Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

We collect various types of information from and about you when you use our Services:

a. Information You Provide Directly to Us:

• Account Registration Data: When you register for an account, you provide us with personal and organizational details, such as your name, email address, phone number, company name, job title, and billing address.
• Nomination Information: When you submit nominations, you provide detailed information related to the nominations, which may include:
  • Information about the nominated company/product/person (e.g., company description, product details, professional biography, achievements).
  • Contact information for the nominated entity or individual.
  • Supporting documents, presentations, videos, images, or other media related to the nomination.
• Payment Information: When making payments for nomination fees, you provide payment details such as credit card numbers, billing address, and other payment-related information. This data is typically processed by third-party payment processors (see Section 3.a).
• Communications: When you communicate with us via email, support channels, or other means, we collect the content of your communications and any information you choose to provide.
• Feedback and Surveys: If you participate in surveys, contests, or provide feedback, we collect the information you provide in those contexts.

b. Information We Collect Automatically (including through Cookies and Tracking Technologies):

• Usage Information: We collect information about your interactions with the Services, such as the pages you visit, the features you use, the time and date of your access, and the referring URL.
• Device Information: We collect information about the device you use to access the Services, including your IP address, browser type, operating system, device identifiers, and mobile network information.
• Log Data: Our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website. This log data may include your IP address, browser type and settings, the date and time of your request, and cookie data.
• Cookies and Tracking Technologies: We use cookies, web beacons, pixels, and similar tracking technologies to automatically collect information about your Browse activities, preferences, and interactions with our Services.
  • What are Cookies? Cookies are small text files placed on your device (computer, tablet, mobile phone) when you visit websites. They are widely used to make websites work more efficiently, enhance user experience, and provide information to the website owners.
  • How We Use Cookies: We use cookies for various purposes, including:
    • Essential/Strictly Necessary Cookies: These are vital for the proper functioning of our Services, enabling you to navigate the website and use its features (e.g., logging into secure areas, remembering items in a shopping cart). Without these, the Services may not function correctly.
    • Analytics/Performance Cookies: These cookies help us understand how visitors interact with our Services by collecting information about the number of visitors, which pages are most popular, and how users move around the site. This helps us improve the Services and user experience.
    • Functionality Cookies: These cookies allow our Services to remember choices you make (e.g., your username, language, or region) and provide enhanced, more personalized features.
    • Advertising/Targeting Cookies: These cookies may be used by us or our advertising partners to deliver advertisements more relevant to you and your interests. They may also be used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement and measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.
  • Your Choices Regarding Cookies: Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. However, you can typically adjust your browser settings to remove or reject cookies. Please be aware that disabling cookies may affect the functionality of our Services and your ability to use certain features. For more information on how to manage cookies, you can refer to your browser’s help documentation.

c. Information from Third Parties:

• Payment Processors: When you make a payment, our third-party payment processors (e.g., Stripe, PayPal, Razorpay) may provide us with certain transaction details, excluding your full payment card information (which they handle securely).
• Social Media: If you interact with our social media pages or accounts, we may collect information publicly available on those platforms.
• Publicly Available Information: We may collect information about companies or individuals from publicly accessible sources to enrich our understanding of potential nominees or participants.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for various purposes, including:

• To Provide and Operate the Services: To create and manage your account, process your nominations, facilitate payment transactions, and provide customer support.
• To Administer the Awards Program: To manage the nomination process, evaluate submissions, facilitate judging, communicate with nominees and winners, and announce award results.
• To Communicate with You: To send you important updates, notifications, invoices, promotional materials related to the Awards or other Hacker News offerings (where permitted), and respond to your inquiries.
• For Marketing and Promotional Activities: To promote the Cybersecurity Stars Awards, highlight winners, and market our other services and products. This may involve displaying submitted Content (as per the Terms of Service) or information about participants.
• For Analytics and Improvement: To understand how users interact with our Services, analyze trends, troubleshoot problems, and improve the functionality, performance, and user experience of our platform.
• For Security and Fraud Prevention: To detect, prevent, and respond to potential fraud, abuse, security incidents, and other illegal or harmful activities.
• For Legal Compliance: To comply with applicable laws, regulations (including those in India), legal processes, and government requests, and to enforce our Terms of Service.
• For Research and Development: To develop new features, services, and products.

3. How We Share Your Information

We may share your information with third parties in the following circumstances:

a. With Service Providers and Partners:

• With Judges: Information relevant to nominations (e.g., company details, product descriptions, professional profiles) will be shared with the independent judging panel for evaluation purposes. This sharing is essential for the administration of the Awards.
• With Service Providers: We engage third-party service providers to perform functions on our behalf, such as payment processing, hosting, data analytics, email delivery, and customer support. These providers have access to personal information only to perform their services and are obligated not to disclose or use it for other purposes.

b. For Marketing and Promotion: We may share information about award winners and selected nominee content (as per the license granted in our Terms of Service) for promotional purposes, including on our website, social media, and other marketing channels.

c. Business Transfers: In the event of a merger, acquisition, restructuring, sale of assets, or bankruptcy, your information may be transferred to the acquiring entity.

d. Legal Requirements and Law Enforcement: We may disclose your information if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g., a court order or government agency request), including those in India or other jurisdictions.

e. To Protect Our Rights: We may disclose information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violations of our Terms of Service, illegal activities, suspected fraud, or threats to the safety of any person.

f. With Your Consent: We may share your information with third parties when we have your explicit consent to do so.

g. Aggregated or Anonymized Data: We may share aggregated or de-identified information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you, for research, analytical, or marketing purposes.

4. International Data Transfers

The Cybersecurity Stars Awards is a global program. Your information may be stored and processed in any country where we have facilities or where we engage service providers, which may include countries outside of India, such as the United States or other regions. These countries may have data protection laws that are different from (and potentially less protective than) those of your country. When transferring your data internationally, we implement appropriate safeguards to protect your information. By using our Services, you understand and consent to the transfer of your information to countries outside your country of residence, where our facilities and service providers are located.

5. Data Security

We implement reasonable technical and organizational measures designed to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, alteration, or disclosure. However, no internet transmission or electronic storage method is 100% secure. Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. You are also responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials.

6. Your Data Protection Rights

Depending on your location and applicable data protection laws, you may have certain rights regarding your personal information. While specific rights may vary by jurisdiction (e.g., India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, or GDPR in the EU), we are committed to facilitating reasonable requests concerning your data. These rights may include:

• Right to Access: You may have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Right to Correction/Rectification: You may have the right to request that we correct any inaccurate or incomplete personal information we hold about you.
• Right to Erasure ( “Right to be Forgotten”): You may have the right to request the deletion of your personal information under certain circumstances.
• Right to Restriction of Processing: You may have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information under certain conditions.
• Right to Data Portability: You may have the right to receive your personal information in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the contact details provided in Section 9. We will respond to your request in accordance with applicable

7. Data Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. This typically includes:

• For as long as your account is active.
• For a reasonable period after your account is closed to allow for re-activation or to comply with our legal obligations.
• As required by law or for legitimate business purposes (e.g., maintaining records of transactions, resolving disputes, enforcing agreements).

8. Third-Party Links

Our Services may contain links to third-party websites or services that are not operated by us. This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of these third parties. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party sites or services you visit. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of such third-party sites or services.

9. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or for other operational, legal, or regulatory reasons. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the “Effective Date” at the top. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Your continued use of the Services after any modifications signifies your acceptance of the updated Privacy Policy.

10. Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at:

Email: awards@thehackernews.com