Privacy Policy Highlights

November 22, 2012


Hulu knows that you care how information about you is collected, used and shared, and we appreciate your trusting us to do so carefully and sensibly. Please take a moment to review our Privacy Policy, which describes how Hulu collects, uses, and shares this and other information.

Scope of Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy, effective March 16, 2012 covers the information Hulu collects when you use our services (the “Hulu Services”). It also provides information about our relationships with certain third parties that provide services in connection with the Hulu Services.

Learn More About Scope of Privacy Policy

Information Collected From or About You

There is a variety of information collected from or about you when you use the Hulu Services, including:

  • information you give us, such as during registration or subscription;
  • information automatically collected when you visit Hulu.com or use the Hulu Services, such as your location and information collected via cookies, web beacons or other technologies;
  • information from other commercially available sources, such as data aggregators and public databases, or our business partners.
Learn More About Information Collected About You

How We Use This Information

We generally use the information we collect to:

  • contact you;
  • customize the content and advertising you view;
  • fulfill your requests for products or services;
  • improve our services;
  • prevent potentially illegal activities; and
  • protect our rights.
Learn More About How We Use Your Information

How We Share This Information

We may share information that we collect about you to provide the Hulu Services, including:

  • with other Hulu users as described on Privacy and Settings page;
  • with our third-party service providers who are subject to contractual restrictions;
  • with social networking services with your consent;
  • with other business partners with your consent;
  • in aggregated or other non-personally identifiable form; or
  • when necessary to protect or defend the rights of Hulu or our users, and when required by law or public authorities.
Learn More About How We Share Your Information

Your Choices

  • You can control the sharing of certain information with other Hulu users and the publication of information to social networking services on our Privacy and Settings page.
  • You can stop the delivery of commercial email messages from Hulu by indicating your preference on the Privacy and Settings page or following the instructions in any such email you receive.
  • You have choices about the collection and use of your information by third parties to display relevant advertisements, as described in our overview of third-party online advertising.
Learn More About Your Choices

Security, Kids, and Other Information

  • We have adopted commercially reasonable procedures to help protect your information, but please note that no data transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.
  • Hulu prohibits registration or subscription by, and will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from, anyone under 13 years of age.
  • For more information about our privacy practices, please review the full Hulu Privacy Policy.
Learn More About Security, Kids, and Other Information


If you have questions regarding your privacy and Hulu, please contact us.


Privacy Policy

March 16, 2012


Hulu provides an online video service offering a selection of television shows, movies, clips, and other content. These video services including our Hulu Plus Service, our video player, and any other features, tools, applications, materials, or other services, offered by Hulu on any website, device or platform are referred to collectively as the “Hulu Services.”

We invite you to click below to get answers to your questions regarding our Privacy Policy.

About Hulu

Below you will find our updated Privacy Policy, effective as of March 16, 2012. This Privacy Policy covers the information collected from or about you and your activities when you use the Hulu Services. It also provides information about our relationships with certain third parties that provide services in connection with the Hulu Services. If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy, please let us know by emailing us at privacy@hulu.com.



Information Collected From or About You

What kinds of information does Hulu collect from or about me and my activities?

Generally speaking, we may collect the following information from or about you and your activities when you use the Hulu Services:

  • information you give us, including your name, email address, birth date, gender, and -if you subscribe to Hulu Plus - your credit card information;
  • information automatically collected when you use the Hulu Services, such as your location, your activity on the Hulu Services, and information collected via cookies, web beacons, or other technologies;
  • information from other commercially available sources, such as data aggregators and public databases, or our business partners, which may include your interests, purchasing behavior and your activities online, such as websites visited and advertisements viewed; and
  • if you connect your social networking account with your Hulu account, information from your social networking account as described below.

We may combine all of the information we collect from or about you and use it in the manner described in this Privacy Policy.

