Last Updated October 10, 2024

General Information

Protecting your personal information is our priority. This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) describes the data practices of Aether Studios, Inc. and its subsidiaries (collectively, “we”, “us,” “our,” or “Company”), covering the services under its control, including the websites aetherstudios.com, rivalsofaether.com, creaturesofaether.com, and dungeonsofaether.com, any additional websites owned or controlled by Company, along with the game known as Rivals 2 (“Game”) and any other Company products, software applications, and other data processing activities (collectively “Services”). By using the Services, entering into agreements with Company, or otherwise communicating with Company, you are consenting to this Privacy Policy and the processing of your data in the manner set forth in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with the terms set forth in this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Services or submit any communications to Company.

THE SERVICES ARE NOT INTENDED FOR CHILDREN. IF YOU ARE NOT AT LEAST 13 YEARS OLD (OR 16 IN CERTAIN APPLICABLE JURISDICTIONS), THEN YOU MAY NOT USE OR ACCESS SERVICES IN ANY MANNER.

We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time in our sole discretion. We will provide you with notice of such a change. Notice of any changes to the Privacy Policy will be accomplished upon Company sending you an email to the address listed in your account notifying you of such changes and/or Company announcing such changes through the Services. Such changes will go into effect immediately upon your access of the Services after you are given notice, as described herein. Your continued use of the Services following the notice of any changes to this Privacy Policy constitutes your acceptance of such changes. Any information collected by the Services will be dealt with in accordance with the version of this Privacy Policy that was in place at the time of collection.

1. Information Collected

a. User Provided Information

To provide users (“Users”), with the best possible experience, we may collect personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”). Personal Information is any information that can be used to identify you or your household or to contact you online or offline and includes, but is not limited to, your name, address, email, phone number, and payment information. The Services may collect Personal Information when it is provided to us, such as when you use our Services, make a purchase, attempt to contact us, or connect with us on social media or via one of our partners.

b. Information that is Automatically Collected

We and our analytics service providers use cookies, which are small text files that help store user preferences and activity, similar technologies such as web beacons, pixels, ad tags, logs, and SDKs, which are blocks of code provided by our service providers that may be installed in our mobile and online applications, to recognize you when you visit our Services, and to collect information such as the number of visits, which features, pages, or content are popular, and to measure your browsing activities. These technologies allow us to optimize the operation of our Services, including by allowing us to help ensure our Services are functioning properly and ultimately improve the Services. Examples of Personal Information collected via cookies includes, but is not limited to, your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, other unique user identifiers, your mobile device and browser type identifiers, software and system type, and information about your use of the Services, including the duration of time you access or use the Services and information about Services performance analytics, including crashing, network, and tracing. You can prevent the storage of cookies by a corresponding setting of your browser software; however, please note that if you do this, you may not be able to use all the features of the Services to the fullest extent possible.

Our Services also collect information about your interactions, including navigation paths, search queries, crashes, timestamps, purchases, clicks and shares, and referral URLs. We may combine this data with Personal Information and DII. For efficiency’s sake, information about your interactions may be transmitted to our servers while you are not using the Services.

c. Categories of Personal Information We Collect

Category Number	Category	Types of Data and Purpose for Processing
1	Identifiers	Name, username, address, IP address, email address, or similar. We process this information to allow you to access the Services, deliver our newsletter, and market the Game. Processing this this information is necessary to provide you with the Services. We may also process your name and email address when you communicate with us via email or sign up for our newsletter.
2	Information that identifies, relates to, or can be associated with a particular individual	Name, payment information, third party login information, and address. We process this information to allow you to access the Services. Processing this this information is necessary to provide you with the Services. We may also process your name and email address when you communicate with us via email or sign up for our newsletter. If you are an employee or a contractor or a prospective employee or contractor, we may also collect your physical address to verify your identity, send you correspondence, payment, and other materials related to your employment or work with us.
3	Commercial information	Records of personal property, products, or services purchased, including in-Game purchases, or other purchasing histories or consuming tendencies. We process this information to provide you with the items you purchase. Processing this this information is necessary to provide you with such purchases.
4	Internet activity and electronic network information	Including, but not limited to, browsing history, gameplay statistics, player metrics, and information regarding your interaction with the Services. We process this information to generate analytics data in order to improve the Services, improve the user experience, identify and fix bugs, and provide support to pages that may require additional support.
5	Geolocation	If you play the Game, we collect coarse (imprecise) geographic location for the purpose of matching you to a server.

