Updated: March 3, 2021
TED is a global community, welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world. While gathering information about the people who use TED.com, our mobile apps, platforms and related sites (collectively referred to as “TED Sites”), we take your privacy very seriously and make every effort to safeguard your personal data. This privacy policy is intended to inform you of what information we collect, how this information is used and what steps we take to protect this information, as well as providing you a process to update, change or delete your personal data.By using TED Sites, you agree to our privacy policy. If you wish to update your personal information or any specific consent that you have provided to TED on any of TED Sites, please contact TED at privacy@ted.com.
We collect three (3) types of information:
We collect some information to help customize your experience based on your previous activities on TED.com.
At account registration, you provide personal information, such as your name, email address and password, and you have the option to provide other information. If you create an account through a user profile (such as Facebook, or other social media sites), then your information is sent from your profile to use in accordance with our privacy policy. We also collect information on your site activity when you favorite, save or watch talks.
We collect basic information you provide when you create a TED.com account or register for a conference. It's secure, and we'll never sell it.
When required for TED Conference registration, we collect and process your personal information including your name, address, telephone number and email address, and other preferences such as profile, photos, workshop and activity choices. At times, you may be asked to provide additional information, such as payment to provide under a secure conference registration process. When you provide your credit card number, it will only be shared with verified third parties who perform tasks required to complete the purchase transaction, and only the last four digits will be stored
We need payment info to complete purchases, but we don't store credit cards except the last four digits.
When using TED’s online event platform, we collect, process and in some cases display your personal information such as your TED profile text, badge information and photo to highlight, promote or share activity with those also participating in the event. TED may share elements of information with others in the TED community, partners, or future attendees to explain the nature of the different types of interactions that attendees can have in attending a virtual TED program.
TED shares some personal information collected during a virtual TED event with others to highlight, share and promote the event with others.
When required for TED Masterclass, we collect and process your personal information including your name, address, telephone number, email address and other preferences, such as profile information, mobile app preferences, activity and logged information and details, such as prompts and notes collected within the Masterclass mobile app and/or your corresponding TED.com account. No personal payment information is collected, as it is only provided directly to the platform provider for TED Masterclass for consumers and via your organization for TED Masterclass for organizations.
This describes how TED collects information via our TED Masterclass app, available via App Store or Google play. TED may use the information from the TED account and the TED masterclass app combined to understand its users.
When signing up as a subscriber to TED’s ad-free video content in TED’s iOS app, TED may collect your personal information to manage, store and process subscriber information, including your name, email address and if provided, your TED subscriber ID. No personal payment information is collected, as it is only provided directly to the platform provider for TED subscriptions where such subscriptions are available. TED does not collect, process or store any personal information from subscribers of TED ad-free video content through the iOS app unless a user contacts TED directly via support.
This describes how TED collects information via our subscribers membership, available via App Store or other third party platforms. TED may use the information to understand its users and to provide information about TED content and its community.
When signing up as a member, you agree to donate the specified amount on TED.com. By making the donation, TED processes your payment through a secured third party provider and does not collect or store your payment information. We collect your personal information to manage, store and process member information, including your name and amount of donation so that we can provide a receipt of any donations above $250.00 and send you member related information such as benefits and virtual events.
This describes how TED collects information via our member donation page. TED may use the information to understand its members and to provide information about membership benefits.
TED may conduct social science research from time to time related to an interesting idea, topic or concept that TED wishes to explore further, by using information provided directly through surveys or questionnaires. TED’s use of any personal information provided in this manner will be described to you at the time of the request. Your information will not be sold and TED will use the data solely for research purposes which may include sharing collected data with trusted third parties, such as academic researchers that work with TED on these projects. The data collected during research projects may be published in aggregate/anonymous form by TED and/or research partners. In these cases, no personally identifying information will be included.
Any personal information you provide for research purposes will not be sold and will be used for purposes of exploring an idea, topic or concept that TED is researching. Any additional use will be done only with explicit permission.
