Privacy Policy
Effective Date: 19.10.2020
Current version is available at https://yandex.com/legal/confidential.
1. What this Privacy Policy covers
This Privacy Policy (hereinafter, the “Policy”) covers any information about users of our products and services (hereinafter, “You”) that may include personal data as defined by applicable laws and regulations (hereinafter, “Personal information”), which YANDEX LLC and (or) its affiliated entities, including all entities belonging to the same group as YANDEX LLC (jointly referred to as “Yandex”), may obtain when you use any of the Yandex websites, programs, products or services, including its search, e-mail, map, storage service or any other program, product or service (jointly referred to as, the “Services”), information about which you can find on yandex.ru, yandex.com, yandex.ua, yandex.by, yandex.kz, yandex.com.tr, yandex.co.il, and other Yandex websites (collectively, the “Sites”), and as well as during the performance of any contract or agreement Yandex concludes with you in relation to your using the Services. Also, Personal information can be obtained by Yandex through its partners (“Partners”), such as advertising partners or taxi service providers, who provide you with access to or let you use websites, programs, products or services owned or operated by them. Partners can provide Personal information to Yandex only as stipulated by applicable laws and regulations and in accordance with special agreements between Yandex and each of the Partners.
Please note that your using any of the Sites and/or Services may be subject to additional terms and conditions, which may amend and/or supplement this Policy and (or) include specific privacy terms in relevant parts of legal documents for such Sites and/or Services.
2. Who processes your personal information
To provide you with access to the Sites and Services, your Personal information is collected and used by Yandex which may include YANDEX LLC, a company incorporated under Russian law, with a head office registered at 16 Lva Tolstogo St., Moscow 119021, Russia (“YANDEX” LLC), or its affiliates for particular Services or in specific jurisdictions. You can find information about the entity, which provides the particular Service in the relevant Service’s terms of use.
For users in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland Yandex is represented by its Finnish entity, Yandex Oy, a company incorporated under Finnish law, with an office registered at Moreenikatu 6, 04600 Mantsala, Finland.
For users in Israel Yandex is represented by its Israeli entity Yandex.Go Israel Ltd, a company incorporated under Israeli law, with an office registered at: 148 Menachem Begin St., Tel Aviv, Israel 6492104
3. What is the purpose of this Policy
Privacy and security of your Personal information are extremely important to us. When you use the Sites and/or Services, Yandex processes your Personal information and ensures its protection in strict compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
As part of our commitment to protecting your Personal information, we use this Policy to transparently inform you about the following:
(a) why and how your Personal information is collected and used (also, “processed”) by Yandex when you access the Sites or Services;
(b) Yandex’s role and responsibilities in this context as the legal entity deciding why and how your Personal information is processed;
(c) what instruments you may use to limit the amount of Personal information collected by Yandex; and
(d) what your rights are in relation to the above processing.
4. What type of Personal information is collected by Yandex
Personal information collected when you use the Sites and/or Services may differ depending on whether you access the Sites or Services while logged in to your Yandex user account or without logging in. When you are logged in to your Yandex user account as you are using the Sites or Services, Personal information collected by Yandex may be collated and combined with other Personal information (such as your identity, contact details, age and gender, if you shared this information with us) collected by Yandex in your user account. Yandex does not verify Personal information provided by you unless otherwise provided in the Terms of Use or License Agreement of relevant Services, and does not decide the its credibility or whether you have the legal capacity required. However, Yandex assumes that the information you provide is true, sufficiently complete and up-to-date.
Personal information collected by Yandex when you access, interact with or operate the Sites and/or Services includes:
(i) information provided by you when you register (create) a user account, such as your name, mobile phone number, address and age;
(ii) electronic data (http headers, IP address, cookies, web beacons/pixel tags, browser information, information about your hardware and software, wi-fi network data);
(iii) date and time of accessing the Sites or Services;
(iv) information related to your activity while using the Sites or Services (e.g. your search history, data on purchases in the Services, data on visited organizations, likes and preferences, email addresses of your mailing contacts, phonebook data, information about interaction with other users, as well as files and content stored in Yandex systems);
(v) (geo)location information;
(vi) other information about you that needs to be processed according to the terms and conditions of any specific Yandex Site or Service; and
(vii) information about you that we may receive from our Partners in accordance with an agreement you made with this Partner and an agreement between Yandex and this Partner.
In addition, Yandex uses cookies and web beacons (including pixel tags) to collect your Personal information and associate this Personal information with your device and web browser (see Section 11 below).
