Privacy Policy

Information Collection

DOGO websites generally require little or no collection of personal information and you can use the services without registering for an account or providing any personal data. DOGO only collects personal information when a user knowingly and voluntarily provides it to us as part of the registration process for creating a user account.

(i) From Account holders

iDOGO accounts

iDOGO is a service that allows children to create avatars, create a book list, bookmark content, earn points and badges, enter giveaways and contests, and link to other users' iDOGO pages. During the iDOGO account registration, we ask for (but do not save) a user's date of birth to determine whether parental consent is required for a child to use the iDOGO service. When children under the age of 16 create an iDOGO account, we ask them to provide a parent or guardian email. We use the provided parent or guardian email in order to send an email notifying the recipient that their child has created an iDOGO account. We inform them of their child's username and password and provide them with a link to cancel the account if they wish to. When children the age of 16 or over create an iDOGO account, we ask them to provide their email.

If a child uses a third party authentication service like Google, CLEVER or Microsoft Office365 to create an iDOGO account and if they are under the age of 16, we do not store the child’s email provided from the third party authentication service, but instead we ask the child for a parent or guardian email. If the child is the age of 16 or over, we fetch their email from the third party authentication service in order to pre-populate the email field on the registration page, which the child can always overwrite.

Teacher accounts

Teacher accounts allow educators to create classroom pages, student accounts, assign content, and enter giveaways. Teacher accounts may only be obtained by teachers who are 18 years of age or older. During the Teacher account registration, teachers are asked to provide first and last name, email, school name and address, and the grade they teach. We use the email to contact teachers about the service in the following situations: (i) request for a password reset; (ii) respond to a question or a concern; or (iii) to send email newsletters that the teacher opted-into. The email newsletters offer teachers the opportunity to unsubscribe and decline further communications.

If a teacher uses a third party authentication service like Google, CLEVER or Microsoft Office365 to create a Teacher account, we collect and store their first and last name, and their email from the third party authentication provider.

If a teacher opts to synchronize their MS Teams, Google Classroom or CLEVER roster with their DOGO class page, we may collect and store the first and last names of the students that belong in the Google Classroom they selected. This information is only available to the teacher to help him or her easily match the students’ usernames with their real names.

If a teacher opts to post content from their Google Drive account to their DOGO class page, we may store a link to the Google Drive file that the teacher selected. The link to the file is only available to the students of the teacher’s DOGO class page.

If a teacher signs up for DOGOnews for Teachers PRO, which requires payment, we may collect payment information (such as credit or debit card) and pass the information to Stripe, our third party payment processor. All payments are processed by Stripe and all payment information is stored by them and is not available to us.

All account holders may revoke DOGO’s access to their account on third party authentication services like Google, CLEVER and Microsoft Office365 at any time by updating the appropriate settings in the account preferences of the respective third party authentication service. Users of third party authentication services should check their privacy settings on these services to understand and change the information sent to us through each third party authentication service. Please review each third party authentication service’s terms of use and privacy policies carefully before using their services and connecting to our websites.

Except as stated in this Privacy Policy, we will not sell, rent, exchange, or release your personal information to outside parties.

(ii) From All users

In addition to the information collected when creating accounts, we may also collect certain information automatically when users visit the DOGO websites.

To provide a personalized and high-quality user experience, we use various cookies that gather and store certain technical information from your browser or device, including standard log files. This technical information may include your Internet Protocol (IP) address, device or browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring or exit pages, clickstream data, operating system, and the dates and times that you visit the DOGO websites. This information is aggregated and stored. It is only used for DOGO’s internal purposes, and will not be used to contact any teacher, student or visitor. For complete details about our use of cookies, please read our Cookie Policy.

DOGO websites offer community features such as commenting and posting reviews. We moderate all comments and reviews posted by users on DOGO websites. We take reasonable measures to remove personal information included in these submissions before they are made public.

On DOGOnews.com, we may collect and store emails when a Teacher or Parent opts-in to receive the DOGOnews email newsletter. The email newsletters, offer recipients the opportunity to unsubscribe and decline further communication.

On DOGObooks.com, we may collect and use (but do not store) information about your general location (coarse geolocation) to help you locate nearby libraries. You may change the settings on your computer or mobile device to prevent it from providing us with any location information.

Our websites offer a share content via email button which asks for both the recipient’s and sender’s email address. These emails are discarded once the share email is sent

2. User choices and opt-out

You can choose to not provide DOGO with your personal information. Registration is not required to access most of our content. If you decline to register, however, DOGO will not be able to provide to you certain features and functionality.

