Privacy Policy

This policy is approved by the Backwards Compatible Board of Trustees to apply to all Backwards Compatible projects, including but not limited to Sonic Retro, SEGA Bits and Sega Retro. It may not be circumvented, eroded, or ignored by local site policies.

INTRODUCTION

Backwards Compatible is the nonprofit organization that operates collaborative gaming-related knowledge websites, like Sonic Retro, SEGA Bits and Sega Retro.

This Policy explains how we collect, use, and share your personal information.

• We collect very little personal information about you.
• We do not rent or sell your information to third parties.

By using any Backwards Compatible site, you consent to this Policy.

Backwards Compatible is founded on a simple, but powerful principle: we can do more together than any of us can do alone. We cannot work collectively without gathering, sharing, and analyzing information about our users as we seek new ways to make the Backwards Compatible family of sites more usable, safer, and more beneficial.

We believe that information-gathering and use should go hand-in-hand with transparency. This Privacy Policy explains how Backwards Compatible, the non-profit organization that hosts the Backwards Compatible Sites, collects, uses, and shares information we receive from you through your use of the Backwards Compatible Sites. It is essential to understand that, by using any of the Backwards Compatible Sites, you consent to the collection, transfer, processing, storage, disclosure, and use of your information as described in this Privacy Policy. That means that reading this Policy carefully is important.

We believe that you shouldn't have to provide personal information to participate in furthering public knowledge and discourse on video games. You do not have to provide things like your real name, address, or date of birth to sign up for a standard account or contribute content to the Backwards Compatible Sites.

We do not sell or rent your nonpublic information, nor do we give it to others to sell you anything. We use it to figure out how to make the Backwards Compatible Sites more engaging and accessible, to see which ideas work, and to make learning and contributing more fun. Put simply: we use this information to make the Sites better for you.

After all, it's people like you, the champions of free knowledge, who make it possible for the Sites to not only exist, but also grow and thrive.

Because everyone (not just lawyers) should be able to easily understand how and why their information is collected and used, we use common language instead of more formal terms throughout this Policy.

We also recognize that only a minority of you are familiar with technical terms like "tracking pixels" and "cookies" used in the Privacy Policy. Whether you are brand new to privacy terminology or you are an expert who just wants a refresher, you might find our Glossary of Key Terms helpful.

WHAT THIS PRIVACY POLICY DOES AND DOES NOT COVER

Except as explained below, this Privacy Policy applies to our collection and handling of information about you that we receive as a result of your use of any of the Backwards Compatible Sites. This Policy also applies to information that we receive from our partners or other third parties. To understand more about what this Privacy Policy covers, please see below.

For the sake of clarity, this Privacy Policy covers, regardless of language:

• All of our major sites, including user pages, forums, discussion pages, and noticeboards.
• Our blogs and APIs (unless we have provided a separate policy for those services).
• Our mobile sites and applications.
• Emails, SMS, and notifications from us or sent to us from you.

Where community policies govern information, such as the rule sets for the Sonic Retro and SEGA Bits forums, the relevant community may add to the rules and obligations set out in this Policy. However, they are not permitted to create new exceptions or otherwise reduce the protections offered by this Policy.

TYPES OF INFORMATION WE RECEIVE FROM YOU, HOW WE GET IT, & HOW WE USE IT

Exempting specific community policies regarding forums, whatever you post on Backwards Compatible Sites can be seen and used by everyone.

The Backwards Compatible Sites were primarily created to help share knowledge with the world, and we share your contributions because you have asked us to do so.

When you make a contribution to any Backwards Compatible Site, including on user or discussion pages, you are creating a permanent, public record of every piece of content added, removed, or altered by you. The page history will show when your contribution or deletion was made, as well as your username (if you are signed in) or your IP address (if you are not signed in). We may use your public contributions, either aggregated with the public contributions of others or individually, to create new features or data-related products for you or to learn more about how the Backwards Compatible Sites are used.

