Medscape Privacy Supplement

This PRIVACY SUPPLEMENT supplements the information contained in the Privacy Policy of WebMD LLC and its affiliates (collectively, “we,“ “us,“ or “our“) and applies solely to our users who are residents of U.S. states, commonwealths or territories with applicable data privacy laws (“consumers“ or “you“) in relation to your use of our websites, mobile applications and other resources intended for use by healthcare professionals and which we refer to as the "Medscape Network", including the information and services made available to users of the Medscape Network, such as medical news, reference content, clinical tools, applications, sponsored programs, advertising, email communications, continuing medical education, market research opportunities and discussion forums (collectively, the “Services").

We adopt this notice to comply with the requirements of certain applicable U.S. privacy laws and regulations, including the California Consumer Privacy Act, the California Privacy Rights Act and other California privacy laws, Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act, the Colorado Privacy Act, as well as the Connecticut Act Concerning Personal Data Privacy and Online Monitoring (collectively, "Applicable Data Privacy Laws"). Any terms defined in our Privacy Policy or in Applicable Data Privacy Laws have the same meaning when used in this notice.

Information we collect.

Certain information that we collect identifies, relates to, describes, references, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household (“personal information”).

We have collected personal information from the following categories of information from consumers within the last twelve (12) months:

Category

Description

Data Collected

A.  Identifiers.

A real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, Social Security number, driver's license number, passport number, or other similar identifiers.

E.g., your name, email address, and IP address

B. Personal information listed under Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e).

A name, signature, Social Security number, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, passport number, driver's license or state identification card number, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information, medical information, or health insurance information. Some personal information included in this category may overlap with other categories.

E.g., your name, education and employment affiliations

C.  Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law.

Age (40 years or older), race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, religion or creed, marital status, medical condition, physical or mental disability, sex (including gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy or childbirth and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, veteran or military status, genetic information (including familial genetic information).

E.g., age and gender

D.  Commercial Information.

Records of personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.

N/A

E.  Biometric Information.

Genetic, physiological, behavioral, and biological characteristics, or activity patterns used to extract a template or other identifier or identifying information, such as, fingerprints, faceprints, and voiceprints, iris or retina scans, keystroke, gait, or other physical patterns, and sleep, health, or exercise data.

N/A

F.  Internet or other similar network activity.

Browsing history, search history, information on a consumer's interaction with a website, application, or advertisement.

Yes

G.  Geolocation data.

Physical location or movements.

Yes

H.  Sensory data.

Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information.

N/A

I.  Professional or employment-related information.

Current or past job history or performance evaluations.

E.g., your employment affiliations

J.  Non-public education information.

Education records directly related to a student maintained by an educational institution or party acting on its behalf, such as grades, transcripts, class lists, student schedules, student identification codes, student financial information, or student disciplinary records.

N/A

K.  Inferences drawn from other personal information.

Profile reflecting a person's preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes.

Yes

L. Sensitive Personal Information

See Sensitive Personal Information below.

Yes

Personal information may not include:

Sensitive Personal Information

Sensitive personal information may include (1) personal information that reveals (A) a social security, driver’s license, state identification card, or passport number; (B) account log-in, financial account, debit card, or credit card number in combination with any required security or access code, password, or credentials allowing access to an account; (C) precise geolocation; (D) racial or ethnic origin, immigration status, religious or philosophical beliefs, or union membership; (E) the contents of mail, email, and text messages except where we are the intended recipient of the communication; (F) genetic data; (2) the processing of biometric or genetic information for the purpose of uniquely identifying a consumer; (3) personal information collected and analyzed concerning a consumer’s health or diagnosis; (4) personal information collected and analyzed concerning a consumer’s sex life or sexual orientation; and (5) personal information collected from a known child.

We may collect and store certain categories of sensitive personal information (e.g., account log-in, precise geolocation) in order to provide the Services to you and for short-term, transient use based on your interactions with the Medscape Network.

Categories of sources from which information is collected.

As described in our Privacy Policy, we may obtain the categories of personal information listed above from the following categories of sources:

Use of your personal information.

Each of categories A, B, F, G, I, K and L described above may be used for the following business purposes:

Sharing your personal information

Personal information disclosed for a business purpose

In the preceding twelve (12) months, we may have disclosed your personal information included in each of categories A, B, F, I, G and K for each business purpose described above depending on your use of the Services described herein.

We disclose your personal information for a business purpose to the following categories of third parties: (i) service providers, and (ii) third parties to whom you or your agents authorize us to disclose your personal information in connection with the Services.

Personal information “sold” or “shared” to third parties

In the preceding twelve (12) months, we may have “sold“ or “shared” the personal information included in each of categories A, B, F, I, G and K described above to our commercial clients in connection with our advertising and sponsored programs described under Advertising and Sponsored Programs above.

We do not “sell” or “share” the personal information of consumers that we know are minors under 16 years of age without affirmative authorization as required under Applicable Data Privacy Laws.

We do not “sell” or “share” your sensitive personal information in category L.

