Privacy Policy
May 1st 2008
We recognize that privacy is important. This Policy applies to all of
the products, services and websites offered by this website or
affiliated companies.
If you have any questions about this Policy, please feel free to
contact us through the contact link at the index page of this website.
Information we collect and how we use it
We offer a number of services that do not require you to register for
an account or provide any personal information to us. In order to
provide our full range of services, we may collect the following types
of information:
Information you provide - When you sign up for a User Account or
other service or promotion that requires registration, we ask you for
personal information (such as your name, email address and an account
password). For certain services we may also request credit card or
other payment account information which we maintain in encrypted form
on secure servers. We may combine the information you submit under your
account with information from other of our services or third parties in
order to provide you with a better experience and to improve the
quality of our services. For certain services, we may give you the
opportunity to opt out of combining such information.
Our cookies - When you visit our website, we send one or more
cookies - a small file containing a string of characters - to your
computer that uniquely identifies your browser. We use cookies to
improve the quality of our service by storing user preferences and
tracking user trends, such as how people browse our site. Most browsers
are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser
to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent.
However, some of features and services we offer may not function
properly if your cookies are disabled.
Log information - When you use our website and, if offered,
services, our servers automatically record information that your
browser sends whenever you visit a website. These server logs may
include information such as your web request, Internet Protocol
address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your
request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your
browser.
User communications - When you send email or other communication
to us, we may retain those communications in order to process your
inquiries, respond to your requests and improve our services.
Affiliated sites - We offer some of our services in connection
with other web sites. Personal information that you provide to those
sites may be sent to us in order to deliver the service. We process
such information in accordance with this Policy. The affiliated sites
may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their
privacy policies.
Links - We may present links in a format that enables us to keep
track of whether these links have been followed. We use this
information to improve the quality of our website and, if offered,
services.
Other sites - This Privacy Policy applies this web site only. We
do not exercise control over the sites displayed as search results or
links from within our various services. These other sites may place
their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or
solicit personal information from you.
We only processes personal information for the purposes described in
the applicable Privacy Policy and/or privacy notice for specific
websites and, if offered, services. In addition to the above, such
purposes include:
- Providing our products and services to users, including the display of customized content and advertising;
- Auditing, research and analysis in order to maintain, protect and improve our website and services;
- Ensuring the technical functioning of our network; and
- Developing new websites and, if applicable, services.
We process personal information on our servers in the United States of
America and in other countries. In some cases, we process personal
information on a server outside your own country. We may process
personal information to provide our own services. In some cases, we may
process personal information on behalf of and according to the
instructions of a third party, such as our advertising partners.
Choices for personal information When you sign up for a particular
service that requires registration, we ask you to provide personal
information. If we use this information in a manner different than the
purpose for which it was collected, then we will ask for your consent
prior to such use.
If we propose to use personal information for any purposes other than
those described in this Policy and/or in the specific service notices,
we will offer you an effective way to opt out of the use of personal
information for those other purposes. We will not collect or use
sensitive information for purposes other than those described in this
Policy and/or in the specific service notices, unless we have obtained
your prior consent.
You can decline to submit personal information to any of our services,
in which case we may not be able to provide those services to you.
Information sharing
We only shares personal information with other external companies or individuals in the following limited circumstances:
- We have your consent. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information.
- We provide such information to all of our businesses, affiliated
companies or other trusted businesses or persons for the purpose of
processing personal information on our behalf. We require that these
parties agree to process such information based on our instructions and
in compliance with this Policy and any other appropriate
confidentiality and security measures.
- We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or
disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy
any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable
governmental request, (b) enforce applicable Terms of Service,
including investigation of potential violations thereof, (c) detect,
prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or
(d) protect against imminent harm to the rights, property or safety of
this website, its users or the public as required or permitted by law.
- If we engage in a merger, acquisition, or any form of sale of some
or all of our assets, we will provide notice before personal
information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy
policy.
- We may share with third parties certain pieces of aggregated,
non-personal information, such as the number of users who searched for
a particular term, for example, or how many users clicked on a
particular advertisement. Such information does not identify you
individually.
Please contact us at the address below for any additional questions about the management or use of personal data.
Information security
We take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized
access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of
data. These include internal reviews of our data collection, storage
and processing practices and security measures, as well as physical
security measures to guard against unauthorized access to systems where
we store personal data.
We restrict access to personal information to our employees,
contractors and agents who need to know that information in order to
operate, develop or improve our offerings. These individuals are bound
by confidentiality obligations and may be subject to discipline,
including termination and criminal prosecution, if they fail to meet
these obligations.
Data integrity
We process personal information only for the
purposes for which it was collected and in accordance with this Policy
or any applicable service-specific privacy notice. We review our data
collection, storage and processing practices to ensure that we only
collect, store and process the personal information needed to provide
or improve our services. We take reasonable steps to ensure that the
personal information we process is accurate, complete, and current, but
we depend on our users to update or correct their personal information
whenever necessary.
Accessing and updating personal information When you use our website
and, if applicable, services, we make good faith efforts to provide you
with access to your personal information and either to correct this
data if it is inaccurate or to delete such data at your request if it
is not otherwise required to be retained by law or for legitimate
business purposes. We ask individual users to identify themselves and
the information requested to be accessed, corrected or removed before
processing such requests, and we may decline to process requests that
are unreasonably repetitive or systematic, require disproportionate
technical effort, jeopardize the privacy of others, or would be
extremely impractical or for which access is not otherwise required. In
any case where we provide information access and correction, we perform
this service free of charge, except if doing so would require a
disproportionate effort.
Enforcement
We regularly review our compliance with this Policy. Please feel free
to direct any questions or concerns regarding this Policy or our
treatment of personal information by contacting us through the contact
link on the index page. When we receive formal written complaints at
this address, it is our policy to contact the complaining user
regarding his or her concerns. We will cooperate with the appropriate
regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to
resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of personal data that
cannot be resolved between us and an individual.
Changes to this policy
Please note that this Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We
will not reduce your rights under this Policy without your explicit
consent, and we expect most such changes will be minor. Regardless, we
will post any Policy changes on this page and, if the changes are
significant, we will provide a more prominent notice (including, for
certain services, email notification of Policy changes). Each version
of this Policy will be identified at the top of the page by its
effective date, and we will also keep prior versions of this Privacy
Policy in an archive for your review.
If you have any additional questions or concerns about this Policy,
please feel free to contact via the contact link on the index page.