RIOT GAMES COOKIE POLICY

“Cookies” are small pieces of data (often text files) that are placed on your computer or device by the Riot services that you visit or our partners. As a standard feature of major browser applications, cookies are widely used to make online services work or operate more efficiently, as well as to provide info to the providers of those online services about your browsing experiences. When you return to those same online services again, your browser sends the previously stored cookies back to the online service which allows it to recognise you and remember important info to make your use of the online services more personalized or convenient, such as by remembering your saved preferences.

We and our partners also use other technologies, including data stored on your web browser or device, identifiers associated with your device and other software for similar purposes. This includes the following:

• Pixel tags: Pixel tags (also called beacons or pixels) are small blocks of code installed on (or called by) a webpage, email, app, or ads which can retrieve certain info about your device and browser and how you interact with it. This includes, for example, information about your device type, operating system, browser type and version, website visited, time of visit, referring website, IP address, whether you’ve opened an email or clicked on an ad, and other similar info, including the small text file (the cookie) that uniquely identifies the device. Pixels provide the means by which third parties can set and read browser cookies from a domain that they do not themselves operate and collect info about visitors to that domain, typically with the permission of the domain owner.

• Local storage : This refers generally to other places on a browser or device where info can be stored by websites, ads, or third parties (such as HTML5 local storage and browser cache).

• Software development kits: Software development kits (also called SDKs) function like pixels and cookies, but operate in the mobile app context where pixels and cookies cannot always function. Pieces of code (the SDK) are installed in the app that allow us and our partners to collect certain info about your interaction with the app and info about your device and network.

• Flash cookies: This is a technology that can provide cookie-equivalent functionality and is capable of storing information on your device. This information is often stored in a different file to other cookies. This means it has to be managed and deleted in a different way. We explain below how you can do this.

• IP address: IP address is the short form for Internet Protocol address which is assigned by internet access providers to every computer that is connected to the internet. Website owners have access to IP addresses of their users. Using IP addresses, we and our partners can identify the country, state and city from which a computer is connecting to the Internet. IP addresses are, for example, used for IP geolocation purposes, e.g. by Google Analytics.

• Device identifiers : We may also collect your IP address, unique device identifier or create a unique device fingerprint (this is a unique combination of different information from your device so that we can single it out) so we can identify your device. We may then use this in a similar way to cookies.

In this policy, we refer to all of these and similar technologies as “cookies.” These technologies can be used to recognise when your device does things. For instance, they may recognise when you visit pages on our or others’ sites, use parts of an app or when you open emails we send you, or links in technologies.

We and our partners use cookies to automatically record some info about how you use and navigate the Riot services and to recognize use of the Riot services. This, in particular, helps to identify you, analyze, improve and secure the Riot services and to personalise content and features and tailor and measure ads, both on and off the Riot services.

Whilst the cookies used on the Riot services change from time to time as we improve and update the Riot services, they generally fall into the below categories of use:

ESSENTIAL COOKIES

• Authentication: We use cookies to verify your account and determine when you’re logged in so we can make it easier for you to access the Riot services and show you the appropriate information, experience and features. For example, we use cookies to keep you logged in as you navigate between different pages on the Riot service or access secured portions of the Riot services. Cookies also help us remember your browser so you do not have to keep logging into the Riot services.
• Security:We use cookies to provide necessary checks and controls to protect both you and us. For example, they help us to authenticate your use, prevent fraudulent use of access credentials maintain the confidentiality of your data and to help us detect malicious activity and violation of our Terms of Service.

FUNCTIONAL COOKIES

• Preferences and features: We use cookies to enable the functionality that helps us provide the Riot services. For instance, we use cookies to help us remember certain info about your choices, preferences, how far you are through an order and what you’ve seen or done on the Riot services to enhance your experience on the Riot services. They allow us to better personalise your visits to the Riot services by remembering things like your selected region, language, or display settings. This help us show you appropriate options and display customized content accordingly when you return to the Riot services. For example, by remembering your region and language, the Riot services may be able to provide you with local articles or schedules for upcoming events in your area, and do so in your local language. We may also use cookies to capture your preferred audio and visual settings (such as, text size, font, resolution, etc.), reference websites, the sequence of pages within the Riot services that you visit, and other similar details about your browsing behaviour and choices about how the Riot services behave or look. This helps us to, among other things, monitor and improve the Riot services, personalize your browsing experience and facilitate return visits. Many of the features should still work without preference cookies. However, your experience may be less functional and you may need to re-enter your preferences each time you visit.

ANALYTICAL COOKIES

• Analytics and research: We use cookies to collect info about your interactions with the Riot services which helps us to understand and analyse how you use the Riot services and improve them. For example, they help us understand and analyse which pages are the most frequently visited, identify when you may encounter difficulties and identify ways to improve the Riot services. In other words, they allow us to see and analyse overall patterns of usage on the Riot services, analyse general traffic and show the ways you interact with the Riot services. We may also engage partners from time-to-time to help us better understand and analyse how you interact with the Riot services, including by placing analytics and research cookies on our behalf. For example, we use third-party analytics providers like Google Analytics to help evaluate and report on use of the Riot services. These companies may set and read their own tracking technologies to gather info about your online activities across websites and services.

