Privacy Policy

WHAT THIS POLICY COVERS

Your privacy is important to us, and so is being transparent about how we collect, use and share information about you. This policy is intended to help you understand the following:

What information we collect about you
How we use the information we collect
How we share the information we collect
How we store and secure the information we collect
How to access and control your information
How we transfer the information we collect internationally
Other important privacy information

This privacy policy covers the information we collect about you when you use our products or services, or otherwise interact with us (for example, by attending our events), unless a different policy is displayed.

Our products include our website (www.IndieWorldOrder.com, IWOCon.com), our social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Steam group, etc.,), and our event IWOCon™. Collectively, we refer to these products as our “Services.”

This policy also explains your rights about how the information we hold on you is used. Your rights include how you can object to certain uses of information about you and how you can access and update certain information about you.

IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS POLICY, DO NOT ACCESS OR USE OUR SERVICES OR INTERACT WITH ANY OTHER ASPECT OF OUR BUSINESS.

WHAT INFORMATION WE COLLECT ON YOU

OVERVIEW

We collect information about you when:

You provide it to us.
Data is provided to us by third parties.

The information we collect includes account and contact information, device and connection information, Service information and logs.

INFORMATION YOU PROVIDE TO US

We collect information about you when you input it into the Services or otherwise provide it directly to us.

Account and Profile Information:

We collect information about you when you do one or more of the following on our forum:

Register for an account
Modify your account
Make posts using your account

The personal information we may collect when you take those actions is the following:

Name
Email
Username
Physical address
Phone number
Other information about yourself which you may choose to include in your profile

A username, password and email are required to fully access our forum and choosing not to supply that information will limit your access to the forum, however any other information you provide is optional and will not affect your access to the forum.

Our services are public entities. Some give its users the ability to discuss topics and post content on a literal public forum for anyone to see. Anything you choose to post on this forum will be publicly visible. This may include personal identifying information, if you so choose to post that. We strongly urge and recommend that you do not post any such personal identifying information. If at any time you wish to modify or remove any content that you posted on our forum, you may do so by navigating to the specific forum post and using the forum tools to modify or delete the content. If you have any issue with this process, you are free to contact us at Contact@IndieWorldOrder.com and we will remove the post at your request.

Content you provide through our websites

We collect any content you submit to the websites owned and operated by us. The personal information we collect on these websites are:

Username
Email Address

Information you provide through our support channels

The Services also include our customer support, either through forums, Discord, Steam, voice chat or email communication, where you can submit information about a problem you experience with a Service. When you engage with our support website and/or team you will be asked to provide contact information, a summary of the problem and any other documentation.

The contact information we ask you to provide is one or more of the following:

Email Address
Username

If you do not provide an email address or a username, our support team will not be able to communicate with you and therefore will be unable to resolve your problem.

Information you provide outside our Services

Information you provide to us is not always done via our Services but via third-party services, e.g. social media. The information we receive this way is one or more of the following:

Username
Email Address

INFORMATION WE COLLECT AUTOMATICALLY WHEN YOU USE THE SERVICES

Currently, the only information we collect automatically from you when using our services is that someone is using our services. We do this in an attempt to understand how many users are using the services at any one time. This information is not identifiable in any way, and only allows us to see if a user is using the account, but not which user is using the account.

However, third parties, such as the companies which host our website or forums, or the companies which distributor of our products, may automatically collect information. Please be aware that when using these services, you are also agreeing to the privacy policies of these third parties.

INFORMATION FROM THIRD PARTIES

We receive information about you from third-party services when you interact with certain Services or information made public by other third-party services.

Information made public by third parties

We receive information about you from information made public by third-parties via a website and/or API. The information we collect this way is:

Third-party user id
Posts
Reviews

For example, Steam makes all game reviews accessible via an API.

The information we receive depends on the settings, permissions and privacy policy controlled by that third-party service. You should always check the privacy settings and notices in these third-party services to understand what data may be disclosed to us or shared.

HOW WE USE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

How we use the information we collect depends, in part, on the Services you use, how you use them and any preferences you have communicated to us. These uses include providing, securing and improving the Services, communicating with you about the Services, support for the Services, and with your consent, additional marketing about the Services.

