Pinterest updated its privacy policy recently.
On its official blog, the company announced the changes and explained how it will be working with its partners in the years ahead.
The updated privacy policy states what information is collected, how it is used, and what choices users have. It also specifies what kind of data will be shared with advertisers.
While this information may be important to you as a user telling you what data Pinterest is collecting on you, there’s also another consideration. If you use Pinterest for marketing or plan to in the near future, this update also tells you more about the data the platform has available to assist you in targeting your advertising message.
When users sign up, they voluntarily share basic information such as their name, Pins, likes, comments, email address or phone number with Pinterest. If they are using Pinterest on their mobile device, they may also choose to share their location data.
In addition, users may allow Pinterest to access information in other services. For example, they may link their Twitter account to Pinterest, which allows Pinterest to access information from that account.
Pinterest also gains access to technical information. Some of the types of information the company collects are:
• Cookie Data: Pinterest may use cookies to save a user’s language preferences or other Pinterest settings. Some of the cookies are associated with a user’s Pinterest account, and others are not.
• Log Data: When someone uses Pinterest, the company’s servers automatically record information, including information that the browser sends whenever the user visits a website.
• Device Information: Pinterest also collects information about the device a user is using to access Pinterest. Different types of information are available depending on the type of device a user is using.
Pinterest says it collects information “to provide our products to you and make them better, develop new products, and protect Pinterest and our users.”
The information helps Pinterest offer more customized content including:
• Suggesting Pins or boards a user may be interested in.
• Showing ads that a user might find interesting. For example, if a user purchases a sweater on Pinterest, he/she will see ads for winter wear.
Some advertisers share information with Pinterest to measure and/or improve their Promoted Pins. Similarly, Pinterest allows some advertisers to gather information from their Promoted Pins to know how their ads are doing.
Pinterest explains how it works:
• An advertiser may place a pixel or similar technology on its Promoted Pins to collect information on how well the Promoted Pin is doing.
• An advertiser may add a pixel or similar technology to their website to help Pinterest understand who has visited or bought something on their site.
• Pinterest may share the public information users provide such as their public boards and Pins, and profile info.
• An advertiser may share a “hash” of some identifiers for example, email addresses. That can be then matched with Pinterest users and used to show targeted Pins to that target group of people.
In recent months, Pinterest has announced several tools for advertisers including the Cinematic Pin, a video-like feature similar to online ads and Do-It-Yourself Promoted Pins, a way for advertisers to have paid content come up in results and category feeds. Another feature, Picked For You Pins is chosen based on user interests but is not a aid post, though it obviously uses data collected from users.
Pinterest says it will make changes to the privacy policy from time to time, and update all the information on its blog.
Image: Pinterest