Welcome to the Verizon Media Privacy Policy

This is an old version of our Privacy Policy. View the latest version here.

Our parent company has been acquired by funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries, and is no longer affiliated with Verizon. Read more in our press release.

Last updated: December 2019

About Verizon Media
1. Verizon Media, previously known as Oath, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Verizon. We serve our consumers, partners, advertisers and talent through our portfolio of digital platforms, products and services offered under our AOL, Yahoo and other brands.
2. We provide control tools to help you manage your experience with us. If you have an existing Yahoo or AOL account, you will need to agree to this Privacy Policy. If you have not yet agreed and consented to this Privacy Policy, the legacy Yahoo Privacy Policy or legacy Oath Privacy Policy (for AOL) still apply to your account. For Verizon Media products or services that are accessed without signing in to an account, this Privacy Policy applies to those products and services as of 25 May 2018. If you are creating a new account, the terms below apply as of today.
Our privacy pledge
1. Our commitment is to put users first. We strive to be transparent about how we collect and use your information, to keep your information secure and to provide you with meaningful choices.
2. This Privacy Policy is intended to help you understand what information Verizon Media, its affiliates and its house of global brands collect, why we collect it and what we do with it. If you are located in Europe, the Middle East or Africa (‘EMEA’), this policy applies to you. It sets out how Verizon Media controls and treats your information in its brands, websites, apps, advertising services, products, services or technologies (we’ll collectively refer to these as ‘Services’).
3. Except as set out below, when we refer to ‘Verizon Media’, it means Verizon Media EMEA Limited, the Irish-established company that supplies the Services to you (and acts as data controller of the personal data Verizon Media collects when you use those Services). If you are a user of HuffPost UK, Sky | Yahoo Mail or BT | Yahoo Mail, ‘Verizon Media’ may refer to different entities in relation to who controls your personal data. HuffPost UK, Sky | Yahoo Mail or BT | Yahoo Mail users can find more information by clicking here. Furthermore, additional privacy practices for certain Services can be found in Details for specific products and services.
4. This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of Verizon Media affiliates or companies that Verizon Media does not own or control.
Your controls & privacy rights
1. We believe that you should have control of your information. In some cases, you can review or edit your account information, including your marketing preferences, location data, mobile choices, advertising settings and search history, as well as account deletion controls by visiting Privacy Dashboard. Some of our Services provide additional controls. Please see our Details for specific products and services.
2. In many cases where we process your information, you may also have a right to restrict or limit the ways in which we use your information. In certain circumstances, where we rely on ‘legitimate interests’ to process your information as described in the ‘Legal bases’ section below, you also have the right to object to the processing of your information by us.
3. You can also request the rectification of your information by us. You can request that we delete your information, and Verizon Media will carry out this request unless certain exceptional reasons arise permitting Verizon Media to keep certain information about you.
4. You also have the right to obtain a copy of your information in an easily accessible format. In certain circumstances, you can also request that we transfer some of your information to third parties.
5. Finally, you have the right to withdraw your consent to our processing of your information and your use of our Services at any time. Please note that if you withdraw your consent to the use or sharing of your information for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, you may not have access to all (or any) of our Services and we might not be able to provide you with all (or any) of the Services under this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service. In certain cases, we may continue to process your information after you have withdrawn consent if we have a legal basis to do so, or if your withdrawal of consent was limited to certain processing activities. For example, we may keep information if we need to do so to comply with a legal obligation, to resolve disputes and to enforce our agreements.
6. For any questions you have about your privacy, or if you would like to exercise your privacy rights including the right to access, the right to object and the right to erasure, please complete the Privacy Form to contact a specialist.
7. You may also exercise these important rights by:
  1. Contacting our Customer Care team via post at:
    
    Verizon Media EMEA Limited
    Attention: Customer Care – Privacy Policy issues
    5-7 Point Square
    North Wall Quay
    Dublin 1, Ireland
  2. Contacting our Data Protection Officer via post at:
    
