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Privacy Policy Effective Date: 03/18/2007
ConsumerRaters.com respects the
privacy of visitors to our site.
This Privacy Policy governs the
use and collection of
information from you by Consumer
Raters, LLC. ("we" or "us")
through your use of this site.
This Privacy Policy does not
apply to any information you may
provide to us through other
means; for example, at a live
event, via mail, or via
telephone.
Please read this Privacy Policy
carefully so that you understand
our online privacy practices. By
visiting this site, you agree
that your visit, and any dispute
over our online privacy
practices, is governed by this
Privacy Policy and our Visitor
Agreement.
TYPES OF INFORMATION WE COLLECT
The information we gather falls
into two categories: (1)
information (for example, your
name and address) that you
voluntarily supply (for example,
when you register as a member to
the site, or customize our
service to provide you services
specific to your neighborhood),
and (2) information gathered on
usage patterns and preferences
as visitors navigate through our
sites. In some cases, it is an
agent or affiliate of ours that
collects the information on our
behalf. Third-party providers
featured on or linked to by our
site, such as vendors of
products and services offered
through our site, may be
gathering the same kinds of
information.
We may use your registration
information to contact you for
customer service purposes,
payments for referrals and
reviews, to inform you about the
services offered over our site
or of important changes or
additions to our site, and to
send you email newsletters,
offers and information that you
request or that we think may
interest you.
Email Newsletters. We may offer
you the opportunity to subscribe
to our newsletter. If you have
opted to receive a particular
newsletter, you may always
unsubscribe later if you decide
not to receive further mailings
of the newsletter from us. You
can unsubscribe to our
newsletter by logging on to
ConsumerRaters.com and changing
your email preferences on your
personal page.
Cookies. To help make our sites
more responsive to the needs of
our visitors, we use a standard
feature of browser software,
called a "cookie," to assign
each visitor a unique, random
number, a sort of user ID, if
you will, that resides on your
computer. The cookie doesn't
actually identify the visitor,
just the computer that a visitor
uses to access our site. The
only personal information a
cookie can contain is
information you supply. A cookie
can't read unrelated data off
your hard drive. We use cookies
to help us tailor our site to
your needs, to deliver a better,
more personalized service. For
example, we may use cookies to
allow you to search for those
businesses closest to your home.
In addition, we may use cookies
to track the pages on our site
visited by our users. We can
build a better site if we know
which pages our users are
visiting and how often. Of
course, you can set your browser
not to accept cookies, but if
you do, you may not be able to
take advantage of the
personalized features enjoyed by
other visitors to our site.
Other Methods of Collecting
Information. Our web pages may
contain electronic images
(called "single-pixel GIFs" or
"web beacons") that allow us and
our vendors to count users who
have visited particular pages or
to access certain cookies. We
may use these tools and other
technologies to recognize which
pages users visit, and which
links they click on. These
features may also be included in
our email newsletters so that we
can learn which messages have
been opened and acted upon. We
may also be able to verify your
online purchases from us or from
third party sites that have
agreed to share such information
with us.
Browser Level Information and IP
Addresses. Our web servers
automatically collect limited
information about your computer
configuration when you visit our
site, including the type of
browser software you use, the
operating system you're running,
the resolution of your computer
monitor, the Web site that
referred you, and your IP
address. (Your IP address is a
numerical address that is used
by computers connected to the
Internet to identify your
computer so that data such as
the web pages you want to view
can be transmitted to you.) We
also use IP address information
for systems administration and
trouble shooting purposes. Your
IP address does not tell us who
you are. We use this information
to deliver web pages to you upon
request, to tailor our site to
the interests of our users, and
to measure traffic within our
site.
DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION
Why we want to know. We collect
information in order to make the
Web site more useful and
relevant to you. For example, we
may ask you for an address so
you can narrow your search to
businesses that serve your
neighborhood.
Third Parties. We will not share
the personally-identifiable
information you provide when
registering on our site with
third parties. We may, however,
take the information you provide
and aggregate it with data from
all the other people that use
this site and associated
services. Then we would use that
pool of information to inform
third parties about our audience
without identifying you
personally. For example, we'll
be able to say to a third party:
"We have 3,470 site visitors in
this ZIP code," which happens to
be your location.
Vendors and Provider Partners. To
make our sites more valuable to
our visitors, we may offer some
features in conjunction with
other providers ("Provider
Partners"). Our email
newsletters, email services and
online business listings for
example, may be made available
through cooperative arrangements
with providers that specialize
in operating such services. In
some instances, our Provider
Partners will have the same
access to your information as we
do. Their use of the information
will be subject to the terms of
their respective privacy
policies, which you can find on
their Web sites. We may also use
vendors and third-party
contractors to help us operate
our site, analyze or process
data on our behalf, or improve
the services that we offer to
you. We may provide these
vendors and contractors with
information about our visitors
that is necessary for them to
perform the services that we
request.
Sites to Which We Link. Our site
includes links to other Web
sites, and may provide access to
services offered by third
parties, whose privacy policies
we don't control. When you
access another site or purchase
products or services or conduct
other transactions through our
sites, use of any information
you provide is governed by the
privacy policy of the operator
of the site you're visiting or
the provider of such products or
services. Consumerraters neither
controls nor endorses third
party web sites. In addition we
do not review or approve any of
the content that appears on
these web sites.
Other Disclosures. We may
occasionally release information
about our visitors when release
is appropriate to comply with
law, to enforce our Visitor
Agreement, or to protect the
rights, property or safety of
visitors to our sites, the
public, our customers, or our
company and its employees,
agents, partners and affiliates.
As our business grows, we may
buy or sell various assets. In
the unlikely event that our
company, or the bulk of our
assets relating to this site, is
acquired by another company,
information on our visitors
would be among the transferred
assets.
CHILDREN'S PRIVACY
Children should always get
permission from their parents
before sending any information
about themselves (such as their
names, email addresses, and
phone numbers) over the
Internet, to us or to anyone
else. We won't knowingly allow
anyone under 18 to register with
our site, to provide business
information to our site, or to
provide any other personally
identifying information. If
you're under 18, please do not
provide us with any personally
identifying information about
yourself (such as your name,
your email address or your phone
number).
HOW TO MAKE CHANGES TO YOUR
INFORMATION
If you have registered with
ConsumerRaters.com, you may
change your registrant
information at any time by
logging onto ConsumerRaters.com
and clicking on the
Login/Register link.
STORAGE OF INFORMATION
All information gathered on our
site is stored within a database
operated by us or by a
contractor on our behalf.
Sensitive information, such as
password or information, is
encoded (not encrypted) for
storage. We cannot guarantee the
security of our database, nor
can we guarantee that
information you supply won't be
intercepted while being
transmitted to us over the
Internet.
CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY A
final note: The Web is an
evolving medium. If we need to
change our privacy policy at
some point in the future, we'll
post the changes before they
take effect.
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