Version 2.6

All capitalized terms below are defined in the Section entitled "Definitions". 

At Sony CONNECT, we believe our online visitors have a right to know our practices regarding the information we may collect when you visit our Service. The guidelines contained in this Privacy Policy apply to Sony CONNECT, the Service and CONNECT Customer Service.  Other participating websites and Sony sites which are linked to/from the Service and entities that are co-branded with Sony CONNECT may have different policies, which apply to their collection and management of data; therefore, please review the privacy policy notices on those sites and of those entities for details.

Please note that in order to participate in some activities in connection with the Service, such as to register with the Service in order to purchase downloads, services, or other products, or to subscribe to the newsletters or other promotional or marketing email lists available on the Service, it will be necessary for you to provide personally identifiable information.  If you choose not to provide this information, you may not be able to participate in such activities. 

A California resident who has provided personal information to a business with whom he/she has established a business relationship for personal, family, or household purposes (a “California Customer”) is entitled to request information about whether the business has disclosed personal information to any third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes. In general, if the business has made such a disclosure of personal information, upon receipt of a request by a California Customer, the business is required to provide a list of all third parties to whom personal information was disclosed in the preceding calendar year, as well as a list of the categories of personal information that were disclosed.

However, under the law, a business is not required to provide the above-described lists if the business maintains and adopts and discloses to the public (in its privacy policy) a policy of not disclosing customer’s personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes unless (1) the customer first affirmatively agrees to the disclosure or (2) the customer refrains from exercising an option that prevents the disclosure. Rather, the business may comply with the law by notifying the customer of his or her right to prevent disclosure of personal information and providing a cost free means to exercise that right.

As stated in this Privacy Policy, we do not share personal information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes unless you agree to such disclosure -- either by opting in to receive information from such a third party, or choosing not to opt out from receiving such information. To prevent disclosure of your personal information for use in direct marketing by a third party, do not opt in to such use when you provide personally identifiable information on one of our sites, or, if applicable, opt-out from such use. Please note that whenever you opt in to receive future communications from a third party or refrain from opting out from such sharing, your information will be subject to the third party's privacy policy. If you later decide that you do not want that third party to use your information, you will need to contact the third party directly, as we have no control over how third parties use information. You should always review the privacy policy of any party that collects your information to determine how that entity will handle your information.

California Customers may request further information about our compliance with this law by e-mailing privacy@sonyconnect.com. Please note that we are required to respond to one request per California Customer each year, and we are not required to respond to requests made by means other than through this e-mail address.

Personal Information Generally.  Sony CONNECT may ask you to provide “Personal Information” in connection with your use of the Service.  Please note you are responsible for providing your most current Personal Information to Sony CONNECT.  In addition, if you use more than one store that is a part of the Service (meaning the CONNECT For PSP™ Site, the CONNECT Music Store, etc.), Sony CONNECT may ask that you provide such information in connection with each such store.  “Personal Information” means personally identifiable information such as your e-mail address, name, mailing and/or billing address, telephone number, mobile phone number and/or credit card number and expiration date.  Your provision of such Personal Information may enable you to participate in beta tests, contests, promotions, trial offers, chat rooms, on bulletin boards, to receive text messages and/or emails, to complete a registration, to subscribe to newsletters or mailing lists, or to purchase products, content and services using the Service.  (Please note that standard text messages charges apply to all text messages sent and received.)  Sony CONNECT may combine the Personal Information (and other information) you provide on the Service (listed in this paragraph and elsewhere in this Privacy Policy) with other information we may collect from you or from third parties to whom you have provided consent to share your Personal Information so that we can more effectively tailor our Service and offerings to you and our other users. 

Credit Card Information Generally.  As mentioned in the above paragraph, Sony CONNECT may ask you to provide your credit card and billing information.  Before providing you goods, content, products, memberships or services requiring payment, we must verify that the credit card you provide to us is valid.  All of this information is used for credit purposes and is shared with third parties only as necessary for the processing of payments.  All credit card information is handled over secure, encrypted connections provided it is submitted by the user through the normal registration process; however, Sony CONNECT does not guarantee that unauthorized access will never occur.

