Effective Date: Feb 14, 2025
Welcome to Metaculus.com (or the "Website"), a website owned and operated by Metaculus, Inc. ("Metaculus"). At Metaculus, we respect your right to privacy. We strive to manage your personal data thoughtfully and responsibly.
We at Metaculus have created this Metaculus Privacy Policy ("Privacy Policy") to describe our practices regarding the personal data we may collect or that you may provide when you visit Metaculus.com or any subdomains thereof, including any content, functionality, and services offered on or through Metaculus.com (the "Service"). Certain features discussed in this Privacy Policy may not be offered at any particular time.
This Privacy Policy applies to personal data we collect on or through the Service.
It does not apply to personal data collected by:
By accessing and using the Website you acknowledge that you have read and understood the contents of this Privacy Policy. Accordingly, if you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, do not use the Website.
If you are located in the European Economic Area ("EEA") or the United Kingdom ("U.K."), this entire Privacy Policy applies to you. However, please see our EEA and UK Privacy Addendum, which provides more information about which rights you have regarding the processing of your personal data.
Updates to this Privacy Policy may be made from time to time to comply with changing regulations or internal data privacy procedures. In the event of an update, the revised policy statement will be posted at: https://www.metaculus.com/privacy-policy/. Your continued use of the Service following the posting of changes will mean that you accept and agree to the revised Privacy Policy.
If you have a question or concern about this Privacy Policy or the privacy and protection of your personal data, please contact us:
Attn: Privacy Policy Issues
Metaculus, Inc.
1112 Montana Avenue, Suite 464
Santa Monica, CA 90403U.S.A.
Email: legal@metaculus.com
The Service is not intended for children under sixteen (16) years of age. Our services are general audience in nature and are not intended for, marketed to or available to individuals younger than the age of sixteen (16). No one under age sixteen (16) may provide any personal data to the Service. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under sixteen (16) years of age. If you are under age sixteen (16), do not use or provide any personal data to us on the Service. If we learn we have collected or received personal data from a child under age sixteen (16) without verification of parental consent, we will delete that personal data. If you believe we might have any personal data from or about a child under age sixteen (16), please contact us at legal@metaculus.com.
This summary highlights key points about how we collect, use, and disclose your personal data. While it offers a quick overview, it does not replace the full Privacy Policy, which contains more detailed information.
Collection of Your Personal Data: We collect personal data and other information, including account information, user-generated content, and usage data, directly and indirectly from you. Please see the section on Our Collection of Information for more information.
Use of Your Personal Data: We may use the personal data we collect from you while using the Service to manage your relationship with Metaculus, support your use of the Service, and send you information from us or on behalf of selected third parties. This includes connecting you to other members of the Metaculus community. It also includes extending offers to you based on your personal data. Please see How We Use Your Information for more information.
Disclosing Your Personal Data: We may disclose your personal data to contractors, service providers, and other third parties that support our business. We may also disclose your personal data in other limited circumstances, such as to a successor in interest, legally compelled disclosure, or for the protection of our rights or property. For more details, please review the section below entitled Information Sharing.
Third Parties: Metaculus may work with network advertisers, analytics service providers and other vendors to serve third party advertisements on and through the Service, to provide us with information regarding traffic on the Service, including the pages viewed and the actions users take when visiting the Service; and to provide us with information regarding the use of the Service and the effectiveness of our advertisements. Please review Third Party Content, Links to Other Sites, and Metaculus Content Found Outside of the Service for additional information.
Overview of Information We Collect About You and How We Collect It
We collect several types of information, including personal data, from and about users of the Service, including the following categories of information:
We collect this information through one or more of the following methods:
The Service may collect your personal data directly, indirectly, or from third parties. In particular, the Service may collect personal data such as your name and email address, account information and demographic or other information such as your background, state or country of residence, information about your interests and education, and historical information about questions and predictions, including the accuracy of any predictions.
Profile Information and Data Collection
You may have the opportunity to create a profile. Profile information may include personal data, photographs, interests and activities, use of the Service, and any other information you willingly provide ("Profile"). Some of the information in your Profile may be visible to thirdparties or to everyone.
Notice of Disclosure to Third Parties
Note that in order to provide services and opportunities to you, third parties may be able to review certain personal data in your Profile. Metaculus may send you information and offers from third parties and information about the Service.
Community Forums and User Content
The Service may provide you the opportunity to participate and post content, including questions and predictions, publicly in forums, through interactive features and through other communication functionality ("Community Forums"). You may choose, through such features or otherwise, to submit or post questions, predictions, reviews, problems, suggestions, ideas, solutions, questions, answers, comments, testimonials, feedback, messages, images, videos, text, personal data, or other material ("User Content"). Your User Content may also be posted in your Profile.
