Our Privacy Policy

A privacy policy, why?

A toolbar is the ideal place to snoop on peoples browsing habits because it tightly integrates with the browser. This means that all toolbar manufacturers should be very explicit with regards to what they do or do not do with the privilige that they receive when you install their product. Some have pages upon pages of really fine print which at the very end say they can and will sell your online soul to the devil if it pleases them. To distance ourselves from these spyware products we have come up with the following privacy statement.

At the World Wide Grapevine we believe you have a basic right to privacy on the Internet, just as you do in the real world.

That being said it is hard to provide this kind of service without some information flowing back from you to us. To address any privacy issues we document *exactly* which information is being sent and when:

• You pick a username and password. The username can be a handle (nickname) or it can be your real name. By picking a handle instead of your real name you are safeguarding your privacy.
• Once every 5 minutes the client software polls the server to see if there is a pending grape for you. If there is then the grape is retrieved and stored on your machine. It then becomes visible on the toolbar. Other than your userid and password no information is passed from the client to the server.
• Whenever you click 'forward' an entry is made in our database that logs which user sent this URL. This facilitates the accreditation mechanism in the vine.
• To be able to forward URLs properly we keep track of who listens to who. That way we know who should receive a particular grape.
• Every time you click on a grape we count that click. This will be used in a future ranking mechanism.
• Some explicit statements about things that we do NOT do:
  
  • We do NOT Log your surfing behaviour
  • We do NOT have 'phone home' capability built in to the software that passes information about you, your computer or anything else from you to us at any moment
  • We do NOT log keystrokes or perform any other privacy violations.

We have gone to great lengths to analyze the abuse potential of our product and we have closed all the holes that we could think of. Your IP address is shielded at all times, your real world identity is protected as well as is possible with the technology placed at our disposal. The only way that you could breach this is by explicit communication with other members on the vine, which is not possible through the vine itself.