Privacy Statement

The Opera browser offers excellent features for the protection of privacy and security when using Opera in the Internet environment. It is the policy of Opera Software to process personal data for purposes that are objectively justified by Opera Software’s service and to perform the processing in accordance with fundamental respect for the right to privacy, including the need to protect personal integrity and private life and to ensure that personal data are of adequate quality.

Privacy policies

This general part of Opera’s privacy policy contains information regarding privacy in Opera.

For privacy policies and questions specifically related to the Opera Web browser, Opera Unite, the My Opera community, Opera Mini and Opera Mail, please see the appropriate section below:

Changes to this Privacy Statement

We will occasionally update this Privacy Statement. When we post changes to this Privacy Statement, we will include the date when the Privacy Statement was last updated. If there are material changes to this statement or in how we will use your personal information, we will notify you either by prominently posting a notice of such changes prior to implementing the change or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to review this Privacy Statement periodically.

Updated April 25, 2013 - Update on Privacy in the Opera Mini browser.

Privacy on Opera’s Web services

Opera Software offers Web-based services including but not limited to My Opera, Opera Link, Opera Unite, Opera Widgets, Dev.Opera, and Opera Labs. We reserve the right to add, remove, or edit any of these services. Opera Software strictly protects the security of your personal information within the confines of these domains and honors your choices for their intended use. We have safeguards in place to protect your data from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, alteration, or destruction. All users should handle their and other’s personal information with care. We protect your data from disclosure, with the exception of matters where designated by law or court order.

Processing

Personal data is collected, stored, used, and transferred only for the specific purposes mentioned in the privacy policies. Opera collects user-submitted information, IP addresses, usage patterns, and the point in time when the user visits Opera’s Web sites or uses Opera’s services.

Purposes

Processing of personal data shall be done for purposes of running, debugging, maintenance, and/or optimization of the service and/or to maintain customer relationships. Additionally, in some instances, we may also use personal data to send users information regarding update downloading, upgrades, enhancements, surveys, or advertisements.

Analysis of Web or service usage (for purposes of debugging, maintenance, and optimization of service) shall never be done on a basis that reveals usage patterns of individual users, but it shall be done by aggregating data, anonymizing individual identities. Opera will not share or disclose such details except as required by law or law enforcement.

Access

Opera Software has strict restrictions on access to user data. Only a limited number of Opera employees have access.

Transfer

Opera Software cooperates with Google Analytics, a Web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). See Google’s privacy policy for Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is established in the United States and has entered into the Safe Harbor agreement, which entails that they must ensure an adequate standard for privacy protection in light of applicable EU rules and regulations.

Google has developed the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on to enable website visitors opt-out from get their data from the website visit collected by Google Analytics.

Correction and rectification

Users of Opera Software’s products and services who have provided personal information may change and modify their information at any time.

Retention and deletion

Opera Software deletes personal information when all purposes of the personal-information processing have been fulfilled.

Reviews

Procedures are reviewed regularly to ensure that the policies are followed. Any nonconformance regarding the policies will be corrected without unnecessary delay.

Security

Opera Software strictly protects the security of personal information within the confines of Opera’s products and services and honors the users’ choices for its intended use. We have safeguards in place to protect users’ data from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, alteration, or destruction. We protect user data from disclosure, with exceptions only in matters where designated by law or court order.

Children’s guidelines

Opera Software provides interactive environments on the Internet to enable members to express themselves and to share their ideas and interests by creating and participating in discussion-based virtual communities. Opera Software’s corporate and community Web sites make no guarantees that children cannot enter these sites and present both online and offline contact information without parental consent or notification. Further, there is no guarantee that children will not post such information in a public forum. Therefore, we encourage children to include their parents in the registration process, and we encourage parents to read this Privacy Statement before allowing their children to use Opera Software’s services or any other Internet service.

Contact information

If you have any questions about this Privacy Statement, privacy issues regarding Opera Software and our products, or privacy on our Web sites, we can be reached at:

Postal address:
Opera Software ASA
P.O. Box 4214 Nydalen
NO-0401 OSLO
Norway

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Privacy in the Opera Web browser

Opera Software has taken much care in the development process so that user privacy and security are not compromised. No personal information is collected or shared. The Opera user’s Web usage is not tracked.

Opera Mobile uses Google Analytics on Android to track referred installations to measure effects of marketing campaigns. No personal identifiable information is collected.

