Privacy Policy

HT Digital Streams Limited

HT Digital Streams Limited (hereinafter referred as “HTDSL”) recognizes the importance of maintaining the privacy of every user who visits our website. We value your privacy and appreciate your trust in us. We are committed to be transparent about the data we collect about you, how it is used and with whom it is shared.

This Privacy Policy applies when you use/visit our website, mobile or tablet application, or any other online service (collectively, the “Services”) that links or refers to it. It does not governs or apply to information collected or used by HTDSL or its group companies through any other means.

By visiting and/or using our website, you agree to this Privacy Policy. We strongly recommend you to read this privacy policy so that you understand our approach towards the use of your personal data.

HTDSL is a subsidiary of HT Media Ltd. It is licensed to operate and manage the websites of HT Media Ltd. and its subsidiaries (hereinafter referred as “Company”) . HTDSL manages hindustantimes.com, livehindustan.com, desimartini.com and livemint.com domains.

We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time as in required.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We collect information directly from user(s) , from third-parties and automatically through our websites/mobile applications.

Registration for the Services may require that you supply certain personal information such as name, age, sex, contact number, email address and demographic information (area, location, IP address etc) to register. To aid convenience, users can sign up on any of our sites, and we extend the same login credentials to sign in to any of the other sites. (Single Sign-on feature). You may also register or link your account through third party accounts such as Facebook, Google etc.

We collect limited information about your computer's connection to the Internet, including your IP address, when you visit our site. Your IP address does not identify you personally. We also collect and may store information that your computer or mobile device provides to us in connection with your use of our website/apps such as your browser type, type of computer or mobile device, browser language, IP address, mobile carrier, unique device identifier, location, and requested and referring URLs. We also receive information when you view content on or otherwise interact with our website/app/services, even if you have not created an account. We use this information to deliver our web pages to you upon request, to tailor our site to the interests of our users, to measure traffic on the website. This information may also be used by our advertisers/third party companies to personalize content, ads etc.

HOW WE COLLECT INFORMATION

  • We collect information directly from you when you register with us.
  • We collect information (whether you are registered or not registered with us) when you browse our sites/apps, open or respond to an email from us (promotional or informational),
  • When you post a comment on our website or raise a query/question to us through phone or email.
  • We collect information from you when you register with us by linking your social media or third party accounts. By doing this, you are authorizing them to share with us certain information from such accounts, and authorizing us to collect, store, and use this in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
  • We collect information from you using third party tools, browser cookies and web beacons in order to improve user experience.
  • Device Information We may collect non-personal information about the computer, mobile device or other device you use to access the service, such as IP address, geo-location information, unique device identifiers, browser type, browser language and other information for the purpose of providing customized information on the browser.
  • Location Information Our mobile application and websites may capture your current location if you choose to enable GPS feature in the app or browser.

COOKIE POLICY , PIXELS AND TRACKING

Cookies are small text files which contain a small amount of information that is downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. When you visit the website again, or visit partner website which recognises that cookie, your device is able to communicate with our website and the website can read the information held in that cookie.

We use Cookies to help you efficiently browse our websites and to save you time by not having to re-enter your details/preferences each time you visit. Cookies allow us to provide you with information and show you content relevant to you. We also use Cookies to analyse how our customers interact with our websites so we can improve the customer journey.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies in your browser settings. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to reject cookies if you prefer. You may find more help about managing cookies in your

browser: Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox & Safari. This may prevent you from having complete website experience by affecting the access to some of the links, services or features. Information collected by cookies and web beacons is not personally identifiable.

HOW WE USE THE INFORMATION

a) To Provide and Manage the Services You Request. This includes, for example, processing your subscription, sending you electronic newsletters, or enabling you to participate in the features provided by the Services. It also includes providing personalized content and recommendations to you, including by email. Through such features, we are able to bring you information and content tailored to your individual interests and needs.

b) To Reach You: We may periodically contact you with offers and information about the Services and our affiliates, including in connection with your accounts, online surveys, legal notices, news stories, new features that you are entitled to access, and other important information. You may opt out of receiving commercial email messages from us by following the instructions contained in those email messages.

c) To Customise Advertising. We may use your information to facilitate the delivery of targeted ads, promotions, and offers to you, on behalf of ourselves and advertisers, on and off the Services.

d) Understand Our Readers and Users. The Services conduct research on our users’ demographics, interests and behavior based on the information we collect. We do this to better understand and serve our users, and to improve our products and services.

e) To Protect the Rights of the Services and others. We may use your personal information as we believe is necessary or appropriate to protect, enforce, or defend the legal rights, privacy, safety, or property of the Services, its employees or agents, or other users and to comply with applicable law.

f) Consent. We may otherwise use your information with your consent or at your direction.