ADVERTISING COOKIES

• Advertising, insight and measurement:- We and our partners use cookies to collect info about your visit to the Riot services and your use of them to deliver ads for businesses and other organisations that we or our partners think may be of interest to you, both on and off the Riot services. This is done based upon your usage of our and others’ sites. For example, we or our partners may draw insights about you based upon what you use on the Riot services or viewed on other sites and use that to deliver an add considered relevant to you. These types of ads are called “Interest-Based Advertising.” We and our partners also use cookies to measure the performance of ad campaigns. For instance, we and our partners use cookies to count the number of times an ad is shown and to measure how often people do things like click on or view ads both on and off the Riot services. We work with third-party partners that set their own cookies in this regard. For example, our advertising partners may use cookies to help serve you ads better tailored to the interests you’ve shown by browsing the Riot services or other online services operated by third parties, determine whether you’ve seen a particular advertisement before (to prevent showing you duplicate ones) and for other lawful business purposes.

We and our partners may link any of the information we collect through cookies and other technologies (such as browser history):

• with information you provide; and
• with information we obtain from other sources, including from both online and offline data providers (such as demographic data and interest based data); and
• where you agree to this in accordance with your privacy settings on social sites, with information we obtain from social sites (such as with respect to your usage of it or your posts, messages or comments on it).

Cookies may be placed on your device by Riot Games as the operator of the Riot services. These cookies are called “first party” cookies. Some cookies may also be placed on your device, when using the Riot services, by one of our partners. These cookies are called “third party” cookies and are used to provide services to us and others. Therefore, some cookies that have been set on the Riot services are not related to Riot Games. When you visit a Riot service with content embedded from, say Google’s DoubleClick, Nanigans.com or Ad4game.com, these partners may set their own cookies on your web browser. These record your visit to the Riot services and this info is shared with other organisations such as advertisers.

We do not control third party cookies and cannot access them due to the way that cookies work, as cookies can only be accessed by the party who originally set them. Please read our partners privacy policies to ensure you are comfortable with how they use cookies. To learn more about companies that provided “third party” cookies on Riot services and how they use information about you, click here.

When you visit a page with content embedded from, for example, YouTube or Facebook or social media widgets like the Facebook like button, these service providers may use their own cookies or similar technologies. We do not control them.

Where the relevant Riot service has the Cookie Consent Tool incorporated, you can use it to refuse or accept cookies from the Riot services at any time.

You can find out more about how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and disable them at All About Cookies. You can also find info about how to enable or disable cookies on your Internet browser provider’s website via your help screen.

To learn more about how advertisers generally use cookies and the choices they offer, you can review the following resources:

• Digital Advertising Alliance
• Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada
• European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance
• Network Advertising Alliance

If you want to clear all cookies left behind by online services including the Riot services you have visited, here are links where you can download programs that clean out tracking cookies: Lavasoft and Spybot.

Cookie management tools provided by your browser will not remove Flash Cookies. To learn how to manage privacy and storage settings for Flash Cookies, please consult the instructions provided by Adobe here.

When you install our apps, SDKs are installed. You cannot deactivate an SDK. Consequently, do not install our apps if you are not happy with the use of SDKs.

We do not control third party cookies and cannot access them due to the way that cookies work, as cookies can only be accessed by the party who originally set them. You should check the third party websites for more info about these cookies. To learn more about companies that provided “third party” cookies through Riot services and how to manage their cookies, click here.

Please note that opting-out of interest-based advertising won’t necessarily entirely prevent info from being collected automatically on the Riot services, and it doesn’t mean you’ll receive fewer ads or stop them from being displayed. Instead, the ads you do receive won’t be interest-based any longer and, therefore, might be less relevant to your interests.

Please be aware that if cookies are disabled, not all features of the Riot services may operate as intended.

To learn more about opting out of Google Analytics, which uses cookies as well as your IP address, click here.

Our services don’t respond to Internet browser “Do Not Track” signals. Some newer Internet browsers incorporate DNT features. If activated, these features often send a signal to the services you visit indicating that you don’t want to be tracked in some way. Those services (or content on them placed by third parties) may continue to engage in activities you may view as tracking even though you’ve expressed this preference, depending on the service’s privacy practices.

Because there is not yet a common understanding of how to interpret the DNT signal, Riot Games does not currently respond to browser DNT signals on the Riot services.

We may update our policy from time to time to reflect changes in technology, legislation, our operations, or as we otherwise determine is necessary or appropriate. Any such changes will become effective when we make the revised policy available on or through the Riot services. We encourage you to review the “Effective date” legend above frequently to ensure you are aware of when our policy was last revised, and to help you better understand the nature of your interactions with the Riot services.

If you have any questions about this policy or our privacy practices, please send them to us via email at privacy@riotgames.com or via postal mail at the address listed below.

Riot Games Limited
P.O. Box 11989,
Dublin 2,
Ireland