Overview

HardcoreGamerDirect.com considers the protection of personal privacy to be one of our most important values. This privacy policy ("Policy") gives you specific information on how we protect your privacy, how we treat personal information, and the choices you have.

This Policy applies to all web sites owned or provided by HardcoreGamerDirect.com. HardcoreGamerDirect.com includes, but is not limited to, www.hardcoregamerdirect.com. From time to time we may add new sites, domain names or services to those listed above. Please note that this Policy applies only to sites owned and services maintained by HardcoreGamerDirect.com or its corporate subsidiaries and not to web sites or services provided by other companies or organizations to which we link.

As a condition of using www.hardcoregamerdirect.com, you agree to be bound by the terms of this Policy. Additional terms and conditions which govern your use of www.hardcoregamerdirect.com are contained in our User Agreement, and, as applicable, in certain other service-specific license agreements or terms of use, which you will be notified of at the time of your registration for the applicable services.

The Policy is accessible through www.hardcoregamerdirect.com in several ways, including from a link entitled "Privacy Policy" at the bottom of the www.hardcoregamerdirect.com homepage. You acknowledge that this Policy may change over time. You should check www.hardcoregamerdirect.com regularly for these and other important announcements. Your continued use of www.hardcoregamerdirect.com following the Notice Period will signify that you agree to these changes.

Children

www.hardcoregamerdirect.com is not directed for children under the age of 13. HardcoreGamerDirect.com prohibits registration by, and HardcoreGamerDirect.com shall not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from, anyone under 13. This requirement will be posted at points of data collection within HardcoreGamerDirect.com and www.hardcoregamerdirect.com such as registration for services.

Note to Parents. If you have any concerns about the www.hardcoregamerdirect.com, please contact us via email at us via email at help@hardcoregamerdirect.com. HardcoreGamerDirect.com encourages parents to spend time online with their children. We also urge parents to instruct their children never to give out their real names, addresses or phone numbers without parental permission when using the Internet.

Information Collection, Storage and Use

We refer to information that identifies an individual as "Personal Information." In general, HardcoreGamerDirect.com collects Personal Information from users of www.hardcoregamerdirect.com in connection with access to certain online areas or services, including during (i) registration for certain online community services and tools such as message boards, chat rooms or other community services; (ii) registration for special communications, such as email updates and newsletters; (iii) subscription registration; (iv) user surveys; (v) events, sweepstakes, contests or promotions; and (vi) registration for online multi- or single-player gaming, either through www.hardcoregamerdirect.com , within a game publisher's site or through the game itself. Your Personal Information is stored on HardcoreGamerDirect.com computer databases (or those of its service providers) located in the United States.

Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information in public areas of www.hardcoregamerdirect.com, such as the member home pages and message boards, your information can be viewed and possibly used by others. We advise users to be especially careful in such public areas about disclosing Personal Information, such as full name, home address, or phone number.

Below are more details about the Personal Information we, or third parties may gather from you and how we may use it.

A. Email Newsletters. HardcoreGamerDirect.com offers email newsletters to its registered users.

B. Membership Information. When you register for membership with www.hardcoregamerdirect.com, we will ask you for certain minimum required information, such as your name, birth date, gender, email address and zip code. We may also ask for additional information about you and your interests. We do this so we can better understand your preferences and tailor www.hardcoregamerdirect.com to suit you better. Additionally, third-party service providers may require you to assent to their privacy policy as a condition to receiving their service.

• Service Providers. When you register for membership with www.hardcoregamerdirect.com or activate a related service, you may be automatically registered to receive the services we offer and some of your Personal Information may be transferred from HardcoreGamerDirect.com to those third-party service providers. By becoming a member, you authorize us and our third-party service providers to send you email updates and information about promotions and special offers. We take care to require that our third-party service providers only use our member's data as necessary to provide the particular service and to give you updates on that service provider's products and services.

• Game Owners/Publishers. We provide game owners/publishers with certain hosted technology and software that enables various game related functionalities, such as online multi- or single-player gaming. If you are not already a registered user of www.hardcoregamerdirect.com you may be asked to provide Personal Information in connection with your use of such services. We share Personal Information with game owners/publishers that offer such services to enable those entities to operate the services you have elected to receive. Game owners/publishers may also use Personal Information for other business purposes, provided that such use shall be in compliance with the terms of this Policy, except that a game owner/publisher (a) will not contact you or otherwise use or transfer your Personal Information, unless you have expressly consented. Upon giving such consent your Personal Information will be subject to the game owner's/publisher's privacy policy.