Are there other parties collecting information from or about me that I should be aware of while using the Hulu Services?
  • Service Providers. Companies that provide services to us - including companies that assist with payment processing, website, user, and business analytics, data processing, account management, advertising, and other services - may collect information on the Hulu Services. However, our agreements with these service providers limit the types of information these companies collect, how they may collect it, and how they may use it.
  • Other Websites and Platforms. The Hulu Services may be provided through Internet websites or other platforms operated by other companies. For example, you can access the Hulu Services currently on our partners’ websites and using Internet connected devices such as your Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Roku Streaming Player, iPad or iPhone. Websites and platforms like these may be co-branded with our name or logo, but they are not operated or maintained by us, and we are not responsible for the privacy practices of the websites or platforms operated by third parties. If you are using the Hulu Services on another website or platform, you should check the privacy policy of the other website or platform to determine how it handles any information it collects from or about you.
  • Social Networking Services. You can use the Hulu Services with social networking services, such as Facebook and connect your Hulu account with your social networking account. With your consent, Hulu may send information about you to these services, including information about your use of the Hulu Services. Social networking services also may collect certain technical information about you, such as the IP address of the device you are using to access the Hulu Services and the URL of the page you are viewing. For more information about how Hulu works with social networking services such as Facebook, please click here.
  • Advertisers. Hulu places advertisements both on and off the Hulu Services and also carries advertisements from other companies, often with the ability to click through to websites or properties run by these other companies. Companies that help deliver these ads (including ad networks), and advertisers themselves, may use cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to collect information about your use of the Hulu Services in order to deliver advertisements to you, measure their effectiveness, and personalize advertising content. For more information about third-party advertising and Hulu, please click here.


How We Use This Information

How does Hulu use information it collects from or about me?
  • Payment Information. We only use payment information, such as credit card numbers, as necessary for completing a particular transaction or fulfilling a service (for example, processing payments from our Hulu Plus subscribers) and to prevent abuse of the Hulu Services.
  • Other Information. We use the other information we collect from or about you in order to establish and enhance our relationship with you and to help deliver a first-class user experience. Hulu's use of this information includes the following general purposes: contacting you; customizing the content and advertising you view; fulfilling your requests for products or services; identifying content you share when you use the Hulu Services; improving our services; conducting research; compiling aggregate data for internal and external business purposes; preventing potentially illegal activities; protecting our rights; other uses in accordance with our Terms of Use; and for any other purpose disclosed to you at the time we collect your information.
  • Promotional Communications. We may use your information to:
    • provide you with promotional information about Hulu's features, services, and other offerings that may be of interest to you; or
    • provide information or offers to you that are related to the Hulu Services on behalf of Hulu's business partners.
    Information about your choices regarding promotional communications you receive from Hulu are described in the “Your Choices” section of this Privacy Policy.
  • Recommendations and Advertising. We (and service providers acting on our behalf) may use information about you, including your use of Hulu, to provide recommendations and advertisements on the Hulu Services and elsewhere on the web.


How We Share This Information

With whom does Hulu share the information it collects from or about me?
  • Other Hulu Users. The Hulu Services include social features that let you interact with other people who use them. Information that you voluntarily make public on the Hulu Services will be shared with other Hulu users. For example, if your Hulu username includes your real name, when you post a comment it will be associated with your real name. You can control the sharing of certain information contained in your Hulu profile or about your activities on the Hulu Services with others on the Privacy and Settings page.
  • Business Partners. Except when they are acting on our behalf or when you have provided your information as part of a co-branded promotion, we will obtain your consent before we share your contact information with advertisers, business partners, or other entities that are not affiliated with Hulu so that they may send you promotional information about their products and services directly.
  • Social Networking Services. You can use the Hulu Services on other social networking services such as Facebook, and connect your Hulu account with your social networking account. With your consent, Hulu may send information about you to these social networking services, including information about the videos you watch and your activities on the Hulu Services. For more information about how Hulu works with social networking services such as Facebook, please click here.
  • Service Providers. We may also share your information with companies that provide services to us, including companies that assist with payment processing, website, user, and business analytics, data processing, account management, advertising, and other services. Similarly, we may share your information with other people or entities in order to provide goods or services that you have requested or to complete a transaction at your request. We may also enter into agreements with outside companies that possess the technology that allows us to customize the advertising and marketing messages you receive while using the Hulu Services. Your information, including clickstream data about your use of the Hulu Services and other online activities, may be shared with these companies so this customization can be accomplished. However, our agreements with these service providers limit the types of information these companies collect, how they may collect it, and how they may use it.
  • Other Parties When Required By Law or When Necessary to Protect Your Rights or Ours. There may be instances when we may disclose your information without providing you with a choice in order to protect the legal rights of Hulu or its affiliates, and each of their respective investors, directors, officers, employees, agents, and suppliers; to protect the safety and security of users of the Hulu Services or to enforce our Terms of Use; to protect against fraud or for risk management purposes; or to comply with or respond to the law or legal process or a request for cooperation by a government entity, whether or not legally required. If you notify us that you believe your legal rights have been violated by Hulu or another user of the Hulu Services, we may provide the information that you provide to us to others to the extent that we believe it is necessary to evaluate and respond to your complaint. For instance, if you submit a notice of copyright infringement to us, we may send a copy to the person or entity who uploaded, stored, or transmitted the material addressed by the communication.
  • Other Parties In Connection With a Transfer of Assets. If we sell all or part of our business, or make a sale or transfer of assets, or are otherwise involved in a merger or business transfer, or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy, we may transfer your information to one or more third parties as part of that transaction.
  • Other Parties With Your Consent. In addition to the sharing described in this Privacy Policy, and only with your consent, we may share personally identifiable information about you, for example, your name, address, telephone number, or email address, with other parties.
How does Hulu use and share aggregate or non-personally identifiable information?
  • In addition to the specific data use and sharing practices described in this Privacy Policy, we may use or share information collected through the Hulu Service for other purposes in aggregated or non-personally identifiable ways. This means that we will combine information about individuals together, or otherwise anonymize the information, so that no individual person is identifiable.
  • We may use information in these forms for a variety of purposes, including for research or analysis, website administration, advertising, and promotional purposes. We also may share it with various affiliated and unaffiliated entities. For example, we may share aggregate information with advertisers about the volume of use on the Hulu Services, the specific Hulu videos in which users are most interested, and the effectiveness of advertisements viewed on the Hulu Services (as measured by the number of users who clicked on a particular advertisement). Also, we use independent third parties to help measure viewing of our content, and these third parties may report statistics about viewing in an aggregate or other non-personally identifiable form.