Yandex does not actively collect any sensitive personal data (such as racial origins, political opinions, health or biometric data) unless specified in Terms of Use of relevant Services. However, you may voluntarily provide us with such data and we may process it as part of providing you with our Services (e.g. if you perform search queries related to your health). As we do not know in advance the potentially sensitive nature of the personal data you may provide to us, you must be aware that we may not be able to request your consent with such processing.
Yandex does not perform any form of profiling, which has the potential to significantly impact your rights and freedoms in accordance with applicable laws.
5. What are the legal basis for processing your Personal information and the purposes of it
Yandex is not allowed to process your Personal information if it does not have a valid legal ground. Yandex will therefore only process your Personal information if:
(i) the processing is necessary to perform our contractual obligations towards you including providing you with Sites and/or Services (i.e. providing you with the results of your search query);
(ii) the processing is necessary to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations;
(iii) in case it is provided by applicable law, the processing is necessary for the legitimate interests of Yandex and does not unduly affect your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. Please note that when we process your Personal information on this basis, we will always seek to maintain a balance between our legitimate interest and the protection of your privacy.
Examples of such ‘legitimate interests’ referred in (iii) immediately above are:
(a) to better understand how you interact with our Sites and/or Services;
(b) to enhance, maintaining accessibility, modify, personalize or otherwise improve the Sites and Services for the benefit of all users; and
(c) to offer you other products and services from Yandex or other companies which we think can be of interest to you (i.e. personally-targeted advertising).
(iv) for specific purposes or if consent is required under the applicable laws and regulations, we may ask your consent for processing of your Personal information. In those jurisdictions in which consent is the legal basis, you provide such consent by agreeing to use our Sites and/or Services. We hereby inform you, and you hereby acknowledge, that you have no legal obligation to provide us with any Personal Information when you use the Sites or Services, and the provision of it is solely based on your free will. However, you are aware that without the provision of Personal Information, we will not be able to provide you with Services and your use of the Sites will be limited.
Yandex always processes your Personal information for a specific purpose and only processes Personal information, which is relevant to achieve that purpose. In particular, we process your Personal information for the following purposes:
(i) to provide you with the Sites and/or Services (i.e. delivery of search results in response to your search queries, taking into account your preferences, search history and other Personal information about you available to Yandex);
(ii) to provide you with access to your user account, including your email and storage service, if you have an account for these Services;
(iii) to contact you to notify and/or inform you or request information from you in relation to the Sites and Services, or to execute our agreements with you or process your request or application;
(iv) to personalize advertisements and/or commercial offers based on your preferences, search history and other Personal information available to Yandex.;
(v) to improve user experience, including offering more relevant search results and more personalised Sites and/or Services, as well as improving other Yandex products, applications and services;
(vi) to develop new products, applications and services;
(vii) to protect your rights and the rights of Yandex; and
(viii) to collect, process and present statistical data or big data, or perform other research and/or analysis of Personal information.
The use of information received from the Google API (Received Data) in Yandex Services is exercised in accordance with the Google API Disclosure subject to the restrictions specified therein, namely:
Yandex uses the Received Data to provide you with the functions of Email Client. The Received Data is not offered for use by third parties, displaying advertising materials and other purposes related to unauthorized access to the content of your correspondence.
For more details on processing the Received Data, please visit: (https://yandex.ru/legal/confidential_google_api).
6. How Yandex protects your Personal information
In most cases, Personal information is processed automatically without access to it by our staff. However, if such access is necessary, your Personal information can be accessed only by those Yandex employees whose professional tasks require using this information. To protect your Personal information and ensure its confidentiality, these employees must comply with internal rules and follow protocols for processing Personal information. They are also required to follow all technical and organisational security measures protecting your Personal information.
Yandex has also implemented adequate technical and organisational measures to protect Personal information against unauthorised, accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, misuse, disclosure or access and against all other unlawful forms of processing. These security measures have been implemented taking into account the state of the art of the technology, their cost of implementation, the risks presented by the processing and the nature of Personal information.
