INFORMATION COLLECTED
Our Websites typically collect two kinds of information about you: (a) information that you provide that personally identifies you; and (b) information that does not personally identify you,that we automatically collect when you visit our Websites or that you provide us.
Personally Identifiable Information: Our definition of personally identifiable information includes any information that may be used to specifically identify or contact you, such as your name, mail address, phone number, etc. As a general policy, we do not automatically collect your personally identifiable information when you visit our Websites. In certain circumstances, we may request, allow or otherwise provide you an opportunity to submit your personally identifiable information in connection with a feature, program, promotion or some other aspect of our Websites. For instance, you may: (a) provide your name, mail/shipping address, email address, credit card number and phone number when registering with our Websites, making a purchase, or in connection with a contest entry; or (b) provide certain demographic information about you (e.g., age, gender, purchase preference, usage frequency, etc.) when participating in a survey, poll or joining a club. Certain information may not be personally identifiable when standing alone (e.g., your age), but may become so when combined with other information (e.g., your age and name). Whether or not you provide this information is your choice; however, in many instances this type of information is required to participate in the particular activity, realize a benefit we may offer, or gain access to certain content on our Websites.
Non-Personal Information: Our definition of non-personal information is any information that does not personally identify you. Non-personal information can include certain personally identifiable information that has been de-identified; that is, information that has been rendered anonymous. We obtain non-personal information about you from information that you provide us, either separately or together with your personally identifiable information. We also automatically collect certain non-personal information from you when you access our Websites. This information can include, among other things, IP addresses, the type of browser you are using (e.g., Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.), the third party website from which your visit originated, the operating system you are using (e.g., Vista, Windows XP, Macintosh OS, etc.), the domain name of your Internet service provider (e.g., America Online, NetZero, etc.), the search terms you use on our Websites, the specific web pages you visit, and the duration of your visits.
HOW WE USE AND SHARE THE COLLECTED INFORMATION
Personally Identifiable Information: The personally identifiable information you submit to us is generally used to carry out your requests, respond to your inquiries, better serve you, or in other ways naturally associated with the circumstances in which you provided the information. We may also use this information to later contact you for a variety of reasons, such as customer service, providing you promotional information for our products or those of our parent company, subsidiaries or other affiliated companies ("affiliated companies"), or to communicate with you about content or other information you have posted or shared with us via our Website. You may opt-out from receiving future promotional information from us or our affiliated companies, or direct that we not share your information with any affiliated companies, as set forth below.
In certain instances we may also share your personally identifiable information with our third party vendors performing functions on our behalf (or on behalf of our affiliated companies) - e.g., vendors that process credit card orders, deliver our merchandise, administer our promotions, provide us marketing or promotional assistance, analyze our data, assist us with customer service, etc. Our vendors agree to use this information, and we share information with them, only to carry out our requests. In addition, we may share your personally identifiable information with participating sponsors to a program or promotion (e.g., a sweepstakes or contest) you enter via our Websites, and with third parties who assist us in using the content or other information you have posted or shared with us via our Websites (e.g., production companies we may use). Except as provided in this Privacy Policy, our Terms of Use, or as set forth when you submit the information, your personally identifiable information will not be shared or sold to any third parties without your prior approval.
Non-Personal Information: We use non-personal information in a variety of ways, including to help analyze site traffic, understand user needs and trends, carry out targeted promotional activities, and to improve our services. We may use your non-personal information by itself or aggregate it with information we have obtained from others. We may share your non-personal information with our affiliated companies and third parties to achieve these objectives and others, but remember that aggregate information is anonymous information that does not personally identify you.
OTHER USES AND INFORMATION
IP Addresses: An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Internet. Web servers (computers that "serve up" web pages) automatically identify your computer by its IP address. When visitors request pages from our Websites, our servers typically log their IP addresses. We collect IP addresses for purposes of system administration, to report non-personal aggregate information to others, and to track the use of our Website. IP addresses are considered non-personal information and may also be shared as provided above. It is not our practice to link IP addresses to anything personally identifiable; that is, the visitor's session will be logged, but the visitor remains anonymous to us. However, we reserve the right to use IP addresses to identify a visitor when we feel it is necessary to enforce compliance with our Website rules or to: (a) fulfill a government request; (b) conform with the requirements of the law or legal process; (c) protect or defend our legal rights or property, our Websites, or other users; or (d) in an emergency to protect the health and safety of our Website's users or the general public.
Cookies: "Cookies" are small text files from a website that are stored on your hard drive. These text files make using our Websites more convenient by, among other things, saving your passwords and preferences for you. Cookies themselves do not typically contain any personally identifiable information. We may analyze the information derived from these cookies and match this information with data provided by you or another party. We may provide our analysis and certain non-personal information to third parties (who may in turn use this information to provide advertisements tailored to your interests), but this will not involve disclosing any of your personally identifiable information. Please note that advertisers that serve advertisements on our Websites may also use their own cookies which are subject to the advertiser's privacy policies, not this Privacy Policy.
If you are concerned about the storage and use of cookies, you may be able to direct your internet browser to notify you and seek approval whenever a cookie is being sent to your hard drive. You may also delete a cookie manually from your hard drive through your internet browser or other programs. Please note, however, that some parts of our Websites will not function properly or be available to you if you refuse to accept a cookie or choose to disable the acceptance of cookies.