To provide the Services

We use the information about you to provide the Services to you, including:

Provide customer support
Operate and maintain the Services

For example, the username you provide for our forum is used to identify you to other forum users.

For research and development

We are always looking for ways to improve our Services. We use collective learnings about how people use our Services and feedback provided directly to us for the following:

Troubleshoot any issues users are experiencing
Identify any trends and activity patterns
Identify areas which can be improved to help user experience

For example, to identify if a specific event in a user’s game is caused by a malfunction or an oversight in the games construction, the information provided may be used to test, troubleshoot and inevitably five the malfunction.

To communicate with you about the Services

We use your contact information to send transactional communications via email for the following:

Responding to questions and requests
Providing customer support
Sending you notices and updates about our Services

These communications are highly recommended, although not required, and can be opt out of by contacting us at Contact@IndieWorldOrder.com. However, by submitting a customer support query, you will be required to opt in to a response from our customer support team.

To market, promote and/or drive engagement with the Services

We use your contact information and information about how you use the Services to send you promotional communications that may be of specific interest to you by doing the following:

Sending you an email

These communications are aimed at driving engagement and maximizing what you get out of the Services, including:

Information about new Services
Survey requests
Newsletters

We also communicate with you about new product offers, promotions and contests. You can control whether you receive these communications as described in your account information, or by emailing us at Contact@IndieWorldOrder.com.

Customer support

We use your information to:

Resolve technical issues you encounter
Respond to your requests for assistance
To analyze bugs / crash information
Improve our Services

To protect our legitimate business interests and legal rights

Where required by law or where we believe it is necessary to protect our legal rights, interests and the interests of others, we use information about you in connection with legal claims, compliance, regulatory, and audit functions, and disclosures in connection with the acquisition, merger or sale of a business.

With your consent

We use information about you where you have given us consent to do so for a specific purpose not listed above. For example, we may publish testimonials or featured customer stories to promote the Services, with your permission.

LAWFUL BASES FOR PROCESSING

We collect and process information about you only where we have a legal basis for doing so under applicable laws. The lawful basis depends on the Services you use and how you use them. This means we collect and use your information only where:

We need it in order to provide you the Services, including to operate the Services, provide customer support and personalized features and to protect the safety and security of the Services.
It satisfies a legitimate interest (which is not overridden by your data protection interests), such as for research and development, to market and promote the Services and to protect our legal rights and interests.
You give us consent to do so for a specific purpose.
We need to process your data to comply with a legal obligation.

If you have consented to our use of information about you for a specific purpose, you have the right to change your mind at any time, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place.

Where we are using your information because we have a legitimate interest to do so, you have the right to object to that use though, in some cases, this may mean no longer using the Services.

HOW WE SHARE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT SHARING WITH OTHER SERVICE USERS

When you use the Service, we share certain information about you with other Service users.

Discord and Steam Groups / Public Forums

Some of our services offer publicly accessible forums or places for open discussion and issue trackers, e.g. our Discord or Steam Group. You should be aware that any information you provide on these websites or services – including profile information associated with the account you use to post the information, may be read, collected and used by any member of the public who accesses these websites. Your posts and certain profile information may remain even after you terminate your account. We strongly recommend you to consider the sensitivity of any information you input into these Services. To request removal of your information from publicly accessible websites operated by us, please use the tools within the forum itself, or contact us at Contact@IndieWorldOrder.com. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to and why. You may also have to request the removal of your information from the owners of third party services which our products are being used on such as Discord or Steam.

SHARING WITH THIRD PARTIES

We share information with third parties that help us operate, provide, improve, integrate, customize, support and market our Services.

Service Provider

We work with third-party service providers for the following:

Website and application development
Hosting
Storage
Email Communications
Marketing Communications

If a service provider needs to access information about you to perform services on our behalf, they do so under close instruction from us, including policies and procedures designed to protect your information.

Links to Third party sites

The Service may include links that direct you to other websites or services whose privacy practices may differ from ours. If you submit information to any of those third party sites, your information is governed by their privacy policies, not this one. We strongly recommend that you carefully read the privacy policy of any website you visit.