Your Choices

Do I have choices about Hulu's use and sharing of the information it collects from or about me?

You have choices about our use and sharing of certain information that we collect from or about you.

  • Other Hulu Users. Hulu’s Privacy and Settings page gives you the option to control how certain information in your profile (other than your first and last name) and your activities are shared when you use the Hulu Services. Please note that when you choose to connect your Hulu account with a social networking account such as Facebook you may choose to share your information and activities with other users of Hulu and that particular social network. You can change your privacy settings at any time on the Privacy and Settings page.
  • Business Partners: Except as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy, we will obtain your consent before we share your contact information with advertisers, business partners, or other entities not affiliated with Hulu so that they may send you promotional emails. We also may offer co-branded promotions with these business partners. If you request information about or otherwise interact with one of these promotions (such as by entering a contest), we may share your contact information with the business partners identified in the promotion.
  • Social Networking Services. Hulu’s Privacy and Settings page allows you to control whether your profile information (other than your first and last name) and your activities on the Hulu Services are published to other social networks such as Facebook.
  • Hulu’s Use of Your Information to Send You Promotional Materials. By visiting the Privacy and Settings page, you may opt out of receiving alerts or email updates from Hulu promoting our site or the products or services of our business partners, or notices about your queues or subscribed content. We updated these settings on November 19, 2010. If you affirmatively instructed us not to send you promotional materials prior to that date, we maintained that preference following the change. But if you didn’t give us an affirmative instruction and want to change your preference, you can do so on the Privacy and Settings page. Regardless of your choices with respect to promotional communications and updates regarding content, we may send you administrative messages, service announcements, terms and conditions of your account, or other similar communications, without offering you the opportunity to opt out of receiving them.
  • Terminating Your Hulu Account. You may terminate your Hulu account, in accordance with our Terms of Use, via the link accessible on the Account page, or here. Hulu Plus subscribers should review our Terms of Use for our policies on cancellations and refunds. Please note that, if you terminate your account, we may retain some information about you.


Security, Kids, and Other Information

How does Hulu protect the information it collects from or about me?

We use reasonable physical, technical, and administrative measures to safeguard information in our possession against loss, theft and unauthorized use, disclosure, or modification. For example, passwords and other sensitive information are encrypted in transit. We also take steps to ensure that only those Hulu employees, agents, and contractors who have a legitimate business reason to obtain access to your information are granted access.

When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card information on our order forms), we encrypt that information using secure sockets layer technology (SSL), an industry standard protocol for billing transmission in order to help protect the financial information you send us.

Despite these efforts, please note that no data transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. We want you to feel confident using the Hulu Services but we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us. Please refer to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's website for information on how to protect yourself from identity theft.

Does Hulu collect information from children under the age of 13?

Hulu prohibits registration or subscription by, and will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from, anyone under 13 years of age.

Do any special considerations apply to visitors from outside the United States?