Email Communications: If you send us an email with questions or comments, we may use your personally identifiable information to respond to your questions or comments, and we may save your questions or comments for future reference. For security reasons, we do not recommend that you send non-public personal information, such as passwords, social security numbers, or bank account information, to us by email. However, aside from our reply to such an email, it is not our standard practice to send you email unless you request a particular service or sign up for a feature that involves email communications, it relates to purchases you have made with us (e.g., updates, customer support, etc.), we are sending you information about our other products and services, or you consented to being contacted by email for a particular purpose. In certain instances, we may provide you with the option to set your preferences for receiving email communications from us; that is, agree to some communications but not others. You may "opt out" of receiving future email communications from us by clicking the "unsubscribe" link included at the bottom of most emails we send, or as provided below.
Other: We reserve the right to disclose any personally identifiable or non-personal information about you if we are required to do so by law or if we believe that such action is necessary to: (a) fulfill a government request; (b) conform with the requirements of the law or legal process; (c) protect or defend our legal rights or property, our Website, or other users; or (d) in an emergency to protect the health and safety of our Website's users or the general public.
CHILDREN UNDER 13
Our Websites are operated in compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA"). COPPA requires that we inform parents about how we collect, use, and disclose personally identifiable information from children under 13 years of age ("children" or a "child"), and that we obtain the consent of parents in order for children to use certain features of our Websites. We strongly urge that children not provide any personally identifiable information on our Websites without the knowledge and permission of a parent or legal guardian (for convenience, together "parent").
What types of information do we collect from children and how do we use/share that information?
Children, and others, can generally surf, research and view content on our Websites without having to provide any personally identifiable information. Our practices regarding the collection, use and sharing of personally identifiable and non-personally identifiable information from children are, except as identified below, the same as with those 13 years of age or older. For full details, see Sections A - C above.
If an activity involves collecting personally identifiable information from a child, it will typically be limited to the collection of the name, e-mail and mailing address, and date of birth of the child, along with the information directly tied to participating in the activity (for instance, a child's opinion on a particular subject, recollection of an event, etc.). However, we do not and may not require that children provide more personally identifiable information than is reasonably necessary to participate in the activity.
The personally identifiable information we collect is used to communicate with the child about the activity (e.g., provide notice, respond to requests, etc.) and consistent with the terms we provide when we collect the information. This information may also be used by us or shared with our parent, subsidiaries and affiliates to provide additional information about us, send offers, or for other promotional or marketing purposes (collectively "Marketing"). Parents may always direct us (by contacting us as provided below) not to share their child's personally identifiable information with these parties or not to use the information for Marketing.
Please note that for many activities that contemplate public disclosure of information collected from a child, we take reasonable steps to preserve the child's anonymity - i.e., limit the information shared so that others cannot identify or contact the child. However, this may not be possible or compatible with certain activities, such as participation in forums, postings on message boards or online chats (which we may offer in the future).
For a child to participate in any activity requiring the collection or sharing of personally identifiable information, we first obtain consent from the child's parent.
How do we notify and obtain consent from parents?
Where an activity involves the collection of personally identifiable information from a child, we will request the parent's e-mail address from the child. We will then send an e-mail to the parent providing, among other things, the relevant details on the activity, the information collected and our privacy practices. Parents can provide consent by following the instructions in the e-mail. If the parent consents to the child's participation in the activity, we typically send a separate confirmation e-mail. If the parent does not consent, we delete all information previously collected from the child from our database.
For activities that involve the publication of a child's personally identifiable information to the public (e.g., message boards, forums, online chats, etc.), we may require a higher level of verification of consent from the parent. For example, in these instances, we may require a parent to provide us credit card information, speak to a trained telephone operator or return by postal mail or fax a signed consent form.
How can a parent access, change or delete personally identifiable information about their child?
At any time a parent can refuse to permit us to collect additional personal information from their child, review the personal information we have collected, or request that their child's information be deleted from our database.
To do so, a parent must contact us at:
stand/DEBUNKIFY Privacy Policy, Northlich
720 E. Pete Rose Way
Cincinnati, OH 45202
Parents may also use this contact information if they have any questions or concerns.
(513) 421-8840
standonline@northlich.com.
PUBLIC FORUMS
We may offer chat rooms, message boards, bulletin boards, or similar public forums where you and other users of our Websites can communicate. The protections described in this Privacy Policy do not apply when you provide information (including personal information) in connection with your use of these public forums. We may use personally identifiable and non-personal information about you to identify you with a posting in a public forum. Any information you share in a public forum is public information and may be seen or collected by anyone, including third parties that do not adhere to our Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for events arising from the distribution of any information you choose to publicly post or share through our Websites.
KEEPING YOUR INFORMATION SECURE
We have implemented security measures we consider reasonable and appropriate to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. Please be advised, however, that while we strive to protect your personally identifiable information and privacy, we cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information you disclose or transmit to us online and are not responsible for the theft, destruction, or inadvertent disclosure of your personally identifiable information.
OTHER SITES
Our Websites may link to or contain links to other third party websites that we do not control or maintain, such as in connection with reviewing articles referenced on our Websites and banner advertisements. We are not responsible for the privacy practices employed by any third party website. We encourage you to note when you leave on of our Websites and to read the privacy statements of all third party websites before submitting any personally identifiable information.
CONTACT AND OPT-OUT INFORMATION
If you: (a) have questions or comments about our Privacy Policy; (b) wish to make corrections to any personally identifiable information you have provided; (c) want to opt-out from receiving future promotional correspondence, including emails, from us or our affiliated companies; or (d) wish withdraw your consent to sharing your personally identifiable information with others, you may contact us at:
stand/DEBUNKIFY Privacy Policy
Northlich
720 E. Pete Rose Way
Cincinnati, OH 45202
(513) 421-8840
standonline@northlich.com
Or use opt-out functionality built into the communications you receive.
We will respond to your request and, if applicable and appropriate, make the requested change in our active databases as soon as reasonably practicable. Please note that we may not be able to fulfill certain requests while allowing you access to certain benefits and features of our Websites.