You may at any time cancel or request to cancel and have your account removed from the DOGO websites. You may cancel your account in the settings section of your account or email help@dogonews.com.

When Teachers create an account, they may opt out of receiving emails from us by indicating their preference in their account settings. If you previously opted in to receive emails from DOGO, you may at any time opt out of receiving further emails by using the “unsubscribe” provided in the emails already received from DOGO, or by emailing us at help@dogonews.com. Notwithstanding the foregoing, by creating an account, you expressly agree that DOGO may provide security breach notices required by law as well as notices regarding material changes in our Privacy Policy or Terms of Use, to you via email, and you specifically consent to continuing to receive such notices via email from DOGO even after your opt-out, unless you choose to cancel your account.

3. Processing Grounds

For users from the European Union and the United Kingdom (“EU users”) we will only use your Personal Data if we have a lawful basis for doing so. Lawful bases for processing include consent, contractual necessity, and our “legitimate interests” or the legitimate interest of others, as described below.

4. Parental Consent

We never collect, store, use, or disclose personal information from children under the age of 16 without prior parental consent. As outlined in Information Collection from Account holders – iDOGO accounts (Section 1 - i), we may collect and store a parent’s email from children under the age of 16 in order to notify the parent that his or her child signed up for an iDOGO account and to provide them with a link to cancel the account if they wish to.

From time to time, we may have special online promotions such as giveaways and contests on the DOGO websites that are open for iDOGO users under the age of 16. In order for the child to be awarded a prize we require a written parental consent form be signed by the parent and returned to us. The written parental consent form may ask for additional personal information necessary to award the prize. In these situations, we may email a parent or guardian as follows: (i) to inform them that their child has entered a giveaway or contest and provide them a link to cancel their child’s participation and (ii) to remind them at the conclusion of a promotion, that a written parental consent is required in order to consider their child for the promotion. Information given to us in this circumstance is used only for the purpose of awarding the prize and is stored in encrypted form on our secure servers for any future promotion the child may participate in. The special online promotions are only for users residing in the US, since we do not fulfill prizes to Non-US users.

5. Use of Personal Information

Except as outlined in Parental Consent (Section 3) and Information Collection from Account holders – Teacher accounts (Section 1 - ii), we do not use personal information that we collect through the DOGO websites.

6. Sharing of Personal Information

With the exception of payment data passed to Stripe for processing payments for DOGOnews for Teachers plans, we do not sell, transfer, disclose, or share personal information we collect through the DOGO websites with third parties. However, we may disclose personal information to third parties when required by law or pertinent to judicial or government investigations or proceedings, when otherwise necessary to protect the DOGO websites or the safety of our users or any third party, or with a parent/guardian’s consent. If we sell, divest or transfer our business, or are otherwise involved in a merger or business transfer, or in the event of bankruptcy, we may transfer your information to one or more third parties as part of that transaction, provided the third parties have agreed to data privacy standards no less stringent than our own. In such case we will provide you with notice and an opportunity to opt-out of the transfer. If you do not consent to the use of your information by such a successor company, subject to applicable law, you may request its deletion from the company.

7. Data retention and information security

Unless we receive a deletion request, we will retain your information for as long as you have an account or as is necessary to deliver our service to you.

The security and confidentiality of your child’s information is extremely important to us, and we take a number of steps to help safeguard any personal information that your child provides to us. In particular:

1. We continually develop and implement features to keep your personal information safe
2. When you enter any information anywhere on DOGO websites we encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL/TLS/HTTPD encryption)
3. The database where we store personal information is encrypted at rest, which converts all personal information stored in the database to an unintelligible form
4. We ensure passwords are stored and transferred securely using encryption and salted hashing. User passwords are not visible to DOGO administrators or employees
5. We restrict access to personal information to authorized employees only
6. Other security safeguards include but are not limited to data encryption, firewalls, and physical access controls to files

However, no method of transmitting or storing electronic data is ever completely secure, and therefore we cannot warrant or guarantee that such information will never be accessed, used or released in a manner that is inconsistent with this policy.

If we know or have reason to know of a systems security breach by an unauthorized party of user data where that data is being or is likely to be used for an unauthorized purpose, we will promptly notify you so that you can take appropriate steps.

8. Parental Control of Personal Information

Upon providing proper identification, parents can review, correct, or have deleted their child’s personal information from our database, or refuse further collection or use of personal information from their child by writing to us at: DOGO Media, Inc.