HOW WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION

The following provides information about entities with which we may share information. Our practices vary depending on the type of information.

a. Logging In Through Social Media Services: If you log into the Services with a social media service or if you connect a social media account with the Services, we may share your information with that social media service. The social media services’ use of the shared information will be governed by the social media services’ privacy policy and your social media account settings. If you do not want your information shared in this way, do not connect your social media service account with your Services.

b. Business Partners: We may also share your information with business partners to provide you with services that you request.

c. Service Providers: We may share information with vendors providing contractual services to us, such as hosting vendors, advertising service providers, and list managers. We also may share your information, including your payment information, as appropriate to process your payments for the Services or complete a transaction.

d. Other Parties When Required by Law or As Necessary to Protect Our Users and Services: We may share your personal information as we believe is necessary or appropriate to protect, enforce, or defend the legal rights, privacy, safety, or property of the Services, our employees or agents or users or to comply with applicable law or legal process, including responding to requests from public and government authorities.

e. Affiliates: We may share information within our family of affiliated companies and business associates.

f. Third Parties that Provide Content, Advertising, or Functionality: When you use our Services, third parties may collect or receive certain information about you and/or your use of the Services (e.g., hashed data, click stream information, browser type, time and date, information about your interactions with advertisements and other content), including through the use of cookies, beacons, mobile ad identifiers, and similar technologies, in order to provide content, advertising, or functionality or to measure and analyze ad performance, on our Services or other websites or platforms. This information may be combined with information collected across different websites, online services, and other linked or associated devices. These third parties may use your information to improve their own services and consistent with their own privacy policies.

g. Other Parties in Connection With a Corporate Transaction: We reserve the right to transfer any information we have about you in the event that we sell or transfer all or a portion of our business or assets to a third party, such as in the event of a merger, acquisition, or in connection with a bankruptcy reorganization.

h. Otherwise With Your Consent or At Your Direction: In addition to the sharing described in this Privacy Policy, we may share information about you with third parties whenever you consent to or direct such sharing.

i. We also may share other information with third parties in a manner that does not identify particular users, including, for example, aggregated data about how users are using our Services.

j. Links to Third-Party Sites: Our Services may link to third-party websites and services that are outside our control. We are not responsible for the security or privacy of any information collected by other websites or other services. You should exercise caution, and review the privacy statements applicable to the third-party websites and services you use.

ACCESS TO PERSONAL INFORMATION

You may access or modify your personal information by signing on to the website. We will not modify the information provided by you. However, you must update your personal information as soon as such changes are necessitated.

Upon your request, we will close your account and remove your personal information from view as soon as reasonably possible, based on your account activity and in accordance with applicable law(s). However, we will retain the required personal information from closed accounts to comply with law, Avoid/check illegal and/or potentially prohibited activities and to enforce User Agreements; Comply with any court judgment / decree / order / directive / legal & government authority /applicable law; Investigate potential violations or applicable national & international laws; Investigate deliberate damage to the website/services or its legitimate operation; Detect, prevent, or otherwise address security and/or technical issues; safeguard p the rights, property or safety of company and/or its Directors, employees and the general public at large; Respond to Claims of third parties; and take such other actions as may be permitted by law

SHOULD YOU WANT TO OPT OUT

If we possess your contact information, we may want to keep you posted about our products, services and events, through email. Should you prefer not to keep up to date with company related news and latest information on services and receive such marketing materials, please click on the unsubscribe link in the communication that you recieve.

Further, a user may withdraw the consent given to the company on the website by communicating the same to us in writing on the email provided in the contact us section of the website. However, such withholding of information or withdrawal of consent may result in company not being able to provide services and facilities.

We will update your preferences as soon as reasonably practical. However, do note, if you opt out of the companies emailing list, as described here, we will not be able to remove your personal information from the databases of affiliates, franchisees or business partners with which we have already shared your personal information, prior to the date of your opt-out request.

Disclaimer

HT Digital Streams Limited maintains www.auto.hindustantimes.com (hereinafter "website") to enhance public access to general information, news and current affairs. This service is provided on an "As Is" basis and is continually under development.