    Verizon Media EMEA Limited
    Attention: Data Protection Officer
    5-7 Point Square
    North Wall Quay
    Dublin 1, Ireland
Information collection and use – general
1. Certain categories of information collected by Verizon Media are necessary to use our Services, such as the information you must provide when registering for some Services. We may collect and combine information when you interact with Verizon Media Services including information outlined below.
2. Information that you provide to us. We collect the information you provide to us in order to enable us to operate and provide our Services, including:
  1. When you create an account with an Verizon Media Service or brand. (Please note that, when you use our Services, we may recognise you or your devices even if you are not signed in to our Services.)
  2. Verizon Media may use device IDs, cookies and other signals, including information obtained from third parties, to associate accounts and/or devices with you.
  3. When you use our Services to communicate with others or to post, upload or store content (such as comments, photos, voice inputs, videos, emails, messaging services and attachments).
  4. When you otherwise use our Services, such as to view the content that we make available, perform search queries or install any Verizon Media software such as plug-ins.
  5. When you sign up for paid Services, use Services that require your financial information or complete transactions with us or our business partners, we may collect your payment and billing information in order to provide you with those paid Services. We may remember the payment information that you entered during a prior purchase for paid Services and provide you with the option to use that payment information during the purchase of a new product.
3. Device information. We collect information from your devices (computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc.) in order to provide you with our Services, including information about how you interact with our Services and those of our third-party partners and information that allows us to recognise and associate your activity across devices and Services. This information includes device-specific identifiers and information such as IP address, cookie information, mobile device and advertising identifiers, browser version, operating system type and version, mobile network information, device settings and software data.
4. Location information. We collect location information from a variety of sources. You can learn more about and manage your location permissions on our Locations page or by visiting the location settings tool on your devices.
5. Information from cookies and other technologies.
  1. We collect information when you access content, advertising, sites, interactive widgets, applications and other products (both on and off our Services) where Verizon Media’s data collection technologies (such as web beacons, development tools, cookies and other technologies, etc.) are present. These data collection technologies allow us to understand your activity on and off our Services and to collect and store information when you interact with Services we offer to partners.
  2. This information includes the kind of content or ads served, viewed or clicked on; the frequency and duration of your activities; the sites or apps you used before accessing our Services and where you went next; whether you engaged with specific content or ads; and whether you went on to visit an advertiser's website, downloaded an advertiser’s app, purchased a product or service advertised or took other actions.
6. Information from others. We collect information about you when we receive it from other users, third parties and affiliates, such as:
  1. When you connect your account to third-party services or sign in using a third-party partner (such as Facebook or Twitter).
  2. From publicly available sources.
  3. From advertisers about your experiences or interactions with their offerings.
  4. When we obtain information from third parties or other companies, such as those that use our Services. This may include your activity on other sites and apps as well as information that those third parties provide to you or us.
  5. Information that we receive from Verizon will be used consistently with Verizon’s privacy policy.
How we use this information
1. In order to deliver, personalise and improve our Services, we combine and use the information that we have about you (including information we receive on and off our Services) to understand how you use and interact with our Services and the people or things that you’re connected to and interested in. We may also use the information we have about you in the following ways and for the following purposes:
  1. To provide, maintain, improve and develop relevant features, content and Services.
  2. To analyse your content and other information (including incoming and outgoing emails, instant messages, posts photos, attachments and other communications) in order to keep our Services safe and secure. This analysis also assists us in making the content, Services and ads we provide to you more personalised (except in BT | Yahoo Mail). You can review and control certain types of information associated with your Verizon Media account by using Privacy Controls.
  3. To fulfil your requests and when authorised by you.
  4. To help advertisers and publishers connect to offer relevant advertising in their apps and websites.
  5. To match and serve targeted advertising (across devices and both on and off our Services) and provide targeted advertising based on your device activity, inferred interests and location information.
  6. To contact you with information about your account or with marketing messages, which you can also control.