Hulu is an online video service based in the U.S., and our offices are headquartered in the U.S. Please be aware that information you provide to us or that we obtain as a result of your use of the Hulu Services may be processed and transferred to the U.S. and be subject to U.S. law. The privacy and data protection laws in the U.S. may not be equivalent to such laws in your country of residence. By using our website, participating in any of the Hulu Services, or by providing us with your information, you consent to this collection, transfer, storage, and processing of information to and in the U.S.

What happens when Hulu changes its Privacy Policy?

From time to time, we may revise this Privacy Policy to reflect industry initiatives or changes in the law or changes to the scope of the Hulu Services or for other reasons. Therefore, it is important to check the effective date of the Privacy Policy posted at http://www.hulu.com/privacy each time you visit Hulu.com or use any of the Hulu Services to ensure you are familiar with the most updated policies and practices. If we make any material revisions to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by posting notice on Hulu.com or by sending you an email to the email address you most recently provided to us prior to such revisions taking effect. If the material revisions concern practices where we have represented that we will obtain your consent to use or disclose your personally identifiable information, we will obtain your consent before taking any action inconsistent with those representations.



Cookies, Web Beacons, and Other Technologies

What technologies are used to understand how people use the Hulu Services?

On Hulu, we, along with our partners and vendors, use a variety of technologies to learn more about how people use the Hulu Services and the Internet. This section provides more information about some of those technologies and how they work.

  • Cookies. Cookies are small bits of information that are stored in separate files within your computer's Internet browser. Cookies store information about your activities on a website or other platform. For example, cookies can store your session information for easy sign-in to a website or other platform you have previously visited. They enable us to make your use of the Hulu Services more enjoyable.
    • For example, we, along with our partners and vendors, may display targeted advertisements based on your activities and other information about you that we have collected, such as your interests. Cookies are one way that we store this kind of information.
    • We, along with our partners and vendors, may also use cookies and similar technologies to relate your use of the Hulu Services to information we obtain from you or from reputable third parties, and to compile aggregate data. For example, if you have asked us to send you information about our upcoming services or promotions, data about your activities on the Hulu Services, collected using cookies, may allow us to limit the materials we send you to items that we believe will be of interest to you.
    • You can configure your Internet browser to warn you each time a cookie is being sent or to refuse cookies completely. However, unless you accept cookies, you will not have access to certain Hulu Services.
    • Some advertisements displayed in connection with the Hulu Services may also access or place cookies on your Internet browser or use other technologies provided by third-party Internet advertisers and the companies that help them deliver their ads (sometimes called “ad networks” or “network advertisers”). For more information on this topic, please see our discussion of Third Party Advertising on Hulu.
  • Other local storage. We, along with our partners and vendors, use other kinds of local storage, such as Local Shared Objects (also referred to as “Flash cookies”) and HTML5 local storage, in connection with the Hulu Services, including the video player. Sometimes called “browser cookies,” these technologies are similar to the cookies discussed above in that they are stored on your computers and can be used to store certain information about your activities and preferences, such as your volume/mute settings. However, these objects are stored in different parts of your computer from ordinary browser cookies. Many Internet browsers allow you to disable HTML5 local storage or delete information contained in HTML5 local storage using browser controls. For information about disabling or deleting information contained in Local Shared Objects, please click here. Please note that disabling these technologies may interfere with the performance and features of the video player.
  • Web beacons. We, along with our partners and vendors, may also use technologies that communicate information from your Internet browser or the Hulu video player to a web server, including so-called “pixel tags,” “web beacons,” “clear GIFs,” or similar means (collectively, “Pixel Tags”). Pixel Tags, which can be embedded in web pages, videos, or emails, can allow a web server to read certain types of information from your browser, check whether you have viewed a particular web page or email message, and determine, among other things, the time and date on which you viewed the Pixel Tag, the IP address of your computer, and the URL of the web page from which the Pixel Tag was viewed. We use Pixel Tags to improve your Hulu experience, including to provide you with content customized to your interests.