Opera’s built-in Web search

Opera has a built-in Web-search feature. This gives the user the option to utilize external Web search engines directly from the browser interface. Opera relies on third parties for this service. The Opera Web browser sends the user’s search requests (in a specially designed URL string) directly to third-party Web sites that handle the actual search queries. What is sent to the third-party site is only the information needed to perform the particular search query. No personal information is sent.

Some third-party sites may monitor data traffic from copies of the Opera Web browser, such as numbers of hits and the search terms used. No personally identifiable information is made available to these services by the Opera Mini browser nor by Opera Software.

Please note: Opera Software does not control the privacy and security practices and policies of these third parties and their sites. Check the particular site and/or business for more information. It is the responsibility of the browser user to use caution before sharing personal information via forms and other methods used by third parties and their Web sites.

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Privacy in Opera Link

Opera Link allows registered users to synchronize some data, such as bookmarks, among their Opera Web browser and Opera Mini Web browsers. Opera will never disclose, share, or distribute an individual’s linked data to any third party except where required by law or regulation, or in cases where you have chosen to grant access to your data to an Opera or third party application or service using Opera Link API. Opera restricts internal access to this information exclusively to those who need it for the operation of the Link service. Information user synchronizes may be stored outside of the country in which the user resides, and user hereby consents to such storage and transfer of information between jurisdictions.

Opera may retain IP addresses, user ID, and anonymous traffic data as may be useful in the debugging, optimization, and ongoing improvement of this service.

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Privacy in Opera Unite

Opera Unite allows users to run Web services directly from the Opera desktop browser. No personally identifiable data is stored by the Opera Unite proxy or other server-side components. Users may opt to share which services they are running; in such cases, these will be associated only with a user ID and such personal data as may have been volunteered by the user via the My Opera community, Web forums, or similar public venues.

Opera does not log, track, or store any information served via an Opera Unite service. Opera may retain IP addresses, user ID, and anonymous traffic data as may be useful in the debugging, optimization, and ongoing improvement of this service.

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Privacy in Opera Turbo

When Opera Turbo is enabled, the service will compress network traffic, thereby increasing download speed and reducing data volume. The service requests normal Web content through an Opera Software proxy server. Opera Turbo will exclude Web pages located on an intranet or by using secure connections (HTTPS). Opera collects IP addresses, usage patterns, and the point in time at which the service is used for the purpose debugging, maintenance, optimization of the service, or maintaining the customer relationship. Analysis of service usage is conducted by aggregating data, anonymizing individual identities.

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Opera’s geolocation support

Opera browsers with support for geolocation enable users to share their geographic location with websites. If the user chooses to share their location with a web service, they have to enable geolocation support. The location service is provided by Google and is governed by Google’s privacy policy. The requesting websites’ use of your location is governed by the respective websites’ privacy policies. Opera encourages users only to share their location with websites they trust.

If you use those services, Google receives information about your actual location (such as GPS signals sent by a mobile device) or information that can be used to approximate a location (such as a cell ID). Opera does not receive or store any location information. Google returns your location (longitude, latitude and accuracy) and your location is made available to the website by the Opera browser through the W3C Geolocation API.

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Privacy in the Opera Mini browser

Opera Mini is a web browsing service relying on web pages being pre-rendered on Opera Mini servers and then sent to the Opera Mini client on your device. Opera Software is not able to link usage related data in Opera Mini servers to individual persons.

Opera Mini servers logs in addition to the web addresses (not content of the web pages), IP-addresses, the end-user device make and model, any campaign reference for the Opera Mini client and a randomly generated identifier for the Opera Mini client. Opera stores and processes usage related log data to provide, debug, maintain and optimize the service including populating “My sites” and “My news” in Home on supported clients. The “Home” can be disabled in Menu > Settings > Advanced > Home page On/Off.

Opera Mini server logs are kept for up to six months. Usage related log data are also used to generate aggregated and anonymized statistics for Opera’s own use and for reporting usage to Opera’s customers such as mobile network operators.

Opera Mini will receive cookies from visited web sites and when you are using the built-in, search-related features. These cookies can be removed in Menu > Tools > Settings > Privacy.

Opera reserves the right to disclose any information we have as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process.

Opera Mini’s built-in Web search

Opera Mini has a built-in, Web-search feature. This gives the user the option to utilize external Web search engines directly from the browser interface. Opera Mini relies on third parties for this service. Opera Mini sends the user’s search requests (in a specially designed URL string) directly to third-party Web sites that handle the actual search queries. What is sent to the third-party site is the special Opera Mini search string along with the text terms needed to perform the particular search query. No personal information is sent.