Unless this Policy says otherwise, you should assume that information that you actively contribute to the Backwards Compatible Sites, including personal information, is publicly visible and can be found by search engines. Like most things on the Internet, anything you share may be copied and redistributed throughout the Internet by other people. Please do not contribute any information that you are uncomfortable making permanently public, like revealing your real name or location in your contributions.

You should be aware that specific data made public by you or aggregated data that is made public by us can be used by anyone for analysis and to infer information about users, such as which country a user is from, age of the user, and gender.

ACCOUNT INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION

You do not need to create an account to use any Backwards Compatible Site.

If you do not create an account and choose to make a contribution to a Backwards Compatible Site, your contributions will be publicly attributed to your IP address.

If you want to create a standard account, in most cases we require only a username, password and email address. Your username will be publicly visible, so please be careful about using your real name as your username. Your password is only used to verify that the account is yours. Your IP address is also automatically submitted to us, and we record it temporarily to help prevent abuse. No other personal information is required: no name, no date of birth, no credit card information. Certain communities within Backwards Compatible may require additional information in order to gain access to contributing to certain areas.

Once created, user accounts cannot be removed entirely (although you can usually hide the information within your profile if you choose to). This is because your public contributions must be associated with their author (you!). So make sure you pick a name that you will be comfortable with for years to come.

To gain a better understanding of the demographics of our users, to localize our services, and to learn how we can improve our services, we may ask you for more demographic information, such as gender or age, about yourself. We will tell you if such information is intended to be public or private, so that you can make an informed decision about whether you want to provide us with that information. Providing such information is always completely optional. If you don't want to, you don't have to--it's as simple as that.

INFORMATION RELATED TO YOUR SITE USE

We want to make the Backwards Compatible Sites better for you by learning more about how you use them. Examples of this might include how often you visit the Backwards Compatible Sites, what you like, what you find helpful, how you get to the Backwards Compatible Sites, and whether you would use a helpful feature more if we explained it differently. We also want this Policy and our practices to reflect our community's values. For this reason, we keep information related to your use of the Backwards Compatible Sites confidential, except as provided in this Policy.

INFORMATION WE RECEIVE AUTOMATICALLY

Because of how browsers work and similar to other major websites, we receive some information automatically when you visit the Backwards Compatible Sites. This information includes the type of device you are using (possibly including unique device identification numbers, for some beta versions of our mobile applications), the type and version of your browser, your browser's language preference, the type and version of your device's operating system, in some cases the name of your internet service provider or mobile carrier, the website that referred you to the Backwards Compatible Sites, which pages you request and visit, and the date and time of each request you make to the Backwards Compatible Sites.

Put simply, we use this information to enhance your experience with Backwards Compatible Sites. For example, we use this information to administer the sites, provide greater security, and fight vandalism; optimize mobile applications, customize content and set language preferences, test features to see what works, and improve performance; understand how users interact with the Backwards Compatible Sites, track and study use of various features, gain understanding about the demographics of the different Backwards Compatible Sites, and analyze trends.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We actively collect some types of information with a variety of commonly-used technologies. These generally include tracking pixels, JavaScript, and a variety of "locally stored data" technologies, such as cookies and local storage. We realize that some of these technologies do not have the best reputation in town and can be used for less-than-noble purposes. So we want to be as clear as we can about why we use these methods and the type of information we collect with them.

Depending on which technology we use, locally stored data can be anything from text, pictures, and whole articles (as we explain further below) to personal information (like your IP address) and information about your use of the Backwards Compatible Sites (like your username or the time of your visit).

We use this information to make your experience with the Backwards Compatible Sites safer and better, to gain a greater understanding of user preferences and their interaction with the Backwards Compatible Sites, and to generally improve our services. We will never use third-party cookies, unless we get your permission to do so. If you ever come across a third-party data collection tool that has not been authorized by you (such as one that may have been mistakenly placed by another user or administrator), please report it to us at [email protected].

