Privacy Policy for Macmillan Dictionary

Introduction

We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy. It will help you to understand how we use your personal information.

If there is anything in this policy that you do not understand, or you have a question about how we use your personal information, please write to us at the address given at the end of this policy.

We may change this privacy policy at any time, so please check it each time you visit this website. By using our website, you are agreeing that we can use your personal information as it says in this privacy policy.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are under twelve years old, you must obtain your parent's or guardian's permission before you send us any personal information. We may ask for proof that your parent or guardian has given his/her permission before we collect any personal information from you.

Parents / guardians

We think it's important for parents and guardians to spend time online with their children and to participate in the activities offered on our website. If your child is younger than 12, we ask you to play an active role in safeguarding his or her privacy when using our website.

What personal information do we collect?

We may collect various types of personal information from you (such as your name, address, email address and interests) when you register on our website, sign-up to our newsletter, make an enquiry, send us anything to appear on our website, or enter one of our competitions.

Please remember that if you send us something to go on our website and it includes any personal information, that personal information may be seen by anyone who looks at our website – so think carefully before you send us anything! Please do not send us anything to appear on our website which includes any personal information that you do not want everyone to see. Also, please do not send us anyone else's personal information without getting that person's permission first.

When you visit our website, we may collect your computer's "IP Address". An IP Address is a very long number that identifies your computer. We collect your computer's IP address for technical reasons so that we can send and receive information to you over the internet.

Cookies

Like most other websites, we use cookies. A cookie is a small file that is sent from our system and gets stored on your computer.

We use cookies to collect information about how people use our website (for example, how many people have visited a particular part of our website or how long they spend looking at certain pages). This type of information is really useful because it helps us to understand which parts of our website are popular so that we can make it better.

We also use cookies to make your visit to our website better, for example by letting the website remember your choices or your name when you return to the website.

You can tell your computer not to accept cookies from our website. If you do decide not to accept cookies from our website, it's possible that some of the parts of our website might not work as well.

By using our site you are agreeing to us using cookies as described in this privacy policy.

How do we use your personal information?

We may use your personal information to answer your queries or run a competition that you may have entered (e.g. so that we can let you know if you have won anything, send you your prizes, and let other people know who the winner was).

If you send us anything to appear on our website, we may use your name, so that we can give you credit for the thing you sent us.

If you provide us with any information about your interests, we may use it to decide what types of books we should be publishing in the future.

We may also use your personal information to learn more about the type of people who are interested in our website and our books.

When you give us your personal information, it may get sent to other countries (some of which might be outside of Europe) so it can be stored on computers there. Some countries outside of Europe don't have laws which protect your personal information in the same way as European countries do. However, whenever we do send your personal information to other countries, we'll take steps to ensure that it's treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

We try to keep your personal information safe and secure. However, please note that the internet is not completely secure and we are not responsible for anything that happens to your personal information as it is being sent from your computer to us.

Will we ever give your personal information to someone else?

We are part of a group of companies, so we may occasionally give your personal information to other companies within our group, where, for example, we reorganise the way our group of companies is structured.

Generally, your personal information will only be used by people who work for us (some of whom may work in our offices abroad). However, we also use various other companies to provide services to us (e.g. to run some of the technical parts of our website), some of those companies may need to have access to your personal information so they can do their job – however we will always require them to treat your personal information securely.

If another company wants to buy our company (or certain parts of it), we may provide your personal information to that company.

We may also need to give your personal information to someone else if we have to do so for legal reasons.

Will you ever be contacted?

Where we have your permission, we may email you from time to time to tell you about our new products and some of the stuff we're doing. If you don't want to receive these types of emails you can email us at: support@macmillandictionary.com

Where we have your permission, we may also give your email address to other companies so they can email you about their products.

Links

Our website contains links to other websites. We are not responsible for those other websites and how they treat any personal information you give them. Those other websites will have their own privacy policies which you should read. This privacy policy only applies to this website.

Contacts

This website is operated by a company called "Macmillan Publishers Limited", which is also known as "Macmillan Dictionary", "Macmillandictionary Blog". Macmillan Publishing Limited is a company registered in England. Our registered number is 00785998.

Our registered office is at:
Brunel Road
Houndmills
Basingstoke
Hampshire
RG21 6XS

If you want to ask any questions about your personal information please contact: support@macmillandictionary.com or write to us at:
Macmillan Online Dictionary
Dictionaries Department
Macmillan Publishers Limited
4 Crinan Street
London
N1 9SQ

We also want to make sure your personal information is correct and up-to-date. If you think there is anything wrong with the personal information that we have about you, please let us know by emailing us at: support@macmillandictionary.com

When was this Privacy Policy last updated?

27 November 2012

Thank you!