PATH OF EXILE - TERMS OF USE

1. Application of Terms of Use: Welcome to Grinding Gear Games Limited's ("Grinding Gear Games") 'Path of Exile' online game ("PoE"). These terms of use ("Terms of Use") apply to your use of the PoE website ("Website") at www.pathofexile.com (or such other URL as the Website may subsequently be hosted at), the software, documentation and any associated materials comprising or made available to you in relation to PoE (the "Materials") as well as any services (including, without limitation, any Website APIs (as defined in clause 22) offered or provided by Grinding Gear Games or its nominated third parties in relation to PoE (the "Services"). These Terms of Use incorporate and must be read in conjunction with our Privacy Notice and Cookies Notice. By making use of any of the Website, Materials and Services, you are deemed to have read and agree to be bound by these Terms of Use, our Privacy Notice and our Cookies Notice. If you do not agree to these Terms of Use, our Privacy Notice or our Cookies Notice, you are not authorised to access and use the Website, Materials and Services, and you must immediately stop doing so.

2. Amendments: Grinding Gear Games reserves the right to amend these Terms of Use from time to time upon placing any such amendments on the Website or by providing you direct notice of any such changes. Your continued use of any of the Website, Materials and Services thereafter will be deemed to be acceptance by you of any such changes to these Terms of Use.

3. Age restriction: If you are based in the European Union, you must not use the Website, Materials and Services if you are under 16 years of age, and if you are between the ages of 16 and 18, your parent or legal guardian must have consented to you accessing and using the Website, Materials and Services. If you are based outside the European Union, you must not use the Website, Materials and Services if you are under 13 years of age, and if you are between the ages of 13 and 18, your parent or legal guardian must have consented to you accessing and using the Website, Materials and Services.

4. Rights: Unless otherwise stated in these Terms of Use, Grinding Gear Games is the owner or licensee of all rights including all copyright, trade marks and other intellectual property rights relating to or included within the Website, Materials and Services ("Rights"). For the avoidance of doubt, and to the greatest extent permitted at law, the Rights include without limitation all rights in respect of all graphics, logos, text, images and all other elements included in and deriving from the gameplay and virtual world featured in PoE, including without limitation in-game names, characters, locations and any virtual items ("Virtual Items") and their associated benefits or properties acquired or provided for use within PoE.

5. Amendments to PoE: Grinding Gear Games at all times retains the right to deal with the Rights as Grinding Gear Games at its sole discretion deems appropriate, including without limitation the right without notice to alter, modify, redesign, suspend or discontinue any aspect or feature of the Website, Materials (including without limitation the Virtual Items) and Services.

6. Licence: Grinding Gear Games grants you a limited licence ("Licence") for the purpose of accessing, as applicable downloading, and making use of the Website, Materials and Services (or any parts of such as Grinding Gear Games may make available to you from time to time) and the related Rights for your own personal and non-commercial use in accordance with these Terms of Use. For the further avoidance of doubt, pursuant to clause 4, any rights you may have in respect of any elements or aspects of PoE (including without limitation in respect of the in-game characters and Virtual Items) are strictly limited to a personal 'licence to use' such as part of the Licence and at no time do you acquire any ownership rights in respect of such. Any contravention by you of these Terms of Use or any other terms or conditions notified to you by Grinding Gear Games or any behaviour which Grinding Gear Games deems in its sole discretion is not in keeping with the intended spirit of participation in PoE, immediately terminates the Licence, or such aspect of the Licence as Grinding Gear Games may otherwise provide you notice of. Termination of the Licence, or any aspect of the Licence, by Grinding Gear Games may without limitation also result in the taking of any of the further actions described in clause 17.

7. Restrictions: Under no circumstances, without the prior written approval of Grinding Gear Games, may you:

   1. Adapt, reproduce, store, distribute, print, display, publish or create derivative works from any part of the Website, Materials or Services other than in accordance with the Licence.
   2. Modify or adapt (including through third parties and third-party tools) the game client or its data, other than in the normal course of PoE gameplay as permitted in accordance with the Licence.
   3. Utilise any automated software or 'bots' in relation to your access or use of the Website, Materials or Services.
   4. Knowingly perform any actions that may cause the computers used to support the Website, Materials and Services (the "Servers") to become overloaded or crash.
   5. Connect to the Servers through any software other than the authorised game client software.
   6. Use any data gathering and extraction tools or software to extract information from the Website or utilize framing techniques to enclose any of the contents of the Website.
   7. Use any meta tags or other hidden text which incorporate Grinding Gear Games’ name or any of its intellectual property including trade marks.
   8. Perform in-game services during your use of the Website, Materials or Services for any form of compensation outside of PoE.
   9. Reverse engineer, de-compile or disassemble the Website, Materials or Services or seek to establish the technical processes, operations and communication protocols of the Website, Materials or Services through any means, including without limitation by reference to the input or output of the Website, Materials or Services or the internal structure and workings of the Website, Materials or Services.