Locally stored data, JavaScript, and tracking pixels help us do things like:

• Provide you with a personalized experience, such as using cookies to know your language preference, to remember the user preferences you set so we can provide you with the customized look and feel that you want, and to tell you about interesting Backwards Compatible issues and events in your area.
• Deliver more relevant content to you faster. For example, we may use local storage to store your most recently read articles directly on your device, so they can be retrieved quickly. Also, we may use cookies to learn about the topics searched so that we can optimize the search results we deliver to you.
• Understand how you use the Backwards Compatible Sites, so that we know what works and what is useful. For example, we might use cookies to learn about the list of articles you are following on your watchlist so that we can recommend similar articles that you may be interested in.
• Understand how you use the Backwards Compatible Sites across different devices, so that we can make our varied Backwards Compatible Sites more efficient and effective for you.
• Make the Backwards Compatible Sites more convenient to use, such as by using cookies to maintain your session when you log in or to remember your username in the login field.

We believe this data collection helps improve your user experience, but you may remove or disable some or all locally stored data through your browser settings, depending on your browser. While locally stored data may not be necessary to use our sites, some features may not function properly if you disable locally stored data.

While the examples above concerning information about you collected through the use of data collection tools are kept confidential in accordance with this Policy, please note that some information about the actions taken by your username is made publicly available through public logs alongside actions taken by other users. For example, a public log may include the date your account was created on a Backwards Compatible Site along with the dates that other accounts were created on a Backwards Compatible Site. Information available through public logs will not include personal information about you.

EMAILS

You have the requirement of providing an email address at the time of registration with the Backwards Compatible Sites. Your email address is kept confidential, except as provided in this Policy. We do not sell, rent, or use your email address to advertise third-party products or services to you.

We use your email address to let you know about things that are happening with Backwards Compatible, the Backwards Compatible Sites, or the open video game knowledge movement, such as telling you important information about your account, letting you know if something is changing about the Backwards Compatible Sites or policies, and alerting you when there has been a change to an article that you have decided to follow. Please note that if you email us, we may keep your message, email address, and any other information you provide us, so that we can process and respond to your request.

You can choose to limit some of these kinds of notifications, like those alerting you if an article changes. Others, such as those containing critical information that all users need to know to participate successfully in the Backwards Compatible Sites, you may not be able to opt out of. You can manage what kinds of notifications you receive and how often you receive them by going to your Notifications Preferences in each corresponding Backwards Compatible Site.

We will never ask for your password by email (but may send you a temporary password via email if you have requested a password reset). If you ever receive such an email, please let us know by sending it to [email protected], so we can investigate the source of the email.

Direct communications between users (such as messages sent through forum "Private Messaging" or "Email this user" features), to the extent such communications are nonpublic and stored in or in transit through Backwards Compatible systems, are kept confidential by us, except as provided in this Policy.

SURVEYS & FEEDBACK

Participating in optional surveys or providing feedback helps us make the Backwards Compatible Sites better. Because every survey and request for feedback may be used for various purposes, we will tell you, at the time we give you the survey or request for feedback, how we plan on using your answers and any personal information you provide. If you don't feel comfortable with how we plan on using the survey or feedback results, you are not obligated to take the survey or give feedback.

LOCATION INFORMATION

Some features we offer work better if we know what area you are in. But it's completely up to you whether or not you want us to use geolocation tools to make some features available to you. If you consent, we can use GPS (and other technologies commonly used to determine location) to show you more relevant content. We keep information obtained by these technologies confidential, except as provided in this Policy.

METADATA

Sometimes, we may automatically receive location data from your device. For example, if you want to upload a photo for a Backwards Compatible Site, we may receive metadata, such as the place and time you took the photo, automatically from your device. Please be aware that, unlike location information collected using GPS signals described above, the default setting on your camera/mobile device typically includes the metadata in your photo or video upload to the Backwards Compatible Sites. If you do not want metadata sent to us and made public at the time of your upload, please change your settings on your device.