When using the built-in, search-related features, Opera Mini will receive cookies, including third-party cookies, from third- party sites. These can be removed using Tools > Settings > Privacy from the menu in Opera Mini.

Some third-party sites may monitor data traffic from copies of the Opera Mini browser, such as numbers of hits and the search terms used. No personally identifiable information is made available to these services by the Opera Mini browser nor by Opera Software.

Please note: Opera Software does not control the privacy and security practices and policies of these third parties and their sites. Check the particular site and/or business for more information. It is the responsibility of the browser user to use caution before sharing personal information via forms and other methods used by third parties and their Web sites.

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Privacy on the My Opera community

Information collected and shared IP addresses

Opera Software collects visitors’ IP addresses to help diagnose problems with servers, to administer Web sites, and for statistical purposes (aggregated). IP addresses will not be shared with anyone other than Opera Software’s partners for handling statistical analyses or used for any purposes other than these.

Voluntary information sources

The My Opera community supports functions that allow the user, by their own choice, to submit information of a personal character. These submissions are gathered by means of forms, surveys, contests, forums, subscribing or unsubscribing mailings, and correcting or updating personal information, and the submissions are used only for their presented purpose. Forms that require financial information to process purchases for products or services are also protected.

Correcting, updating or deleting personal information

This site gives users multiple options for changing and modifying information previously provided.

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My Opera Mail privacy

It is Opera’s policy to respect the privacy of its members. Opera will not monitor, edit, or disclose any personal information about User or User’s use of the Service, including its contents, without User’s prior permission unless required or allowed by law, or where Opera has a good faith belief that such action is necessary to:

  1. conform to legal requirements or comply with legal process;
  2. protect and defend the rights or property of Opera;
  3. enforce these Terms of service;
  4. act to protect the interests of its members or others; or
  5. facilitate a change of control of the Service or the acquisition of Opera’s business by a third party and to enable that third party to continue to provide the My Opera Mail services to you.

Opera may provide certain user information in aggregate form to third parties for demographics. In addition, User’s Internet protocol address is transmitted with each message sent from User’s account.

Opera may share email User reports as spam with third parties for the purpose of assisting in industry initiatives to control undesirable email. Information User provides to Opera may be stored outside of the country in which User resides, and User hereby consents to such storage and transfer of information between jurisdictions.

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Privacy on our Web sites

The following statement discloses the information gathering and dissemination practices for Opera.com and other Opera domains. Please consult the privacy statements of My Opera Community or Opera Web Mail for information specific to those services.

Collection of data

IP Addresses

Opera Software will occasionally collect visitors’ IP addresses to help diagnose problems with servers and to administer Web sites. IP addresses will not be used for any other purpose.

Information collected from forms

Opera.com and other Opera domains use forms for visitors to request information, products, and services. Depending on the service, product, or information that visitors request, visitors’ contact information (e.g., e-mail addresses or telephone numbers) or financial information (e.g.. credit-card numbers) may be collected. Contact information from these forms is used to send orders and information about Opera Software to customers. Visitors’ contact information is also used to contact them when necessary. Visitors may opt out of receiving future mailings; see the Choice/opting out section. Financial information that is collected is used to bill the user for products and services.

Cookies

Opera Software does not have access to any information about visitors from cookies received while visiting Opera Software’s sites. While Opera Web sites generally do use cookies, they are used primarily for such purposes as session management and retaining the user’s custom settings or preferences.

Survey

Opera Software’s online surveys ask visitors for demographic information (e.g., age, Internet usage, or income level). This is not personally identifying information and is used to tailor the visitors’ experience at Opera’s Web sites.

Contests

Opera Software runs contests in which visitors are requested to provide contact information (e.g., e-mail addresses). Visitors’ contact information is used to contact the visitor when necessary and is deleted after its purpose is fulfilled. This information will not be shared with nor sold to other parties. Users may opt out of receiving future mailings.

Public forums

Various Opera Web sites make Web forums, mailing lists, and news groups available to visitors. Please remember that any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information, and visitors should exercise caution when deciding to disclose personal information.

Links to other sites

Opera Web sites contain links to other sites. Opera Software is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such Web sites.

Choice/opting out

Opera.com provides users the opportunity to op out of receiving communications from Opera Software and its partners at the point where information is requested about the visitor.

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