1 Blackfield Drive #169, Tiburon, CA 94920. You may also email us at privacy@dogonews.com.

9. California Privacy Rights and Do Not Track Disclosure

If you are under the age of 18, or the parent of a user under the age of 18, residing in California, you are entitled to request removal of content or information you have posted on DOGO websites. To request removal of your or your child’s content or information, please email us at help@dogonews.com for assistance, or you can delete specific information (or delete your or your child’s account) directly. Please note that removal of your content or information does not ensure complete or comprehensive removal, as there may be de-identified or recoverable elements of your content or information on our servers in some form. Additionally, we will not remove content or information that we may be required to retain under applicable federal and state laws.

Currently, various browsers offer a “Do Not Track” or “DNT” option that relies on a technology known as a DNT header, which sends a signal to Web sites visited by the user about the user’s browser DNT preference setting. DOGO does not track users over time and across third-party websites and therefore does not respond to Do Not Track (DNT) signals. For more information on “do not track”, please visit www.allaboutdnt.org.

We do not share information that we collect through the DOGO websites with third parties for the third party’s direct marketing purposes.

10. International visitors

DOGO websites are operated and managed on servers located within the United States. If you use DOGO websites from the European Union or other regions of the world with laws governing data collection and use that differ from U.S. law, then you acknowledge and agree that you are transferring your Personal Information outside of those regions to the United States and that, by providing your Personal Information on DOGO websites, you consent to that transfer.

11. EU Personal Data and Your Rights under GDPR

DOGO is committed to providing you control over and visibility to your Personal Data. If you are located in the EU, United Kingdom, Lichtenstein, Norway, or Iceland, you may have additional rights under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (the "GDPR") related to your Personal Data, as described below.

We may limit or reject your request in certain cases, such as if it is frivolous or extremely impractical, if it jeopardizes the rights of others, if it is not required by law, or if the burden or expense of providing access would be disproportionate to the risks to your privacy in the case in question. In some cases, we may also need you to provide us with additional information, which may include Personal Data, to verify your identity and the nature of your request. If you are an Account holder (iDOGO or Teacher account), you can accomplish most of the following by logging into your account.

Access: You can request a copy of the Personal Data we hold about you.

Rectification: If you believe that any Personal Data we are holding about you is incorrect or incomplete, you can request that we correct or supplement such data.

Erasure: You can request that we erase some or all of your Personal Data from our systems. Note that if you request the deletion of information required to provide the Service to you, your User Account will be deactivated and you will lose access to the Service.

Portability: You can ask for a copy of your Personal Data in a machine-readable format. You can also request that we transmit the data to another controller where technically feasible.

For the following, please email us at privacy@dogonews.com:

Withdrawal of Consent: If we are processing your Personal Data based on your consent (as indicated at the time of collection of such data), you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Please note, however, that if you exercise this right, you may have to then provide express consent on a case-by-case basis for the use or disclosure of certain of your Personal Data, if such use or disclosure is necessary to enable you to utilize some or all of our Service.

Objection: You can contact us to let us know that you object to the further use or disclosure of your Personal Data for certain purposes, such as for marketing purposes.

Restriction of Processing: You can ask us to restrict further processing of your Personal Data.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint about DOGO's practices with respect to your Personal Data with the supervisory authority of your country or EU Member State.

12. Links to Third Party Sites, Services, and Content

DOGO websites may contain links to other websites, online services, apps, and content that are operated and maintained by third parties and that are not under the control of or maintained by us. Such links do not constitute an endorsement by us of those other apps, websites, the content displayed therein, or the persons or entities associated therewith. This Privacy Policy does not apply to your interactions with those third parties, even if you find a link to them on the DOGO websites. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of the third-party website provider to see how your personal information will be treated on its site.

13. Updates

Please revisit this page periodically to stay aware of any changes to this Privacy Policy, which may be revised at our sole discretion. If we change this Privacy Policy, we will make it available through the DOGO websites, and indicate the date of the latest revision. In the event that the changes materially alter your rights or obligations hereunder we will make reasonable efforts to notify you by email, if we have one on file or generate a pop-up or similar notification when you access the websites for the first time after such material changes are made. You may be asked to reconfirm your consent to the Policy in order to continue use of our website(s) after the date we have updated such policies.

Your continued use of the Services following the effective date of such update constitutes your acceptance of the revised Policy.

If you don't agree with any future changes to the Privacy Policy, please contact us to terminate your account.