Privacy Policy
Last Updated on March 29, 2019. This Privacy Policy is effective March 29, 2019 for all users. To review the previous policy, please click here.
This Privacy Policy describes our policies on the collection, use, and disclosure of information about you in connection with your use of our services, including those offered through our websites, emails, and mobile applications (collectively, the «Service»). The terms «we», «us», and «Yelp» refer to: (i) Yelp Inc., a Delaware corporation with its headquarters in San Francisco, California, if you are a resident of the United States or Canada; or (ii) Yelp Ireland Ltd., a limited liability company established and resident under the laws of the Republic of Ireland, if you are a resident of the European Economic Area (the «EEA») or anywhere else outside the United States or Canada.
When you use the Service, you consent to our collection, use, and disclosure of information about you as described in this Privacy Policy. We may translate this Privacy Policy into other languages for your convenience. Nevertheless, the English version governs your relationship with Yelp, and any inconsistencies among the different versions will be resolved in favor of the English version available here.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Information We Collect and How We Use It
- Cookies
- Third Parties
- Controlling Your Personal Data
- Data Retention and Account Termination
1. INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND HOW WE USE IT
We may collect and store information about you in connection with your use of the Service, including any information you transmit to or through the Service. We use that information to provide the Service’s functionality, fulfill your requests, improve the Service’s quality, engage in research and analysis relating to the Service, personalize your experience, track usage of the Service, provide feedback to third party businesses that are listed on the Service, display relevant advertising, market the Service, provide customer support, message you, back up our systems, allow for disaster recovery, enhance the security of the Service, and comply with legal obligations. Even when we do not retain such information, it still must be transmitted to our servers initially and stored long enough to process.
Please also note:
Account Information: If you create a Yelp account, we may store and use the information you provide during that process, such as your full name, email address, zip code, physical address, and other information you may provide with your account, such as your gender, phone number, and birth date. We may publicly display your first name and last initial, as well as any photo or other content you submit through the registration process, as part of your account profile. You can modify some of the information associated with your account through your account settings. If you believe that someone has created an unauthorized account depicting you or your likeness, you can request its removal by flagging it.
Public Content: Your contributions to the Service are intended for public consumption and are therefore viewable by the public, including your photos, ratings, reviews, tips, lists, Collections, compliments, Ask the Community posts, Yelp Talk posts, and edits to business listing information. Your account profile (e.g., first name, last initial, city, neighborhood, month and year joined, profile photos and friends) is also intended for public consumption, as is some of your other activity through the Service, like how you vote on other people’s contributions (e.g., useful, funny, cool, helpful, not helpful), which contributions you like, where you check-in or where your friends check-in on your behalf, which contributions or users you follow, and which businesses you bookmark. You can limit the public nature of some of these activities through your account settings.
Contacts: You can invite others to join or become your friend on Yelp by providing us with their contact information, or by allowing us to access your contacts from your computer, mobile device, or third party sites to select which individuals you want to invite. If you allow us to access your contacts, we may transmit that information to our servers long enough to process your invitations.
2. COOKIES
We, and third parties with whom we partner, may use cookies, web beacons, tags, scripts, local shared objects such as HTML5 and Flash (sometimes called «flash cookies»), advertising identifiers (including mobile identifiers such as Apple’s IDFA or Google’s Advertising ID) and similar technology («Cookies») in connection with your use of the Service, third party websites, and mobile applications. Cookies may have unique identifiers, and reside, among other places, on your computer or mobile device, in emails we send to you, and on our web pages. Cookies may transmit information about you and your use of the Service, such as your browser type, search preferences, IP address, data relating to advertisements that have been displayed to you or that you have clicked on, and the date and time of your use. Cookies may be persistent or stored only during an individual session.
The purposes for which we use Cookies in the Service include:
| Purpose | Explanation |
| Processes | Intended to make the Service work in the way you expect. For example, we use a Cookie that tells us whether you have already signed up for an account. |
| Authentication, Security, and Compliance | Intended to prevent fraud, protect your data from unauthorized parties, and comply with legal requirements. For example, we use Cookies to determine if you are logged in. |
| Preferences | Intended to remember information about how you prefer the Service to behave and look. For example, we use a Cookie that tells us whether you have declined to allow us to send push notifications to your phone. |
| Notifications | Intended to allow or prevent notices of information or options that we think could improve your use of the Service. For example, we use a Cookie that stops us from showing you the signup notification if you have already seen it. |
You can set some Cookie preferences through your device or browser settings, but doing so may affect the functionality of the Service. The method for disabling Cookies may vary by device and browser, but can usually be found in your device or browser preferences or security settings. For example, iOS and Android devices each have settings which are designed to limit forms of ad tracking. For flash cookies, you can manage your privacy settings by clicking here. Please note that changing any of these settings does not prevent the display of certain advertisements to you.
3. THIRD PARTIES
Third parties may receive information about you as follows:
Advertisers: We may allow third parties to use Cookies through the Service to collect the same type of information for the same purposes as we do. In doing so, we adhere to the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising. Third parties may be able to associate the information they collect with other information they have about you from other sources. We do not necessarily have access to or control over the Cookies they use, but you may be able to opt out of some of their practices by visiting the following links: Network Advertising Initiative, Omniture and Digital Advertising Alliance. Please note that opting out does not prevent the display of all advertisements to you. Additionally, we may share non-personally identifiable information from or about you, such as location data, advertising identifiers, or a cryptographic hash of a common account identifier (such as an email address), with third parties in connection with advertising programs and data analytics, including with third parties that help determine the efficacy of such advertising programs by aggregating information they receive from multiple services like the Service. You may be able to limit our sharing of some of this information through your mobile device settings, as described in Section 2 above, or through the Service’s settings.
4. CONTROLLING YOUR PERSONAL DATA
Other users may be able to identify you, or associate you with your account, if you include personal information in the content you post publicly. You can reduce the risk of being personally identified by using the Service pseudonymously, though doing so could detract from the credibility of your contributions to the Service. Yelp users can also use the Find Friends feature to find one another based on their names or email addresses. You can adjust the settings for this feature in your account settings. Please also note that the messages you send or receive using the Service are only private to the extent that both you and the person you are communicating with keep them private. For example, if you send a message to another user, that user may choose to publicly post it. Also, we may access, review, and disclose such messages in connection with investigations related to use of the Service, as well as our efforts to improve the Service.
5. DATA RETENTION AND ACCOUNT TERMINATION
You can close your account by clicking here. We will remove certain public posts from view and/or dissociate them from your account profile, but we may retain information about you for the purposes authorized under this Privacy Policy unless prohibited by law. For example, we may retain information to prevent, investigate, or identify possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service or to comply with legal obligations. Please note that businesses cannot remove their business listings, ratings, or reviews by closing their accounts.