Though we work very hard tov keep correct and updated information, HT Digital Streams Limited its holding, subsidiary, group companies, affiliates, third party content providers or licensors and each of their respective officers, directors, employees, representatives, licensees and agents (hereinafter altogether referred to as "HTDSL") do not make any representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, authenticity, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose nor does HTDSL make any warranty that the website will be uninterrupted or error free or as to the results that may be obtained from use of the website or the information contained therein. Any reliance you place on such information/service/products/ graphics and/or the website is therefore purely and strictly at your own risk and consequences.

In no event will HTDSL be liable for any loss or damage, including without limitation, direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive loss or damages or any loss or damage whatsoever arising out of the use of or inability to use the website or any service contained therein.

Through this website you are able to link to other websites which are not under the control of "HT Digital Streams Limited". We have no control over the nature, content and availability of those sites or the services/products provided. The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.

Every effort is made to keep the website up and running smoothly. However, HTDSL takes no responsibility for and will not be liable for the website being temporarily unavailable due to technical issues beyond its control.

REACH OUT TO US

For any complaint related to our services or content of the website the aggrieved person may raise the query/complaint within a period of 7 (seven) days from the date of first publication to the email id mentioned herein:

Email: privacymanager@hindustantimes.com


Privacy Policy for EEA/UK

We, HT Digital Streams Limited or HTDSL, are licensed to operate and manage the websites of HT Media Limited, including this website and recognizes the importance of maintaining the privacy of every user who visits our website.  We value your privacy and appreciate your trust in us. We are committed to be transparent about the data we collect about you, how it is used and with whom it is shared.

This Privacy Policy is applicable in the European Economic Area (EEA) and the United Kingdom (UK), and is pursuant to the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation 2016/679) and the UK GDPR.  It applies when you use/visit our website or any other online service that links or refers to it. It does not govern or apply to information collected or used by HTDSL or its group companies through any other means.

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy and the processing of personal data processed pursuant to it, HTDSL is a Controller under the applicable law.

A. DATA WE COLLECT

We collect and process data when you visit our website, interact with it or register on the website to avail services offered. Please note that these data are not always considered ‘personal data’ under the applicable law.

Some examples of your personal data collected and/ or processed by the website are-

  • Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses
  • Date of birth
  • Nationality
  • Payment Details
  • Information about how you use our services and about how you use our website

These data are either provided by you to us or are collected through your usage of the website and the services offered by it.

      1- Information you provide us-
      • We collect information when you browse the website or interact with it, including registration on the website for purposes like subscription or newsletters, open or respond to an email from us (promotional or informational).
      • We collect information when you fill forms, post a comment on our website, raise a query/question to us through phone or email, answer questionnaires, participate in surveys or contact us for other reasons.
      • We collect information from you when you register with us by linking your social media or third-party accounts. By doing this, you are authorizing them to share with us certain information from such accounts, and authorizing us to collect, store, and use this in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
      2- Information we collect when you use our website-

      During your visit to the website or interaction with it, we collect the following data from such usage or interaction

      • We collect information from you using third party tools, browser cookies and web beacons in order to improve user experience.
      • We may collect non-personal information about the computer, mobile device, or other device you use to access the service, such as IP address, geo-location information, unique device identifiers, browser type, browser language and other information for the purpose of providing customized information on the browser.
      • The website may capture your current location if you choose to enable the same in your browser.
      • We collect information about your preferences with respect to the usage of the website, information on the links clicked by you and browsing data like the duration of sessions and searches on the platform.

Please note that we may use cookies and/ or other similar technologies to collect some of the data listed above, details of which are provided separately in the cookie policy.

B- PURPOSE OF PROCESSING DATA

The data we collect and use for the purposes with corresponding legal basis, as given below-

Purpose of Use Legal Basis

To provide and manage the Services you request:  This includes, for example, processing your subscription, sending you electronic newsletters, or enabling you to participate in the features provided by the Services. It also includes providing personalized content and recommendations to you, including by email. Through such features, we are able to bring you information and content tailored to your individual interests and needs.

Your consent

To reach you:  We may periodically contact you with offers and information about the Services and our affiliates, including in connection with your accounts, online surveys, legal notices, news stories, new features that you are entitled to access, and other important information. You may opt out of receiving commercial email messages from us by following the instructions contained in those email messages.