Compliance with Enforcement Requests and Applicable Laws; Enforcement of Our Rights

In exceptional circumstances, we may share information about you with a third party if we believe that sharing is reasonably necessary to (a) comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, including to meet national security requirements, (b) enforce our agreements, policies and terms of service, (c) protect the security or integrity of our products and services, (d) protect Indie World Order™, our customers/users, or the public from harm or illegal activities, or (e) respond to an emergency which we believe in good faith requires us to disclose information to assist in preventing the death or serious bodily injury of any person.

SHARING WITH AFFILIATED COMPANIES

We share information we collect with affiliated companies. Affiliated companies are companies owned or operated by us. The protections of this privacy policy apply to the information we share in these circumstances.

Business Transfers

We may share or transfer information we collect under this privacy policy in the event of any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company. In this case we will attempt to notify you (e.g. email and/or a prominent notice on the Services) if a transaction takes place, and outline any choices you may have regarding your information.

HOW WE STORE AND SECURE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT INFORMATION STORAGE AND SECURITY

We use Wix to host the website, Discord to host our Discord and Steam to host our Steam Group, Amazon Web Services (AWS) & Twitch to host our live streams and the information we collect on these services. Indie World Order, Wix, Discord. AWS and Steam each use technical measures to secure your data.

Although we implement safeguards designed to protect your information, no security system is impenetrable and due to the inherent nature of the Internet, we cannot guarantee that data, during transmission through the Internet or while stored on Wix’s, Discord’s, Steam’s, or AWS’s system or otherwise in our care, is absolutely safe from intrusion by others.

Access to the data is limited to trusted employees on a need-to-know basis.

HOW LONG WE KEEP INFORMATION

How long we keep information we collect depends on the type of information, as described below. After such time, we will either delete or anonymize your information or, if this is not possible for any reason, then we will securely store your information and isolate it from any further use until deletion is possible.

Account Information

We retain your account information for as long as your account is open. Due to the nature of our Services, if you stop using our Services and do not tell us, your information will remain in case you decide to start using our Services again.

If at any point our Services stop, we will delete all the information we hold relating to the Service that has stopped.

We also retain some of your information that is necessary:

To comply with our legal obligations
To resolve disputes
To enforce our agreements
To support business operations
To continue to develop and improve our Services.

Where we retain information for Service improvement and development, we take steps to eliminate information that directly identifies you, and we only use the information to uncover collective insights about the use of our Services.

Information you share on the Services

If your account is deactivated or disabled, some of your information and the content you have provided will remain for other users to make full use of the Services. For example, we continue to display your username and posts in our forums where your username is tagged to a certain thread or post, unless otherwise deleted or removed at your request or action

Marketing information

If you have elected to receive marketing emails from us, we retain information about your marketing preferences until you opt-out using the opt-out feature in your account settings.

HOW TO ACCESS AND CONTROL YOUR INFORMATION

You have certain rights available to you when it comes to your information. Below is a summary of those rights, how to exercise them and any limitations.

YOUR RIGHTS

Below is a list of your rights:

Request a copy of your information
Object to our use of your information (including for marketing purposes)
Withdraw previously given consent
Request the deletion or restriction of your information
Request your information in a structured, electronic format
Right to complain to a relevant supervisory authority

Below, we describe the tools and processes for making these requests. You can exercise some of these rights by logging into the Services and using settings available within the Service or your account.

Your request and rights may be limited in certain cases: for example, if fulfilling your request would reveal information about another person, or if you ask to delete information we are permitted to by law or have a compelling legitimate interest to keep. If you have unresolved concerns, you have the right to complain to a supervisory authority in the country where you live, where you work or where you feel your rights were infringed.

Request a copy of your information

You have the right to request any of the personal information we hold on you. You can do this by sending an email to Contact@IndieWorldOrder.com and ask for your information.

We will provide this information to you within 1 month from the point we have all the information to process the request.

This information will be sent to you in English and in a computer-readable format, unless another reasonable format is requested.

Access and update your information

Our Services give you the ability to access and update certain information about yourself from within the account settings in the Services.

Delete your account

If you no longer wish to use our forum, or our Services entirely, you can contact our support team and ask for your account to be deleted. They will notify you if, for any reason, not all the information we hold can be deleted and will inform you of the implications of us deleting your account.

