Privacy and Cookie Policies

Pelmorex Corp. doing business as “The Weather Network”, “MeteoMedia”, “El Tiempo” and “Clima” (collectively “Pelmorex”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is committed to protecting and respecting the privacy of our users and safeguarding the personal information provided to us while accessing and using the services we provide. Pelmorex Corp. is a Canadian leader for privacy and sets the bar internationally in terms of data collection and transparent consent. For years, we have implemented safeguards and protocols to ensure we are ahead of the curve when it comes to protecting Canadians’ information by following the seven foundational Privacy by Design principles. Pelmorex has built its business around transparent consent and it plays an important role in how we conduct business. The following policy provides an overview of how serious we are about safeguarding our users’ data.

This Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) applies to our collection and processing of information via any websites or mobile apps that we operate and which link to this Policy (our “Services”).

Below is a summary of the information that is collected at various points of your interaction with the Services, when and why it is collected:

1) We collect information you provide to us by filling out forms on the site or app. This includes:

  • Your name;
  • E-mail address;
  • A password you create; and
  • Optional information regarding your age and gender

This information allows us to:

  • Create a login on the website and apps;
  • Subscribe to our Services such as weather alerts

2) When you create or use an account with us to upload photos and/or videos, we collect:

  • Your name;
  • E-mail address;
  • A password created by you;
  • Photos
  • Videos

This information allows us to:

  • Create a personal account for you.
  • Identify you as the person who took the video/photo on our website(s) and any other Pelmorex properties.
  • Upload your video/photos on our websites and apps.

3) When signing up to obtain a “Weather Widget”, we collect:

  • Email address

This information allows us to contact you to communicate changes to the program and for our records to track which websites are using our Weather Widgets.

4) When you submit a comment or inquiry using our online feedback form, we collect:

  • Your name
  • E-mail address;
  • City and Province;
  • User Agent;
  • The type of device you are using;
  • IP Address; and
  • Any information you include in the feedback form including attachments

In order to effectively respond to your comment/inquiry we need to know how to contact you. When you submit a question or comment through the website, it is managed through the CRM (customer relations management system) platform, Zendesk. Your information resides in this system, which is managed by Pelmorex but maintained by Zendesk and affiliates. You can find more information about them here: https://www.zendesk.com/company/privacy-and-data-protection/.

5) We collect mobile device identifiers (specifically an anonymous Ad ID) and your location if you’ve enabled location tracking in our app.

This allows us to provide you with precise weather for the location in which you are located when you access the app and notifications about weather alerts in your location, provided location tracking is enabled. This data is generally not sufficient to identify you personally.

Location behaviour, if enabled, may be combined with postal codes (there are on average 20 houses per postal code so this does not generate a specific home address) and demographic data in the aggregate to deliver insights for third party marketing and content.

6) We also purchase data, including precise location data, from third party distributors in order to provide the Services.

7) We collect data that you provide with contest entries. Any personal information collected for contest entries is deleted once the contest is over and a winner has been announced.

We may use your personal information in the following ways:

  • To provide you with customized weather information;
  • To provide you with weather alerts in the case of active weather in your location;
  • To establish and manage your subscriptions
  • To measure or understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you;
  • To ensure that content from our Services is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer and/or mobile device;
  • To enforce our Terms of Use, to the extent that your personal information is required to determine whether the Terms of Use have been violated;
  • To administer our Services and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;
  • With your consent, to make suggestions and recommendations to you about goods or services that may interest you;
  • To meet our legal obligations.

Do we sell aggregated and anonymized information?

Yes. The website and app are provided as free services, so we make money through advertising. Using aggregated information for advertising ensures that you see ads that are more relevant to you. The aggregated information cannot be used to identify you specifically and no individual can ever be identified by the anonymous data we collect. We never share or sell individual user data, and no raw data is ever sold. Pelmorex only sells the insights it develops.

Privacy Controls

What privacy controls do we provide to our users?

Location information in the app

We will only collect this information with your consent. When you download the app, you are asked if you consent to the use of location information. You can turn off location access at any time in the app. If you do not consent to the app’s use of location information you will need to manually enter your location each time in order to ensure the weather information you are getting is accurate to your location.

Cookies

Cookies are necessary to ensure websites work. We ask for consent to place cookies on your system when you first access our website. The Cookie Policy explains in greater detail what cookies we put on your computer and why. You have control over what cookies websites place on your computer through your browser settings. You can also continue to use our Services without consenting to the use of cookies that are not strictly necessary; the only consequence is that our Services will be less customized. For more information, please see our COOKIE POLICY.

Creating an account

Users who have created an account with us can change their permissions at any time through management of their account. If you have created an account with us you can request that it be deleted by contacting us through the online form on our website accessible at the following link https://help.theweathernetwork.com/hc/en-us/requests/new.