Your consent and/ or our legitimate interest

To customise advertising:  We may use your information to facilitate the delivery of targeted ads, promotions, and offers to you, on behalf of ourselves and advertisers, on and off the Services and to Evaluate the effectiveness of the advertising messages we send and adapt them to our clients and prospects

Your consent and/ or our legitimate interest

To understand our readers and users:  The Services conduct research on our users’ demographics, interests and behaviour based on the information we collect. We do this to better understand and serve our users, and to improve our products and services.

Our legitimate interest

To Protect the Rights of the Services and others:  We may use your personal information as we believe is necessary or appropriate to protect, enforce, or defend the legal rights, privacy, safety, or property of the Services, its employees or agents, or other users and to comply with applicable law.

Vital interest of you and other natural persons and/ or our legitimate interest

To Handle and correct any incidents or errors of the Site.

Our legitimate interest

For internal audits on data analysis and audience statistics

Our legitimate interest

C- RIGHT TO OBJECT

You have the right to object to our processing of your Information which is used to send you promotions, special offers, marketing messages, including where we build profiles for such purposes. 

You may also object to the processing of your Information [including where the processing is profiling] on the basis of our legitimate interest and your objection to such processing.

D- FAILURE TO PROVIDE INFORMATION

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you, or we may be prevented from providing certain functions or service which require a particular type of non-essential cookies to function. You hereby accept and agree that we shall not be held liable in any manner whatsoever if we are unable to perform our services or if there is a deficiency in our services to you due to your failure to provide such information.

E- DATA RETENTION

We will only retain your Information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, auditing or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for your Information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the Information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your Information, the purposes for which we process your Information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your Information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such Information without a further statement to you.

F- DATA SHARING

We may share or disclose your data to the following recipients-

    • Logging in Through Social Media Services:  If you log into the Services with a social media service or if you connect a social media account with the Services, we may share your information with that social media service. The social media services’ use of the shared information will be governed by the social media services’ privacy policy and your social media account settings. If you do not want your information shared in this way, do not connect your social media service account with your Services.
    • Business Partners:  We may also share your information with business partners to provide you with services that you request.
    • Service Providers:  We may share information with vendors providing contractual services to us, such as hosting vendors, advertising service providers, and list managers. We also may share your information, including your payment information, as appropriate to process your payments for the Services or complete a transaction.
    • Other Parties When Required by Law or As Necessary to Protect Our Users and Services:  We may share your personal information as we believe is necessary or appropriate to protect, enforce, or defend the legal rights, privacy, safety, or property of the Services, our employees or agents or users or to comply with applicable law or legal process, including responding to requests from public and government authorities.
    • Affiliates:  We may share information within our family of affiliated companies and business associates.
    • Third Parties that Provide Content, Advertising, or Functionality:  When you use our Services, third parties may collect or receive certain information about you and/or your use of the Services ( e.g. , hashed data, click stream information, browser type, time and date, information about your interactions with advertisements and other content), including through the use of cookies, beacons, mobile ad identifiers, and similar technologies, in order to provide content, advertising, or functionality or to measure and analyse ad performance, on our Services or other websites or platforms. This information may be combined with information collected across different websites, online services, and other linked or associated devices. These third parties may use your information to improve their own services and consistent with their own privacy policies.
    • Other Parties in Connection with a Corporate Transaction:  We reserve the right to transfer any information we have about you in the event that we sell or transfer all or a portion of our business or assets to a third party, such as in the event of a merger, acquisition, or in connection with a bankruptcy reorganization.
    • Otherwise with Your Consent or At Your Direction:  In addition to the sharing described in this Privacy Policy, we may share information about you with third parties whenever you consent to or direct such sharing.
    • We also may share other information with third parties in a manner that does not identify particular users, including, for example, aggregated data about how users are using our Services.
    • Links to Third-Party Sites:  Our Services may link to third-party websites and services that are outside our control. We are not responsible for the security or privacy of any information collected by other websites or other services. You should exercise caution and review the privacy statements applicable to the third-party websites and services you use.

G- INTERNATIONAL DATA TRANSFERS

There will be occasions where the data we collect is required to be transferred to countries which do not have an adequacy decision by the European Commission. This means that the country to which we transfer your information does not provide adequate level of protection. To ensure that your information is adequately protected, we reply on measures to ensure that your information is treated in a manner which is consistent with the applicable law.

H- YOUR RIGHTS AND HOW TO EXERCISE THEM

You may make a raise a request with us for a copy of your personal data as well as their rectification or erasure. You may use your right to restrict a processing or to oppose a processing. Please note however that in the event you exercise your right to restrict or oppose a processing, your access to all or part of the website and / or to the services may be impacted.

