Privacy Policy
Our Privacy Policy outlines how we collect and handle your personal information. References to ‘TMF’, ‘The Motley Fool’, ‘we’, ‘our’ and ‘us’ refer to The Motley Fool Australia and its related companies, including The Capital Club.
The Motley Fool Australia Pty Ltd ACN 146 988 052, takes the issue of privacy very seriously and is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy sets out The Motley Fool’s current data processing practices including how we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information. If you have any queries or concerns regarding these practices, please contact us via email at membersupportAU@fool.com.au
The Information We Collect
- Subscribing: When you register with The Motley Fool, subscribe to our products and services, or sign up to receive a special report, we ask for your email address. If subscribing to one of our paid subscription services by credit card, in addition to your email address, you will be asked to provide your name, credit card information and address. If you use PayPal to subscribe to one of our services, we will ask for your name and email address. All other information will be collected by PayPal. If you choose to receive text alerts from us, you will first need to provide us with your mobile number. When you register your interest in Lakehouse Capital we ask for your first name, last name, email, phone number, investor type, and potential investment size. We usually also capture your Internet Protocol address (“IP address”) at the time you subscribe.
- Information We Automatically Track: While on Fool.com.au and affiliated websites, we automatically log certain information about how you’re using our site. This information may include the URL that you just came from, your IP address and the pages you visit while on our site. The Motley Fool may place a pixel on pages on our site or those of other companies that are presenting advertisements. This enables us to record in our server logs that a specific user id has visited a particular page. This data allows us to analyse and determine our audience’s behavioural characteristics, which helps us to optimise our site, advertisement placement, and marketing focus. Only anonymous, non-personally identifiable information is collected in this way, and it cannot, by itself or in combination, be tracked to a specific individual.
- Surveys: On occasions we conduct surveys and we collect the answers provided.
The Main Consequences of Not Providing Your Information
You are not required to give us your personal information. However, if you do not give us your personal information we may not be able to provide you with our services and/or provide the content that you wish to receive.
Where Your Information is Stored
Your personal information (as outlined above) is disclosed to and processed and stored by our parent company, The Motley Fool, LLC, in the United States of America (“Fool US”). By providing your personal information you consent to this transfer and disclosure. Please note that while we have obliged Fool US to comply with the Australian Privacy Principles in respect of your personal information, once disclosed to Fool US, your personal information will be subject to the privacy laws of the United States of America which may be different from Australian law.
Our Use of This Information
- Provide Our Services: The Motley Fool uses your information to deliver, and provide access to the services and features that you have subscribed to, or otherwise requested. We also use your information for administrative purposes such as billing and member support. When necessary, we will use your information to investigate any complaints or possible violations of our Terms of Service.
- More Customised Service: The Motley Fool collects your personal information to provide you, the user, with the best and most personalised Web experience possible and to provide our advertisers with an efficient means to reach the right audience. In short, by knowing a little about you, The Motley Fool can deliver more relevant content and advertisements to you while at our Web site and thus, provide you with a more efficient, customised and seamless experience when using our service.
- Internal Research: Cookies and the other information we automatically track are used to help us better understand how our audience uses our site as well as for internal research on users’ demographics and interests. Each browser accessing The Motley Fool is given a unique cookie which is then used to determine usage patterns and to help in targeting content and ads based on user interests.
- To Contact You: We may subsequently email you about our various products and services, or other products and services we feel may interest you. If you’d rather not receive these marketing communications, you can click the 'Unsubscribe' link found at the bottom of the email.
Use of IP Addresses and Cookies
IP Addresses:
Your Web browser or email application automatically provides your IP address to other computers with which you communicate over the Internet so that they know where to send you information.
We receive an IP address each time you view one of our Web pages because the browser automatically reports it to us. We also may store the IP address when you register with The Motley Fool.
We may use IP addresses for various purposes, including:
- Diagnosing service or technology problems.