IP ADDRESSES

Finally, when you visit any Backwards Compatible Site, we automatically receive the IP address of the device (or your proxy server) you are using to access the Internet, which could be used to infer your geographical location. We keep IP addresses confidential, except as provided in this Policy. For example, if you make a contribution without signing into your account, your IP address used at the time will be publicly and permanently recorded. If you are visiting Backwards Compatible Sites with your mobile device, we may use your IP address to provide anonymized or aggregated information to service providers regarding the volume of usage in certain areas. We use IP addresses for research and analytics; to better personalize content, notices, and settings for you; to fight spam, identity theft, malware, and other kinds of abuse; and to provide better mobile and other applications.

INFORMATION SHARING

We may share your information for a particular purpose, if you agree. We will disclose your information in response to an official legal process only if we believe it to be legally valid. We will notify you of such requests when possible.

We may access, preserve, or disclose your personal information if we reasonably believe it necessary to satisfy a valid and legally enforceable warrant, subpoena, court order, law or regulation, or other judicial or administrative order. However, if we believe that a particular request for disclosure of a user's information is legally invalid or an abuse of the legal system and the affected user does not intend to oppose the disclosure themselves, we will try our best to fight it. We are committed to notifying you via email at least ten (10) calendar days, when possible, before we disclose your personal information in response to a legal demand. However, we may only provide notice if we are not legally restrained from contacting you, there is no credible threat to life or limb that is created or increased by disclosing the request, and you have provided us with an email address.

Nothing in this Privacy Policy is intended to limit any legal objections or defenses you may have to a third party's request (whether it be civil, criminal, or governmental) to disclose your information. We recommend seeking the advice of legal counsel immediately if such a request is made involving you.

IF THE ORGANIZATION IS TRANSFERRED (REALLY UNLIKELY!)

In the extremely unlikely event that ownership of all or substantially all of Backwards Compatible changes, or we go through a reorganization (such as a merger, consolidation, or acquisition), we will continue to keep your personal information confidential, except as provided in this Policy, and provide notice to you via the Backwards Compatible Sites and a public notification on all Sites at least thirty (30) calendar days before any personal information is transferred or becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

TO PROTECT YOU, OURSELVES & OTHERS

We, or particular users with certain administrative rights as described below, may need to share your personal information if it is reasonably believed to be necessary to enforce or investigate potential violations of our Terms of Use, this Privacy Policy, or any Backwards Compatible or user community-based policies. We may also need to access and share information to investigate and defend ourselves against legal threats or actions.

Backwards Compatible Sites are collaborative, with users writing most of the policies and selecting from amongst themselves people to hold certain administrative rights. These rights may include access to limited amounts of otherwise nonpublic information about recent contributions and activity by other users. They use this access to help protect against vandalism and abuse, fight harassment of other users, and generally try to minimize disruptive behavior on the Backwards Compatible Sites. These various user-selected administrative groups that have their own privacy and confidentiality guidelines. These user-selected administrative groups are accountable to other users through checks and balances: users are selected through a community-driven process and overseen by their peers through a logged history of their actions. However, the legal names of these users are not known to Backwards Compatible.

We hope that this never comes up, but we may disclose your personal information if we believe that it's reasonably necessary to prevent imminent and serious bodily harm or death to a person, or to protect our organization, employees, contractors, users, or the public. We may also disclose your personal information if we reasonably believe it necessary to detect, prevent, or otherwise assess and address potential spam, malware, fraud, abuse, unlawful activity, and security or technical concerns.

SERVICE PROVIDERS

As hard as we may try, we can't do it all. So sometimes we use third-party service providers or contractors who help run or improve the Backwards Compatible Sites for you and other users. We may give access to your personal information to these providers or contractors as needed to perform their services for us or to use their tools and services. We put requirements, such as confidentiality agreements, in place to help ensure that these service providers treat your information consistently with, and no less protective of your privacy than, the principles of this Policy.