You can request to exercise your right to data portability, that is to say the right to receive the personal data that you have provided us in a structured format, in order to transmit such data to another controller.

To exercise your rights, we encourage you to contact us via email using the contact details provided below-

Mr. Binoy Prabhakar
Grievance Officer
HT Digital Streams Ltd.
Corporate Office: 2nd Floor 18-20 KG Marg
New Delhi-110001
Phone: + 91 11 66561123
Email: grievance@htdigital.in


Cookie Policy

A- Our Cookie Policy

This is the cookie policy for https://auto.hindustantimes.com website, managed by HT Digital Streams Limited.

In this cookie policy we explain what cookies are, how we use them and how you can manage them for both our site and other websites you might use.

B- What are Cookies?

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. If you want to know more about cookies, go to https://allaboutcookies.org

Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts.

C- How we use cookies?

We use cookies to make our website work, or work more efficiently. We also use cookies to track what you've done on the site so we can understand what you like and use or don't like and don't use to provide a more enjoyable, customised service and experience, as well as to help us develop and deliver better content, products and services tailored to our customers' interests and needs.

Our cookies don't hold personal information such as your name. They simply let us find information once you're logged in or help link your browsing information to you and your personal information when you choose to register for a service, white paper or newsletter.

To do this we sometimes use persistent cookies. We take looking after your personal information seriously – we're always monitoring and improving how we protect it.

We've put our cookies into the following categories, to make it easier for you to understand why we need them:

Essential (always on)-

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

Cookies Name

Cookies objective

Cookies Nature

Cookies type

GA

Analytics

Essential

3rd party

Comscore cookies

Analytics

Essential

3rd party

HTFP cookies / Snowplow

Analytics

Essential

1st Party

DAP

Analytics

Essential

3rd party

GAM

Ad

Essential

3rd party

Akamai

CDN

Essential

3rd party

New relic

Tech Analytics

Essential

3rd party

HT internal cookies

Business Logics

Essential

1st party

Razorpay

Payments

Essential

3rd party

PayU

Payments

Essential

3rd party

Performance - 

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.

Cookies Name

Cookies objective

Cookies Nature

Cookies Type

FB pixel

Retargeting

Performance

3rd party

Other CDN

CDN

Performance

3rd party

Webengage

Analytics

Performance

3rd party

Moengage

Analytics

Performance

3rd party

Personalization

These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less personalized advertising.

Cookies Name

Cookies objective

Cookies Nature

Cookies Type

Piano

Analytics

Personalized

3rd party

Personalized Ad (GAM/other Ad provides)

Ad

Personalized

3rd party

Direct Ad based cookies (NA)

Ad

Personalized

3rd party

Pubmatic

Ad

Personalized

3rd party

RubiCon

Ad

Personalized

3rd party

APS

Ad

Personalized

3rd party

Index exchange

Ad

Personalized

3rd party

Taboola

Ad

Personalized

3rd party

Disqus

User interaction

Personalized

3rd party

Zoho

Create/Update Customer

Personalized

3rd party

D- Controlling your Cookies

If you change your cookie settings in your browser, your experience with us won't be tracked.

For more information on how to control cookies, please visit https://allaboutcookies.org

What Are Caches and Cookies?

Caches and cookies are like little notes your web browser stores when you visit websites so your browser can remember it the next time you visit those websites again.

Your browser tends to save these files. Even if they are relatively small, they will accumulate over time. It could cause performance and privacy issues on your browser.

Clear Cache and Cookies on Google Chrome

Open Google Chrome.

Click the menu button ⋮ > More Tools > Clear browsing data.

On the Clear browsing data window, select which time range you want to clear.

Put a check beside Cookies and other site data and Cached images and files, and then click Clear data.

Clear Cache and Cookies on Mozilla Firefox

Open Mozilla Firefox.

Click the menu button ☰, then select Settings.

Select Privacy & Security, scroll to Cookies and Site Data, and then click Clear Data.

Check both Cookies and Site Data and Cached Web Content, and then click Clear.

A confirmation box will appear. Click Clear Now to proceed.

Clear Cache and Cookies on Microsoft Edge

Open Microsoft Edge.

Click the menu button … > Settings.

Under Clear browsing data, click Choose what to clear.

Tick Cookies and save the website and Cached data and files, and then click Clear.