PRIVACY POLICY

Baidu USA LLC (“we,” “our,” “ours, ” or “us”) offers a variety of measures to protect user privacy when they are using our Applications and Services (collectively as “Baidu Products” and singularly as “Baidu Product”) including mobile Applications such as TalkType and FaceYou and online Services such as SwiftScribe and Voice Recognition. To provide best user experience, we may collect information from you for lawful purposes. This Privacy Policy is to describe what information we collect and how we process and protect them. By accessing or using a Baidu Product, you signify that you have read, understood and agree to our collection, storage, use and disclosure of your information as described in this Privacy Policy.

Table of Contents

1. INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND USE
2. SHARING INFORMATION
3. YOUR CHOICES REGARDING YOUR INFORMATION
4. SECURITY AND STORAGE OF INFORMATION
5. PERSONS UNDER THE AGE OF 13
6. LINKS TO THIRD PARTY WEBSITES
7. UPDATES TO THIS POLICY
8. CONTACTING US
9. LAST REVISION DATE

 

1. INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND USE

Generally. We may collect information from our users in order to provide you with a personalized, useful and efficient experience. The categories of information we collect can include:

• Information you provide. You may use a Baidu Product without providing any personal information We may collect and store personal information if you choose to register for a Baidu Product or provide to us in some other manner, including your photo or image, name, email address, user name and password. We may collect any communications between you and Baidu, as well as any information you provide if you take part in any interactive features of Baidu Products.

• Biometric Information. Baidu Products may collect and store your biometric information such as your voice, facial features and facial geometry in order to provide Baidu Products to you, and to further develop and enhance Baidu’s proprietary technology. Baidu does not sell or share the details of your biometric information with any third party without your consent. By using a Baidu Product, you consent to allow Baidu to collect and use your biometric information as disclosed in this Policy.

• Information we receive from third party sites. When you interact with Baidu Products through various social media, such as when you login through Facebook, Google + or another third party service, or share Baidu content on Facebook, Twitter or other sites, we may receive information from the social network including your profile information, profile picture, gender, user name, user ID associated with your social media account, age range, language, country, friends list, and any other information you permit the social network to share with third parties. The data we receive is dependent upon your privacy settings with the social network, and we will not post information about you on third party social media sites without your consent. You should always review, and if necessary, adjust your privacy settings on third-party websites and services before linking or connecting them to our website or any Baidu Product.

• Address Book Information. With your permission, Baidu may access your contact list available on your mobile device or in your email accounts in order for you to share our creations or invite your friends to try a Baidu Product. When we invite your friends to use a Baidu Product through email, we may include your name and photo to let them know that you are the person extending the invitation. After sending these invitations, we may also send reminder emails to your invitees on your behalf. We may store these contacts so that you may contact your friends again in the future.

We use this information to operate, maintain, and provide to you the features and functionality of Baidu Products, as well as to communicate directly with you, such as to send you email messages and push notifications, and permit you to invite others to use Baidu Products. We may also send you Baidu Product-related emails or messages (e.g., change or updates to features of Baidu Products, technical and security notices). For more information about your communication preferences, see “Your Choices Regarding Your Information” below.

Use of cookies and other technology to collect information.

We and our third party business partners automatically collect certain types of usage information when you visit our website or use Baidu Products. When you use a Baidu Product, we may send one or more cookies — a small text file containing a string of alphanumeric characters — to your computer that uniquely identifies your browser and lets us help you log in faster and enhance your navigation through the site. A cookie may also convey information to us about how you use the Baidu Product (e.g., the pages you view, the links you click, how frequently you access the Baidu Product, and other actions you take on the Baidu Product), and allow us to track your usage of the Baidu Product over time. We may collect log file information from your browser or mobile device each time you access the Baidu Product. Log file information may include anonymous information such as your web request, Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, information about your mobile device, referring / exit pages and URLs, number of clicks and how you interact with links on the Baidu Product, domain names, landing pages, pages viewed, and other such information. We may employ clear gifs (also known as web beacons) which are used to anonymously track the online usage patterns of our Users. In addition, we may also use clear gifs in HTML-based emails sent to our users to track which emails are opened and which links are clicked by recipients. The information allows for more accurate reporting and improvement of the Baidu Product. We may also collect analytics data, or use third-party analytics tools, to help us measure traffic and usage trends for the Baidu Product and to understand more about the demographics of our users. These tools collect information sent by your browser or mobile device, including the pages you visit, your use of third party applications, and other information that assists us in analyzing and improving the Baidu Product. Although we do our best to honor the privacy preferences of our visitors, we are not able to respond to Do Not Track signals from your browser at this time.

When you access a Baidu Product by or through a mobile device, we may receive or collect and store a unique identification numbers associated with your device or the Baidu Product (including, for example, a unique device ID, Unique ID for Advertisers (“IDFA”), Google Ad ID, or Windows Advertising ID), MAC address, mobile carrier, device type, model and manufacturer, mobile device operating system brand and model, phone number, and, depending on your mobile device settings, your geographical location data, including GPS coordinates (e.g., latitude and longitude) or similar information regarding the location of your mobile device

We may use the data collected through cookies, log file, device identifiers, location data and clear gifs information to: (a) remember information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you visit the site; (b) provide custom, personalized content and information, including targeted content and advertising; (c) provide and monitor the effectiveness of Baidu Products; (d) monitor aggregate metrics such as total number of visitors, traffic, usage, and demographic patterns on our website and Baidu Products; (e) diagnose or fix technology problems; and (f) otherwise to plan for and enhance Baidu Products.

2. SHARING INFORMATION

We may share your personal information in the instances described below. For further information on your choices regarding your information, see the “Your Choices Regarding Your Information” section below.