Content Removal Policy
Please think carefully about what you post and before including personal data in your User Content. You may edit or remove your Profile information, but you may not be able to remove predictions, comments or postings or other uploaded User Content. To request removal of content you posted publicly on the Service, contact us at legal@metaculus.com. We will honor removal requests received from registered users who are residents of California, unless otherwise excepted by law, and where otherwise required by law. Other removal requests received, may, in our sole discretion, be honored or refused. In some cases, we may remove only your personal data but maintain the rest of your User Content. Note that removal of public postings does not ensure complete or comprehensive removal of the content or personal data posted.
Public Information Notice
Note that anything you post on Metaculus may be public. If you choose to voluntarily disclose personal data in your Profile or a Community Forum, or participate in the Service, that information will be considered public information and not personal data, and the protections of this Privacy Policy will not apply.
User Communication and Collaboration
In addition, the Service may allow members to communicate and collaborate with each other, including some Service offerings that allow members to engage in one-on-one communication. If you create an account, participate in a Community Forum or choose to communicate with others through the Service, certain information about you may be disclosed in connection with your or others' use of the Service, including certain information about you and your network (such as your name and profile photo, the number of connections you have, and the names and pictures of your connections). Our servers may record and we may retain records of the content of any such user-to-user communications.
Third-Party Data Collection and Usage
Third parties may provide us with information about you. For example, if you are on a third-party website and you opt in to receive information from us, that third party will forward information about you to us so that we may contact you as requested. Alternatively, if you interact with our advertisements on third-party websites, for example, then that third party may provide us with information about that interaction. Information that you provide to us, or that is automatically collected and transmitted when you use the Service, may be shared with and used by third parties.
Tracking Technologies and Data Collection
Some content or applications, including advertisements, on the Service are served by third parties including advertisers, ad networks and servers, content providers, and application providers. These third parties may use analytics, methods or systems (cookies, web beacons, pixels, postback URLs, SDKs, APIs) or other tracking technologies to collect information about you when you use the Service, including storing and accessing cookies.
User Data Metrics and Personal Data
Third parties may collect, transmit, receive, or use personal data collected from the Service alone, or in combination with other metrics collected by that third party on its own (such as information the third party has collected about your online activities over time and across different websites and through other online services). This information may include personal data, data that has been aggregated and anonymized, or non-personal data that may be associated with your personal data, including:
Advertising and Service Optimization
Third parties use such information to provide you with interest-based (behavioral) advertising or other targeted content or for other advertising purposes. To enable Metaculus to improve and optimize the Service, third parties may also use this information to provide Metaculus with metrics or insights about our business and marketing practices, marketing trend analyses, behavioral analyses, analyses of the performance of the Service (including the performance of individual pages of Metaculus.com), trigger automation workflows, and to assess marketing touchpoints and how they work to drive revenue. For example, they may use the information to provide key metrics about sessions, for conversion tracking, or to provide us with other measurement services to measure or assist in measuring conversions or actions users take on our Service (including our Website).
Interactions With Social Media Features, Functions, and Tracking Technologies
The Service may permit interactions between the Service and a third-party website or service, such as enabling you to "like" a product within our Service or "share" content to other websites. If you choose to "like" or "share" content or to otherwise post information from or via the Service to a third-party website, feature or application, that information may be publicly displayed, and the third-party website may have access to information about you and your use of our Service. Similarly, if you post information on a third-party platform that references Metaculus, your post may be published on our Service in accordance with the terms of that third party.
These features may collect your IP address or other Device Identifier and which page you are visiting on our Website, and may set a cookie, pixel, or other tracking technology to enable the third-party feature to function properly. Third-party features and applications are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Service. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.
Facebook Connect and Google Sign-In
You may also choose to use a third-party application or feature through our Service (such as logging in through Facebook Connect or Google Sign-In) or on a third-party website or service (such as one of our Facebook applications or a similar application or feature on a third-party website or service) through which you allow us to collect (or the third party to share) information about you, including personal data. Information about you, including your name and profile photo, may be shown to other users of the Service if you are logged in through the Service or through a third-party website or service. The third party may allow you to remove the application or feature, in which case, we will no longer collect information about you through the application or feature, but we may retain the information previously collected.
Third-Party Measurement Services
When you choose to participate, you may be opting to link your activity on our Service with that third-party website or service, which may then collect information about your visits to our Service and may publish that activity as you request to your profile or similar feature with that third party (such as if you choose to share a prediction you made on Metaculus.com with your connections on the third-party website). In some instances, we may require that you participate in the Service through a third-party application or feature and, if you choose not to authorize or use the required third-party application or feature, you will not be able to use the applicable Service.
Content Sharing and Third-Party Interactions
The personal data we collect is subject to this Privacy Policy. The information collected and stored by the third party remains subject to the third party's privacy practices and policies, including whether the third party continues to share information with us, the types of information shared, and your choices with regard to what is visible to others on that third-party website and service. The third party may allow you to remove the application or feature, in which case, we will no longer collect personal data about you through the application or feature, but we may retain the personal data previously collected, in accordance with our data retention policies. We do not control these third parties' tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly. For information about how you can opt out of receiving targeted advertising from many providers, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.