d. PlayFab

We use PlayFab to power and support User accounts necessary to play the Game. We may obtain certain Personal Information from PlayFab, including usernames. To learn more about how PlayFab uses your Personal Information, you may visit the following links: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement & https://playfab.com/privacy-terms/.

e. Third-party Provided Information

We may obtain certain information or Personal Information about you from third parties, including certain third-party payment processors (“Payment Processors”) for which you have approved Company’ access, including, without limitation, PayPal and Venmo. When you access Services, through third parties, you are authorizing Company to collect, store, and use such Personal Information and content in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You may disconnect your Company account from a third-party account at any time. You may also contact us, via the contact information herein, to disconnect accounts from third-party websites. You acknowledge and agree that disconnecting your account from a third-party website may affect your use and complete enjoyment of the Services.

We may share your name, address, and other Personal Information with Payment Processors to process payments. For information on how PayPal and Venmo use your Personal Information, you may consult PayPal’s and Venmo’s privacy policies. We may also share your Personal Information with Google Analytics, as described herein.

f. User Generated Content

Certain information, materials, and content that you upload or share via the Services may be collected and stored by Company and may be distributed or displayed publicly, and subsequently used or shared by Company, or other Users. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, such content will be referred to as “User Generated Content.” User Generated Content includes but is not limited to content published to the Steam Workshop. By consenting to this Privacy Policy, you hereby consent to Company’s use of any Personal Information contained in the User Generated Content for the reasons set forth herein and understand and agree that other users may have access to such Personal Information, by virtue of their access of the User Generate Content and the Steam Workshop.

g. Tracking Pixels. We may use tracking pixels to collect your IP address and Internet activity and electronic network information when you visit our websites. Tracking pixels are invisible images that are embedded in our website. We use the Personal Information processed thereby for analytics and marketing purposes.

2. Information From Children

We do not knowingly collect or maintain Personal Information from persons under 13 years of age (or 16 in certain applicable jurisdictions). If we learn that Personal Information of persons under 13 years of age (or 16 in certain applicable jurisdictions) has been collected on or through the Services, we will take the necessary and appropriate steps to delete the Personal Information.

3. How Company Uses Your Personal Information

We use the information we collect from our Services to provide, fulfill, maintain, protect, and improve our Services, to develop new Services and offerings, and to protect us and our users.

Personal Information is primarily used for business purposes, such as for sending you our newsletter or occasional communications and updates, responding to inquiries, logins, marketing the Game, and providing and maintaining the Services. When you contact us, we may keep a record of your communication as well as the other information to help solve any issues you might be facing. We may use your email address to inform you about our Services, such as letting you know about changes or improvements.

We share Personal Information with companies, outside organizations, and individuals for the limited reasons, outlined below:

We use DII to operate our Services and manage user sessions, including analyzing usage of our Services, preventing malicious behavior and fraud, improving the content, to link your identity across devices and browsers, to provide you with a more seamless experience online, and helping third parties provide relevant advertising and related metrics. We share DII with service providers and processors primarily for marketing the Game, for advertising and analytics purposes, for external processing, and for security purposes.

4. How Company Shares Information with Third Parties

WE DO NOT SELL, LEASE, OR OTHERWISE TRANSFER YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION TO THIRD PARTIES FOR THEIR OWN USE. WE DO NOT SELL YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION OR SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION FOR THE PURPOSE OF CROSS-CONTEXTUAL BEHAVIORAL ADVERTISING. However, there are certain circumstances in which we may transfer your Personal Information to third parties, without further notice to you, as set forth above.

We may disclose your Personal Information to its owners, employees, and third-party contractors for the purpose of understanding user behavior and using such information to improve the Services. We may disclose your email to our service provider in order to market the Game.

We may disclose your Personal Information, without notice, if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (i) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on Company; (ii) protect and defend the rights or property of Company; and/or (iii) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal or economic safety of users, or the general public.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, we may disclose your Personal Information to other third parties with your consent and direction to do so. When you broadcast information to third-party services, such information is no longer under our control and is subject to the terms of use and privacy policies of such third parties.

In the past 12 months, we have shared the following Personal Information for the purposes described herein:

1. Category 1: Identifiers
2. Category 2: Information that identifies or can be associated with a particular individual
3. Category 3: Commercial information
4. Category 4: Internet or electronic network activity information
5. Category 5: Geolocation

5. More on Third Parties

While we strive to work with reputable companies with good privacy practices, this Privacy Policy does not apply to services offered by other companies or individuals, including products or sites that may be displayed or linked to you on the Services. We also do not control the privacy policies and your privacy settings with third parties, including social networks and ad networks. We encourage you to be aware when you leave the Services and to read the privacy statements of any other site or application that collects Personal Information.