7. Who else has access to your Personal information and who is it shared with
7.1 Within the Yandex group
Yandex may transfer your Personal information to our employees (within the limits set out in Section 6 above). Yandex may also transfer your Personal information to its affiliates including other companies of the group to which Yandex belongs (the “Yandex Group”). Please note that the level of protection of Personal Information in some countries may not be identical to the level required in your jurisdiction, by using the Services you consent to such transfer. In all cases, Personal information will continue to be processed only for the purposes set out in Section 5 hereof unless otherwise stated by the terms of use of the Sites or Services that are provided by companies of the Yandex Group, i.e:
in case where you use Services of the company “Yandex.Classifieds” LLC (OGRN: 5157746192742), your Personal information may be transferred to “Yandex.Classifieds” LLC for processing on the terms and for the purposes set forth in Terms of Service of the Website “AUTO.RU” (https://yandex.ru/legal/autoru_terms_of_service), “Yandex.Job” (https://yandex.ru/legal/job_termsofuse), “Yandex.Realty” (https://yandex.ru/legal/realty_termsofuse);
in case where you use Services of the company “Yandex.Taxi” LLC (OGRN: 5157746192731), your Personal information may be transferred to “Yandex.Taxi” LLC for processing on the terms and for the purposes set forth in Terms of Use of “Yandex.Taxi” (https://yandex.ru/legal/taxi_termsofuse);
in case where you use Services of the company “Yandex.Market” LLC (OGRN: 1167746491395), your Personal information may be transferred to “Yandex.Market” LLC for processing on the terms and for the purposes set forth in Terms of Use of “Yandex.Market” (https://yandex.ru/legal/market_termsofuse);
in case where you use Services of the company “Yandex.Telecom” LLC (OGRN: 1167746432040), your Personal information may be transferred to “Yandex.Telecom” LLC;
in case where you use Services of the company “Yandex.Cloud” LLC (OGRN: 1187746678580), your Personal information may be transferred to “Yandex.Cloud” LLC for processing on the terms and for the purposes set forth in Terms of Use of “Yandex.Cloud Platform Service” (https://yandex.ru/legal/cloud_termsofuse);
in case where you use Services of the company “Yandex.Drive” LLC (OGRN: 5177746277385), your Personal information may be transferred to “Yandex.Drive” LLC for processing on the terms and for the purposes set forth in Terms of Use of “Yandex.Drive” (https://www.yandex.ru/legal/drive_termsofuse);
in case where you use Services of the company “Yandex.Autobuses” LLC (OGRN: 1177746347591), your personal information may be transferred to “Yandex.Autobuses” LLC for processing on the terms and for the purposes set forth in Terms of Use of “Yandex.Autobuses” (https://yandex.ru/legal/bus_termsofuse);
in case where you use Services of the company “EDADIL PROMO” LLC (OGRN: 5157746114477), your personal information may be transferred to “EDADIL PROMO” LLC for processing on the terms and for the purposes set forth in Terms of Use of “Edadeal” (http://corp.edadeal.ru/legal);
in case where you use Services of the company “Kinopoisk” LLC (OGRN: 1077759854919), your personal information may be transferred to “Kinopoisk” LLC for processing on the terms and for the purposes set forth in Terms of Use of “KinoPoisk” (https://yandex.ru/legal/kinopoisk_termsofuse/););
in case where you use Services of the Yandex Europe AG, your Personal information may be transferred to Yandex Europe AG for processing on the terms and for the purposes set forth in Yandex Terms of Service (https://yandex.com/legal/termsofservice);
in case where you use Services of the company Yandex.Go Israel Ltd (Registration Number: 515926285), your Personal information may be transferred to Yandex.Go Israel Ltd for processing on the terms and for the purposes set forth in Terms of Use of Yango (https://yandex.com/legal/yango_termsofuse).
in case where you use Services and services of the Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization of Additional Professional Education "School of Data Analysis" (INO СPE “SDA”), as well as where you participate in relevant projects, your Personal Information may be transferred to INO СPE “SDA” for processing on the terms and for the purposes specified in the data processing rules of INO СPE “SDA”
in case where you use the Services and services of Yandex.Mediaservices LLC (OGRN: 1187746644920), your Personal Information may be transferred to Yandex.Mediaservices LLC for processing on the terms and for the purposes specified in the Terms of Use of Yandex.Music (https://yandex.ru/legal/music_termsofuse), Yandex.Afisha (https://yandex.ru/legal/afisha_termsofuse);
in case where you use the Services and services of Yandex.Fuel LLC (OGRN: 1187746812725), your Personal Information may be transferred to Yandex.Fuel LLC for processing on the terms and for the purposes specified in the Terms of Use of Yandex.Fuel (https://yandex.ru/legal/zapravki_termsofuse);
in case where you use the Services and services of Clinic Yandex.Health LLC (OGRN: 5177746308394), your Personal information may be transferred to Clinic Yandex.Health LLC for processing on the terms and for the purposes specified in the Terms of Use of the Yandex.Health (https://yandex.ru/legal/health_termsofuse).
