Privacy Policy
20260201_rev01 · COMPARED WITH 20251201_rev01 · ARCHIVE SNAPSHOT, DATE APPROXIMATE
Full text changes — 20251201_rev01 to 20260201_rev01
| 1 | This policy was last updated on 10/14/2025. | |
| 1 | This policy was last updated on 1/22/2026. | |
| 2 | 2 | |
| 3 | 3 | This is the privacy policy ("policy") for _scientificamerican.com_ and the Scientific American mobile apps (collectively our "web properties"), which are operated and provided by Springer Nature America, Inc. (**we**, **us** and **our**). Springer Nature America, Inc. (_Scientific American)_ is located at 1 New York Plaza New York, NY 10004_._ We can also be contacted at sadigital@sciam.com. |
| 4 | 4 | |
| 5 | 5 | We will only use the personal data gathered over this website as set out in this policy. Below you will find information on how we use your personal data, for which purposes your personal data is used, with whom it is shared and what control and information rights you may have. |
| 6 | 6 | |
| 7 | 7 | I. Summary of our processing activities |
| 8 | 8 | |
| 9 | 9 | We publish magazines, eBooks, news and data. Some of this material is freely available, some of it is only available to subscribers. The following summary offers a quick overview of the data processing activities that are undertaken on our website. You will find more detailed information under the indicated sections below. |
| 10 | 10 | |
| 11 | 11 | - When you visit our web properties for informational reasons without setting up an account, only limited personal data will be processed in order to service your request (see III). |
| 12 | 12 | |
| 13 | - When you view on-demand video on our websites, we may collect your viewing and usage information, and we may share information that identifies you as having viewed particular video content with service providers that enable video functionality, personalization, and usage analysis and third parties for advertising and marketing, as well as editorial purposes. | |
| 14 | ||
| 13 | 15 | - If you are identified as belonging to a customer organization then we collect information in order to be able to provide usage reporting to that customer. |
| 14 | 16 | |
| 15 | 17 | - If you register for one of our services or subscribe to our newsletters, further personal data will be processed in the scope of such services (see IV and V). |
| 16 | 18 | |
| 17 | 19 | - Furthermore, your personal data will be used to provide you with relevant advertising for our services and products (see VII) and for statistical analysis that helps us to monitor the performance of our internet properties, improve those properties, and personalize your experience (see VIII). Additionally, we improve your website experience with third party content (see IX). |
| 18 | 20 | |
| 37 | 39 | When you visit our web properties for informational reasons, i.e. without registering for any of our provided services listed under IV and without providing us with personal data in any other form, we may automatically collect additional information about you which will contain personal data only in limited cases and which is automatically recognized by our server, such as: |
| 38 | 40 | |
| 39 | 41 | _Examples might include:_ |
| 40 | 42 | |
| 41 | 43 | _\- your IP address;_ |
| 42 | 44 | |
| 45 | _\- information about video content that you viewed;_ | |
| 46 | ||
| 43 | 47 | _\- your device type, name and IDs;_ |
| 44 | 48 | |
| 45 | 49 | _\- the date and time of your requests;_ |
| 46 | 50 | |
| 47 | 51 | _\- the content of your requests;_ |
| 48 | 52 | |
| 147 | 151 | VI. Automated decision making |
| 148 | 152 | |
| 149 | 153 | We do not use your personal data for automated decision making which produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you, however we do use your personal data to offer you content and services which we believe may be of interest and to improve your experience on our web properties. |
| 150 | 154 | |
| 151 | 155 | VII. Online advertising, e-commerce and related tools |
| 152 | 156 | |
| 153 | The cookies and web beacons enable our service providers to collect information about you and your behavior, e.g. IP address, browser information, information on user activities and click data, and to recognize visitors to our website under a pseudonym and only display products that are likely to be of interest to our visitors. Most of the tools use pseudonymised or aggregated data, e.g. shortened IP addresses. The data is used to analyze the use of our website and, thereby, improve and optimize the website and to display advertising tailored to your needs. We collect this data (to improve your website experience and to promote our products and services). You can update your preferences via the "Use of cookies/Do not sell my data" link in the page footer. | |
| 157 | The cookies and web beacons enable our service providers to collect information about you and your behavior, e.g. IP address, browser information, information on user activities, including video content that you viewed, and click data, and to recognize visitors to our website under a pseudonym and only display products that are likely to be of interest to our visitors. Most of the tools use pseudonymised or aggregated data, e.g. shortened IP addresses. The data is used to analyze the use of our website and, thereby, improve and optimize the website and to display advertising tailored to your needs. We collect this data (to improve your website experience and to promote our products and services). You can update your preferences via the "Use of cookies/Do not sell my data" link in the page footer. | |
| 154 | 158 | |
| 155 | 159 | Personal data collected via first party cookies is based on consent, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR, to improve your website experience and promote our products and services. We collect this data via a cookie management tool; you can update your preferences via the "Use of cookies/Do not sell my data" link in the page footer. |
| 156 | 160 | |
| 157 | 161 | Personal data collected via third party targeting cookies is based on your consent, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR. You can update your preferences via the "Use of cookies/Do not sell my data" link in the page footer. |
| 158 | 162 | |
| 159 | 163 | Please note that we neither have the control of the extent of personal data that is collected by the respective plug-in provider nor do we know the processing's purpose or the period your personal data will be retained. Your personal data will be transferred to and processed inside and outside of the EEA. |
| 318 | 322 | For statistical analyses we use web analytics services such as Google Analytics, to collect information about the use of this site. |
| 319 | 323 | |
| 320 | 324 | **General tracking information** |
| 321 | 325 | |
| 322 | 326 | _The tools collect information such as:_ |
| 323 | 327 | |
| 328 | _\- Information about video content that you viewed_ | |
| 329 | ||
| 324 | 330 | _\- Device and browser information (operating system information, Mobile device identifier, mobile operating system, etc.)_ |
| 325 | 331 | |
| 326 | 332 | _\- IP address_ |
| 327 | 333 | |
| 328 | 334 | _\- Asset accessed, URL click stream (the chronological order of our internet sites you visited)_ |
| 329 | 335 | |
| 481 | 487 | Please submit any questions, concerns or comments you have about this privacy policy or any requests concerning your personal data by email to our Group Data Protection Officer. You can contact our Group Data Protection Officer via dataprotection@springernature.com. |
| 482 | 488 | |
| 483 | 489 | The information you provide when contacting us at dataprotection@springernature.com will be processed to handle your request and will be erased when your request is completed. Alternatively, we will restrict the processing of the respective information in accordance with statutory retention requirements. |
| 484 | 490 | |
| 485 | 491 | XVII. Amendments to this policy |
| 486 | 492 | |
| 487 | We reserve the right to change this policy from time to time by updating our web properties respectively. Please visit our web properties and check our respective current privacy policy. This policy was last updated on 10/14/2025. | |
| 493 | We reserve the right to change this policy from time to time by updating our web properties respectively. Please visit our web properties and check our respective current privacy policy. This policy was last updated on 1/22/2026. |