We offer you opportunities to engage in public activities on TED.com. "Public activities" are any actions you take on TED Sites that are designed to be visible to other users -- including comments, recommendations and ratings. Your account is public by default. If you choose to engage in public activities, any personal information you upload may be read, collected or used by third parties. Please refer to the Community Guidelines about how to best take advantage of our interactive sites.
We are not responsible for any personally identifiable information you choose to submit in public forums. Information shared here may be used by others, potentially to send you unsolicited messages. If publicly posted information is not consistent with our terms of use, your content may be removed. For more information, see the TED.com Terms of Use.
Any personal information you post publicly is visible to all users. Be mindful of what you share, as we are not responsible for what happens with this information.
This type of information relates to how many views are counted for each TED Talk and how many times TED Talks are saved or favorited. Other areas of the site automatically stores non-personal information about the sites’ usage, popularity, and positive or negative impact. We perform statistical analyses of users of the site, and their viewing and participation patterns, for product development purposes and to generally inform advertisers about the nature of our audience. TED may also store comments and reviews anonymously if a user downloads the Healthy Internet Project browser extension tool for purposes of identifying whether the content promotes worthwhile ideas, division, fear and/or harassment or any other factors included in the browser tool.
We keep track of how often our audience engages with TED and do not share detailed contact information with our advertisers.
We may collect non-personal information about the computer, mobile device or other device you use to access TED Sites, such as IP address, geolocation information, unique device identifiers, browser type, browser language and other preferences automatically collected. Also, if using our TED Masterclass app, other personal information, including preferences and uploaded data may be collected and reviewed by TED to understand how you use the app.
We use non-personal information to help us understand how our audience views TED.
We use various technologies, such as Google Analytics cookies, to manage TED.com and track use of the content we provide, as well as Facebook and LinkedIn to help us better target advertising and diversify our community on platforms that market TED offerings to their users, and the YouTube API client to allow users to search for videos on YouTube. These technologies include:
We use cookies to customize your experience. We do not sell data collected from cookies to any third party, but may provide information to partners to help us update and maintain our website.
We may collect and use your location data (such as your country) to provide a tailored, language-specific experience for your region, but we don’t collect any geolocation-specific data from you or your device. You can change the settings on your computer or mobile device to prevent your location data from being shared. If you wish to opt-out of tracking and cookies, please manage your privacy settings on your browser, or select other ways to turn off cookies and/or ad features.
We collect information about your location to provide you with the most localized experience possible, but never collect data from your device.
We use your data for limited purposes and do not sell it to any third parties. Specific uses are defined below.
TED processes information differently depending on how a user submits the information through our TED Sites. For questions, please email privacy@ted.com
We may use the data to fulfill your requests for services and information. For example, using your contact information to respond to your customer service requests, or to enable registration for one of our conferences.
We use data we collect to send email newsletters, or information about conferences and TED events (if you have opted in for this information). We may also use the data to send you email communications, such as information about your account or updates to the site.
We may use the data to prevent illegal activities, to enforce the TED.com Terms of Use, or as otherwise required by law.
TED connects Google Analytics client ID data with TED user ID data so that we can create a more personalized experience for users, even when not logged in.
In order to help TED better market on third party platforms, TED works with third parties to collect information about your use of our website so that TED can provide advertising about TED’s offerings (such as products and services) tailored to your interests, including free educational resources and content recommendations. That advertising may appear either on our website, on our apps, or on other websites.
In addition to the uses identified above, we may use your personal information for any other purposes disclosed to you at the time we collect your data or pursuant to your consent, such as applications for various TED programs, nomination forms and requests submitted by users including as defined below.