Combining Information
We also may supplement the personal data we collect with external records from third parties in order to provide you with information, provide services you have requested, enhance our ability to serve you, tailor our content to you, and offer you opportunities to use services that we believe may be of interest to you. We may combine the information we receive from those other sources with personal data we collect through the Service. In those cases, we will apply this Privacy Policy to the combined information.
Cookie Consent for Users in the EEA and U.K.
For users in the EEA and U.K., we provide opt-in mechanisms with respect to non-essential cookies. If you opt in and subsequently change your mind, you may withdraw your consent at any time by clicking here.
Automatic Data Collection
Like other websites and online services, we may automatically collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns ("Usage Information") whenever you access and use the Service, including:
Behavioral Tracking
We also may use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or other online services ("Behavioral Tracking"). Click here for information on how you can opt out of Behavioral Tracking on the Service and how we respond to web browser signals and other mechanisms that enable consumers to exercise choice about Behavioral Tracking.
Usage Information
We may use Usage Information for a variety of purposes, including to tell you about people or events nearby, to provide special offers, to serve advertisements, to select appropriate content to display to you, or to enhance or otherwise improve the Service and our products.
Usage Information is generally non-identifying (such as statistical data that does not include personal data) that we collect automatically, but if we maintain it or associate it with personal data that we collect in other ways or receive from third parties, then we treat it as personal data.
Tracking Technologies Overview
Usage Information is automatically collected via tracking technologies, which may include:
Persistent Cookie Functionality
One type of cookie we use, known as a "persistent" cookie, is set once you have logged in to your account on the Service. If you do not log out of your account, then the next time you visit, the persistent cookie will allow us to recognize you as an existing user so you will not need to log in before using the Service. Of course, if you are using a public computer or sharing your private computer with others, you should log out of your account after each visit. If you log out of a Service, you will need to re-enter your password the next time you visit in order to log in to your account. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Internet browser's "help" file. We also use a cookie which functions as a "session" cookie, meaning that it is used to identify a particular visit. Session cookies expire after a short period of time or when you close your web browser.
Web Beacons or Tracking Pixels
We, as well as affiliate program partners, service providers, and other third parties, may employ a software technology called "clear gifs" (a.k.a. web beacons, tracking pixels, and web bugs) on the Service and our emails, which help us better manage content on our Service by informing us of what content is effective. Clear gifs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of web users for our affiliate program. The information collected through clear gifs include information about individual surfing behavior and reading activities, downloads of publications, counts of users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for similar materials, and other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity). In contrast to cookies, which are stored on a user's computer hard drive, clear gifs are embedded invisibly on webpages and are about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. This information is used to help improve the overall quality and experience of our Service. We combine the information gathered by clear gifs with our users' personal data so that we can optimize the Service according to your interests, to perform marketing, and to improve personalized ads based on your personal interests.
Embedded Script
An Embedded Script is programming code that is designed to collect information about your interactions with the Service, such as the links you click on. The code is temporarily downloaded onto your computer or other device from our server or a third-party service provider and is deactivated or deleted when you disconnect from the Service.
In addition, we may use a variety of other technologies that collect similar information for security and fraud-detection purposes.
How We Respond to Do Not Track Signals
Please note that your browser settings may allow you to automatically transmit a "Do Not Track" (or "DNT") signal to websites and online services you visit. Our Website does not currently respond to DNT signals due to the absence of an industry-standard protocol. To find out more about Do Not Track, please visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com.
We use information about you, including personal data, to:
Aggregated and Deidentified Information
Aggregated and deidentified information is not personal data. We may use and disclose aggregated or deidentified information at our discretion, including for behavioral trend analysis, usage pattern studies, performance metrics compilation, marketing effectiveness measurement, platform optimization analysis, user demographic studies, or sharing anonymized data with third parties for analysis purposes.
Data Supplementation and Integration
We may combine the information gathered by clear gifs with personal data.
When You Contact Us
Please note that information submitted on the Service via a "Contact Us" or other similar function may not receive a response. We will not use the information provided via these functions to contact you for marketing purposes unrelated to your request unless you agree otherwise.
Metaculus may share aggregated information about our users and information that is not personal data, without restriction, including for behavioral trend analysis, usage pattern studies, performance metrics compilation, marketing effectiveness measurement, platform optimization analysis, and user demographic studies, and share anonymized data with third parties for analysis purposes. We also may share your personal data with third parties to fulfill the purpose for which you provide it and as described below or otherwise in this Privacy Policy:
We strive to provide you with choices regarding the personal data you provide to us. We have created mechanisms to provide you with the following control over your information:
Privacy Options for Targeted Ads
We do not control third parties' collection or use of your personal data to serve interest-based advertising. These third parties may, however, provide you with ways to choose not to have your personal data collected or used in this way. You may opt out of receiving targeted ads from members of the Network Advertising Initiative ("NAI") on the NAI's website.
