GameFly.com
TRUSTe European Safe Harbor certification
GameFly, Inc. and GameFly Digital, Inc. (collectively, "GameFly," "we" or "us") respect the privacy rights of our online visitors and mobile application users. The GameFly Online Privacy Policy (this "Privacy Policy") provides information about how we collect, store, disclose and use information. Please also review our online Terms of Use, which are linked at the bottom of our web pages and which govern the commercial-transaction, user-generated content and social-networking features of our websites ( and services.
By reading this Privacy Policy, you can expect to be informed about the following:
What does this Privacy Policy apply to?
This Privacy Policy applies to all of the online and mobile websites and interactive and mobile applications operated by GameFly (unless a different policy is provided on a particular site or application, in which case such different policy shall control) (collectively, the “Services”), including, but not limited to, the gamefly.com, gamefly.co.uk, shacknews.com, mobygames.com and cheatfreak.com websites, including all subpages and successor pages thereto (each, a “Website” and collectively, the "Websites") and the GameFly mobile application and associated services (the "GameFly App," "Application," or "App"). Unless expressly provided for, this Privacy Policy does not extend to any websites, applications or services of any third party companies or organizations to which we link or which link to us. GameFly does not operate or control those websites, applications or services.
* Review the privacy policy of any third party website, application or service linked to or accessible from our site before you submit any personal information to such parties.
GameFly has been awarded TRUSTe's Privacy Seal signifying that this Privacy Policy and practices have been reviewed by TRUSTe for compliance with TRUSTe's program requirements including transparency, accountability, and choice regarding the collection and use of your personal information. The TRUSTe program does not cover information that may be collected through downloadable software. TRUSTe's mission, as an independent third party, is to accelerate online trust among consumers and organizations globally through its leading privacy trustmark and innovative trust solutions. If you have questions or complaints regarding our Privacy Policy or practices, please contact us at . If you are not satisfied with our response you can contact TRUSTe.
GameFly complies with the U.S. – E.U. Safe Harbor framework and the U.S. - Swiss Safe Harbor framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal data from individuals located in European Union member countries and Switzerland. GameFly has certified that it adheres to the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles of notice, choice, onward transfer, security, data integrity, access, and enforcement. To learn more about the Safe Harbor program, and to view GameFly's certification, please visit
We reserve the right, in our sole and absolute discretion, to make changes from time to time (with or without notice) to this Privacy Policy. As such, you should review this Privacy Policy periodically to check for updates. When we amend this Privacy Policy, we will revise the “last updated” date located at the bottom of this Privacy Policy. For changes to this Privacy Policy that we consider to be material, we will place a notice on the website by revising the link to read substantially as “Updated Privacy Policy” for a reasonable amount of time or contact you by email (sent to the email address listed in your account). If you provide information to us or access or use the Website or the Services in any way after this Privacy Policy has been changed, you will be deemed to have unconditionally consented and agreed to such changes. The most current version of this Privacy Policy will be available on the website and will supersede all previous versions of this Privacy Policy.
* By using or accessing the Website and/or the Services, you signify your assent to this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, delete all cookies from your browser cache after visiting or using the Website and/or Services and do not visit or use the Website or Services thereafter. Your continued use of the Website and/or Services will signify your acceptance of these terms.
Use of information that you provide to us
Typically, we ask you to submit personal, financial and/or demographic information if you decide to:
* To simply browse our Website or applications, you are not required to provide any personal information. However, if you choose not to submit personal information when requested to do so, you may not be able to access some or all of the services that we provide.
GameFly Account Registration
To create a GameFly account, we ask you for certain personally identifiable information, which may include your full name, email address, postal address, telephone number, and billing information (such as a credit card number). We may also ask you to create a password and to provide other information such as your gender, game and platform preferences (e.g., about the games and hardware you own), hobbies and interests, and other information (including "demographic information") as part of your user profile - we may link this demographic information to your personal information.