8. Recording and Streaming Gameplay: Subject at all times to the remaining provisions of these Terms of Use, the Licence provided for in clause 6 will also be deemed to provide you a limited licence to stream your PoE gameplay on live streaming sites (including for example and without limitation www.twitch.tv) and to record videos of your PoE gameplay and post such videos on video sharing sites (including for example and without limitation YouTube). Subject at all times to any further restrictions or conditions specified by Grinding Gear Games from time to time, such licence from Grinding Gear Games will also be deemed to allow you to include advertisements in such live streaming or recorded video content (together the "Gameplay Content") and otherwise monetise such Gameplay Content as may be allowed by such live streaming or video sharing sites (together the "Gameplay Content Sites"). The terms of this clause 8 are at all times subject to your compliance with any further obligations imposed by the applicable Gameplay Content Sites you wish to make the Gameplay Content available through. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you agree that on request from Grinding Gear Games you will immediately arrange for the removal from or alteration of any Gameplay Content included on any Gameplay Content Sites and further agree that you will not pursue Grinding Gear Games for any actual or potential loss you may suffer in such regard.

9. Indemnity: You agree to fully indemnify Grinding Gear Games for any loss or damage it may suffer in contract, tort, equity, statute, regulation or otherwise, including without limitation any economic loss, loss of turnover, profits, business or goodwill, whether direct or consequential as a result of your breach of the Licence and your use or any third-party use of any Gameplay Content created by you including, in respect of any third-party claims against Grinding Gear Games, its related parties, employees, contractors or agents.

10. Posting Policy: The following provisions (“Posting Policy”) apply to any comments you post or any statements you make in any manner on the Website (which includes for the avoidance of doubt any associated forums) or any messages you send to other users of the Materials and Services (including as part of the PoE gameplay) by any manner whether facilitated or otherwise allowable by the Materials and Services (“Posts”):

    1. All Posts must represent your genuine opinion of the matter in question;
    2. Personal abuse, foul language, inappropriate subject matter, obscene, harassing, threatening, hateful, or discriminatory or defamatory remarks of any nature, as may be determined by Grinding Gear Games in its sole discretion, or Posts otherwise in contravention of any law or court order, are not permitted;
    3. Posts advertising or promoting any person or entity or their goods or services without the prior written approval of Grinding Gear Games are not permitted;
    4. You grant Grinding Gear Games a perpetual, non-revocable royalty-free licence to:
       1. make use of any Posts as Grinding Gear Games deems appropriate in relation to any of the Website, Materials and Services or the promotion of the same; and
       2. sub-licence third parties, on such terms as Grinding Gear Games deems appropriate, to make use of any Posts as Grinding Gear Games deems appropriate in relation to any of the Website, Materials and Services or the promotion of the same;
    5. Grinding Gear Games reserves the right without notice, explanation or liability to:
       1. restrict or remove your ability to make Posts;
       2. disallow the posting of any specific Posts;
       3. edit any specific Posts; and
       4. completely remove any Posts from the Website or anywhere else related to the Materials and Services (including as part of the PoE gameplay) where they appear or are stored; and
    6. You agree to indemnify Grinding Gear Games on demand for any loss or costs of whatever nature suffered by Grinding Gear Games whether direct or consequential as a result of any breach by you of clauses 10(a)-(c).

11. Image Policy: The following provisions (“Image Policy”) apply to any images you make available in any manner in relation to any of the Website, Materials and Services (including as part of the PoE gameplay) (“Images”):

    1. All rights of whatever nature (including without limitation copyright, registered and unregistered trade mark rights, rights of personality, privacy, confidentiality and any other intellectual property rights) in any Images must belong to you or you must have the right to make the images available in relation to the Website, Materials and Services in accordance with this Image Policy;
    2. Pornographic, obscene, harassing, threatening, hateful, discriminatory or defamatory Images, as may be determined by Grinding Gear Games in its sole discretion, or Images otherwise in contravention of any law or court order, are not permitted;
    3. You grant Grinding Gear Games a perpetual, non-revocable royalty free licence to:
       1. make use of any Images as Grinding Gear Games deems appropriate in relation to any of the Website, Materials and Services or the promotion of the same; and
       2. sub-licence third parties, on such terms as Grinding Gear Games deems appropriate, to make use of any Images as Grinding Gear Games deems appropriate in relation to any of the Website, Materials and Services or the promotion of the same;
    4. Grinding Gear Games reserves the right without notice, explanation or liability to:
       1. restrict or remove your ability to make Images available;
       2. disallow the use of any specific Images;
       3. edit any specific Images; or
       4. completely remove any Images from the Website or anywhere else related to the Materials and Services where they appear or are stored; and
    5. You agree to indemnify Grinding Gear Games on demand for any loss or costs of whatever nature suffered by Grinding Gear Games whether direct or consequential as a result of any breach by you of clauses 11(a)-(c).

