Privacy Policy:

PLEASE READ THIS PRIVACY STATEMENT CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS WEB SITE OR ANY FORUM.

This privacy statement is applicable to The Station, SOE content contained therein, and all services and forums provided thereon. SOE respects the privacy concerns of all users of The Station. SOE also recognizes the valuable potential of technology to help people communicate with the companies whose web sites they visit, particularly through customer databases. Responsible use of the information you share with SOE is paramount. In order to help you understand how the information you provide SOE will be used, SOE has created and implemented the following guidelines.

Your Personal Information

A. Do you have to provide personal information to interact with The Station?
You can visit The Station as a guest while remaining anonymous by not providing any personal information (although you may not be able to access all of the features and functionality of The Station if you do not register with The Station). In some cases, The Station may automatically collect information about you that is not personally identifiable. Examples of this type of information include the type of internet browser you are using, the type of computer operating system you are using, the domain name of your Internet service provider and/or the Web site from which you linked to The Station site or advertisement. When you play games which are automatically updated or "patched," the patch routine may check to see that you have the most recent version of game-specific files.

B. What kind of personal information will The Station ask you to provide and why?
In order to register for The Station, we require you to provide us with the following personal information: your name, full e-mail address, country of residence, zip/postal code, birthdate and gender. You can opt whether or not to provide the following additional personal information when registering for The Station: your education level, marital status, income level and the number of children in your household.

We will require that you provide us with your name, credit card number and other information when you sign up to play a fee-based game, such as EverQuest. When you give The Station sensitive information (e.g., credit card numbers), we will give you the option of protecting such information by establishing a secure connection to our web server.
We may require that you provide us with other kinds of personal information for sweepstakes, contest registration and other features of The Station.

REMEMBER: The Station will not collect any personal information about you unless you provide it voluntarily.

ALSO, REMEMBER: Personal information voluntarily disclosed by you within The Station's chat areas, message boards or during game play can be collected by other users of such services and may result in unsolicited messages.

C. How does The Station use your personal information?
The Station's internal use: We use the information we collect to learn what you like, tailor your experience accordingly, and to improve The Station and our other products. We send e-mail to our members who want to receive e-mail from us. However, if you don't want to receive e-mail from us, you can "opt out" of receiving it at the time you register as a member on the Station or each time we request information from you.

Sharing of Information with Third Parties: We will not give any of your personal information to any third party without your express approval. The only personal information we will ask you if you want us to share with third parties is your name and e-mail address. If you don't want us to share your name and e-mail address, you can tell us that by clicking on "No" in the box at the time you register as a member on the Station or each time we request information from you or at other points. We sometimes share aggregated (not personal) information with third parties about our user base, but that information does not include any individually identifiable material.

Sweepstakes and Joint Promotions: On occasion, we conduct various sweepstakes, contests and joint promotions with third parties. In those instances, we will specifically notify you of the intended use of your personal information, the relevant third party, and give you the opportunity to permit or preclude your personal information from being used.

Changing your mind; seeing your information: If you change your mind and do not want to receive e-mails from us or to have us share your name and e-mail address with third parties, you may send an e-mail to us at accounts@soe.sony.com. Subject to security and privacy concerns ( e.g., regarding your password and credit card number), we will give you the ability to review, correct and/or update your information.

D. What are "Cookies" and how are they used?
Cookies are small files that may be downloaded to your computer to help the operator of a web site understand your usage patterns on that site. They may also improve the performance of a site for an individual by storing on your computer such items as user passwords, computer configuration, browser type, etc.
Most browsers are set to accept cookies without any action required by the user. You can alter that default setting by clicking the help button and following the instructions for your browser. However, if you set your browser not to accept cookies, some parts of The Station may not work correctly for you.

E. What happens to my personal information when I link from The Station to another site such as an advertiser's site?
Other web sites are linked to The Station, including those of advertisers whose ads appear on The Station. Those sites may have different privacy policies.
If you click on a hyperlink or an advertisement, you will be leaving The Station and you may go to a site where different information is collected about you. The Station does not know, and is not responsible for, what other web sites do with your personal information.

FOR KIDS - Ages 13 - 18

If you are under 18 years of age, you need to let your parent or guardian know about The Station's privacy policy and get his/her permission before giving us any of your personal information, even information required for The Station registration. Also, get your parent's or guardian's permission before using the message board or chat features of The Station.
Don't post your real name on a web site, and never tell anyone online anything private about yourself or your family, including your phone number and address. Use screen names at all times. If you win a contest that has a prize, your parent or guardian will have to mail or fax us a signed note at the address or fax number listed in the rules for the specific contest that says it was OK for you to enter, and tells us they will accept the prize for you. You will be told to ask a parent before you pay for anything on The Station if you are under 18. (If you buy anything online, you or your parents may send it back within thirty days if you don't open it.) Some areas of this web site may have special rules for children under the age of 18. When you are in those areas you must follow those rules.

FOR KIDS - Under Age 13

A new law went into effect April 21, 2000 (The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) which imposed new rules regarding the collection of personal information from children under the age of 13. Because The Station is not directed to children under the age of 13, we can no longer provide or extend the memberships of individuals under the age of 13. Accordingly, as of April 20, 2000, we deactivated the user names and passwords of, and purged our database of any and all personal information of, all individuals under the age of 13. If you are under the age of 13, you may not create an account on The Station, shall not be eligible to enter any sweepstakes and/or promotions, and are asked not to provide any personal information to the Station or to SOE.

FOR PARENTS

Parents or guardians are encouraged to spend time online with their children to become familiar with the types of content available on The Station and the Internet in general. Parents should regularly oversee their children's use of e-mail and other online communications and transactional features. Control tools are available from online services and software manufacturers that can help provide a safe online environment for kids. You can find out about software that protects your children at the Direct Marketing Association's home page at: http://www.the-dma.org. If your child has used your credit card on The Station without your permission, contact us immediately at accounts@soe.sony.com. If a child has provided us with personally identifiable information, a parent or guardian of that child should contact us by sending an email to accounts@soe.sony.com if he/she would like this information deleted from our records. We will use reasonable efforts to delete the child's information from our existing files.

If you are still having problems after visiting this support section, you can contact our Technical Support Department through an email via our online form.