Social Networking

How does Hulu work with social networks such as Facebook?
  • Hulu and Social Networking. If you choose to link your Hulu account with a social networking service, Hulu and that service may share certain information about you and your activities. With your consent, we also may share information about your activities, including what you watch on Hulu, with that social network’s users.
  • Connecting with Facebook While Using the Hulu Services. Facebook and Hulu have developed a process that allows you to connect your Hulu account with your Facebook account. When you connect your accounts, you authorize Hulu and Facebook to share certain information about you with each other. With your consent, we may also share information about your activities on the Hulu Services with Facebook and its users including publishing your watch activity to Facebook. This section provides information on how this sharing works.
    • Sharing on Facebook. If you connect your Hulu and Facebook accounts, Hulu will ask you if you want to automatically share information about your activities on the Hulu Services to Facebook. When you choose to share information about your activities on the Hulu Services with Facebook, Facebook may make that information visible to Facebook users in accordance with applicable law, the Facebook Data Use Policy, and your Facebook privacy settings. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with Facebook’s Data Use Policy and privacy controls. You can always stop or start sharing your activities on the Hulu Service with Facebook at any time using the Account > Privacy and Settings controls on Hulu.
    • Sharing on Hulu. When you connect your Hulu and Facebook accounts, Hulu will access the list of all your Facebook friends and import them to Hulu. All of your Facebook friends who have also connected their Hulu and Facebook accounts will be connected to you on Hulu. Any Facebook friend who connects his or her Hulu and Facebook accounts at a later date will also automatically be connected to you on Hulu. This means that, if you choose to share your activities on the Hulu Services, all of your Facebook friends who have connected their Facebook and Hulu accounts will be able to see what you watch when they use Hulu. You can always stop or start sharing your activities on the Hulu Service at any time using the Account > Privacy and Settings controls on Hulu.
    • Separate Lists of Friends. Although Hulu imports all of your friends from Facebook, the Hulu and Facebook privacy settings are separate. This means that your Facebook privacy controls do not control who can see your activity on Hulu. As a result, if you choose to connect your Facebook and Hulu accounts and enable sharing, then all of your Facebook friends will be able to see your Hulu activity when they use Hulu. Right now, the best way to stop sharing your activity on Hulu with a Facebook friend is to turn off social sharing or unfriend that person on Facebook. If you unfriend someone on Facebook there may be some reasonable delay, while Hulu and Facebook process changes to your Facebook friend list, before we update who can see your activity on Hulu. You can always review the current list of who can see your activity on Hulu using the Community controls.
    • In addition, if you visit Hulu while logged into Facebook, then Facebook may be able to identify you and to associate the technical information provided by your web browser with other information that Facebook already has about you.

Third-Party Advertising On Hulu

How does third-party advertising on Hulu impact me?

Hulu carries advertisements from other companies, often with the ability to click through to websites or properties run by these other companies.

  • Clicking on or Viewing Ads. When you click on or view an advertisement, the advertiser may collect some information from or about you. Hulu is not responsible for the privacy practices of advertisers. You should check the privacy policy of the advertiser whose website you visit to determine how it handles any information it separately collects from you. Please be aware that Hulu does not warn you when you have chosen to click through to another website or property when using the Hulu Services.
  • Use of Cookies in Third-Party Advertising. Companies that advertise on Hulu and the providers that help them deliver their ads may use cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to collect information about your use of the Hulu Services in order to deliver advertisements to you, measure their effectiveness, and personalize advertising content. The information practices of these advertising companies are governed by their own privacy policies and are not covered by this Privacy Policy.
  • Information Shared with Advertisers and Advertising Companies. Hulu may share aggregate information with advertisers and the companies that help them deliver their ads so they can measure the effectiveness of advertisements viewed in connection with the Hulu Services. For example, we may tell advertisers the number of users who clicked on a particular advertisement.
  • Opting Out of Third-Party Behavioral Advertising. Some of these advertising companies may be members of the Network Advertising Initiative ("NAI"), a cooperative of online marketing companies that offers a centralized tool for opting out of behavioral advertising delivered by each of its member companies. If you would like to obtain more information about the NAI and make choices about their members’ use of your information, please click here. Some of the third parties that collect information on the Hulu Services in order to provide more relevant advertising to you participate in the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising. This program offers a single location where users can make choices about the use of their information for ad targeting. To learn more, please click here.

Questions

Who can I contact if I have concerns about this Privacy Policy?
  • If you have concerns regarding this Privacy Policy, including if you believe that Hulu may have incorrect information for you, you may email us at privacy@hulu.com. You may also contact us by mail at:
    Attention: Legal Department
    Hulu, LLC
    12312 W. Olympic Blvd.
    Los Angeles, CA 90064
  • The privacy@hulu.com email address is used only for communications about our Privacy Policy. If you have general questions about the Hulu Services, please contact us through the "Contact Us" page on Hulu.com.