12. Content: While Grinding Gear Games has endeavoured to take all reasonable and appropriate care in the preparation of the content of the Website, Materials and Services and has no reason to believe that any information contained in any of the Website, Materials or Services is inaccurate or that any Posts or Images are in contravention of the Posting Policy and Image Policy, Grinding Gear Games does not warrant the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of any information contained in any of the Website, Materials or Services and that such information is error free or that any Posts or Images are not in contravention of the Posting Policy and Image Policy. Grinding Gear Games does not undertake to keep any of the Website, Materials or Services updated. To the greatest extent permitted by law Grinding Gear Games does not accept liability for any loss or damage which may result either directly or indirectly from reliance by you upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in any of the Website, Materials or Services or in relation to any Posts or Images, including without limitation where such loss or damage is a result of or contributed to by the negligence of Grinding Gear Games.

13. Linked Websites: The Website, Materials or Services may contain links to other websites not controlled by Grinding Gear Games ("Linked Websites"). Those links are provided for convenience only and may not remain current or be maintained. Grinding Gear Games is not responsible for the content or privacy practices associated with Linked Websites. Grinding Gear Games' links with Linked Websites should not be regarded as approval or as an endorsement, of those Linked Websites, their operators or owners, or of any information, graphics, materials, products or services referred to or contained on those Linked Websites including further links contained on those Linked Websites, unless and to the extent stipulated to the contrary in these Terms of Use. Grinding Gear Games recommends that you read Linked Websites' privacy policies before you provide personal information on any Linked Website.

14. Account Registration: To acquire or make full use of any of the Website, Materials and Services you will need to register for a Grinding Gear Games member account ("Member Account"). If you do choose to register for a Member Account you warrant that all information and personal details you provide to Grinding Gear Games are correct. In addition, you acknowledge that you are aware that PoE has an R13 classification in New Zealand and warrant that you are over thirteen (13) years of age. You may not transfer your registration or any rights you may have in your Member Account to any other person or entity. For the avoidance of doubt, you acknowledge that you will have no ownership rights in your Member Account, including without limitation any Virtual Items connected with such Member Account.

15. Usernames: Any username you choose in relation to your Member Account or as applicable any other identifier you choose for use in relation to your access or use of the Website, Materials and Services, may be viewable by other users of any of the Website, Materials and Services as applicable and you warrant that any such username or other identifier will not:

    1. infringe the rights of whatever nature of any third-party including without limitation copyright, registered and unregistered trade mark rights, rights of personality, privacy, confidentiality and any other intellectual property rights; and
    2. contain foul language, inappropriate subject matter, obscene, harassing, threatening, hateful, or discriminatory or defamatory remarks of any nature as may be determined by Grinding Gear Games in its sole discretion or otherwise be in contravention of any law or court order.

16. Confidentiality of Passwords: You must keep all password and login information associated with your Member Account confidential and not disclose such information to any third-party or allow a third-party access to your Member Account without first obtaining Grinding Gear Games' written consent. You will be solely responsible for all activities undertaken and/or costs incurred under the use of your password and login. You must notify Grinding Gear Games immediately if you know or suspect that your Member Account has been accessed by a third-party or your login or password details have been, or may have been, obtained by a third-party.

17. Cancellation of Membership: Grinding Gear Games reserves the right, acting at its sole discretion, to refuse to accept your registration request for a Member Account. To the greatest extent permitted by law, Grinding Gear Games also reserves the right, acting at its sole discretion, at any time to cancel your registration and access to your Member Account or to restrict, limit or otherwise change your existing rights of access to your Member Account, or any specific feature or benefit afforded to you in relation to your Member Account, including without limitation in respect of any Virtual Items, if it believes you have breached these Terms of Use or any other agreements you may have with Grinding Gear Games, if you have engaged in behaviour which Grinding Gear Games deems in its sole discretion is not in keeping with the intended spirit of participation in PoE or for any other reason whatsoever. In such event you agree that Grinding Gear Games will not be required to provide you with prior notice or explanation in respect of such action. Notwithstanding the cancellation of access to your Member Account in any case, you agree you will remain fully liable for any outstanding liability owed to Grinding Gear Games. Grinding Gear Games may also, where it believes such action is necessary, without notice block IP addresses of any users who have breached the Terms of Use.

18. Points: Grinding Gear Games may offer 'game points' for sale ("Points") which can, in accordance with the procedures and further terms specified by Grinding Gear Games from time to time, be used to pay for certain goods and services, including without limitation Virtual Items, as may be offered from time to time by Grinding Gear Games in relation to the Website, Materials and Services. You must have an active Member Account in order to purchase Points. Grinding Gear Games reserves the right to offer or cease to offer Points for purchase or to restrict the purchase of Points by you at its sole discretion. To the greatest extent permitted by law Grinding Gear Games reserves the right to alter the terms and conditions relating to any Points which you have previously purchased. Grinding Gear Games reserves the right to provide Points at no charge to any users of any of the Website, Materials and Services on such terms and conditions as Grinding Gear Games at its sole discretion deems appropriate.