We may obtain certain information or Personal Information about you from Steam, Microsoft, the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, the platforms through which you can download the Game (“Platforms”). You acknowledge and agree that disconnecting your account from a Platform may affect your use and complete enjoyment of the Services.

For information on how the Platforms use your Personal Information, you may consult the Platforms’ privacy policies.

6. More on Cookies and Do Not Track Signals

Generally, we use cookies to collect additional service usage data, to improve the Services, and to personalize your experience. Using cookies helps ensure a safe experience; prevent spam, scammers, and phishing; and facilitate user-to-user interactions, such as chatting, posting and sharing content, and providing links to third-party services. However, we do not share cookies with third parties, except for Google Analytics, as described herein.

We may keep track of user behavior, within the Services to understand said behavior. This data is used to enhance the Services.

We do not use Personal Information for the purpose of targeted advertising or otherwise track your Personal Information. If you have concerns regarding the tracking of your Personal Information in general, you can visit the following sites, which provide information regarding opting out of participating companies:

• http://optout.networkadvertising.org
• http://optout.aboutads.info
• http://youronlinechoices.eu/
• https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
• https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074

If you wish to similarly opt out of cross-app advertising on mobile devices, you can enable the Limit Ad Tracking flag on the device. Enabling Limit Ad Tracking sends a flag to third parties that you wish to opt out of targeted advertising on that device, and major mobile platforms require companies to honor this flag. Screenshots on how to find these options on various devices are available here: http://www.networkadvertising.org/mobile-choices. To learn how to opt out on other devices, please visit the platform/device’s privacy policies for more information.

In addition to the above, if you wish to opt out of receiving targeted ads or otherwise limit ad-tracking, you may email us at [email protected].

7. Legal Basis for Processing

The Personal Information we process may qualify for multiple legal bases for processing under Article 6 of the General Data Protection Regulation (and similar laws that require legal bases for processing). Below are our primary legal bases for each type of data for users covered under such laws:

a. It is contractually necessary to process (i) Identifiers such as your email, password, cookie data, IP address, and device models and operating system versions; (ii) information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is capable of being associated with you including your bank account number, name, and address; (iii) commercial information (including records of purchases made via the Websites or Platforms for the purpose of allowing you to access the Services and make purchases.

b. We have a legitimate interest in processing (i) Identifiers such as your email, password, cookie data, IP address, and device models and operating system versions; (ii) commercial information (including records of purchases made via the Websites or Platforms); (iii) network activity and information including information regarding your interaction with the Services; and (iv) geolocation for the purposes of allowing you to access the Services and make purchases, matching you to a server, enhancing the security of the Services, monitoring activity within the Services and ensuring compliance with our terms of service and end user license agreement(s), improving the Services, marketing the Services, delivering the newsletter, and creating backups of the Personal Information collected by the Services to guard against loss and data breach. We and our processors have measures in place to protect your privacy.

c. We have a legitimate interest in processing users’ Personal Information to provide customer support and answer sales questions, including data such as emails, names, and other details as necessary to answer user questions. Similarly, we have a legitimate interest in processing Personal Information (e.g., names, social media profile data, and chat data/metadata) for the purpose of responding to questions and messages on our social media accounts.

d. We have a legitimate interest in processing 1) Identifiers such as your IP Address, and 2) information that can be used to identify you for the purpose of securing our Services including the prevention of DDOS attacks.

e. We have a legitimate interest in processing 1) Identifiers such as your IP Address, and 2) information that can be used to identify you for the purpose of conducting analytics, measuring usage and conversions, detecting fraudulent users, implementing data security measures, and analyzing telemetrics and other data to improve our Services. We and our processors have measures in place to protect your privacy.

f. For HR and internal operations, we rely on contractual necessity and legitimate interests bases to process the data of applicants and staff, such as for resumes and applications, payroll, internal chat and communications, and project management.

g. We have a legitimate interest in processing your Personal Information to provide customer support and answer sales questions, including data such as emails, names, and other details as necessary to answer your questions.

8. Your Rights

If you are a California, Virginia, Colorado, Utah, Connecticut, Montana, Oregon, Texas, United Kingdom, Switzerland, or European Union resident and wish to access, update, correct, object to, opt-out of the sharing of, obtain a copy of, or delete your Personal Information, or otherwise wish to contact us regarding your Personal Information please reach out to us at [email protected] . We may ask you to verify your identity before we can act on your request. Making a verifiable consumer request does not require that you create an account with us. You must provide us with sufficient information to verify your identity, however we will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor’s identity.