  7. To associate your activity across our Services and your different devices as well as associate any accounts you may use across Verizon Media Services together. We may associate activity and accounts under a single user ID.
  8. To carry out or support promotions.
  9. To conduct research and support innovation.
  10. To create analytics and reports for external parties, including partners, publishers, advertisers, apps, third parties and the public regarding the use of and trends within our Services and ads, including showing trends to partners regarding general preferences, the effectiveness of ads and information on user experiences. These analytics and reports may include aggregate or pseudonymised information.
  11. To provide location-based Services, advertising, search results and other content consistent with your location settings.
  12. To combine information that we have about you with information that we obtain from business partners or other companies, such as your activities on other sites and apps in order to ensure that the ads, Services and content we provide to you are more suited to your interests.
  13. To detect and defend against fraudulent, abusive or unlawful activity and to keep our Services safe and secure.
2. We provide you with controls to manage your experience with us. To review and manage your privacy settings, please visit our Privacy Dashboard.
What are our legal bases for the use of the information?
1. We mainly rely on three separate bases to lawfully process your information. First, we need to process your information in certain ways to provide our Services to you, in accordance with our Terms of Service. This processing is necessary to perform the contract between you and us, and our Terms of Service make it clear that processing of your information for the purposes of personalised content and ads is a necessary part of the Services we provide. Second, where you have given us consent to use your information in certain ways, we will rely on your consent. Third, in certain cases, we may process your information where necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of third parties, where those legitimate interests are not overridden by your rights or interests. Occasionally, Verizon Media may rely on other legal bases to process your information, such as to protect a user’s vital interests (such as where there is a risk of imminent harm) or to comply with a legal obligation. Please see our Legal bases page for more information.
How we share this information
1. Verizon Media shares information within its affiliated brands and companies and with Verizon. We also share information that we have about you in accordance with this Privacy Policy, including to provide Services that you have requested (including when you connect to third-party apps and widgets). We do not sell, license or share information that individually identifies our customers with companies, organisations or individuals outside of Verizon Media unless one of the following circumstances applies:
  1. With your consent. We will share information with companies, organisations or individuals outside of Verizon Media when we have your consent.
  2. With Verizon. As part of Verizon, Verizon Media may, to the extent permitted by law and in accordance with user controls, share information with Verizon and Verizon affiliates. This information will be used in accordance with Verizon’s privacy policy.
  3. Within Verizon Media. Information may also be shared within Verizon Media, including with other Verizon Media Services and affiliates. Verizon Media affiliates may use the information in a manner consistent with their privacy policies.
  4. With partners. We may share your information with non-affiliated companies who are:
    - Trusted vendors. We provide user information to trusted vendors who work on behalf of Verizon Media based on our directions and in compliance with appropriate confidentiality measures. Learn more.
    - Advertising, analytics and business partners. We may share aggregated or pseudonymous information (including demographic information) with partners, such as publishers, advertisers, measurement analytics, apps or other companies. For example, we may tell an advertiser how its ads performed or report how many people installed an app after seeing a promotion. We do not share information that personally identifies you (personally identifiable information includes your name or email address) with these partners, such as publishers, advertisers, measurement analytics, apps or other companies.
    - When you use third-party apps, websites or other products integrated with our Services, they may collect information about your activities subject to their own terms and privacy policies.
    - We allow other companies that show advertisements on our web pages or apps to collect information from your browsers or devices. Other companies’ use of cookies and other data collection technologies are subject to their own privacy policies, not this one. Like many companies, we may allow cookie matching with selected partners. However, these parties are not authorised to access Verizon Media cookies.
  5. For legal purposes. We may access, preserve and disclose information to investigate, prevent or take action in connection with: (i) legal processes, and legal and governmental agency requests; (ii) enforcement of the Terms; (iii) claims that any content violates the rights of third parties; (iv) requests for customer service; (v) technical issues; (vi) protecting the rights, property or personal safety of Verizon Media, its users or the public; (vii) establishing or exercising our legal rights or defending against legal claims; or (viii) as otherwise required by law.
    - This may include responding to lawful governmental requests. Learn more about how we evaluate and respond to these requests.