19. Cost and Payment: The cost of any Points or any specific quantity of Points will be as specified by Grinding Gear Games at its sole discretion from time to time. Any Points available for purchase may only be purchased by such means and in accordance with any further conditions as Grinding Gear Games at its sole discretion may specify.

20. Non-transferable: You are not entitled to transfer any Points you purchase (or any rights in respect of any Virtual Items including without limitation those you may purchase using Points) to any other person or entity, use such Points for the benefit of any other person or entity or deal with the Points or any rights or interest in the Points in any way, except as explicitly provided for in these Terms of Use.

21. Points Cancellation: Grinding Gear Games reserves the right at any time without notice to cancel any Points previously acquired by you, as Grinding Gear Games at its sole discretion deems appropriate. In addition, in the event of the cancellation of your Member Account any unused Points you currently hold will automatically be deemed to also be cancelled. To the greatest extent permitted by law Grinding Gear Games will have no further liability to you with regard to any cancelled Points including with respect to any obligation to refund to you the purchase price paid for such Points.

22. Website APIs: Grinding Gear Games may, from time to time, make available application programming interfaces to enable third-party sites and services to access certain in-game data via the internet ("Website APIs"). Grinding Gear Games may modify, add, remove, replace or upgrade any or all of its Website APIs (including the data fields of those Website APIs) at any time at its discretion. You must comply with Grinding Gear Games' technical documentation and policies (as published and as updated on the Website from time to time or as otherwise notified to you by Grinding Gear Games) regarding use of the Website APIs ("API Policies"). Without limiting the foregoing, you must comply with the Website API call limits set out in the API Policies or as otherwise notified to you by Grinding Gear Games, and not attempt to circumvent those limits.

23. Virtual Item Trading: Subject to the remainder of these Terms of Use, you may trade Virtual Items with other game players for your own personal and non-commercial purposes using the in-game trading mechanisms provided by Grinding Gear Games and through use of official Grinding Gear Games Website APIs. You agree that to the greatest extent permissible at law Grinding Gear Games will have no liability to you of any nature arising out of or in connection with any trade or inability to trade.

24. Links: If you provide a link to the Website you agree that you will not use any Grinding Gear Games logo, trade mark or other proprietary graphic as part of such link without the express prior approval of Grinding Gear Games.

25. Lost Data: In the event that any information or data (including without limitation in respect of in-game characters, achievements, Virtual Items, Points or general PoE gameplay) relating to you or your use of any of the Website, Materials and Services held by Grinding Gear Games or any third-party on behalf of Grinding Gear Games is lost, corrupted or otherwise no longer reasonably available or accessible as judged by Grinding Gear Games in its sole discretion, you agree that to the greatest extent permissible at law Grinding Gear Games will have no liability to you of any nature relating to any such information or data.

26. Accessing: You must take your own precautions to ensure that the process which you employ for accessing or making use of any of the Website, Materials and Services does not expose you to the risk of viruses, malicious computer code or other forms of interference which may damage your own computer system or any data contained therein. To the greatest extent permitted by law Grinding Gear Games does not accept responsibility for any interference or damage to your computer system or any data contained therein which may arise in connection with your accessing or making use of any of the Website, Materials and Services.

27. Support: Grinding Gear Games reserves the right to make support services available in relation to any of the Website, Materials and Services on such terms and conditions as Grinding Gear Games at its sole discretion deems appropriate and further reserves the right to alter, suspend or withdraw such support services as Grinding Gear Games at its sole discretion deems appropriate.

28. Exclusion of Warranty: To the greatest extent permitted by law, in relation to your access and use of the Website, Materials and Services, any condition or warranty either express or which would otherwise be implied by law into these Terms of Use is hereby excluded.

29. Exclusion of Liability: To the greatest extent permitted by law, under no circumstances will Grinding Gear Games, its employees, contractors or agents be liable to you in contract, tort, equity, statute, regulation or otherwise for any loss, damage, costs, legal costs, professional and other expenses of any nature whatsoever incurred or suffered by you or by any third-party, whether direct or consequential (including without limitation any economic loss or other loss of turnover, profits, business or goodwill) arising out of any dispute or contractual, tortious or other claims or proceedings made by or brought against you which relate in any way to your access and use of any of the Website, Materials and Services, including without limitation in relation to any Posts or Images or any breach by you of the Posting Policy or Image Policy, or in respect of any failure or omission on the part of Grinding Gear Games to comply with its obligations as set out in these Terms of Use.

30. Limitation of Liability: To the greatest extent permitted by law, in the event that any limitation or provision contained in these Terms of Use is held to be invalid or unenforceable for any reason and Grinding Gear Games becomes liable for any loss or damage that would otherwise have been excluded, Grinding Gear Games' maximum liability in contract, tort, equity, statute, regulation or otherwise for any loss, damages or injury directly or indirectly arising in respect of your access and use of any of the Website, Materials and Services is to be limited to $50 in New Zealand currency.

