Privacy policy
<p>
<strong>Effective date:</strong> 2014-06-03</p>
<p>This document is here to inform you about the privacy practices of the Omegle chat service ("Omegle", provided by Omegle.com LLC), which are designed to protect your privacy to the maximum reasonable extent.
By making use of Omegle, you accept these practices.
This document may be updated from time to time.
When changes are made, the effective date at the top will be changed.
This date is also noted on Omegle's home page.</p>
Chat privacy
<p>Chat messages are screened by an automated system for spam.
In general, messages are not stored, but messages which are flagged by a as suspicious may be stored indefinitely, and select messages may be read by a human being to improve Omegle's anti-spam software, or for other quality control purposes.</p>
<p>At the beginning of every chat, a record is made of the fact that a chat occurred between you and your chat partner.
This record includes a timestamp, as well as IP address, ID cookie, and similar information for you and your chat partner.
These records may be used for the purpose of tracking spammers, hackers, and others who pose harm to the site.
and may also be used for law enforcement purposes.
or analyzed in aggregate to produce statistical data (e.g., average number of chats started at different times of day).
These records are typically stored for approximately 120 days.</p>
<p>Webcam images may be captured from Omegle video chats, uploaded to Omegle's servers, and monitored for misbehavior as part of Omegle's moderation process.
Captured images may also be stored and used to improve Omegle's moderation process.</p>
<p>Omegle provides an unmoderated video chat mode.
In this mode, the snapshotting and monitoring mentioned in the previous paragraph does not occur.
However, the text portion of chat will still be scanned for spam, and other policies mentioned on this page still apply.</p>
<p>At the end of an Omegle chat, users are given an option to save the chat's log and share the link.
Understand that <strong>strangers can potentially tell other people anything you tell them</strong>—whether by sharing the log, or just by repeating what you said—and be careful what information you reveal to them.
It is also possible for other users to take screenshots of video chats, or to use third-party software to record them.</p>
<p>When you save an Omegle log, the chat's text is sent from the user's computer to Omegle's server, where it is converted to an image, lovingly given a one-of-a-kind arborial background, and saved indefinitely under a unique, randomly-assigned ID.
The IP addresses, ID cookies, and similar information related to the parties in the chat will be stored alongside the chatlog.
The IP address of anyone who views the log may also be saved for the purpose of maintaining a unique view counter.</p>
<p>The records Omegle keeps may be shared with third parties for the purpose of law enforcement, to monitor and enforce compliance with Omegle's rules, or to improve Omegle's monitoring and enforcement processes.</p>
Information made available to other chat users
<p>In an Omegle text chat, only the following information is made available to other chat users:</p>
<ul>
<li>The list of interests (potentially including Facebook likes, if opted in) shared in common by you and the stranger, if applicable.</li>
<li>Anything you say in the chat.</li>
<li>A notification that you and the stranger speak the same language (other than English), if that is the case.</li>
<li>A notification that you are using Omegle's mobile Web site, if that is the case.</li>
<li>The name of your college, if you and your chat partner are each using college student mode.</li>
</ul>
<p>Omegle video chat requires a direct connection to be made between your computer and the other user's computer.
To do this, it is necessary to make your IP address available to the other user's computer, although it is not shown to the other user by Omegle's interface.
This is a necessary part of how any P2P video chat system functions.
If you are not comfortable with this, use text mode (or spy mode) instead.</p>
<p>Third-party software exists which acts as a virtual webcam.
Omegle may inform your chat partners if you are using this type of software.</p>
Use of cookies
<p>Omegle uses cookies to save your preferences, including but not limited to the interests you add, as well as to store various non-personally-identifying technical information about your computer system (such as the capabilities it supports).
Omegle also assigns your computer a randomly-generated ID cookie</p>
<p>Third party advertising vendors, including Google AdSense, use cookies to track information about the pages you visit, so that they can show you more appropriate ads.
The cookie used by Google AdSense is called the DoubleClick DART cookie, and Google provides a way to opt out of being tracked by DART.
You may also opt out of the tracking cookies used by many (but not necessarily all) other third-party ad vendors.</p>
<p>Omegle uses Google Analytics to track non-personally-identifying statistical information about site usage.
Google provides a browser add-on to opt out of Google Analytics.</p>
Facebook integration
<p>Omegle can optionally be linked with a Facebook account to enable certain features.
Currently, Facebook integration is used for the following purposes:</p>
<ul>
<li>Omegle can use the list of items you have liked on Facebook to match you with other users.</li>
<li>Omegle provides an option for publishing a chat log to your Facebook account.</li>
</ul>
<p>The Facebook API allows Omegle to access other information about you, such as your name and other personal details.
However, Omegle does <strong>not</strong> share, save, or make any use of this information.</p>
<p>Omegle does not share personal information about you with Facebook, except in order to perform actions you explicitly initiate.
Use of Facebook is subject to Facebook's privacy policy.</p>
<p>
</p>Parental control software
Parental control protections (such as computer hardware, software, or filtering services) are commercially available that may assist you in limiting access to material that is harmful to minors.
If you are interested in learning more about these protections, information is available at http://kids.getnetwise.org/tools/ as well as a number of other Internet sites that provide information on this form of protection.
<p>Back to Omegle</p>