When you download and use our Services, we automatically collect information on the type of device you use, operating system version, and device identifier (or "UDID").
Once collected, we use the information above to: (i) create, confirm and give you access to your GameFly account; (ii) process and ship your orders; (iii) communicate with you (via email, SMS, MMS, or voice) about the status of your orders or to provide Buy Alerts and SMS/MMS messages you request; (iv) answer any requests that you may have; (v) send you GameFly newsletters that you have chosen to receive; and (vi) serve advertisements to your Web browser that we believe may be of interest to you (see "Online Advertising Practices" below for more information). We may also use your GameFly account email address to send you service-related announcements that tell you about updates to our Privacy Policy or Terms of Use, new areas or features on the Services, changes to our online service or technical support policies, and other related changes. We may also use your personal and demographic information aggregated with other members' information for our internal marketing and demographic studies, so we can improve the online products and services we provide you and to better meet your needs.
* If you want to be excluded from receiving promotional email communications, you may unsubscribe via the opt-out link embedded in the communication or by logging in to My Account and updating your Email Subscription preferences.
GameFly App Usage
When using GameFly social features (including user reviews, following users, and status updates), we may ask for certain personally identifiable information, including your full name, email address, user name, password and birthday. We ask you to provide other information as part of your "bio" or "profile," such as your gender, location (city and state only), and social network URLs and to create a user picture/avatar to display to others on the App. We may also collect your unique device identifier and your telephone number and location if you have activated the GPS function on your mobile device. We use this for display purposes. You may opt-out of having your location information used by us at any time by turning it off at the device level. The foregoing information is used to identify you to us and other users as a GameFly App user and to allow you to access the functionality provided on the App, such as posting messages and receiving App updates (e.g., when another App user responds to one of your posts, etc.). Note that you can link the information contained in your GameFly and App accounts.
* You can use the GameFly App without providing all of the requested information above. The information you do provide may be visible by other App users as part of your profile, but you have the ability to control whether your full name, age and/or gender are displayed - the default settings for these are all set to "Off."
Non-Personally Identifiable Information
When your computer or mobile device contacts our web servers (for example, when you visit or use the Services, scan a Microsoft Tag or QR code, or view an HTML email), our web servers automatically collect usage information. Such usage information includes information about how our visitors use and navigate the Services. It can include the number and frequency of visitors to the Services and the length of their stays, browser type, referrer data that identifies the web page visited prior and subsequent to visiting our website or using the Services, and IP addresses (see below for more information on IP addresses). We also may determine the applicable technology available in order to serve you the most appropriate version of a web page, email, advertising or promotional announcement or similar service. This information is used to analyze and improve the Services, and to provide you with a more fulfilling and relevant experience.
GameFly Referrals
When you use the GameFly Referrals Program (or the "Referral Program"), we may ask you to provide your and your friends' first names and email addresses. This information is used to email them a one-time promotional communication offering a free GameFly trial membership or discount pre-paid membership, and the opportunity to make further referrals to their friends. If opted in, you and/or your friends may receive additional communications from us or our vendors in relation to the Referral Program and your and/or your friends' participation in it. The data collected through the Referral Program is used only for the operation and ongoing maintenance of the Referral Program and will not be used for any other purpose or distributed to any third parties other than those GameFly vendors retained to operate and maintain the Referral Program.
* You and your friends may opt-out of participation in the Referral Program at any time via the opt-out links in the communications sent to you and your friends, or by sending an email to us at .
GameFly Mobile Alerts
You may sign up to receive GameFly Mobile Alerts on your mobile device that inform you when GameFly has shipped and received your game rentals. When you sign up to receive GameFly Mobile Alerts, we ask you to submit the mobile phone number to which you would like the alerts to be sent. Mobile phone numbers collected on the GameFly Mobile Alerts Preferences page will be used only for delivery of requested mobile alerts, and for no other purpose, and will otherwise be treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy. When we send Mobile Alerts to you, our service provider may obtain and store information about your carrier and phone make and model, so that they can optimize and deliver our messages to you. That data is only used for message delivery operations and is only shared with other service providers in the message delivery chain.