31. Jurisdiction: The provision and use of the Website, Materials and Services is governed by and is to be interpreted in accordance with the laws of New Zealand and subject to clause 32, in all matters relating to or arising from your access and use of any of the Website, Materials and Services, you agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of New Zealand. If you are accessing or making use of any of the Website, Materials and Services from outside of New Zealand then you agree that you are entirely responsible for ensuring that your access and use of any of the Website, Materials and Services will not contravene any laws in your country.

32. Disputes: In the event that you have a dispute in respect of, relating to or arising from any of the Website, Materials and Services you must immediately notify Grinding Gear Games in writing giving details of the dispute. If Grinding Gear Games and yourself cannot resolve the dispute within fourteen (14) days of receipt by Grinding Gear Games of such notice then to the greatest extent permitted by law the following procedure will apply. The dispute will firstly be submitted to mediation by a mediator agreed to by both yourself and Grinding Gear Games or, failing agreement, appointed by the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand at the request of either you or Grinding Gear Games. If the matter is not resolved by mediation within fourteen (14) days from there, (unless you are a consumer as defined in the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 and otherwise to the greatest extent permitted by law), the matter will be submitted for arbitration in accordance with the Arbitration Act 1996 by a single arbitrator agreed to by both yourself and Grinding Gear Games or, failing agreement, to be appointed by the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand at the request of either you or Grinding Gear Games. Unless agreed otherwise by Grinding Gear Games, all such mediation and arbitration proceedings shall take place at a venue in New Zealand to be chosen by Grinding Gear Games acting entirely at its own discretion. All costs in relation to the staging of such proceedings (excluding for the avoidance of doubt any awards which may be made) shall be borne equally by the parties unless explicitly stipulated otherwise by the arbitrator as applicable or agreed otherwise by the parties.

33. Failure to Comply: Grinding Gear Games accepts no liability for any failure to comply with these Terms of Use where such failure is due to circumstances beyond its reasonable control.

34. Waiver: If Grinding Gear Games waives any rights available to it under these Terms of Use on one occasion, this does not mean that those rights will automatically be waived on any other occasion.

35. Severability: If any provision of these Terms of Use is held to be invalid, void, unenforceable or illegal for any reason, such provision shall be deemed to be severed from these Terms of Use, but only to the minimum extent necessary to avoid such issue and the remainder of any such provision as well as all other provisions of these Terms of Use shall continue in full force.

36. Entire Agreement: These Terms of Use constitute the entire agreement between you and Grinding Gear Games in respect of their subject matter and supersede any previous understandings, representations or agreements on that subject matter.

37. Queries: If you have any queries in regard to these Terms of Use please don't hesitate to contact us via email support@grindinggear.com.

PATH OF EXILE - PRIVACY POLICY

1. Introduction: Grinding Gear Games complies with the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 and other applicable privacy and data protection laws when dealing with personal information. Personal information is information about an identifiable individual (a natural person). This privacy notice forms sets out how Grinding Gear Games will collect, use, disclose and protect your personal information. If you are based in the European Union or United Kingdom and use the Website, Materials or Services, the EU/UK GDPR Terms set out below ("EU/UK GDPR Terms") apply to you. This notice does not limit or exclude any of your rights under the New Zealand Privacy Act or other applicable laws. This notice should be read in conjunction with Grinding Gear Games' Terms of Use. Unless the context requires otherwise, capitalised terms used in this notice have the meanings given in the Terms of Use.

2. Collecting Information: Whenever you access or make use of any of the Website, Materials or Services, Grinding Gear Games may collect the following types of information from you:

   1. information you provide directly to Grinding Gear Games, including:
      1. when you create a Member Account, your email address, user name and password;
      2. if you purchase merchandise, your name, email address and postal address;
      3. your purchase history and other information relating to transactions made through the Website; and
      4. information contained in your correspondence with Grinding Gear Games, for example, when you send us an email;
   2. information collected during the course of your use of the Website, Materials or Services, including:
      1. character names and gameplay information;
      2. any Posts or Images;
      3. Images;
      4. your credited name (if any);
      5. 'crash reports' in the event that a PoE software crash occurs, which may include details of your Member Account, a portion of the memory state of the PoE game when the crash occurred and the game settings you were using, but not other information from your computer or its memory; and
      6. the IP address of your machine when connected to the internet, the operating system and the browser your computer uses and any search engine you are using, the date and time you are visiting, the URLs of the Website pages you visit and any telemetry details (such as speed of your connection and how well PoE game client is running) associated with your access and use of PoE.
   3. information collected from third parties when you link your Member Account with an approved third party account (currently Steam, Epic Games, Kakao Games, Microsoft or Playstation Network), where you have authorised this or where the information is publicly available; and
   4. information collected through our use of cookies or similar technologies. Please refer to Grinding Gear Games' Cookies Notice for further information, including information on how you can disable these technologies.