Contacting You Concerning Transactional Matters.  Sony CONNECT may contact you to provide you with information concerning your CONNECT Account, your transaction(s) with Sony CONNECT, your use of the Service, Service announcements and Service and Software updates, without your specific consent. 

Contacting You Concerning Commercial Matters.  Unless you instruct us otherwise, Sony CONNECT may also contact you with commercial information about products, services, promotions, contests or other activities or offerings that may be of interest to you.  If the check-box(es) for receiving such information (placed at or near where your personal contact information is collected) is pre-checked, you can remove the check from the box before providing any information, if you do not wish to be contacted concerning the applicable offering.  If the box(es) is not pre-checked, you may check the box, indicating your preference to be contacted concerning the applicable offering.  Such boxes may indicate you will receive commercial information unless you check the box to opt-out, so please read the options you are provided carefully.  You may be able to otherwise indicate your desire to obtain information about a particular offering by other means (such as an e-mail request). In addition, with each commercial communication you receive from Sony CONNECT, you will be given the opportunity to indicate that you wish to “Unsubscribe” from receiving such future communications.

Information Provided To CONNECT Customer Service.  The Service may offer support and technical assistance through CONNECT Customer Service centers via telephone or e-mail.  Whenever you communicate with CONNECT Customer Service, you do so with the following understandings: (i) that an operator may view and make changes to your Personal Information in order to provide the assistance that you need and (ii) that CONNECT Customer Service may reply to you via email, phone or text message.

Promotional Information.  We may ask you for personal or other information at various times including but not limited to when you enter a promotion, contest, sweepstakes or other offering.  Sony CONNECT will make an effort to provide you with clear information about what information is being collected and how it may be used.  With some promotions, contests, sweepstakes, or offerings, however, it may not be possible for you to participate in the event without granting us permission to share your Personal Information with a co-sponsor of the event, a prize provider or a promotional agency or administrator, for the purpose of administering the event or offering.  In these situations, we will communicate the information sharing requirements; however if the promotion, contest, sweepstakes or other offering is offered through a co-branded site, then your information will be shared with the third party co-branded partner without express notice to you (for more information concerning sharing with a co-branded partner, please see the section below entitled “Personal Information Provided or Collected on a Co-Branded Web Site”).  Participation in these promotions or offerings is completely voluntary and you therefore have a choice whether or not to disclose this information.  Requested Personal Information may include contact information (such as name, email address, mobile phone number and carrier and shipping address), and demographic information (such as zip code and age). Unless otherwise stated, this information will be used to notify the winners and award prizes, and for purposes of monitoring or improving the Service.

Polls/Surveys.  Sony CONNECT may from time to time request that you participate in polls and/or surveys.  The information you provide to Sony CONNECT if you participate in such polls or surveys is provided voluntarily by you, and may include Personal Information or information that is otherwise tied to your Personal Information.  In the case of the latter, before we collect the applicable information from you, we will provide you with notice that the information will be tied to your Personal information.  If you participate in polls or surveys, you do so with the understanding that Sony CONNECT reserves the right to store the information you provide and to use such information for the general improvement of the Service.

Notice of Sharing.  Sony CONNECT may share your Personal Information or other information as follows: (a) with affiliated Sony companies (i.e., (i) Sony Corporation, (ii) any company of which more than 50% of its outstanding shares are owned by Sony Corporation, directly or indirectly, and (iii) any company with the name "SONY" as a part of its trade name) who may want to contact you about products, services or other offerings that may be of interest to you; (b) with third parties with your consent (see “Sharing Subject To Your Consent,” below); (c) with co-branded partners (see “Personal Information Provided Or Collected On A Co-Branded Web Site”, below); (d) as may be required by law, legal process or court order; (e) as may be required to respond to an inquiry, request or complaint you have made; (f)  to persons or companies whom Sony CONNECT engages to carry out or provide support for the operations of the Service or of Sony CONNECT’s business, which may include customer support services (such persons and companies are not permitted by Sony CONNECT to use the information for such persons’ or companies’ marketing purposes unless you indicate you provide your permission for such use by such entities); or (g) to protect the personal safety or property of you, our users, the public, our licensors or ourselves.  You may need to communicate with the entities described in this section directly if you wish to amend, change or revoke any data you supply.