• Co-registration with Other Sites. As a member, we offer you the ability to co-register with select third-party partner sites. In some instances where www.hardcoregamerdirect.com provides co-registration, the co-registration partners allow you to opt-out of their membership. If you choose to co-register with our partners and accept their terms of service, then you are automatically registered as a member of their select web sites and your Personal Information is transferred to those organizations. As a result, you may receive information from one of these web sites as any of their members would. We advise you to review the privacy and data collection policies of the third-party partner sites for further information. In order to cancel your membership with any of these partners you will need to go directly to the partner's site.

• Advertisers. HardcoreGamerDirect.com may send you emails on behalf of our advertisers. If you opt to receive information from our advertisers they may use your Personal Information to send you advertisements or other notices, via email or postal mail, and it is possible that your information may be shared with others.

• Other Parties. We occasionally provide third parties with Personal Information limited only to your physical address in order to send you promotional mailings.

C. Email Updates to Members. If you select at registration, we may periodically send you promotional email about products or services offered by HardcoreGamerDirect.com, our partners and advertisers. If you want to update your email address or stop receiving these types of promotional emails, please follow the procedures to unsubscribe at the bottom of any email we send you or simply visit www.hardcoregamerdirect.com to update your profile.

We may contact you regarding account status, changes to this Policy, our User Agreement or other terms of use, to confirm your registration or for any other business reason related to your use of www.hardcoregamerdirect.com.

D. Promotions. We may ask you for Personal Information at other times, including, but not limited to, when you enter sweepstakes, contests or promotions sponsored by HardcoreGamerDirect.com or a third party. If you choose to enter sweepstakes, contests or promotions sponsored by a third party, the Personal Information you provide will be subject to the privacy policy of the third party sponsor. We encourage you to check the applicable third party policy before providing any Personal Information.

E. Surveys and User Research. HardcoreGamerDirect.com conducts email and web-delivered surveys from time to time, as well as instant polls, to gather information about our users. Taking these surveys and polls is entirely optional. You have no obligation to respond to them. We share only the aggregate results of these surveys, not Personal Information, with our advertisers and partners to help them better understand our services and monitor the reach of their advertising or other offerings on our service. We also use some of the Personal Information that you provide in these surveys to help us understand your interests and to make www.hardcoregamerdirect.com more useful to you.

F. Use of Cookies. On the Internet, a "cookie" is a piece of information (a file) that a Web site transfers to a user's computer for record-keeping purposes. The use of cookies is common on the Internet. The process we use to serve advertisements and to track use of www.hardcoregamerdirect.com involves cookies. We use cookies to recognize users who have already registered with www.hardcoregamerdirect.com allowing those users to speed up their future activities on www.hardcoregamerdirect.com. Cookies help HardcoreGamerDirect.com and our advertising service (discussed below) track the frequency and placement of advertisements. Cookies also enable us to measure aggregate (total) usage and traffic to www.hardcoregamerdirect.com and to specific offerings. This aids us in producing content that best meets our users' preferences. In order to implement new services, we may use other types of cookies as well. We also may use cookies to understand better what parts of www.hardcoregamerdirect.com you like best. We may use that information to display advertisements that we think will be of particular interest to you. You may configure your browser to reject cookies, but this may interfere with some functionality of www.hardcoregamerdirect.com. To find out more about changing your browser to reject cookies, we suggest the EPIC Cookies Page http://www.epic.org/privacy/internet/cookies. Certain pages of www.hardcoregamerdirect.com may contain electronic images (called a "single-pixel GIF" or "web beacon") that allow a web site to count users who have visited that page.

G. Purchase of Products or Services. When you purchase products or services from or through www.hardcoregamerdirect.com, we may require Personal Information such as name, address, telephone number and billing information, including credit card, debit card or bank account data. www.hardcoregamerdirect.com will not disclose your Personal Information, including billing information, except to the extent necessary to complete your transaction, for example during an online purchase or where needed to deliver a product or service you ordered.