   You may be asked to provide billing information in relation to Website, Materials or Services, including your billing address and credit card information. Grinding Gear Games uses Xsolla to process credit card transactions. Grinding Gear Games does not have access to your credit card information. You can view Xsolla's privacy policy at: https://www.xsolla.com/privacypolicy/.

3. Use of Information:

   1. Grinding Gear Games uses the information provided by you:
      1. to provide the Website, Materials and Services to you;
      2. to verify your identity and verify that your Member Account is not being used by others;
      3. to fulfil any orders for merchandise ordered through the Website;
      4. to market products and services to you, including contacting you via email that you may choose (or opt in) to receive. You can stop receiving Grinding Gear Games’ promotional emails by following the unsubscribe instructions included in those emails; and
      5. to respond to communications from you.
   2. Grinding Gear Games uses the information generated by your access or use of the Website, Materials or Services:
      1. to monitor the performance of the Website, Materials and Services and ensure that the Website, Materials and Services perform in the best manner possible;
      2. for security and system integrity purposes; and
      3. to conduct research and statistical analysis (on an anonymised basis) (see more in the Statistics section of this privacy notice below);
   3. Grinding Gear Games may also use your personal information:
      1. to protect and/or enforce Grinding Gear Games’ legal rights and interests, including defending any claim;
      2. for any other purpose authorised by you, the Act or other applicable law;
      3. to respond to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet law enforcement requirements; and
      4. where this is necessary for Grinding Gear Games’ legitimate interests (except where such interests would be overridden by your fundamental rights and freedoms which require the protection of personal data).

   Grinding Gear Games does not use personal information to make any automated decisions - automated processes do monitor gameplay to identify cheating and fraud but human intervention is applied in the decision-making process. Information is gathered transiently for these purposes but is not stored.

4. Disclosing Information:

   1. Grinding Gear Games does not sell your personal data to third parties or provide such data to direct marketing companies or other such organisations without your prior consent.
   2. Grinding Gear Games may disclose your personal information to:
      1. any business that supports Grinding Gear Games' products or services, including any person that hosts or maintains any underlying IT system or data centre that Grinding Gear Games use to provide the Website, Materials or Services, or to process payments, or to fulfil merchandise orders;
      2. its professional advisers e.g. accountants, lawyers, auditors; and
      3. any other person authorised by you;
   3. Your personal information may be viewable by other game players or the public in general if you use certain features in PoE (e.g. making your Virtual Item stash public, engaging in a trade) or make Posts in forums.
   4. If you choose to log in with or link to your Member Account on a third party website or service, the third party site or service will have access to certain information from your Member Account. These third party sites and services have their own privacy policies, and you may be giving them permission to use your data in ways we would not. We suggest you review the privacy policy for any third party site or service before using or allowing access to your Member Account.
   5. Grinding Gear Games may disclose research and statistical analysis (on an anonymised basis) derived from your personal information to third parties (see more in the Statistics section of this privacy notice below).
   6. Grinding Gear Games also may disclose information it holds about you without your prior permission if Grinding Gear Games reasonably believes that such disclosure is necessary:
      1. to meet legal requirements;
      2. to comply with legal process or help to maintain the law;
      3. to protect Grinding Gear Games' rights or property or that of Grinding Gear Games' related companies; or
      4. to enforce these Terms of Use or any other agreement that Grinding Gear Games may have with you.
      5. for Grinding Gear Games' other legitimate interests (except where such interests would be overridden by your fundamental rights and freedoms which require the protection of personal data).

5. Statistics: Grinding Gear Games may use and publish non-personal aggregate statistics and group data about those people who access or make use of any of the Website, Materials or Services and their usage of any of the Website, Materials or Services.

6. Protecting your personal information: Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed as totally secure. Grinding Gear Games will take reasonable steps to keep your personal information safe from loss, unauthorised activity or other misuse. Grinding Gear Games implements appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risks inherent in processing personal information. You can play an important role in keeping your personal data secure by maintaining the confidentiality of any password and accounts used in relation to the Website, Materials and Services, including using a unique password that you do not use on any third-party websites or related services. Please do not disclose your Member Account password to third parties. Please notify Grinding Gear Games immediately if there is any unauthorised use of your account or any other breach of security.

7. Transfers of personal information: A business that supports our services and products may be located outside the European Economic Area ("EEA"), the United Kingdom or New Zealand. This may mean your personal information is held and processed outside the EEA, the United Kingdom or New Zealand. Please see the EU/UK GDPR Terms below for further information about personal data transfers from the EEA and the United Kingdom.

8. Internet use: While Grinding Gear Games takes reasonable steps to maintain secure internet connections, if you provide Grinding Gear Games with personal information over the internet, the provision of that information is at your own risk. If you post your personal information on the Website's public pages, you acknowledge that the information you post is publicly available. If you follow a link on the Website to another website, the owner of that website will have its own privacy notice relating to your personal information that you should review before you provide any personal information.