Your Use Of Third Party Currency Or Third Party Loyalty Rewards Currency.  If you choose to download or purchase Content using a third party’s loyalty reward program currency or a third party’s currency (as may be available at the Service), then you agree that Sony CONNECT may share your information and Personal Information with that third party for the purpose of enabling Sony CONNECT and that third party to complete your download or purchase and respond to your inquiries related to such download or purchase.

Personal Information Provided Or Collected On A Co-Branded Web Site.  Information collected or provided using a portion of the Service which is co-branded Sony CONNECT and a third party may be shared by Sony CONNECT with that third party for the purpose for which it was collected.  Further, when such information is collected from you and/or provided by you, it may be directly provided to both Sony CONNECT and that third party, without express notice.  In such cases, your Personal Information and information will be used, collected, stored and treated by Sony CONNECT and the co-branded party in accordance with the co-branded privacy policy available at that site or, if none, this privacy policy, which shall be available at the Co-Branded Web Site.  Third party co-branded partners of Sony CONNECT will not contact you with commercial messages unless you instruct otherwise through the opt-in or opt-out mechanism available.  Please notice that when you use the opt-in or opt-out mechanism to indicate you would like to receive commercial messages from co-branded third parties, your Personal Information and information, as applicable, may be used by such third parties in accordance with their respective privacy policies.  Please make sure to review such policies and recognize you may need to communicate with these third parties directly if you later decide that you no longer wish to receive their communications or if you wish to amend or change any data you supply.

Sharing Subject To Your Consent.  With your consent, Sony CONNECT may share your Personal Information or other information with specific third parties outside of the Sony group of companies (not already discussed herein) who may want to contact you about products, services, promotions or other offerings that may be of interest to you. Your information may be treated by those third party companies in accordance with their respective privacy policies. Sony CONNECT will seek to obtain your consent at the place where the information is collected either by an "opt-out" or "opt-in" method, or by other means. If you consent to receiving communications from any of these third parties, you may need to communicate with them directly if you later decide that you no longer wish to receive their communications or if you wish to amend or change any data you supply to such companies.  Sony CONNECT makes no representation regarding how any third parties use, manage, store, treat and maintain your Personal Information that you choose to share with them. You should therefore carefully review all such third parties’ privacy policies.

Subsequent Owner Of Service; Sony CONNECT Merger/Acquisition.  By using the Service, you will be deemed to have consented to the disclosure to, and use by, a subsequent owner or operator of the Service, of any information about you contained in the applicable CONNECT database, if Sony CONNECT or one of its companies assigns its rights and obligations regarding any of your information at the time of a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or substantially all of Sony CONNECT's or such Sony CONNECT company's assets related to the applicable site or service to a subsequent owner or operator.  In the event of such a merger, acquisition, or sale, your continued use of the Service signifies your agreement to be bound by the Terms of Service and privacy policy of the subsequent owner or operator of the Service.

Anonymous Reports to Licensors. Sony CONNECT is required to provide anonymous reports to its licensors and owners of content available at the Service, concerning downloads, burns, transfers, listening to preview clips and listening to Radio CONNECT and other information related to user activity.  The purpose of these reports is to ensure proper royalty payments by Sony CONNECT to its licensors and owners.  Sony CONNECT reserves the right to use this reporting information, in the aggregate, to improve the Service. 

Generally.  Sony CONNECT may share aggregate information about our visitors with advertisers, business partners, sponsors and other third parties.

Affiliate Marketing.  Affiliate marketing companies are entities that are in the business of compensating web sites that promote the affiliate marketing company’s clients and such clients’ services by hosting advertisements and links to client web sites.  Sony CONNECT may share anonymous information concerning your use of and visits to the Service with certain affiliate marketing companies for the purpose of measuring the effectiveness of affiliate programs.  These affiliate marketing companies will note some of the pages you visit on our sites through the use of web beacons or other technology. The information collected by these web beacons or other technology is not personally identifiable.