H. HardcoreGamerDirect Updates; Interactive Material. HardcoreGamerDirect.com automatically updates software used in conjunction with certain of the services available on www.hardcoregamerdirect.com. In order to update this software, HardcoreGamerDirect.com collects a user's current version information from the user's computer. HardcoreGamerDirect.com may record audio conversations or copy text chat or video images from chat rooms on www.hardcoregamerdirect.com and may disclose such material for use in connection with promoting the product.

I. Sites You Visit. As you access our Partner Sites and browse around www.hardcoregamerdirect.com, HardcoreGamerDirect.com may store information about which pages and which Partner Sites you visit and other information presented in your browser's URL address line. HardcoreGamerDirect.com shall use this information to help determine what our users are most interested in.

J. Sharing Non-Personal Information. HardcoreGamerDirect.com may share information that is not Personal Information -- meaning non-personal, aggregate, or summary, information regarding our users -- with other third parties not mentioned in this Policy. This kind of information does not identify you individually.

K. Merger or Acquisition. In the event of a merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of all or substantially all of its assets, or the sale of an individual website owned by HardcoreGamerDirect.com , HardcoreGamerDirect.com may transfer your Personal Information to a third party as a part of such merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale.

L. Legal Authorities. We may also disclose Personal Information in cases when we reasonably believe that it is necessary to identify someone who may be violating HardcoreGamerDirect.com policies or User Agreements or other terms of use, or who may be a threat to HardcoreGamerDirect.com or www.hardcoregamerdirect.com or third party rights, property, or personal safety. HardcoreGamerDirect.com may disclose Personal Information to comply with valid legal process such as a duly issued search warrant, subpoena or court order.

Access to Other Sites through www.hardcoregamerdirect.com

Our Partner Sites. You should be aware that when you are on www.hardcoregamerdirect.com, you will have the opportunity to visit, or link to, other sites associated with www.hardcoregamerdirect.com. These sites are identified as our "Partner Sites". These sites are not owned or operated by HardcoreGamerDirect.com, but are part of a larger network of sites with which HardcoreGamerDirect.com shares content and advertising opportunities. We do not share your Personal Information with these Partner Sites.

Linking to Other Sites. You may also visit independent web sites, not owned or operated by HardcoreGamerDirect.com, through links on www.hardcoregamerdirect.com. Such sites are operated by external, third-party service providers. Some of these sites will have their own separate membership processes and privacy policies. We do not control sites that are operated by others and are not responsible for the information practices of these sites. Other sites may set their own cookies, collect data or solicit personal information. It is always a good idea to check the privacy policy and terms of use of any site before offering any of your Personal Information. We do not share your Personal Information with these independent web sites.

Information Storage and Security

Your Personal Information is stored in HardcoreGamerDirect.com computer databases (or those of its service providers) located in the United States. We protect your Personal Information with technical, administrative and physical safeguards to protect against loss, destruction, misuse, modification and improper disclosure. No computer system or information can ever be fully protected against every possible hazard. But HardcoreGamerDirect.com is committed to providing reasonable and appropriate security controls to protect www.hardcoregamerdirect.com and all Personal Information against foreseeable hazards.

Notwithstanding these security measures, please be aware that when you submit Personal Information to HardcoreGamerDirect.com over the Internet, the information may travel over many systems that are not under the control of HardcoreGamerDirect.com. We take the protection of user data very seriously and to that end take reasonable safeguards to prevent interception of any Personal Information. In the case of shopping pages, for example, the credit card information you submit is protected by secure servers.

Accessing, Correcting and Updating Your Information

To access, correct or update your account or other Personal Information such as your city or interests, please use the "Edit profile page" at www.hardcoregamerdirect.com.

If you have any other questions, comments or complaints about this Policy, please contact us via email at help@hardcoregamerdirect.com.

Unsubscribe

Newsletters. You may unsubscribe to email newsletters by following the instructions at the bottom of each newsletter.

Email updates and special offers: You may unsubscribe to email announcements by following the instructions at the bottom of each email.

Services: You may unsubscribe to any service for which you have previously elected by following the instructions included in the www.hardcoregamerdirect.com User Agreement.