Your rights

Applicable Data Privacy Laws provide consumers with specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes your consumer rights and explains how to exercise those rights.

Right to know and data portability

You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months or beyond the 12-month period on or after January 1, 2022. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will disclose to you:

You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. 

Right to delete

You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and verify your consumer request, we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.

We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service providers to:

Right to correct your inaccurate personal information

You have the right to request that we correct any inaccurate personal information about you, taking into account the nature of the personal information and the purposes of processing your personal information. Once we receive and verify your consumer request, we will use commercially reasonable efforts to correct (and direct our service providers to correct) your inaccurate personal information from our records, unless it is impossible or involves a disproportionate effort.

Right to opt-out of the sale or sharing of your personal information

You have the right to opt out of the sale and sharing of your personal information subject to certain exclusions as described below. Once we receive your request, we will not sell or share your personal information, unless an exclusion applies. We may request that you authorize the sale or sharing of your personal information after 12 months following your opt-out.

Applicable Data Privacy Laws exclude certain transfers of your personal information from what constitutes a sale thereof:

We are unable to process opt-out requests across devices or the Apps for advertising services described herein. For example, if you opt out on your browser, we are not able to honor that request if you are using one of our Apps due to our practices and the limitations described above.

Right to non-discrimination for exercising your privacy rights

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your rights described herein. Unless permitted by Applicable Data Privacy Laws, we will not:

We may provide a different level of Services if the difference is reasonably related to value provided by your data.

Exercising access, data portability, correction and deletion rights

To exercise the access, data portability, correction and deletion rights described above, please submit a request to us by either:

By calling the toll-free number or using the above form, you will be asked to provide certain identifying information, such as name, email, residency and date of birth, which we will only use to process or verify your request. You will be asked to validate your request by clicking a validation link in an email that will be sent to the email address provided.

The verifiable consumer request must:

You may be asked to provide further verifying documentation, such as proof of residency and identity.

Only you or a person you authorize to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child. If you are making a request through an authorized agent acting on your behalf, such authorized agent must provide proof of written authorization to do so, and you must verify your identity directly with us, unless such authorized agent provides proof of a power of attorney pursuant to applicable law.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you. Making a verifiable consumer request does not require you to create an account with us. We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor's identity or authority to make the request.

In case you want to appeal the denial of a decision with regard to a previous request, please submit a request to us by sending an email to userprivacy@webmd.net.

Exercising opt-out right

You may exercise your opt-out right by visiting our website and selecting your preferences within the cookie banner at the bottom of the page, as well as by clicking the “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information“ link in the footer or by filling out the form here. You may also exercise your opt-out right by enabling an opt-out preference signal as part of your security or privacy settings (where available) in your device or browser. The cookie banner will automatically read such signals and comply with your preferences.

As more fully described in our Cookie Policy, in order to give you more control over your privacy choices and to enable you to opt-out of interest-based advertising on the Sites, we have implemented a preferences manager. You can learn more about managing your preferences for ads online, particularly for many third-party advertising networks, through resources made available by the Digital Advertising Alliance at https://www.aboutads.info or the Network Advertising Initiative at https://optout.networkadvertising.org.

Opt-outs may be stored via cookies. If you clear cookies or if your browser blocks cookies, your opt-out cookie may no longer be available and your opt-out choices may not be honored. We do not maintain or control the opt-out mechanisms described herein and are not responsible for their operation.

Please note that even if you opt-out of interest-based advertising, you will continue to receive generic advertisements through the Services. Please also note that your choice to stop tailored advertising is specific to the browser or mobile device that you are using so if you make a choice to opt out from one computer or mobile device and you want your opt-out to apply to a different computer or mobile device as well, please opt out from that computer or mobile device too.

You may also control interest-based advertising on your mobile device by enabling the “Limit Ad Tracking“ setting in your iOS device’s settings or “Opt out of Ads Personalization“ in your Android device's settings. This will not prevent you from seeing advertisements, but will limit the use of device advertising identifiers to personalize ads based on your interests. If you have questions about how to reject cookies on your specific device, please confirm with the device manufacturer.

Response Timing and Format

We shall confirm receipt of your request(s) within 10 business days and provide you information on how we will process your request. We will endeavor to respond to a verifiable consumer request within 45 days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing. Any disclosures we provide will cover a period of no less than 12 months preceding the receipt of a verifiable consumer request. The response we provide will explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily usable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right to change or modify this privacy notice and any of our Services at any time and any changes will be effective upon being posted unless we advise otherwise. By continuing to use the Services after changes are made to this privacy notice, you agree to such changes. We encourage you to periodically review this privacy notice for the latest information on our privacy practices.

Contact information

Please send us an email by using the Contact Us link at the bottom of every page of the WebMD Sites if you have any questions about this privacy notice or the personal information we maintain about you. We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe.

You can also contact WebMD’s Privacy Office at:

WebMD LLC
Attn: Office of Privacy
283-299 Market Street
2 Gateway Center
4th Floor
Newark NJ  07102

Effective Date: July 1, 2023