including government entities, when required by law or to protect our users and services; and with your consent or in connection with a corporate transaction and
    • device information and identifiers and internet or other network or device activity with entities that provide and improve service functionality.

Privacy Rights.

California residents have the following rights with respect to their personal information collected through use of the Site and subject to this Policy.

  • Right to access. You have the right to request that we disclose to you what personal information we collect, use, disclose, share, and sell about you.
  • Right to delete. You have the right to request that we delete your personal information that we’ve collected.
  • Right to correction. You have the right to request that inaccurate personal information we hold about you be corrected.
  • Right to opt-out of sale or sharing of your personal information. You have the right to opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information. However, we do not sell or share (for the purpose of cross-context behavioral advertising) your personal information, as those terms are defined under the CCPA.
  • Right to restrict the use and disclosure of your sensitive information. You have the right to request that we limit our use and disclosure of your sensitive personal information. Please note, in the limited circumstances that we process sensitive personal information as defined by the CCPA, we do not use or disclose it other than for disclosed and permitted business purposes for which there is not a right to limit under the CCPA.
  • Right to nondiscrimination. You have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment because you’ve exercised any of your rights under the CCPA.
  • Right to transparency. California residents can also request information about the categories of personal information we collect, disclose or sell or share about you; the categories of sources of such information; the business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling or sharing your personal information; and the categories of third parties to whom we disclose personal information. Such information is also set forth in this Privacy Policy.

If you would like information regarding your rights or would like to make a request (or if you are an authorized agent acting in accordance with applicable law), please send an email to the address listed in the Contact Us section below.

  • We will take reasonable steps to verify your identity and requests, including by verifying your account information, residency or the email address you provide. If you are an authorized agent submitting a request on behalf of another individual, we may require proof of your written authorization before processing the request.
  • Certain information may be exempt from such requests under applicable law such as information we retain for legal compliance and to secure our Site. We may need certain information in order to provide the Site to you; if you ask us to delete it, you may no longer be able to use the Site.
  • Applicable law may further provide you with the right to not be discriminated against for exercising your rights.

Retention.

We keep your information to fulfill the purposes described above, unless a longer retention is required or permitted by law. Our retention is based upon the amount, nature and sensitivity of the information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of the information, the purposes for which we process the information, applicable legal requirements, and our legitimate interests. The purposes for which we process information may dictate different retention periods for the same types of information. We may delete or de-identify your information sooner if we receive a verifiable deletion request, subject to exemptions under applicable law.

11. Personal Information Deletion Requests

You can submit requests regarding deletion of your personal information associated with your account by contacting the email in the Contact Us section below.

12. Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We may modify this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of changes by posting changes here, or by other appropriate means. Any changes to the Privacy Policy will become effective when the updated policy is posted on the Site. Your use of the Site or your provision of personal information to use the Site following such changes indicates your acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy.

13. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the Site, please contact us at privacy@scribd.com.