- Assessing and maintaining system security.
- Displaying the most appropriate advertising or content.
- Studying how people use our site and how we can improve it.
Cookies:
If your browser is set up to accept them, we also use a feature known as a cookie. Cookies contain bits of information that Web sites transfer to your computer’s hard drive for record-keeping purposes. Cookies can make the Web more useful by storing information about your preferences on a particular site such as ours.
At The Motley Fool and our affiliated websites cookies are primarily used in the following ways:
- To automatically access your previously stored account information, so that we don’t ask for your information multiple times.
- To estimate our audience size and usage patterns.
- TO ENABLE ADVERTISING PARTNERSHIPS FOR OUR PRODUCTS
In addition, if you provide us with your email address anywhere on the site (including on our order pages), we will place a cookie on your device that temporarily stores your email address. We may use this information to subsequently contact you. Most browsers are set up to accept cookies, but you can configure your browser to refuse cookies or to notify you when you’ve received one. If you reject cookies, though, we will continue to ask for an email address to access our articles.
Information Sharing and Disclosure
Except as set out in this Policy, The Motley Fool does not disclose, give, lend or sell your personal information to any third party. We only provide aggregate, non-identifiable information to our current and prospective business partners. For example, we might tell them that there are 120,000 Registered Fools in Metropolis, but we won’t tell them that the user called ‘Superman’ is one of them, and we definitely won’t tell them that his email address is ckent@dailyplanet.com.
We may disclose your personal information as follows:
- As stated above, the information we collect from you is disclosed to and processed and stored by our parent company, Fool US. Also, since Fool US handles the distribution of some of our emails for us, we provide our users’ email addresses to Fool US for the purpose of delivering these publications.
- We may employ the services of third party providers to aid us in certain aspects of our operations (such as the distribution of our email products or conducting a survey for us). Depending on the services performed, some of these providers may be provided with user information (including your personal information). These contractors will be subject to confidentiality agreements which limit their use and disclosure of all information they obtain through their relationship with us to Fool-related business only, consistent with this policy. Some of these providers may be located overseas. The countries in which these providers are likely to be located is the United States.
- We may disclose your personal information to protect the rights and property of The Motley Fool as well as permitted or required by law or to comply with valid legal process.
Security
The Motley Fool takes reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is protected from misuse, interference and loss and from unauthorized access, modification and disclosure. While we do our best to protect your personal information, The Motley Fool cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us and you do so at your own risk. What does all this mean? Just as in the investing world, you must protect yourself. You are responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any passwords and account information you reveal on the internet.
Access to Your Information
In accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles, upon written request, The Motley Fool will (other than as permitted by law) provide you access to the personal information we hold about you as well as grant you the opportunity to correct any incorrect personal information. If your access request is denied, we will give you the reasons for denying your request. To contact us about accessing your information, please click here. Alternatively, you can submit your request to:
Privacy
The Motley Fool Australia (membersupportAU@fool.com.au)
PO Box 4635
Ashmore, Qld 4214
Complaints
While we always endeavour to get things right, we accept that we can get things wrong. If you have a complaint regarding your privacy you may make a complaint to us and we will investigate your concerns as soon as possible. To make a complaint, please contact us at:
Privacy (membersupportAU@fool.com.au)
The Motley Fool Australia
PO Box 4635
Ashmore, Qld 4214
If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint, you may complain to the Privacy Commissioner.
Other Parties Collecting Information
If you follow or click on links to any third-party websites from fool.com.au and affiliated websites, including when paying your subscription through PayPal, you should be aware that these other sites have their own privacy and data processing practices. The Motley Fool has no responsibility or liability for these independent policies. For more information regarding a site and its privacy policies, check that site.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
The Fool may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make any substantive changes to this policy, we’ll announce it on our site. Your continued use of our website, services or provision of further personal information to us once you have been notified of the revised Privacy Policy constitutes your deemed acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy.