Gumtree Privacy Policy

On March 16, 2011, the Gumtree Privacy Policy was updated. Please take a few minutes and review the revised policy. If you have any questions, please use the "contact us" link located in the footer of every page. If you do not accept this revised policy, Gumtree many not be able to provide you with our services. Accordingly, you may close your account by contacting us.

This privacy policy describes how the Gumtree website, tools, applications, and services ("Gumtree") handle your personal information. Gumtree collects, uses, and shares personal information to help Gumtree work and to keep Gumtree safe (details below). This policy is effective March 16, 2011. To obtain a copy of the previous policy, please contact us using the "contact us" link located in the footer of every page.

Binding Corporate Rules. In addition to the privacy practices set out in this Privacy Policy, eBay Inc.,the parent company of Gumtree, has established a set of Corporate Rules (also referred to as Binding Corporate Rules), approved by a number of European Union privacy regulators. These Corporate Rules are a commitment by eBay Inc. to adequately protect your personal information regardless of where the data resides, and depending upon your location, may provide additional privacy rights through your privacy regulator or a court. If you would like additional information regarding the Corporate Rules contact us via the contact details below.

Collection. Information posted on Gumtree is obviously publicly available. Our servers are located in the United States, European Union, and elsewhere in the world where Gumtree has facilities. Therefore, if you choose to provide us with personal information, you are consenting to Gumtree’s collection, use, disclosure of your personal information and to the transfer and storage of that information on our servers in the United States, the Europe Union and elsewhere in the world where Gumtree has facilities. Gumtree collects and stores the following personal information:

• email address, phone numbers, physical contact information, and (depending on the service used) sometimes financial information;
• computer sign-on data, statistics on page views, traffic to and from Gumtree and ad data (all through cookies - you can take steps to disable the cookies on your browser although this is likely to affect your ability to use the site);
• other information, including users IP address and standard web log information.

Use. Gumtree uses users’ personal information to:

• provide our services
• resolve disputes, collect fees, and troubleshoot problems;
• encourage safe trading and enforce our policies;
• customize, measure, and improve user experience and our services, content, and advertising
• deliver targeted marketing, service updates and promotional offers to you according to your preferences;
• do other things for users as described when Gumtree collects the information.

Disclosure. Gumtree doesn’t sell or rent users’ personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes without users explicit consent. Gumtree may disclose personal information to respond to legal requirements, enforce our policies, respond to claims that a posting or other content violates other’s rights, or protect anyone’s rights, property, or safety. Gumtree may also share personal information with:

• corporate affiliates who help detect and prevent potentially illegal acts and provide joint services. (Our corporate affiliates will market only to users who ask them to).
• service providers who help with our business operations.
• third-party websites and publishers so ads (or the content of the ads) published on Gumtree can also be published on a broader array of venues or information vehicles.

Registration and sharing through third-party services. Gumtree may offer single sign-on services that allow you to use third party login credentials to sign into Gumtree, With your permission, Gumtree may also transfer profile information contained in your third-party profile. Gumtree may also, for your use, enable you to import information about who you are connected, as well as enable you to share information with those third-party sites (other than listings), at your discretion. If you wish to discontinue you such sharing, you will be able to do so through your preference page.

Communications and email tools. You agree to receive marketing communications from us unless you tell us that you prefer not to receive such communications. If you don’t wish to receive marketing communications from us, simply indicate your preference by following directions provided with the communication. You may not use our site or communication tools to harvest addresses, send spam or otherwise breach our Terms of Use or Privacy Policy. Gumtree may automatically scan and manually filter email messages sent via our communication tools for malicious activity or prohibited content, but Gumtree does not permanently store such messages. If you use our tools to send content to a friend, Gumtree doesn’t permanently store your friends’ addresses or use or disclose them for marketing purposes. To report spam from other users, please contact customer support using the "contact us" link located in the footer of every page.

Access, Modification, and Deletion. You can see, modify or erase most of your personal information by reviewing and modifying your posting or account status page, by signing on to "My Gumtree" or by contacting customer support by using the "contact us" link located bottom of every page to review any personal information Gumtree stores that is not available on Gumtree. There may be a charge associated with such requests but these will not exceed the amounts permitted by law. Gumtree deletes personal information when Gumtree no longer need it for the purposes we described earlier. Gumtree retains personal information as permitted by law to resolve disputes, enforce our policies; and prevent bad guys from coming back. If you have further questions, you can write to the Data Controller:

Marktplaats BV - Privacy Policy Requests Wibautstraat 224-2, 1097 DN Amsterdam, The Netherlands

or you may contact customer support using the "contact us" link located footer of every page.