In some cases, we may have to keep that information for legitimate business or legal purposes and therefore will deny your request to delete the information.

You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about the collection and use of your Personal Information over the previous 12 months. We may ask you to verify your identity before we can act on your request, however upon such verification, we will disclose to you:

A. Whether we collected Personal Information about you.

B. The categories of Personal Information collected about you.

C. The categories of sources for the Personal Information we collect about you.

D. Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or sharing that Personal Information.

E. The categories of third parties to whom we share that Personal Information.

F. The specific pieces of Personal Information we collected about you.

G. If we sold or disclosed your Personal Information for a business purpose, two separate lists disclosing

a. Sales identifying the categories that each category of recipient purchased; and

b. Disclosures for a business purpose, identifying the categories that each category of recipient obtained.

If you live in California, Virginia, Colorado, Utah Connecticut, Montana, Oregon, Texas, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, or the European Union, you may have certain rights with respect to your Personal Information, including:

I. The right to request to know what Personal Information we collect, how we collect it, and how it is used and shared, including the categories of third parties with whom we have shared your Personal Information;

II. The right to request that we delete Personal Information we retain about you;

III. The right to request that we correct Personal Information that we maintain that is inaccurate;

IV. The right to opt-out of certain processing of your Personal Information, including the sharing of your Personal Information for cross-contextual behavioral advertising (we do not share your Personal Information for that purpose);

V. The right to request that we limit the use and disclosure of sensitive Personal Information we collect;

VI. The right to obtain a portable and readily usable copy of the Personal Information we maintain;

VII. The right to revoke consent for our use of your Personal Information;

VIII. The right not to receive discriminatory treatment if you exercise your privacy rights.

Appeal

If you live in California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut Montana, Oregon, Texas, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, or the European Union, you have the right to appeal our decisions about your Personal Information requests. If you wish to appeal our decision, please email us at [email protected] . In your appeal, please state that your message pertains to an appeal and include the date and subject matter of your original request.

9. Nondiscrimination

We will not discriminate against you for exercising the rights set forth herein. To that end, and unless permitted by law, in the event you exercise the rights set forth above, we will not:

a. Deny you goods or services unless it is impossible to distribute or provide such goods or services without the requisite Personal Information;

b. Charge you different prices for goods or services;

c. Impose penalties;

d. Provide you with a different level or quality of goods or services; or

e. Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level of quality of goods or services.

10. Security of your Personal Information and Data Transfer

We will take reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect your Personal Information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or any mobile or wireless network is 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your Personal Information, you agree and acknowledge that: (i) there are security and privacy limitations inherent to the Internet and wireless and mobile networks which are beyond our control; and (ii) security, integrity, and privacy of all information and data exchanged between you and Company cannot be guaranteed. We recommend that you do your part in protecting your Personal Information. This includes guarding against unauthorized access to your email and social media accounts including via 2-factor authentication, if applicable, by ensuring no one else uses your device or computer when you are logged in, by logging off from the Services when they are not in use, by keeping your password and other Personal Information confidential, and by taking precautionary steps to guard the physical safety and security of your device or computer.

Our Services are located in the United States and your Personal Information may be transferred or stored in the United States. The data protection laws and rules in the United States may be different than those where you live. We rely on various legal mechanisms to help lawfully support transfers of information outside the country of collection where appropriate. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, you hereby authorize Company to process your information in the United States or any other locations where we operate.

11. How Long Will Your Information Be Stored

We generally store Personal Information for as long as we need it to accomplish the business purpose for which such Personal Information is processed.

12. Email Communications

From time to time, we may contact you via email for the purpose of providing the newsletter, announcements, promotional offers, alerts, confirmations, surveys, and/or other general communication regarding the Services. To improve the Services, we may receive a notification when you open an email from Company or click on a link therein.

If you would like to stop receiving such communications via email from Company, you may opt out of such communications by clicking on the UNSUBSCRIBE button and/or by emailing us at [email protected].

13. Merger or Sale

The information collected pursuant to this Privacy Policy, including Personal Information, is considered an asset of Company. In the event Company or some or all of the assets related to the Services are acquired by another entity through a sale, merger, or some other change of ownership transaction, Company reserves the right to transfer or assign the information, collected pursuant to this Privacy Policy.

14. Contact Information

We welcome your questions or comments regarding this Privacy Policy. If you believe that we have not adhered to this Privacy Policy, or if you have any other questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy please contact [email protected].