In addition, your Personal Information may be transferred to the parties that belong to the Yandex Group and locate with you in the same country to provide you with support when you use the Sites and Services, for example, if you are located in Kazakhstan, your Personal Information may be transferred to Yandex.Kazakhstan LLP.
7.2 Outside the Yandex Group
Yandex may also transfer Personal information to third parties outside the Yandex Group to complete the purposes listed in Section 5 above. Please note that the level of protection of Personal Information in some countries may not be identical to the level in your jurisdiction and by using the Services you consent to such transfer. Such third parties may include:
i. Partners, such as media publishers, advertising networks and other partners providing Yandex with services related to the placement and display of advertisement on the websites, programs, products and/or services owned or operated by such Partners, taxi companies operating the taxi Services;
ii. Advertisers or other Partners serving targeted advertisement on the Yandex Sites or Services; and third parties who process Personal information, such as our (IT) systems providers and/or consultants.
Yandex may also transfer Personal information to the following third parties outside the Yandex Group:
i. any third party to whom we assign or novate any of our rights or obligations under a relevant agreement;
ii. any national or international regulatory, enforcement, exchange body, central or local government department and other statutory or public bodies or court where we are required to do so by applicable law or regulation at their request;
iii. third parties if you expressed your consent to such transfer or transfer of your Personal information is required for your use of a certain Service or performance of a particular agreement or contract with you;
iv. any third party to ensure legal protection for Yandex and/or the third parties if you violate the User Agreement of any of the Yandex Services (https://yandex.com/legal/rules), this Policy or the terms of use of specific Services, or if there is a threat of such violation.
8. Where your Personal information is stored and processed
Yandex stores Personal information in the Russian Federation and in the EEA.
For users in Russia: Yandex records, systematizes, accumulates, stores, clarification (updates, changes), extracts Personal information of the citizens of the Russian Federation using databases located on the territory of the Russian Federation.
For users in the EEA, Switzerland or Israel: Russia is a jurisdiction outside the European Economic Area, which has not been recognized by the European Commission as providing an adequate level of personal data protection. Therefore, Yandex has taken appropriate measures to ensure Personal information is handled according to applicable EU data protection rules.
In particular, Yandex relies upon Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission to ensure an adequate level of protection for your Personal information transferred to Russia. A copy of these Standard Contractual Clauses can be obtained upon request.
If you are located in a jurisdiction where transfer of your Personal Information to another jurisdiction requires your consent, then by using the Sites or Services you provide Yandex with your express and unambiguous consent to such transfer, storage, and/or processing of the information in other jurisdictions, including Russia.
9. How long we store your Personal information
Yandex will only keep your Personal information for as long as it is necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected or to comply with legal and regulatory requirements.
Unless otherwise legally required or agreed, the emails and documents, which are stored by you on our systems as part of the Service, will remain stored as long as you have an account with us, but you can delete them at any time.
If you wish to have any Personal information removed from our databases, you can have it removed via your Yandex account or using interface of the Sites or Services (where applicable).
10. Your rights
10.1 What are your rights
If it is provided by applicable law, you have a right of access to your Personal information as processed by Yandex under this Policy.
If you believe that any information we hold about you is incorrect or incomplete, you can log in to your user account and correct your Personal information yourself.
If it is provided by applicable law, you also have the right to:
- learn the information about you that Yandex stores;
- request erasure of your Personal information or certain parts of it, as well as withdraw consent to the processing of the Personal information;
- request the restriction of the processing of your Personal information;
- request a copy of the Standard Contractual Clauses enabling the transfer of your Personal information to Russia, referred to in Section 8 hereof;
- object to the processing of your Personal information if it is provided by applicable law.
Yandex will honour any such requests or objections as required under applicable law.
To the extent provided by applicable law, you may be subject to other rights not specifically mentioned herein.
In case where you use the Services, the transfer of Personal Information is carried out with your consent expressing your free will and your interest, (in particular, on the ground of an agreement with you) and it is not an obligation by law.
10.2 How can you exercise your rights
To exercise the above rights, please log in to your user account, which will provide you with the option to do so, or in case of absence of special function in user account interface please contact Yandex (see Section 13 hereof).
If you are not satisfied with how Yandex processes your Personal information, please let us know and we will investigate your concern. If you are not satisfied with Yandex’s response, you have the right to make a complaint to the competent data protection authority.