Transfer of Personal Data to Other Companies. We may share your information with members of the eBay Inc. corporate family ? like eBay or PayPal ? to provide joint content and services (like registration, transactions and customer support), to help detect and prevent potentially illegal acts and violations of our policies, and to guide decisions about their products, services and communications. Members of our corporate family will use this information to send you marketing communications only if you’ve requested their services.

Security. Gumtree uses lots of tools (encryption, passwords, physical security) to protect your personal information against unauthorized access and disclosure, but as you probably know, nothing’s perfect, so Gumtree makes no guarantees.

Cookies. Gumtree or our service providers may use "cookies" (small files placed on your hard drive) on certain of our pages to help analyse our web page flow; customize our services, content and advertising; measure promotional effectiveness, and promote trust and safety. A few important things you should know about cookies are that:

• Gumtree offers certain features that are available only through the use of cookies.
• Gumtree uses cookies to help identify you and maintain your signed-in status.
• You are always free to decline cookies if your browser permits, although doing so may interfere with your use of some of our sites or services. For more information on your choices about accepting cookies, consult your browser help function.

Gumtree sometimes work with service providers who may place cookies on your computer to serve and measure the effectiveness of ads on our or our advertising partners behalf and collect anonymous information about how you use websites owned by Gumtree and its affiliates. This information allows them to help us customize our content and advertising. Gumtree does not allow these companies to collect any personal information about you using these cookies.

Our website uses cookies, web beacons, and third-parties to provide you with services that support your buying and selling activities within our online marketplace. To protect your privacy, use of these tools is limited.

About cookies

"Cookies" are small files placed on the hard drive of your computer. Gumtree uses cookies to provide services to you and help ensure account security. Most cookies are "session cookies," meaning that they are automatically deleted from your hard drive once you end your session (log out or close your browser).

Gumtree uses cookies on certain pages of the website to:

• Enable you to enter your password less frequently during a session.
• Provide information that is targeted to your interests.
• Promote and enforce trust and safety.
• Offer certain features that are only available through the use of cookies.
• Measure promotional effectiveness.
• Analyse our site traffic.

Cookies we use for trust and safety (Flash cookies) -Gumtree uses Flash cookies, which are cookies written with flash technology, to help ensure that your account security is not compromised and to spot irregularities in behaviour to prevent your account from being fraudulently taken over. To learn more about managing your flash cookies refer to below title "Managing Flash Cookies" and it’s following bullet points.

Cookies on Gumtree's discussion boards -Our third-party service providers for Gumtree's discussion boards use session cookies to facilitate conversation threads and overall service functions.

Your choices about cookies -We offer certain features that are only available through the use of a cookie. You're always free to decline cookies if your browser permits. However, if you decline cookies, you may not be able to use certain features on the website, and you may be required to re-enter your password more frequently during a session. To learn more about managing cookies refer below title "Accepting or deleting cookies in your Web browser" and it’s following bullet points.

Web beacons

A web beacon is an electronic image, called a single-pixel (1 x 1) or clear GIF placed in the web page code. Web beacons serve many of the same purposes as cookies. In addition, web beacons are used to track the traffic patterns of users from one page to another in order to maximise web traffic flow.

Use of cookies and web beacons by third parties

We may work with other companies who place cookies or web beacons on our websites. These companies help operate our websites and provide you with additional products and services. They are subject to confidentiality agreements with Gumtree and other legal restrictions. Gumtree does not permit any of these companies to collect personal information using cookies or web beacons on our websites.

DoubleClick, Google Analytics, MediaPlex, Visual Sciences, and Webtrends are our service providers who use cookies to help us deliver our own content and compile anonymous site metrics and analytics. We require these companies to use the information they collect only to provide us with these services under contract, which may be used to tailor the advertising you see on the Gumtree sites or elsewhere on the web, but we don’t permit them to collect any personal information about you. Learn more about Webtrends and, Visual Sciences business practices and privacy policies, including how to decline participation in their program by visiting Webtrends site at www.webtrends.com, and Visual Sciences site at http://www.omniture.com/en/

We don’t permit third-party content on Gumtree (such as item listings) to include cookies or web beacons. If you believe a listing might be collecting personal information or using cookies, please report it to us by using the "contact us" link located in the footer of every page.