If you delete your forum account, you will permanently lose access to our forum.

Please note, however, that we may need to retain certain information for record-keeping purposes, or to comply with our legal obligations.

Request that we stop using your personal data

In some cases, you may ask us to stop accessing, storing, using and otherwise processing your information where you believe we don't have the appropriate rights to do so. For example, if you believe a Service account was created for you without your permission or you are no longer an active user, you can request that we delete your account as provided in this policy. Where you gave us consent to use your information for a limited purpose, you can contact us to withdraw that consent, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place before that time. When you make such requests, we may need time to investigate and facilitate your request. If there is delay or dispute as to whether we have the right to continue using your information, we will restrict any further use of your information until the request is honored or the dispute is resolved.

Opt out of communications

You may opt out of receiving promotional communications from us by using the unsubscribe link within each email, updating your email preferences within your forum settings menu, or by contacting customer support to have your contact information removed from our promotional email list or registration database.

Turn off Cookie Controls

To opt-out of our use of cookies, you can instruct your browser, by changing its options, to stop accepting cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from websites you visit. If you do not accept cookies, however, you may not be able to use all aspects of our Services.

Many browsers include their own management tools for removing HTML5 local storage objects.

You will not be able to opt-out of any cookies or other technologies that are “strictly necessary” for the Services.

Send "Do Not Track" Signals

Some browsers have incorporated "Do Not Track" (DNT) features that can send a signal to the websites you visit indicating you do not wish to be tracked. Because there is not yet a common understanding of how to interpret the DNT signal, our Services do not currently respond to browser DNT signals. You can use the range of other tools we provide to control data collection and use, including the ability to opt-out of receiving marketing from us as described above.

Data portability

Data portability is the ability to obtain some of your information in a format you can move from one service provider to another (for instance, when you transfer your mobile phone number to another carrier). Depending on the context, this applies to some of your information, but not to all of your information. Should you request it, we will provide you with an electronic file of your basic account information.

INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

Indie World Order is an organization located in the United States in the State of Florida. If you are located outside the United States, your connection will be through servers located in the United States. All information you provide will be processed and maintained in our web servers and internal systems located within the United States. By using the Site, you authorize the export of Personal Information to the United States and its storage and use, as specified in this Privacy Policy, when you provide such information to us.

OTHER IMPORTANT PRIVACY INFORMATION CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS

If you are a California resident, you may have certain additional rights. California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits you to request information regarding the disclosure of your personal information by us to third parties for the third parties' direct marketing purposes. California Business and Professions Code Section 22581 permits registered users who are minors to request and obtain deletion of certain posted content. Additionally, the California Consumer Privacy Act require the right to access, delete and opt out of information collected. All of that can be accomplished by sending an email to Contact@IndieWorldOrder.com

OUR POLICY TOWARDS CHILDREN

These Services are intended for users that are at least 13 years of age. By utilizing the Services and/or its features, you are acknowledging that you are at least 13 years of age. These Services are not intended for or designed to attract persons under the age of 13. We do not permit registration by, and do not knowingly collect Personal Information, from anyone under the age of 13. If you are the parent or legal guardian of a child under 13 years of age and believe that Indie World Order has collected Personal Information from your child, please contact us at: Contact@IndieWorldOrder.com. If we are made aware that a child younger than 13 has provided us with Personal Information, we will use commercially reasonable efforts to delete such information.

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

Indie World Order may update this Privacy Policy at any time and any changes will be effective upon posting. In the event that there are material changes to the way we treat your Personal Information, we will display a notice on the Site prior to the change becoming effective. We may also notify you by email, at our discretion. However, we will use your Personal Information in a manner consistent with the Privacy Policy in effect at the time you submitted the information, unless you consent to the new or revised policy. Your continued use of the Site following notice of changes to the Privacy Policy will be deemed as acceptance of the changes.

If you disagree with any changes to this privacy policy, you will need to stop using the Services and delete your account(s), as outlined above.

Should you need to contact Indie World Order™ for any reason, including changing, altering, removing or otherwise modifying your information within our Services, please email us at Contact@IndieWorldOrder.com.

This Privacy Policy was updated on November 11, 2022.