HISTORICAL RECORDINGS AND EXPERIMENTATION

The open-source software that powers the Backwards Compatible Sites depends on the contributions of volunteer software developers, who spend time writing and testing code to help it improve and evolve with our users' needs. To facilitate their work, we may give some developers limited access to systems that contain your personal information, but only as reasonably necessary for them to develop and contribute to the Backwards Compatible Sites.

Similarly, we may share non-personal or aggregated information with researchers, scholars, academics, and other interested third parties who wish to study the Backwards Compatible Sites. Sharing this information helps them understand usage, viewing, and demographics statistics and patterns. They then can share their findings with us and our users so that we can all better understand and improve the Backwards Compatible Sites.

When we give access to personal information to third-party developers or researchers, we put requirements, such as reasonable technical and contractual protections, in place to help ensure that these service providers treat your information consistently with the principles of this Policy and in accordance with our instructions. If these developers or researchers later publish their work or findings, we ask that they not disclose your personal information. Please note that, despite the obligations we impose on developers and researchers, we cannot guarantee that they will abide by our agreement, nor do we guarantee that we will regularly screen or audit their projects.

HEY, YOU MADE IT PUBLIC.

Any information you post publicly on the Backwards Compatible Sites is just that—public. For example, if you put your mailing address on your talk page, that is public, and not protected by this Policy. And if you edit without registering or logging into your account, your IP address will be seen publicly. Please think carefully about your desired level of anonymity before you disclose personal information on your user page or elsewhere.

HOW DO WE PROTECT YOUR DATA?

We strive to protect your information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. We use a variety of physical and technical measures, policies, and procedures (such as access control procedures, network firewalls, and physical security) designed to protect our systems and your personal information. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as completely secure data transmission or storage, so we can't guarantee that our security will not be breached (by technical measures or through violation of our policies and procedures).

Once we receive personal information from you, we keep it for the shortest possible time that is consistent with the maintenance, understanding, and improvement of the Backwards Compatible Sites, and our obligations under applicable US law. Non-personal information may be retained indefinitely.

Please remember that certain information is retained and displayed indefinitely, such as your IP address (if you edit while not logged in) and any public contributions to the Backwards Compatible Sites.

WHERE IS BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE AND WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ME?

Backwards Compatible is a non-profit organization based in San Diego and Los Angeles, California, with servers and data centers located in Missouri and Arizona. If you decide to use Backwards Compatible Sites, whether from inside or outside of the U.S., you consent to the collection, transfer, storage, processing, disclosure, and other uses of your information in the U.S. as described in this Privacy Policy. You also consent to the transfer of your information by us from the U.S. to other countries, which may have different or less stringent data protection laws than your country, in connection with providing services to you.

OUR RESPONSE TO DO NOT TRACK (DNT) SIGNALS

We are strongly committed to not sharing nonpublic information with third parties. In particular, we do not allow tracking by third-party websites you have not visited (including analytics services, advertising networks, and social platforms), nor do we share your information with any third parties for marketing purposes. Because we protect all users in this manner, we do not change our behavior in response to a web browser's "do not track" signal.

For more information regarding Do Not Track signals and how we handle them, please visit our FAQ.

CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

Substantial changes to this Policy will not be made until after a public comment period of at least 30 days.

We ask that you please review the most up-to-date version of our Privacy Policy. Your continued use of the Backwards Compatible Sites after this Privacy Policy becomes effective constitutes acceptance of this Privacy Policy on your part. Your continued use of the Backwards Compatible Sites after any subsequent version of this Privacy Policy becomes effective, following notice as outlined above, constitutes acceptance of that version of the Privacy Policy on your part.

CONTACT US

If you have questions or suggestions about this Privacy Policy, or the information collected under this Privacy Policy, please email us at [email protected] or contact us directly.

Thank you for reading our Privacy Policy. We hope you enjoy using the Backwards Compatible family of sites and appreciate your participation in creating, maintaining, and constantly working to improve the largest repository of video game knowledge in the world.

Please note that in the event of any differences in meaning or interpretation between the original English version of this Privacy Policy and a translation, the original English version takes precedence.