You may be able to review, update, or delete your personal data by logging in to your account preferences page.
We may send you marketing emails. If you decide that you no longer wish to receive these emails, you may unsubscribe by using the "unsubscribe" button at the bottom of the Metaculus email. We may, however, continue to send you non-marketing emails, e.g., transactional or service related emails.
If you wish to close your account with us, please send your request to closemyaccount@metaculus.com and we will remove your personal data, Profile, and User Content, if applicable, from the active database. You typically will receive a response to such a request sent to us within a commercially reasonable period of time. Requests to change your email preferences or unsubscribe from all emails may not be made through this email address, but rather must be submitted through one of the channels set out in the previous section.
Even if your account is closed, personal data may remain in backup records and we may retain certain data if it may be necessary to prevent fraud or future abuse or for legitimate business purposes, such as analysis of aggregated, non-personally-identifiable data, account recovery or if required by law. All retained personal data will continue to be subject to the applicable privacy policy for the Service. Also, if you have posted content on or through the Service, such as in Community Forums, we may not be able to delete it.
Third-Party Tracking Technologies and Data Collection
Certain content or applications, including advertisements, provided through the Service may be hosted and served by third parties, including advertisers, ad networks and servers, content providers, and application providers. These third parties may use cookies alone or in conjunction with web beacons or other tracking technologies to collect information about you when you use the Service. The information they collect may be associated with your personal data or they may collect information, including personal data, about your online activities over time and across different websites and other online services. They may use this information to provide you with interest-based (behavioral) advertising or other targeted content. These third parties may also use widgets, such as those that allow you to "like" or "share" content with third-party websites and online services.
Third-Party Links
In addition, the Service may link to third-party websites or content over which Metaculus has no control and which are governed by the privacy policies and business practices of those third parties. In addition, third-party partners of Metaculus from whom you order through the Service may have different privacy policies which apply to such partner's use of your information.
Metaculus Presence on Third-Party Web Pages
Please also note that Metaculus content and widgets may be included on web pages and websites that are not associated with us and over which we have no control. These third parties may independently collect data. We do not control these third parties' tracking technologies or how they may be used. Metaculus is not responsible for the privacy practices or business practices of any third party. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly. For information about how you can opt out of receiving targeted advertising from many providers, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.
We display personal testimonials of satisfied users on our Service in addition to other endorsements. With your consent, we may post your testimonial along with your name. If you wish to update or delete your testimonial, you can contact us at legal@metaculus.com.
We use the following criteria to determine our retention periods: the amount, nature and sensitivity of your personal data; the reasons for which we collect and process your personal data; the length of time we have an ongoing relationship with you and provide you with access to our Service; and applicable legal requirements. We will retain personal data we collect from you where we have an ongoing legitimate business need to do so (for example, to comply with applicable legal, tax or accounting requirements). Additionally, we cannot delete personal data when it is needed for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims, also known as a "litigation hold." In this case, the personal data must be retained as long as needed for exercising respective potential legal claims.
When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal data, we will either delete or anonymize it or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal data has been stored in backup archives), we will securely store your personal data and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
For any questions about data retention, please contactlegal@metaculus.com.
In some instances, we may choose to anonymize your personal data instead of deleting it, for statistical use, for instance. When we choose to anonymize, we use reasonable efforts to prevent the personal data from being linked back to you or any specific user.
Data Security Measures
Metaculus takes commercially reasonable security measures aiming to protect your personal data both during transmission and once we receive it. We have implemented measures designed to secure your personal data from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure. All personal data you provide to us is stored on our secure servers behind firewalls. Any payment transactions will be encrypted using secure socket layer (SSL) technology. For example, when you enter sensitive personal data such as a credit card number and CCV2 number on our checkout forms, that information is encrypted using SSL technology, to help protect the communications between you and our payment partners.
Passwords
The safety and security of your personal data also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of the Service, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone. We urge you to be careful about giving out such information in public areas of the Service, like message boards. The information you share in public areas may be viewed by any user of the Service.
Your Risks
However, no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is completely secure. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal data, as in any real-life scenario, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. Any transmission of personal data is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on Metaculus.com. If you have any questions about security on our Service, you can email us at legal@metaculus.com.
If you have questions or comments about this Privacy Policy and our privacy practices, or need to access it in an alternative format due to having a disability, please email us at legal@metaculus.com or contact us at:
Metaculus, Inc.
Attn: Privacy Policy Issues
1112 Montana Avenue ste 464
Santa Monica, CA, US
90403