TED collects and processes personal information related to Countdown to:
TED collects and processes personal information to:
TED collects and processes personal information to:
TED collects and processes information to:
TED collects and processes personal information to:
TED collects and processes personal information to:
TED collects and processes personal information to:
TED collects and processes personal information to:
TED collects and processes personal information to:
TED collects and processes personal information to:
TED collects and processes personal information to:
TED collects and processes personal information to:
TED collects and processes personal information to:
If you are invited to TED’s Red Circle community site, TED collects and processes personal information to:
If you accept an invitation to apply to TED’s social science research programs, TED collects and processes personal information to:
To protect and prevent unauthorized access to your personal information, maintain data accuracy, prevent accidental loss, destruction, damage or theft of data, TED implements and maintains security and organizational measures with commercially reasonable physical, technical and administrative controls. Please note that no method of transmission over the Internet is 100% secure.
Remember, when visiting a third-party site from TED.com, we do not control the privacy policies of other parties, so please check before browsing on those sites to ensure you agree with their terms.
This describes how TED protects data overall, the changes we have to our privacy policy over time; and offers you options to change how TED sees your data with respect to privacy settings and advertising.
We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent. If we learn that we have collected any personal information from a child under the age of 13 or under the age of 16 from the European Union without verifiable parental consent, we will delete it from our database as quickly as possible. If you believe that we may have collected information from a child under age, please contact us at privacy@ted.com
This privacy policy may be updated from time to time, and when the policy is updated, the version date will appear at the top of this privacy policy. If we make material changes, you will be notified here for a period of 30 - 60 days based on our last update. As of July 2016, we added information to our privacy policy to define cookies and outline how we use this data to optimize our website based on your preferences, and made a change to our policy update section. As of May 2018, we added information to our privacy policy based on new requirements from GDPR, including more details pertaining to: what type of personal information TED collects, how TED uses this information and a process in which users can update their information. As of February, 2019, we added details on how TED uses cookies to help TED with targeted marketing on third party platforms, such as Facebook, as well as information on how to deactivate cookies when browsing the TED website based on industry tools and sites that help you personalize your settings with respect to cookies and advertising. As of September 13, 2019, we added details pertaining to the TED Masterclass app which collects information from users, and is separately available through an organizational license or directly for consumers via a platform where the TED Masterclass app is available. As of December, 2019, we added details pertaining to TED’s Countdown conference and launch. As of February 19, 2020, we added details pertaining to TED’s Red Circle community and hosting TED Circles. As of March 19, 2020, we added details regarding how TED enables users to find relevant videos on YouTube to integrate into TED Ed lessons and included Google’s privacy policy for information on how they process personal information. As of May 14, 2020, we updated the policy to include how we manage data with respect to subscriptions to TED, and TED’s online browser extension for the Healthy Internet Project. As of September 2, 2020, we updated the policy to include how we manage data with respect to donations by TED subscribers. As of December 6, 2020, we updated the policy to describe how we manage data with respect to social science research managed by TED. As of March 3, 2021, we added details on how TED uses cookies to help TED with targeted marketing on LinkedIn and updated how we collect data from individuals who sign up as a member to TED.com.
You can request that your account be deactivated at any time by contacting us. When your account is deactivated, your user profile and all public activities (such as comments) will be hidden. You can also manage who can view your TED.com profile activity in the Privacy tab of your profile's account settings. To unsubscribe from our newsletter, click on the link at the bottom of the newsletter you have received, or you can manage your subscriptions from your TED.com profile. For any other changes regarding your personal data, please contact privacy@ted.com with your request and we will respond to you promptly.
If you wish to opt out of advertising based on your browsing activities, interests and geographic location, you can opt to only receive generic advertising; for more information, please visit http://preferences-mgr.truste.com/.
To learn more about targeted advertising, please refer to the Digital Advertising Alliance on how you may opt out: http://www.aboutads.info/PMC; and/or Facebook to learn more about cookies when you are on their site: https://www.facebook.com/policy/cookies/.
As of May 25, 2018, a new privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) goes into effect. As a result, TED has implemented a number of updates in various areas across our organization to ensure we comply with the intent and spirit of the law.
Here is a summary of updates TED has implemented. We have:
As a result of GDPR, TED has made updates to various parts of our organization to ensure we comply with the spirit and intent of the law and enhance our privacy practices.
