uncategorized • March 2, 2008

Privacy Policy

Online Privacy Policy

What's New

Thank you for visiting Obsidian's Privacy Policy. We've updated this policy on November 28, 2017. A quick summary of the changes:

  • We've updated and reorganized our Privacy Policy to better explain how we collect information and use it.
  • We've added more detail on Cookies and Tracking Technologies and how they are used on our website and in our games.
  • We've added California's Privacy Rights information.

We still do not and will not sell your data to any third parties. It remains one of our core commitments to you, our fans and customers, to protect the information you provide us, to use it only to improve our games and services, and to deliver any rewards or purchases made on our websites.

Obsidian Entertainment, Inc. (“Obsidian”) respects the privacy concerns of the users of its web site, www.obsidian.net (the “Site”), and its games. Obsidian provides this privacy statement to explain what information is gathered during a visit to the Site or playing our games, and how such information may be used.

Please also review the Terms of Use which also governs your use of this Site.

What We Collect

Personally Identifiable Information

Websites, Forums, Backer Portal

Obsidian collects names, e-mails, and birthdates from users who register accounts on our websites and forums. Only the user's e-mail and birthdate are required for account access. We ask for birthdates to comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule ("COPPA") .

Crowdfunding information such as names, e-mails, and shipping addresses are collected by our backer portal websites and then shared and stored by Obsidian in its efforts to deliver any rewards as part of its crowdfunding efforts, or to ship any products or services purchased through our websites. We may share this information with third parties who we use to handle fulfillment.

Our Games

We've added telemetry to some of our games. We use this information to help us better understand how our players play our games and to use the information to help us improve them through patches, DLC, or other future iterations. Telemetry is not required to play our games and can be turned off at any time within the game.

As a general policy, we do not collect personally identifiable information with in-game telemetry, such as your name, address, or e-mail address. The only pieces of personally identifiable information we collect is your public Steam or GOG user ID, and IP address. We use this information to help us associate game data (such as where a player may have died, or what dialog choices were made) in a way that lets us see how users start, play, and finish our games.

Non-Personally Identifiable Information

When you visit our websites or forums, your browser sends information such as browser type and version, and OS type and version to our web servers. We use this information to make sure our websites work adequately with the browsers and OSs our users use.

Gameplay data from playing our games can also be opted out within the game options (assuming the telemetry system used is Obsidian's – it is possible that one of our publishing partners may use their own telemetry system in one of our games, and their privacy policy applies in those cases). The following items are types of information collected by our telemetry:

  • Technical information about your computer, device, hardware, or software, such as IP address or other identifier information about the device (such as make and model), information about the device's operating system and browser, or other device or system-related specifications.
  • Usage information and statistics about how you interact with our games, such as how long a game session is, what kind of character you created, where one of your character's may have died, when they looted a chest, or how you answered dialog choices.
  • The physical location of your play session, such as may be derived from your IP address.

How We Use This Information

The data we collect after users opt-in are used to identify areas for improvement for our websites and games. We use backer information to notify our backers on our progress of specific products they may have donated toward. We also use their shipping addresses (if applicable) to fulfill backer rewards. This information may be shared with third parties, such as our game's publisher, and any production and shipping facilities required in order to fulfill physical rewards.

Requests for Information

The Site's forums, various mailing lists, downloads, special offers, contests, registration forms, and surveys may request that you give us contact information such as your name, mailing and/or e-mail address; demographic information such as your age and gender; and personal preference information such as your tastes in video game platforms and gameplay. Information submitted at the time of submission will be used by Obsidian only as necessary for our legitimate business interests, including without limitation the improvement of our products, services, and contents of the Site. Obsidian may also share such aggregated information with our business and promotional partners to further those interests.

Personally identifiable information is never sold or leased to any third parties. With your permission, we may use your contact information to send you information about our company and its products. You may always opt-out of receiving future mailings through our website or by contacting us at support@obsidian.net.

Obsidian may disclose user information in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference (either intentionally or unintentionally) with Obsidian's rights or property, other users of the Site, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities.

Children Under the Age of 13

Obsidian recognizes the special obligation to protect personally identifiable information obtained from children under age 13. AS SUCH, IF YOU ARE 12 YEARS OLD OR YOUNGER, OBSIDIAN REQUESTS THAT YOU NOT SUBMIT ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION TO THE SITE OR TO OBSIDIAN. If Obsidian discovers that a child age 12 or younger has provided us with personally identifiable information, we will delete that child's personally identifiable information from our records.

Use of Cookies

We use "cookies" on our websites. A cookie is a piece of data stored on a website visitor's hard drive to help the website improve access, identify repeat visitors to the website, and carry information provided by the user throughout the Site. For example, when you log in to our website with your username and password, a cookie is saved so that every time you access a page on our site while you visit it, you do not need to enter your username and password each time. Another example of how a cookie is used is when you browse a store. If you add items to a cart and then go to another page on the site, the items stay in the cart; this is because the cookie saves this information and transmits it back to the website each time a new page is visited.

Cookies also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our websites and provide support for the internal operations of the websites or some of our online services, including games. Usage of a cookie is not linked to any personally identifiable information on our website, other than to be used to signify that you are logged in to the site (with the example above of not needing to repeatedly enter your username and password on each page view).

Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. You can, however, set your browser to refuse all cookies or indicate when a cookie is being sent. Please consult the technical information relevant to your browser for instructions. If you choose to disable your cookies setting or refuse to accept a cookie, some or all parts of our Site may not function properly or may be considerably slower.

Examples of Cookies Used

Obsidian uses the following cookies on its Site:

Google Analytics (name __ga, __gat-IA*): These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use the Site and what kind of browsers they are using to browse the site. These cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the Site, where visitors have come to the Site from, and the pages they visited while browsing. To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit Google’s Analytics Opt Out page.

Session token (name: sessionid): This is a general-purpose identifier used to maintain the user session and any variables (such as your login session and what items may be in your cart; see examples above).

CSRF (name: csrftoken): Cross Site Request Forgery cookies are used as a security measure to prevent malicious websites, users, or programs from using your user credentials to perform unwanted actions on our website.

Messages: Occasionally, we may provide messages to specific users and use cookies to track when that user may have read the message (so it isn't displayed again, for example).

Other Tracking Technologies

We may also use other tracking technologies such as pixel tags, web beacons, or other web programming code from time to time. Such technologies may be invisible to you, but any electronic image or other web programming code inserted into a page or e-mail can act as a web beacon. Such technologies may be used for a number of purposes, including, without limitation, to count visitors to a service, such as how many people viewed a newsletter; to monitor how users navigate the service; to count how many e-mails were actually opened or to count how many particular articles or links were actually viewed. Such technologies may also enable us to send e-mail messages in a format users can read, tell us whether e-mail has been opened, and ultimately allow us to reduce or eliminate messages sent to users. We treat information collected by or from such technologies as non-personal information. To the extent that IP addresses or similar identifiers may be considered personal information by local law, however, we treat such information as personal information. To the extent that non-personal information may also be combined with personal information, we treat the combined information as personal information for the purposes of this Privacy Policy.

Links to External Sites

Obsidian is not responsible for the content or practices of third party websites that may be linked through the Site. Obsidian is also not responsible for any information that you might share with such linked websites. You should refer to each website's respective privacy policy and practices prior to disclosing any information.

Bulletin Boards, Forums, and Chat Areas

Guests of the Site are solely responsible for the content of messages they post on public forums, such as chat rooms and bulletin boards. Users should be aware that when they voluntarily disclose personal information, such as username, e-mail address, or phone number) on the bulletin boards or chat areas, that information can be collected and used by others and may result in unsolicited messages from other people.

Choice/Opt-Out

The Site may provide you the opportunity to opt-in to receive communications from us at the point where we request information about you. You always have the option of removing your name and e-mail address from any e-mail list we maintain in order to discontinue any such future communications. To ensure immediate removal from any list, please follow the specific instructions within the communications you receive from Obsidian which you no longer wish to receive. If you are unsuccessful or otherwise have questions, concerns, or problems, please feel free to contact us at support@obsidian.net. Please include a copy of the undesired e-mail attached to the request if possible, and state you wish to be removed from the mailing list.

Your Access to and Control Over Your Personally Identifiable Information

You may also request that we delete your user account(s) or, if you have not established a user account, your e-mail address, and any related data at any time.

If you wish to delete your user account(s), please e-mail us at support@obsidian.net. If you do not have a user account and wish to delete your e-mail address or other personally identifiable information that you might have provided through your use of Services, please e-mail at support@obsidian.net.

Contact Information for Questions, Comments, and Complaints

If you have any questions, comments, or complaints about our websites, forums, or about this privacy statement, please contact:

Via mail:

Obsidian Entertainment, Inc.
100 Spectrum Center Drive, Suite 200
Irvine, California 92618 USA

Via e-mail:

support@obsidian.net

Information provided by you via general e-mail inquiries to Obsidian such as your e-mail address, is used only to respond to your inquiries in the ordinary course of business, and is never shared with third parties unless it is specifically in relation to such third parties.

We may opt to use a third-party support ticket service to help us in managing support messages. In this case, your e-mail address may be shared with this third party, but only with the intent to take care of and respond to any questions, comments, requests, or complaints you may have.

Your California Privacy Rights

Beginning on January 1, 2005, California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits California residents to request from companies conducting business in California a list of third parties to which the company has disclosed personally identifiable information during the preceding year for direct marketing purposes.

Obsidian has not and will not share your personally identifiable information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes; accordingly, it will not maintain such a list of third parties.

If you are a resident of California and want additional information confirming how Obsidian does not share your personally identifiable information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes, you may contact us at support@obsidian.net with the words "California Privacy" in the subject line of your e-mail.

Security

Security for all personally identifiable information is extremely important to us. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, Obsidian cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit via the internet. By transmitting any such information to Obsidian, you accept that you do so at your own risk.

Your Acceptance of These Terms

By using the Site, you accept the policies and restrictions set forth in this Online Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with this policy, please do not use the Site, Sites, or games. This Online Privacy Policy may be revised from time to time by updating this posting. You are bound by any such revisions and should therefore periodically visit this page to review the then current Online Privacy Policy to which you are bound when using this Site, Services, or games.

Updated: November 28, 2017