The Service may have certain features that allow you to send information to others (such as a "Tell a Friend" feature or a CONNECT Gift Certificate or CONNECT Gift Card feature).  We may monitor such messages via electronic software or personnel to check for obscenity, defamation or other types of abusive language, as well as for content that may infringe our rights or the rights of others, all of which we may remove at any time. We will not otherwise access these messages except in certain cases, including but not limited to times when we receive specific complaints related to a particular message or are compelled to do so by law.  Also for administrative purposes, we may keep a mail log that will include a record of which users sent messages and to which users or email addresses they were sent. We will not use the addressee information you enter to send emails other than those you request be sent. 

"Client" refers collectively to the applications which exist on the client computer and that support the CONNECT Music Store and the CONNECT eBooks Store, which may each be changed from time to time by Sony CONNECT.

 "CONNECT Account" means a user account registered with the Service.

"CONNECT Customer Service" refers to the customer service available to you concerning the Service.  For certain portions of the Service, when you contact CONNECT Customer Service, you may be contacting customer service representatives of companies that Sony CONNECT has engaged to provide support for those portions of the Service.

"CONNECT eBooks Store" collectively refers to: (i) Sony CONNECT’s online book store available at www.ebooks.connect.com or accessible through the eBooks software client, (ii) any co-branded version of that store; and (iii) any content of that store and of any co-branded version of that store.

"CONNECT eBooks Store Account" means a user account registered specifically with the CONNECT eBooks Store.

 "CONNECT eBooks Store Library" means the CONNECT Library available in connection with the CONNECT eBooks Store only.

"CONNECT For PSP™ Site" refers to the promotional video download service available to end users at psp.connect.com.

"CONNECT Library" means the area of the Client from which you can view: (i) the content you have downloaded from the Service; or (ii) the content transferred to your CONNECT Service compatible device (which can be viewed in the CONNECT Library when your device is connected to your personal computer by a USB connection).  For the CONNECT Music Store, you may also view the content you transferred to the Client from your personal CD collection.  For the CONNECT eBooks Store, you may also view the content you transferred to the Client from your personal library or document collection.

"CONNECT Music Store" collectively refers to: (i) Sony CONNECT’s online music store available at www.connect.com, (ii) any co-branded version of that store; and (iii) any content of that store and of any co-branded version of that store.

"CONNECT Music Store Account" means a user account registered specifically with the CONNECT Music Store.

"CONNECT Music Store Library" means the CONNECT Library available in connection with the CONNECT Music Store only.

"Content" means all of the content of the Service, which is available for download by a Sony CONNECT end user.

"eBooks Store Client" refers to the application that supports the CONNECT eBooks Store.

"Music Snobs Site" collectively refers to that Sony CONNECT web site available at www.musicsnobs.com and all of the content available at that site.

"Music Store Client" refers to the application that supports the CONNECT Music Store.

"Privacy Policy" refers to this privacy policy, which may be amended from time to time by Sony CONNECT in accordance with its terms.

“Service” means the CONNECT Music Store, the CONNECT eBooks Store, the CONNECT For PSP™ Site, the Content and the Music Snobs Site, collectively.

“Software” refers to that proprietary software application and all updates thereto owned by or licensed to Sony CONNECT, which provide access to the Service once installed to the hard drive of your personal computer (including automatic updates to the such software, which may be installed to your personal computer by the Service without further notice) and the security components that permit digital files to be protected and use to occur only as permitted by the terms of any applicable E.U.L.A. and usage rules set by Sony CONNECT and/or a Sony CONNECT licensor.

 "Sony CONNECT" means Sony CONNECT Inc.

If you have any questions or comments about our Personal Information practices or about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to write us at:

Sony CONNECT Personal Information Management Office
6080 Center Drive, 10th floor
Los Angeles, CA 90045