9. Accessing and correcting your personal information: Subject to certain grounds for refusal set out in the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 and other applicable law, you are entitled to access any information which Grinding Gear Games may hold about you and Grinding Gear Games is obliged to provide this information to you as long as it has such information and such information can be readily retrieved. You are also entitled to request Grinding Gear Games correct any inaccuracies in any information which Grinding Gear Games holds about you.

10. Contact us: If you have any questions about this privacy notice, Grinding Gear Games' privacy practices, or if you would like to request access to, or correction of, your personal information, you can contact Grinding Gear Games here: support@grindinggear.com.

PATH OF EXILE - PRIVACY NOTICE: EU/UK GDPR TERMS

1. EU/UK additional terms: If you are based in the European Union ("EU") or the United Kingdom ("UK") and use any of the Website, Materials and Services, these additional terms ("EU/UK GDPR Terms") supplement and form part of Grinding Gear Games' Privacy Notice. The General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") and the equivalent laws of the UK (together with the GDPR, "EU/UK Data Protection Laws") regulate the collection, processing and transfer of EU and UK individuals' personal data (as defined in the applicable EU/UK Data Protection Laws). The personal information described in our privacy notice is personal data under applicable EU/UK Data Protection Laws. Grinding Gear Games is committed to complying with applicable EU/UK Data Protection Laws when dealing with personal data of our website visitors and service users based in the EU or UK. For the purposes of applicable EU/UK Data Protection Laws, Grinding Gear Games is the data controller (as defined in applicable EU/UK Data protection Laws) when processing personal data collected by it when you use any of the Website, Materials and Services. Grinding Gear Games is happy to assist with any questions regarding its collection and use of data. Any requests for further information should be sent to support@grindinggear.com.

2. Processing personal data: The personal data Grinding Gear Games may process consists of the personal information described in its Privacy Notice. This personal data may be processed for the purposes outlined in that privacy notice. The legal basis for Grinding Gear Games' processing of personal data depends on the type of personal data and the specific context in which it collects it. However, Grinding Gear Games normally processes personal data only (a) where it has your consent to do so, (b) where it needs to process personal data to perform a contract with you (e.g. to provide the Website, Materials or Services to you), or (c) where the processing is necessary for the purposes of Grinding Gear Games' legitimate interests (except where such interests would be overridden by your fundamental rights and freedoms which require the protection of personal data).

   Despite the above, Grinding Gear Games may process any of your personal data where such processing is necessary for compliance with applicable laws.

   You do not have to provide Grinding Gear Games with some information that is automatically collected when you use any of the Website, Materials and Services, e.g. cookies. However, you must provide us with (a) your email address and username or (b) a username and approved third party (currently Steam, Epic Games, Kakao Games, Microsoft or Playstation Network) account ID when using the Materials and Services. The consequence of not providing one or the other of these is that Grinding Gear Games will not be able to set you up a Member Account in order to log into the Website or PoE.

3. Your rights: Your rights in relation to your personal data under the applicable EU/UK Data Protection Laws include (subject to any legal exceptions):

   1. right of access - if you ask Grinding Gear Games, it will confirm whether it is processing your personal data and provide you with a copy of that personal data.
   2. right to rectification - if the personal data Grinding Gear Games holds about you is inaccurate or incomplete, you have the right to have it rectified or completed. Grinding Gear Games will take every reasonable step to ensure personal data which is inaccurate is rectified. If Grinding Gear Games has shared your personal data with any third parties, it will tell them about the rectification where possible.
   3. right to erasure – Grinding Gear Games will delete your personal data when it is no longer needed for the purposes for which you provided it. You may request that Grinding Gear Games delete your personal data and it will do so if deletion does not contravene any applicable laws. If Grinding Gear Games has shared your personal data with any third parties, it will take reasonable steps to inform those third parties to delete such personal data.
   4. right to withdraw consent - if the basis of Grinding Gear Games’ processing of your personal data is consent, you can withdraw that consent at any time.
   5. right to restrict processing - you may request that Grinding Gear Games restrict or block the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances. If Grinding Gear Games has shared your personal data with third parties, it will tell them about this request where possible.
   6. right to object to processing - you may request that Grinding Gear Games stops processing your personal data at any time and it will do so to the extent required by the GDPR and the equivalent laws of the UK.
   7. right to data portability - you may obtain your personal data from Grinding Gear Games that you have consented to give it or that is necessary to perform a contract with you. Grinding Gear Games will provide this personal data in a commonly used, machine-readable and interoperable format to enable data portability to another data controller. Where technically feasible, and at your request, it will transmit your personal data directly to another data controller.
   8. the right to complain to a supervisory authority - you can report any concerns you have about Grinding Gear Games’ privacy practices to the relevant data protection supervisory authority e.g. in the United Kingdom, this is the Information Commissioner’s Office.