General. Gumtree may update this policy at any time, with updates taking effect when you next use the site or after 30 days, whichever is sooner. If Gumtree or our corporate affiliates are involved in a merger or acquisition, Gumtree may share personal information with another company, but this policy will continue to apply. Send questions about this policy to customer support by using the "contact us" link located in the footer of every page.

Managing Flash Cookies

You can manage Flash cookies on a per-site basis, using the Flash settings tool. This enables you to disable the use of Flash cookies, or you can chose to limit activity to specific domains, such as Gumtree.

• What happens if I want to delete Flash cookies or prevent their use?

  As with browser cookies, we recommend you don’t delete Flash cookies. If you delete Flash cookies, you may need to enter verification information more frequently for security reasons.

• To limit or disable Flash cookies:
  1. On the site you are viewing, right-click Flash content to display the context menu.
  2. Select Settings to bring up the Settings dialogue.
  3. Click on the folder icon to open the Local Storage panel. This panel indicates the amount of storage currently in use for the current website and lets you change the default amount of storage for the current website by moving the slider bar. 4. When you have finished changing the settings, click "Close". Flash Player remembers your local storage settings for the current website.

Accepting or deleting cookies in your Web browser

Each type of Web browser has its own way of managing cookies. The information below provides instructions for managing cookies on the browsers listed below To enjoy Gumtree features properly, check that your Web browser is set up to accept cookies. Be familiar with how your Web browser manages cookies, including how to delete cookies

• Deleting cookies

Most cookies are session cookies that are automatically deleted from your hard drive once you end your session (that is, once you sign out or close your browser window). Some cookies allow web sites to identify you when you return. Without the cookie file, web sites you visit like Gumtree will treat you as a new user each time you return. You should only need to delete cookies if you receive the message saying that your browser is rejecting cookies.

• Setting your browser to accept / delete cookies:

  Internet Explorer 7

  To accept cookies

  1. From the Tools menu of your browser's Task Bar, select "Internet Options."
  2. Click the "Privacy tab".
  3. Move the slider to "medium".
  4. Click the Sites button and search for "gumtree.com.au" in the list of "Managed Web Sites."
     • If Gumtree is blocked, highlight Gumtree and click "Remove".
     • In the "Address of Web site" box, enter "gumtree.com.au" and click "Allow".
  5. Click "OK".

  To delete cookies

  1. From the Tools menu of your browser's Task Bar, select "Delete Browsing History."
  2. Click "Delete Cookies".
  3. Click "OK".

  Internet Explorer 8

  To accept cookies

  1. From the Tools menu of your browser's Task Bar, select "Internet Options."
  2. Click the Privacy tab.
  3. Click the Default button.
  4. Move the slider to medium.
  5. Click the Sites button and search for "gumtree.com.au" in the list of "Managed Web Sites."
     • If Gumtree is blocked, highlight gumtree and click Remove.
     • In the "Address of Web site" box, enter "gumtree.com.au" and click "Allow".
  6. Click OK.

  To delete cookies

  1. From the Tools menu of your browser's Task Bar, select "Internet Options."
  2. On the General tab, Click "Delete" in "Browsing History" section.
  3. Click "Delete cookies"
  4. Click "OK".

  Mozilla Firefox 3.5

  To accept cookies

  1. From the Tools menu of your browser's Task Bar, select "Options."
  2. Click the "Privacy icon".
  3. Choose "Use custom settings for history" from "Firefox Will" section.
  4. If you would like to accept cookies from all sites, tick "Accept cookies from sites" and click "OK", if you would like to choose which site to accept, tick off "Accept cookies from sites" and click "Exceptions".
  5. Enter "gumtree.com.au" in the "Address of web site" box.
  6. Click "Allow" then click "Close".

  To delete cookies

  1. From the Tools menu of your browser's Task Bar, select "Options."
  2. Click the "Privacy icon".
  3. Choose "Use custom settings for history" from "Firefox Will" section.
  4. Click "Show Cookies".
  5. Type "gumtree.com.au" in Search box.
  6. Select cookie(s) you would like to delete and then click "Remove Cookie".

  Apple Safari 5

  To accept cookies

  1. Select Safari from the top menu.
  2. Select Preferences.
  3. Click on the Security Icon (a lock).
  4. Under Accept Cookies, click the radio button next to "Always" or you can limit cookies by selecting, only from sites you navigate to (default setting).

  To delete cookies

  1. Select Safari from the top menu and select "Preferences."
  2. Click the security icon (lock).
  3. Click the "Show Cookies" button.
  4. Click the "Remove All" button, or you can limit cookies by selecting "Only from sites you navigate to."