Automatically Collected Information

Each time you visit the website(s) or use the app, we automatically collect the following information:

1. Technical information including: the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer and/or mobile device to the Internet, your mobile ad id, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and the carrier name (if available); and

2. Information about your visit: Services you viewed or searched for, page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page.

None of the above information is considered personal information and the collection of such information is how all websites operate. With respect to web cookies and similar technologies, we seek consent from users of our Services as further described in our COOKIE POLICY.

When you first use our app and/or sign up for an account on one of our websites, we request consent for the collection of your personal information in order to provide you with the Services and satisfy our obligations with respect to the other purposes listed in this Policy.

We also rely on your consent with respect to the use of cookies that are not strictly necessary.

Disclosure of Your Information

Other companies within the Pelmorex Corp structure have access to your information in order to assist us in providing you with our Services.

We may disclose your information in the following circumstances, as required or permitted by applicable law:

  1. Information may be given to Business partners, suppliers, contractors and other processors, So that such processors may assist us in the operation, provision and enhancement of our Services;
  2. Information may be given to companies we may buy or who may buy us. We may disclose your personal information to a prospective or actual buyer of us, or a prospective or actual seller of their company to us, as part of that process.
  3. Information may be given to other parties to comply with our legal requirements. This could be in order to comply with any legal obligation, and in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements; and/or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Pelmorex, our customers, or others

Our vetted third-party business partners need to receive and process your information in order to help us provide you with our Services. We also may disclose anonymous and aggregated data to third parties:

  • Information may be given to Advertisers and advertising networks in order to select and serve relevant ads.
  • We do not disclose information about identifiable individuals to our advertisers, but we may provide them with aggregate information about our users (for example, we may inform them that 100 men aged under 35 have clicked on their advertisement on any given day). We may also use such aggregate information to help advertisers reach the kind of audience they want to target (for example, mobile app users in a particular geographical location). This data does not constitute personal information because it cannot reasonably be used to identify you. However, it allows our advertisers to provide advertisements that may be more relevant to you.
  • We also send advertising networks information to serve more relevant ads to you. Those networks include – Google DV 360, The Trade Desk, OMD Data Transfer, Google Ad Manager, and Pelmorex Audience.
  • Information may be given to Analytic Services such as Google Analytics to perform marketing analytics, website analytics, service and product analytics and services such as Firebase to provide services to ensure that apps function properly.
  • Information may be given to Marketing insights partners where your data may be used in the aggregate in providing analytics services such as store visit attribution and marketing insights for Pelmorex customers and partners. 
  • Information from User Generated Content: Services such as NewSpark and JW Player require access to the information you provide about yourself when you upload photos or videos to the site. This information is required in order to ensure proper functionality of your content on the site, in order to provide proper attribution and for record keeping purposes.

Our Services may, from time to time, contain links to and from websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates.  If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies.  Please check those policies before you submit any personal information to those websites.

How Long We Keep Your Information

Your data is stored with Pelmorex for as long as we are required to keep it to provide our Services to you in a seamless fashion or in compliance with applicable law. For example, we will retain your data to facilitate logins to your account and to allow us to service your account for as long as you maintain an account with us. We also ensure we have up-to-date consent from you to continue to collect and store your information.

Requests for Access and Deletion of Information

If you have created an account with us, you can request access to the information we have collected and you can request that we delete your account. Please note that if you have uploaded pictures to us they will also be deleted when your account is deleted. You can make this request through the website at the following link: https://help.theweathernetwork.com/hc/en-us/requests/new.

Please note that if you have never created an account with us and you use any of our Services anonymously we do not collect enough information to be able to identify you in our systems

If you have entered any or our contests your information is deleted from the system when the contest is over and a winner has been announced.

Transfer of Your Information

Any information transferred to us via the app or website is stored in the cloud within Canada. Due to the nature of cloud services we cannot guarantee that it is stored in the cloud in the province in which you reside.

Safeguarding Your Personal information

We use a variety of technological, physical and organisational protections and procedures to help protect your personal information from unauthorised access, use, or disclosure, such as encryption, passwords and physical security measures.  While we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot ensure or warrant that the personal information or private communications you transmit to us will always remain private and any transmission is at your own risk.  The transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to proactively prevent unauthorised access.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

Any changes we may make to our Privacy Policy in the future will be posted on this page.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy and/or the processing of your personal information, you can reach our privacy officer by completing the online form accessible at this link https://help.theweathernetwork.com/hc/en-us or alternatively, you can contact us at:

Attn. Privacy Officer

Pelmorex Corp.
2655 Bristol Circle
Oakville, Ontario
Canada
L6H 7W1
905-829-1159

This Privacy Policy was last reviewed on September 1, 2023.