   Where personal data is processed for the purposes of direct marketing, you have the right to object to such processing, including profiling related to direct marketing. If you would like to exercise any of your above rights, please contact us at support@grindinggear.com. If you are not satisfied by the way your query is dealt with by Grinding Gear Games, you may refer your query to your local data protection supervisory authority.

4. Children: Grinding Gear Games does not intend to collect personal data from children in the EU aged under 16 or children in the UK aged under 13. If you have reason to believe that a child in the EU under the age of 16 or a child in the UK aged under 13 has provided personal data to Grinding Gear Games through use of any of the Website, Materials and Services, please contact Grinding Gear Games at support@grindinggear.com.

5. International transfer of data: The personal data Grinding Gear Games collects in relation to the Website, Materials and/or Services may be transferred to, and stored in, a country operating outside the European Economic Area ("EEA"). Under applicable EU/UK Data Protection Laws, the transfer of personal data to a country outside the EEA or the UK may take place where the European Commission or the UK government has decided that the country ensures an adequate level of protection. In the absence of an adequacy decision, Grinding Gear Games may transfer personal data provided appropriate safeguards are in place.

   Some of the personal data Grinding Gear Games collects is processed in New Zealand (where its registered office is located). New Zealand is recognised by the European Commission and under the data protection laws of the UK as a country that ensures an adequate level of data protection and Grinding Gear Games relies on this decision in transferring personal data to New Zealand.

   Some of the personal data Grinding Gear Games collects is processed by us and/or third-party data processors in other countries. These third-party data processors are set out at https://www.pathofexile.com/legal/third-parties. For personal data processed in countries that have not been determined as ensuring an adequate level of protection for personal data under the applicable EU/UK Data Protection Laws, Grinding Gear Games has entered into Standard Contractual Clauses as published by the European Commission with its third-party processors. The Standard Contractual Clauses provide specific guarantees around transfers of personal data and Grinding Gear Games rely on the Standard Contractual Clauses in transferring personal data to these third-party processors.

6. Data retention policy: Personal data that Grinding Gear Games collects and processes will not be kept longer than necessary for the purposes for which it is collected, or for the duration required for compliance with applicable law, whichever is longer.

7. Contacting us: You can contact Grinding Gear Games as set out in our privacy notice. The name and contact details of Grinding Gear Games' European and UK representative for the purposes of Article 27 of the GDPR and equivalent laws of the UK are as follows:

   EU representative: IT Governance Europe Ltd

   Contact email: eurep@itgovernance.eu

   Mailing address: IT Governance Europe Ltd, The Mill Enterprise Hub, Stagreenan, Drogheda, Co. Louth, A92 CD3D, Ireland

   UK representative: GRCI Law Limited

   Contact email: ukrep@grcilaw.com

   Mailing address: GRCI Law Ltd, Unit 3 Clive Court, Bartholomew's Walk, Cambridgeshire Business Park, Ely, Cambridgeshire CB7 4EA

PATH OF EXILE – COOKIES NOTICE

1. Cookies notice: This cookies notice forms part of Grinding Gear Games’ Terms of Use.

2. Use of cookies: Grinding Gear Games may place cookies on your computer. Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers which are transferred to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser to enable Grinding Gear Games to recognise you whenever you access the Website and therefore better personalise your access of and use of the Website, Materials and Services. A cookie does not identify you personally but it does identify your computer. Grinding Gear Games uses cookies for the following purposes:

   1. a login cookie, which tells Grinding Gear Games which Member Account you are currently logged in to the Website with; and
   2. a language cookie, which tells Grinding Gear Games what language you have set the Website to.

   Grinding Gear Games’ partners, Youtube and Twitch, may also place cookies on your computer when you view Twitch streams of PoE gameplay embedded on the Website or Youtube videos embedded on the Website. Youtube’s privacy policy is available at: https://policies.google.com/privacy and its cookies policy is available at: https://policies.google.com/technologies/cookies. Twitch’s privacy policy is available at: https://www.twitch.tv/p/legal/privacy-policy/ and its cookie policy is available at: https://www.twitch.tv/p/legal/cookie-policy.

   Grinding Gear Games also uses Google Analytics to analyse your use of the Website and to analyse the demographics (on an aggregated and anonymous basis) of users of the Website. If you are based in the EU, Grinding Gear Games only sets Google Analytics cookies once you login to your Member Account. If you would like to customise or opt out of these settings please visit: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. Information about Google’s cookies is available from: https://www.google.com.au/policies/technologies/types. Google’s privacy policy relating to its cookies is available at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.

3. Control and deletion of cookies: You can control and/or delete cookies as you wish. The help portion of your browser’s toolbar should tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. You should note, however, that if you do not allow the use of cookies or do not wish to provide certain information to Grinding Gear Games, you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website, Materials and Services. You can find out more information about how to change your browser cookie settings at http://www.aboutcookies.org.uk.