11. Why we use cookies and other similar technologies on the Sites or using the Services
11.1 What cookies Yandex uses and why
Cookies are small text files accepted and processed by device that you use to access our Sites. They contain information that is collected from your device and sent back to the Sites on each subsequent visit. Their use helps your navigation through the Sites and allows us remember your preferences over time. For more information on cookies, their description, purposes of use and possible options to disable follow our Cookie Policy.
The following types of cookies are used on the Sites:
- strictly necessary cookies / technical cookies: these cookies are required to run the Sites and provide you with the Services and may, among other, allow Yandex to identify your hardware and software, including your browser type;
- statistical / analytic cookies: these cookies enable us to recognise users, count the number of users and collect information such as your actions on the Sites and the Services, including the web pages you visit and the content you retrieve;
- performance cookies: these cookies collect information about how users interact with our Sites and Services, enabling us to identify errors and test new functionalities to improve the performance of the Sites and the Services;
- functionality cookies: these cookies enable us to provide specific functionalities in order to improve your experience on the Sites, for example by storing your preferences (e.g. language and location);
- (third party) tracking / advertising cookies: these cookies collect information about users, sources of traffic, page visits and advertising displayed to you and followed by you. They enable us to display advertising which may be of interest to you based on collected Personal information. These cookies are also used for statistical and research purposes.
11.2 How long are those cookies stored on your device
Yandex only uses the information contained in the cookies for the above purposes, after which the data collected will remain stored on your device for a period that may depend on cookies type, but no longer than necessary to achieve their purpose and will be automatically removed from your system thereafter.
11.3 Who else has access to the information contained in the cookies
Personal information collected through cookies placed on your device may be transmitted to and accessed by Yandex or the third parties referred to in Section 7 hereof. The use of Personal information outside of the Sites for advertising purposes, if any, may be subject to separate policies available on the above third parties’ websites. Yandex or those third parties might also provide you with a possibility to opt out of personalized advertising, which shall be subject to laws and regulations applicable to such products, utilities and offerings.
The first time that you access the Sites, your approval for the use of these cookies may be requested. If after you have approved the use of cookies you want to make another choice, you can do this by deleting the cookies stored by your browser (usually via the options in your browser’s Privacy menu – please refer to your browser’s manual or developer’s website). The popup requesting your approval may then show up again and you can make a different choice. If you do not consent to the use of cookies, certain features of the Sites might become unavailable, which may affect your browsing experience. You may also set up your browser preferences to accept or decline by default all cookies or cookies from specific websites, including the Yandex Sites. If you approved the use of cookies on one of the Yandex Sites, we assume that the use of cookies on all Sites was approved by you.
Yandex may also use web beacons (pixel tags) in order to access the cookies previously placed on your computer for the following purposes:
(i) to track your actions on the Sites and when using the Services, by accessing and interacting with the cookies stored on your computer;
(ii) to collect statistical information related to operating the Sites, the Services or products, utilities, advertisements or other Yandex offerings.
12. Updates to this Policy
This Policy may be subject to amendments. Yandex shall be entitled to make such amendments at its own discretion, including, without limitation, to reflect changes in applicable legislation or amendments to the Sites and/or Services.
Yandex undertakes not to introduce significant changes, imposing additional obligations or reducing your rights under this Policy without proper notice to you. You will be notified about such changes. If applicable, changes will be announced on the Site or Services (e.g. via a pop-up or web banner) prior to such changes taking effect, and you may also be notified via other channels (e.g. by email) if you have provided us with your contact details.
13. Questions and Suggestions
We welcome your questions or suggestions concerning implementation of or amendments to this Policy. To contact us please use this feedback form: https://yandex.com/support/common/troubleshooting/main.html.
You can also use this form to exercise your rights or report any inaccuracies in your Personal information or protest its processing.
Date of publication: 19.10.2020
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Previous versions of the document:
https://yandex.com/legal/confidential/15082019
https://yandex.com/legal/confidential/15072019
https://yandex.com/legal/confidential/24052018
https://yandex.com/legal/confidential/11042018
https://yandex.com/legal/confidential/20032018
https://yandex.com/legal/confidential/08122017
https://yandex.com/legal/confidential/18112016
https://yandex.com/legal/confidential/17082016
https://yandex.com/legal/confidential/01032016
https://yandex.com/legal/confidential/30012015
https://yandex.com/legal/confidential/14082013