Privacy Policy

Your Privacy matters to us. We ‘Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications’ are committed to the need for appropriate protection and management of any “personal information” that you share with us.

"Personal Information" may mean any information that may be used to identify an individual, including, but not limited to, a first and last name, a home or other physical and virtual addresses like an email address or any other contact information, that we may require.

Why we collect personal information

The personal information that we collect is to identify you and to ensure that we provide you with the correct feedback that you require for performance in various tests, thus, to help you get superior quality educational feedback. The information collected enables us to give you convenient access to our services, offerings and products, and may help us tailor your educational experience.

What Information do we collect and how do we use it?

1. Information you Share:

The information that we collect is to provide effective services to you. You share your details like your name, email address, and other personal information like contact details to use certain features of our website. We also may ask for this information at other times, such as when you enter contests or other promotions sponsored by us and/or our partners. If you use a feature that requires payment of a fee, we collect your credit card data or payment account information. When you use one of our paid products, we track the web pages, and information that has been accessed by you, and store it on our servers. This enables us to track items that you have completed, and those that you need to see.

2. Cookies:

Some of our web pages utilize "cookies" and other tracking technologies. A "cookie" is a small text file that may be used, for example, to collect information about your web site activity. Some cookies and other technologies may serve to recall personal information previously indicated by a web user.

It is on you to set most browsers to notify if you receive a cookie, or if you may choose to block cookies from your browser, but please note that if you choose to erase or block your cookies, you will need to re-enter your original user ID and password to gain access to certain parts of the web site and some sections of the site would not work.

Tracking technologies may record information such as internet domain and host names; internet protocol (IP) addresses; browser software and operating system types; click stream patterns; and dates and times that our site is accessed through. Our use of cookies and other tracking technologies allows us to improve our web site and your web experience. We may also analyse information that does not contain personal information for trends and statistics.

3. Log information:

When you access our website, the server automatically records information that your browser sends us. These server logs may include information such as your web request, internet protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser.

4. User communications:

When you send email or other communication to us, we may retain those communications in order to process your enquiries, respond to your requests and improve our services.

5. Links:

We may present links in a format that enables us to keep track of whether these links have been followed. We use this information to improve our customized content. Clicking on links may take you to sites outside our domain. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other web sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by our website.

6. Alerts:

We may alert you by email/phone calls/message if we update our website in a way that we believe you should know about. These alerts are usually prompted by new features on the websites, or substantial improvements in the products and offers made by us.

7. Public Forums:

When you use certain features on our website like the discussion forums and you post or share your personal information such as comments, messages, files, photos, it will be available to all users, and will be in the public domain. All such sharing of information is done at your own risk. Please keep in mind that if you disclose personal information in your profile or when posting on our forums this information may become publicly available.

8. Data Security:

If you use a feature requiring payment of a fee, we transmit your credit card data to our bank for processing. If we encounter a problem with payment, we may review the order information with you and our bank to resolve it. We do not otherwise disclose your credit card information. We do not share your email address or your personal information with third party marketers.

We offer secure pages to collect sensitive information on our order form, such as credit card information. We also use administrative, physical and technical precautions to help protect the confidentiality, security and integrity of personal information stored on our system. We host the site at a commercial-grade data center that employs extensive security practices. While no computer system is completely secure, we believe the measures implemented by our site reduce the likelihood of security problems to a level appropriate to the type of data involved.

Information sharing and Disclosure

Other than the above mentioned sharing of data related to credit card information, we only share personal information with other companies or individuals outside of ‘Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications’ in the following limited circumstances:

We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to:

a. Satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or is an enforceable governmental request.

b. Enforce applicable terms of use, including investigation of potential violations thereof

c. Detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or

d. Protect against imminent harm to the rights, property or safety of drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications, its users or the public as required or permitted by law.

If we become involved in a merger, acquisition, or any form of sale of some or all of our assets, we will provide notice before personal information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

We may provide information to service providers to help us bring you the services we offer. Specifically, we may use third parties to facilitate our business, such as to host the service at a co-location facility for servers. Where we utilize third parties for the processing of any personal information, we implement reasonable contractual and technical protections limiting the use of that information to our specified purposes.

'Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications' displays targeted advertisements based on personal information. Advertisers (including ad serving companies) may assume that people who interact with, view, or click on targeted ads meet the targeting criteria - for example, people aged 18-24 from a particular geographic area.
'Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications' does not provide any personal information to the advertiser when you interact with or view a targeted advertisement. However, by interacting with or viewing an ad you are consenting to the possibility that the advertiser will make the assumption that you meet the targeting criteria used to display the advertisement.
'Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications' advertisers may include financial service providers (such as banks, insurance agents, stock brokers and mortgage lenders) and non-financial companies (such as stores, airlines, and software companies) and any type of company organization.

How Long Do We Retain User Data?

Currently, we plan to retain user data while an account is active and for at least three years afterwards. We may alter this practice according to legal and business requirements. For example, we may lengthen the retention period for some data if needed to comply with law or voluntary codes of conduct. Unless otherwise prohibited, we may shorten the retention period for some types of data if needed to free up storage space.

Management of User Information:

You can access and manage your account information. You can update your usage by accessing further paid services or products, or change details such as email address, and personal information.

Third Party Services

Third parties provide certain services that are available on our website ‘Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications’. We may provide information, including Personal Information, at ‘Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications’ collects on the web to third-party service provider to help us deliver programmes, products, information, and services. Service providers are also an important means by which ‘Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications’ maintains its web site and mailing lists. ‘Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications’ will take reasonable steps to ensure that these third-party service providers are obligated to protect Personal Information on our behalf.

'Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications' does not intend to transfer Personal Information without your consent to third parties who are not bound to act on ‘Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications’ behalf unless such transfer is legally required. Similarly, it is against ‘Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications’ policy to sell Personal Information collected online without consent. We may share with third parties certain pieces of aggregated, non-personal information, such as the number of users subscribed to a particular product, or the number of users registered on our website. Such information does not identify you individually.

Children

'Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications' will not contact children under age 13 about special offers or for marketing purposes without a parent's permission.

Confidentiality and Security

We limit access to personal information about you to employees who we believe reasonably need to come into contact with that information to provide products or services to you or in order to do their jobs.
We have physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with the laws prevalent in India to protect personal information about you. We seek to ensure compliance with the requirements of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and Rules made there under to ensure the protection and preservation of your privacy.

Your Consent to This Policy

By accessing our website, you agree to this Privacy Policy. This document supersedes any prior communication on this topic and reflects the entire and exclusive Privacy Policy for this site. This Policy is subject to our Terms of Use, which take precedence over any conflicting Policy provision. We may change our Policy by posting a new version of it on our site.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

'Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications' reserves the right to update, change or modify this policy at any time. The policy shall come to effect from the date of such update, change or modification.

Contact Information

‘Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications’ welcomes your comments regarding this privacy statement at the contact address given at the website. Should there be any concerns about contravention of this Privacy Policy, 'Drishtiias.com & Drishti Publications’ will employ all commercially reasonable efforts to address the same.

Refund Policy : Fees once paid will not be refunded.

Cancellation Policy : No cancellations are entertained.

Shipping Policy : We usually ship the product within 2 working days after receiving the order