Pelmorex Corp. (“we”, “us”, “our”) uses cookies on this website and with the Services we offer through the site to ensure that our users (“you”, “your” or similar expressions) of the website have the best user experience.

What is a Cookie?

Each cookie is effectively a small file of letters and numbers which contain small amounts of information that it gathers as you use the website. Cookies are stored on your computer hard drive and on your mobile device as you use them to access our site.

How Do We Use Cookies?

A cookie is placed on your computer when you first visit our website and are used during subsequent visits to distinguish you from other users of the websites and Services; to remember what you have searched on previous visits to the site to enable quicker presentation of that information the next time you visit; to save login information (if you select the “Remember Me” option when you log in) if you have subscribed to the Services the site offers so that you don’t have to log in each time you visit; and to personalize your experience on the site.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These are cookies that are required for the operation of the websites and the Services. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of the websites and the Services. The websites and Services would not function properly for you if the information in these cookies were not placed on your computer.

The cookies outlined below are not strictly necessary cookies.

Analytical/performance cookies

They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around the websites when they are using them and/or use the Services. This helps us to improve the way the websites and Services work, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.  These cookies are not stored on mobile devices.

Functionality cookies

These are used to recognise you when you return to the websites and/or use the Services. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region). For this process we use the Services provided by Tapad which helps to improve and personalize your user experience and deliver content and ads across devices. Loss of the information in these cookies may make our services less functional but would not prevent the services from working.

Targeting cookies

These cookies record your visit to this website and/or your use of the Services, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. Through its participation in the advertising programmatic auctioning eco-system ("a technology ecosystem to automatically buy and sell targeted online advertising in real-time") run by Google, Twitter and other major players and associated ad-technologies, Pelmorex as well as other advertising vendors can track your visits to other advertising powered websites around the internet. We will use this information to make the advertising displayed on them more relevant to your interests. We also segment the data with other users and utilize it for content/advertising and share the segment data with third parties in order to provide more relevant advertising.

Demographic information

We may retain limited demographic information such as date of birth and gender, if such information is provided by the user, which is tied to anonymous identifiers and may be referenced by the system for some tailored advertising.

The following table lists the cookies we use on our website. Those marked with ** are strictly necessary cookies that are required for the website to function properly:

Cookie Name Who Places the Cookie Purpose
_gads Google Analytics Advertising
_dm_sync
_ga Google Analytics To identify returning users to the site.
_gid Google Analytics To identify returning users to the site.
aam_dfp Adobe Audience Manager Audience tracking for website functionality
aam_uuid Adobe Audience Manager Audience tracking for website functionality
aamuuid_ts Adobe Audience Manager Audience tracking for website functionality
AKA_A2
gtm_stc Google Analytics
pelm_brtr_timestamp Pelmorex Corp DFP behavioural targeting timestamp
pelm_country_selection** Pelmorex Corp User’s preferred location
pelm_dfp Pelmorex Corp Content viewed per session for advertising
pelm_geoipdetected** Pelmorex Corp Advises Pelmorex if geoid is detected or not
pelm_ip** Pelmorex Corp IP detected to get location
pelm_lastloc** Pelmorex Corp User’s last location
pelm_lastlocunprofiled** Pelmorex Corp User’s last location
pelm_unit** Pelmorex Corp User’s preferred unit (C or F)
pelm_user_domain** Pelmorex Corp User's preferred domain (this cookie lasts for a long time and is the user's normal domain)
pelm_user_domain_temp** Pelmorex Corp Allows users to switch domains without being redirected
pelm_wind_measurement** Pelmorex Corp Keeps track of user’s preferred measurement (km/h or mph)
Webglsupported** If supported shows current and future maps.
Allows cross platform use as well as improving user experience, ensuring more relevant advertising and providing analytics to third parties.

Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies and do not collect any additional personal data. Examples of some of the third-party services that we utilize when providing our Services are: Doubleclick for Publishers; AdSense; Google Analytics Advertiser Features; AdExchange; Google Analytics; Amazon; Criteo; District M; Index Exchange; Open X and App Nexus. Further details on how the data is used by these third parties can be found at the following link: http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/partners/

You have the option to set your browser to either accept cookies and/or Local Storage, to notify you before accepting cookies and/Local Storage, or to refuse cookies and/or Local Storage altogether. You can access cookie preferences in the “options” or “preferences” menu of your browser.

If you turn cookies off certain website and service functionality, such as remembering your preferences, will not be available and you may not be able to access all or parts of the websites or services.

Changes to this Policy

Policies on this site are constantly reviewed to ensure compliance with applicable laws. As such, this policy may be updated from time to time and any updates will be posted on this page.