  6. New ownership. If the ownership or control of all or part of Verizon, Verizon Media or a specific Service changes as a result of a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, we may transfer your information to the new owner.
Details for specific products and services
1. Additional privacy practices for certain Verizon Media Services are included here.
Information security and data retention
1. Verizon Media has technical, administrative and physical safeguards in place to help protect against unauthorised access, use or disclosure of customer information that we collect or store.
2. To learn more about security, including the steps we have taken and steps you can take, please read Security at Verizon Media.
3. Verizon Media will retain your information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, for as long as your Verizon Media account is active or as needed to provide you with the Services. If you no longer want Verizon Media to use your information to provide you with the Services, you can close your account and Verizon Media will delete the information it holds about you unless Verizon Media needs to retain and use your information to comply with our legal obligations, to resolve disputes or to enforce our agreements.
Protecting children’s privacy
1. Our Services are for a general audience. We do not knowingly collect, use or share information that could reasonably be used to identify children under the age of 16 or as otherwise consistent with applicable law.
Data processing and transfers
1. When you use or interact with any of our Services, you consent to the data processing, sharing, transferring and usage of your information as outlined in this Privacy Policy. Regardless of the country where you reside, you authorise us to transfer, process, store and use your information in countries other than your own in accordance with this Privacy Policy and to provide you with Services. Some of these countries may not have the same data protection safeguards as the country where you reside.
2. Verizon Media may process information related to individuals in the EU/EEA and may transfer that information from the EU/EEA through various compliance mechanisms, including data processing agreements based on the EU/EEA Standard Contractual Clauses. By using our Services, you consent to us transferring information about you to these countries. For more information, please visit our Data transfer page.
3. Verizon Media is part of a global service and so shares information with affiliates and other companies based outside the European Economic Area (‘EEA’) for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.
4. The United States and other non-EEA countries have different laws on data protection and rules in relation to government access to information. If you are based in the EEA, when your data is moved from your home country to a third country outside the EEA, some of these countries may not have the same data protection safeguards as your home country.
5. To the extent that Verizon Media is deemed to transfer information about you outside the EEA, Verizon Media relies separately, alternatively and independently on the following legal bases to transfer your information:
  1. Standard contractual clauses. The European Commission has adopted standard contractual clauses that provide safeguards for personal data that is transferred outside the EEA. We often use these clauses when transferring personal data outside the EEA including to our affiliates.
  2. Contractual necessity. You can choose whether or not you want to use our Services. However, if you want to use our Services, you need to agree to our Terms of Service, which set out the terms of the contract between us and you. As we operate in countries worldwide (including in the United States) and use technical infrastructure in these countries, to be able to deliver our Services to you in accordance with the contract between us, we may need to transfer your information to other jurisdictions where necessary. We can’t provide you with our Services without moving your data around the world.
  3. Privacy Shield. Some companies to which we may transfer your information in the United States may be certified to receive your information under the Privacy Shield programme. For more information, please visit our data transfer page.
Other important information
1. This Privacy Policy applies only to Verizon Media. This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of companies that Verizon Media does not own or control, or to people that Verizon Media does not employ or manage. In addition, some affiliated products may have different privacy policies and practices that are not subject to this Privacy Policy.
Changes
1. We may amend or update this Privacy Policy from time to time, so you should check it periodically. If we make changes of a material nature, we will provide you with appropriate notice before such changes take effect.
Questions & suggestions
1. If you have questions or suggestions relating to your information, or wish to make a complaint, please complete the Privacy Form, or contact us at:
  
  Verizon Media EMEA Limited
  Attention: Customer Care - Privacy Policy Issues
  5-7 Point Square
  North Wall Quay
  Dublin 1, Ireland
2. For queries related to the processing of your information, you can also contact our Data Protection Officer at:
  
  Verizon Media EMEA Limited
  Attention: Data Protection Officer
  5-7 Point Square
  North Wall Quay
  Dublin 1, Ireland
3. Without prejudice to any other rights you may have, you also have the right to file a complaint against us with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, which is Verizon Media's lead supervisory authority. You can also complain to the supervisory authority in the EU member state in which you are based. Click here to find your local supervisory authority.