What Personal Information Do We Collect?

When registering on our site, as appropriate, you may be asked to enter your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, social profile information, website URL, biographical information and other contributor credential information or other details to help you with your experience.

If you do not want your PII used by us as provided in this Privacy Policy, you should not use the features of the Site or Services that require such information.

If you use our Email This Article service to share an article with someone you know, we will ask you for your name, your email address and your friend’s email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the site using your name and email address as the « from » email address. We do not use your friend’s email information for any other purpose. We will only use the information you provide to send the requested email to your friend.

When Do We Collect Information?

We collect information from you when you register on our site, subscribe to a newsletter, respond to a survey, fill out a form or enter information on our site.

We may also collect non-personal identification information about website visitors whenever they interact with our website. Non-personal identification information may include the browser name, the type of device or computer and technical information about visitors’ means of connection to our site such as the operating system and the Internet service providers utilized and other similar information.

How Do We Use Your Information?

We may use the information we collect from you when you register, sign up for our newsletter, respond to a survey or marketing communication, surf the website, or use certain other site features in the following ways:

• To personalize your user experience and to allow us to deliver the type of content and product offerings in which you are most interested.
• To improve our website in order to better serve you.
• To allow us to better service you in responding to your customer service requests.
• To administer a contest, promotion, survey or other site feature.
• To send periodic emails regarding our product(s) and service(s).
• To promote contributor credentials and biographies

How Do We Protect Visitor Information?

Our website is scanned on a regular basis for security holes and known vulnerabilities in order to make your visit to our site as safe as possible. We use regular Malware Scanning. Your personal information is contained behind secured networks and is only accessible by a limited number of persons who have special access rights to such systems, and are required to keep the information confidential. In addition, all sensitive/credit information you supply is encrypted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology.

We implement a variety of security measures when a user places an order enters, submits, or accesses their information to maintain the safety of your personal information.

Public Areas

This Website features several community areas and other public forums where users can share information, comment on articles, support one another or where users can post questions for experts to answer; online discussions with experts are also offered. These areas are open to the public and should not be considered private. Any information (including PII) that you share is by design open to the public and is not private. Think carefully before posting any Personal Information in any public forum. What you post can be seen, disclosed to or collected by third parties and may be used by others in ways we cannot control or predict, including to contact you for unauthorized purposes. As with any public forum on any site, the information you post may also show up in third-party search engines.

Do We Use ‘Cookies’?

Yes. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the site’s or service provider’s systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information. For instance, we use cookies to help us remember and process the items in your shopping cart. They are also used to help us understand your preferences based on previous or current site activity, which enables us to provide you with improved services. We also use cookies to help us compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future.

We use cookies to help us remember your desired settings and preferences.

You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You do this through your browser settings. Each browser is a little different, so look at your browser’s Help menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookies.

If you choose to disable cookies, some features of the Site may not work properly, and you may not be able to access the Services.

Third Party Disclosure

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information unless we provide you with advance notice. This does not include website hosting partners and other parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others’ rights, property, or safety.

However, aggregated, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Google

We use Google’s advertising products and technologies on our website. Google is enabled as a third party to run ads and collect website performance data. Their policies can be found at https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/privacy/partners/.

Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on our site. Google’s use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to our users based on their visit to our site and other sites on the Internet. Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

We have implemented the following:

• Remarketing with Google AdSense
• Google Display Network Impression Reporting
• Demographics and Interests Reporting

We along with third-party vendors, such as Google use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookies) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) or other third-party identifiers together to compile data regarding user interactions with ad impressions, and other ad service functions as they relate to our website.

Opting out:

Users can set preferences for how Google advertises to you using the Google Ad Settings page. Alternatively, you can opt out by visiting the Network Advertising initiative opt out page or permanently using the Google Analytics Opt Out Browser add on.

Third Party Links

Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on our website. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

California Online Privacy Protection Act

CalOPPA is the first state law in the nation to require commercial websites and online services to post a Privacy Policy. The law’s reach stretches well beyond California to require a person or company in the United States (and conceivably the world) that operates websites collecting personally identifiable information from California consumers to post a conspicuous privacy policy on its website stating exactly the information being collected and those individuals with whom it is being shared, and to comply with this policy.

According to CalOPPA we agree to the following:

• Users can visit our site anonymously
• Once this privacy policy is created, we will add a link to it on our home page, or as a minimum on the first significant page after entering our website. Our Privacy Policy link includes the word ‘Privacy’, and can be easily be found on the page specified above.

Users will be notified of any privacy policy changes on our Privacy Policy page.

Users are able to change their personal information by logging in to their account.

How Does Our Site Handle Do Not Track Signals?

We honor do not track signals and do not track, plant cookies, or use advertising when a Do Not Track (DNT) browser mechanism is in place.

Does Our Site Allow Third Party Behavioral Tracking?

It’s also important to note that we allow third party behavioral tracking.

COPPA (Children Online Privacy Protection Act)

When it comes to the collection of personal information from children under 13, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) puts parents in control. The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, enforces the COPPA Rule, which spells out what operators of websites and online services must do to protect children’s privacy and safety online.

We do not specifically or intentionally market to children under the age of 13 years.

Fair Information Practices

The Fair Information Practices Principles form the backbone of privacy law in the United States and the concepts they include have played a significant role in the development of data protection laws around the globe. Understanding the Fair Information Practice Principles and how they should be implemented is critical to comply with the various privacy laws that protect personal information.

In order to be in line with Fair Information Practices, should a data breach occur, we will notify the users via email within 7 business days.

CAN-SPAM Act

The CAN-SPAM Act is a law that sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have emails stopped from being sent to them, and spells out tough penalties for violations.

We collect your email address in order to send information, respond to inquiries, and/or other requests or questions.

To be in accordance with CAN-SPAM we agree to the following:

• Not use false, or misleading subjects or email addresses
• Identify the message as an advertisement in some reasonable way
• Include the physical address of our business or site headquarters
• Monitor third party email marketing services for compliance, if one is used.
• Honor opt-out/unsubscribe requests quickly
• Allow users to unsubscribe by using the link at the bottom of each email

Online Privacy Policy Only

This online privacy policy applies only to information collected through our Website and not to information collected offline.

Cross-Border Data Transfers

Your PII will be processed by us in the United States. Personal information that you submit for publication on the Website will be published on the Internet and may be available in other countries. You agree to such cross-border transfers of personal information.

Terms and Conditions of Use

Please also visit our Terms and Conditions of Use section establishing the use, disclaimers, and limitations of liability governing the use of our Website.

Your Consent

By visiting this Site or using the Services, you are accepting the policies and practices described in this Privacy Policy. Each time you visit the Site or use the Services, you agree and expressly consent to our collection, use and disclosure of the information that you provide as described in this Privacy Policy.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

If we decide to change or modify our Privacy Policy, we will post those changes on this page.

Contacting Us

If there are any questions regarding this Privacy Policy you may contact us sing the information below.

[email protected]