* By signing up for Mobile Alerts, you agree to pay any fees or costs required by your mobile device provider. You may choose to stop receiving Mobile Alerts via the unsubscribe option in each Mobile Alert sent to you or by logging in to My Account and updating your Mobile Alerts preferences.
"Contact Us" Form
If you choose to contact us via our online form, we ask you to provide your first name, email address, and a description of your question or comment. This form is intended for questions and comments only. We use the information you provide solely to respond to your inquiry and for no other purpose. We may retain and aggregate your comments for demographic purposes and to improve our services.
Sharing Pages With Friends
The Services may offer you the possibility to connect your accounts from third party social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, through an application programming interface (API) or other software. By allowing the Services to connect with your accounts on such third party sites, you may opt to consent to our accessing the information in those accounts, which information may include personally identifiable information. You may likewise consent to our publishing on the Services any such information or actions you take on such third party sites. Additionally, you understand that by accessing the Services via your social media account, activity you engage in through the Services may be published on the third party site. It is your choice whether to use any such third party sites, and you understand that in some instances such third party sites may request to access and publish information about you or your friends that is included in your GameFly account. Third party sites are not covered by this Privacy Policy. We recommend you review the privacy policies of each third party site before you share pages or information with your friends through those sites.
Use of information collected through technology
Browser Cookies
The Services set browser "cookies" on your computer or other device. Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that are transferred to your computer's or mobile device’s hard drive or storage through your Web browser when you visit or use the Services. If cookies are disabled on your Web browser, you will not be able to use many of the functions of the Services. The "Help" menu on most Web browsers will tell you how to enable or disable cookies.
Please note that information contained in a cookie may be linked to your personally identifiable information via an account ID. Cookies allow us to provide enhanced functionality on the Services, such as:
In addition, our third party advertising partners will place a unique cookie on your browser via the Services for purposes of serving advertisements when you visit or use the Services or when you visit other non-GameFly websites on the Internet. Please see below for more information about our "Online Advertising Practices." Our Privacy Policy does not cover the use of cookies by third parties. We do not have access or control over these cookies.
Flash Cookies & HTML5
Some of the Services may require the use of the Adobe Flash Player. Adobe’s Flash Player is used by many websites that offer video and other interactive content. By default, your use of the Adobe Flash Player generates “flash cookies” (also known as “persistent identification elements” or “local shared objects”). Adobe provides a short disclosure about Flash Cookies in its End User License Agreement, stating “Use of the web players, specifically the Flash Player, will enable the Software to store certain user settings as a local shared object on our computer. These settings are not associated with you, but allow you to configure certain settings within the Flash Player.” The Adobe Flash Player (and similar applications) use flash cookies to remember user settings, preferences and usage similar to the browser cookies referenced above, but flash cookies can store more information than browser cookies and are managed through a different interface than the one provided by your Web browser. You can control the degree to which you accept flash cookies by accessing your Adobe Flash Player management tools directly through the settings manager for Adobe Flash, located at If you do not allow flash cookies to take any space on your computer or device, you may not be able to take advantage of or participate in certain features of the Services. Users with a computer running the Windows operating system can view flash cookie files in this folder: \Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player. Users with a computer running the Apple operating system can view flash cookie files in this folder: /users/[username]/Library/Preferences/macromedia/Flash Player. Flash cookies, or LSO files, are stored typically with an “.SOL” extension.
IP Addresses
An IP address is a number that is assigned to your device or network when you are linked to the Internet. When you request pages from the Services, our servers log your IP address. We may use IP addresses for a number of purposes, such as system administration, to report aggregate information to our business partners or to audit the use of the Services. We may associate your IP address with the personally identifiable information you provide.
We also may collect and store information about you that we receive from other sources to enable us to update and correct the information contained in our database and to provide product recommendations and special offers that we think will interest you.