We may share your personal information with:

1. Third parties at your request. For example, you may have the option to share your activities on Baidu with your friends through email, text or on various social media sites;
2. Other brands owned or controlled by Baidu and other companies owned by or under common ownership as Baidu, which also includes our subsidiaries (i.e., any organization we own or control) or our ultimate holding company (i.e., any organization that owns or controls us) and any subsidiaries it owns. These companies will use your personal information in the same way as we can under this Policy;
3. Other parties whose products or services we believe may be of interest to you;
4. Third party vendors, consultants and other service providers that perform services on our behalf, in order to carry out their work for us, which may include identifying and serving targeted advertisements, content or service fulfillment, or providing analytics services;
5. Other parties in connection with any company transaction, such as a merger, sale of all or a portion of company assets or shares, reorganization, financing, change of control or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company or third party or in the event of bankruptcy or related or similar proceedings; and
6. Third parties as required to (i) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, subpoena/court order, legal process or other government request, (ii) enforce our Terms of Use Agreement, including the investigation of potential violations thereof, (iii) investigate and defend ourselves against any third party claims or allegations, (iv) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Baidu, its users or the public as required or permitted by law and (v) detect, prevent or otherwise address criminal (including fraud or stalking), security or technical issues.

We may also share information with others in an aggregated and anonymous form that does not reasonably identify you directly as an individual.

3. YOUR CHOICES REGARDING YOUR INFORMATION

Profile and Data Sharing Settings. Some of Baidu Products support user profile, and you may change some of your data sharing preferences on your Settings page.

Push Notifications. We may occasionally send you push notifications through Baidu Products to send you updates and other Baidu Product related notifications that may be of importance to you. You may at any time opt-out from receiving these types of communications by turning them off at the device level through your settings.

Marketing Communications. If you do not wish to receive promotional emails, you can click the “unsubscribe” button on promotional email communications. Note that you are not permitted to unsubscribe or opt-out of non-promotional messages regarding your account, such as account verification, change or updates to features of Baidu Products, or technical and security notices.

Online Advertising. We may permit third party online advertising networks, social media companies, and other parties to collect information about your use of our website and apps over time so that they may play or display ads that may be relevant to your interests on Baidu Products as well as on other websites or apps. Typically, the information we share is provided through cookies or similar tracking technologies. The only way to completely “opt out” of the collection of any information through cookies or other tracking technology is to actively manage the settings on your browser or mobile device. Please refer to your browser’s or mobile device’s technical information for instructions on how to delete and disable cookies, and other tracking/recording tools. (To learn more about cookies, clear gifs/web beacons and related technologies, you may wish to visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org and/or the Network Advertising Initiative’s online resources, at http://www.networkadvertising.org). If you access Baidu Products on your mobile device, you may not be able to control tracking technologies through settings.

Data Retention: Some of Baidu Products support user profile, and for such Baidu Products we will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services. Please contact us at baiduUSAPrivacy@baidu.com if you wish to delete your account permanently from our systems. Please be aware that we will not be able to delete any content you have shared with others or with social media sites.

Deleting or Anonymizing Your Content: If you are under 18 years of age, you may request that the User Content that you provided to Baidu Products be deleted or anonymized such that your personal information will not be identifiable publicly on Baidu Products by contacting us at baiduUSAPrivacy@baidu.com. While we will use all commercially reasonable efforts to delete or anonymize your User Content upon request, please be aware that due to the social nature of some Baidu Products, you may not be able to completely remove all of your personally identifiable User Content if, for example, that content has been stored, republished, or reposted by another user or a third party. We may also maintain your information in identifiable form for our internal use, even if your personal data is no longer visible to the public on Baidu Products.

4. SECURITY AND STORAGE OF INFORMATION

Baidu cares about the security of your information and uses commercially reasonable physical, administrative, and technological safeguards to preserve the integrity and security of all information we collect and that we share with our service providers. However, no security system is impenetrable and we cannot guarantee the security of our systems 100%. In the event that any information under our control is compromised as a result of a breach of security, we will take reasonable steps to investigate the situation and where appropriate, notify those individuals whose information may have been compromised and take other steps, in accordance with any applicable laws and regulations.

Your information collected by Baidu Products may be stored and processed in China, the United States and any other country in which Baidu or its subsidiaries, affiliates or service providers maintain facilities. If you are located in the European Union or other regions with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from Chinese or U.S. law, please note that we may transfer information, including personal information, to a country and jurisdiction that does not have the same data protection laws as your jurisdiction, and you consent to the transfer of information to China or the U.S. or any other country in which Company or its parent, subsidiaries, affiliates or service providers maintain facilities and the use and disclosure of information about you as described in this Privacy Policy.

5. PERSONS UNDER THE AGE OF 13

Baidu Products and their content are not directed at children under the age of 13. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13 without parental consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information collected from a child under 13, please contact us at baiduUSAPrivacy@baidu.com.

6. LINKS TO THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

Baidu Products may contain links to and from third party websites of our business partners, advertisers, social media sites, and our users may post links to third party websites. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for their policies. Please check the individual policies before you submit any information to those websites.

7. UPDATES TO THIS POLICY

We reserve the right to modify this Policy from time to time. If we make any changes to this Policy, we will change the “Last Revision” date below and will post the updated Policy on this page. If you object to any changes, you may close your account. Continuing to use Baidu Products after we publish changes to this Privacy Policy means that you are consenting to the changes.

8. CONTACTING US

If you have questions about this Policy, please contact us at baiduUSAPrivacy@baidu.com or by writing to us at:

9. LAST REVISION DATE

This Policy was last revised on, and effective as of July 2016.