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TRECNews.com Privacy
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At TRECNews.com, we are committed to protecting the online privacy of
visitors to our websites. This Policy applies only to the websites and
online services provided by TRECNews.com. This Policy does not cover any
interaction you may have by telephone, postal mail, or other offline
communications. The purpose of this Policy is to inform you about the
types of information we gather about you when you visit our websites,
how we may use that information, and how we disclose it to third
parties.
Our websites are not designed for use by children without their parent's
supervision. We ask that anyone under the age of thirteen not submit any
personal information through our websites. We do not knowingly collect
any personal information from children under the age of thirteen, and
therefore we do not knowingly distribute such information to third
parties.
Our websites may contain links to other websites, including websites
directed to children. We have no control over the privacy practices or
the content of any of our business partners, advertisers, sponsors or
other websites to which we provide links from our websites. You should
check the applicable privacy policy of the website sponsor when linking
to other websites.
I. Information That We Collect
Personal Information
At various locations on our websites, such as in registration forms,
sweepstakes entries, message boards, online stores, surveys, and polls,
we may request that you supply us with "personal information," such as
your name, email address, mailing and shipping addresses, home or work
telephone number, and/or credit card information. You will always know
when we are collecting personal information, because we only collect
personal information when you voluntarily submit it to us through our
online forms and questionnaires. Although you do not have to provide us
with any information to visit our websites, you may not be able to fully
utilize all of the services on our websites if you choose not to provide
certain information. If you do choose to give us personal information
through our websites, we will collect and retain that information.
Non-Personal Information
When you use our websites, we may also collect "non-personal
information," which is information that, by itself, cannot be used to
identify or contact you, such as demographic information (your age,
gender, income, education, profession, zip code, etc.). Non-personal
information may also include technical information, such as your IP
address, the type of browser you are using, the websites you visit
immediately before and immediately after you visit our websites, and
other anonymous data involving your use of our websites.
Cookies
We use "cookies" to enhance your visits to our websites. A cookie is a
small amount of data that is sent to your browser from a web server and
stored on your computer's hard drive. Cookies do not store personal
information about you, unless you knowingly provide it. Cookies can
store non-personal information, such as what websites, pages, or
advertisements your browser has accessed. We use cookies to store
information and personalize your experience with our websites. For
example, cookies allow our websites to recognize your browser as a
previous visitor, and thus save and remember any preferences that may
have been set while you were previously browsing our websites. Our
cookies can also store your password, personalize pages, and keep track
of selections, such as your time zone and episode selections, or items
you have placed in a "shopping cart."
You do have control over cookies. Most browsers can be set to notify you
when a cookie is being placed on your computer. Most browsers can also
be set to refuse to accept cookies, although this may affect your
Internet experience. You can also erase cookies that are already on your
computer. For more information about working with cookies, you should
consult your user manual, FAQ, or "help" function of your specific
browser and operating system software.
II. How We Use the Information We Collect
Our Services and Websites
We use your personal information to provide you any services that you
may request or require, to communicate with you, to allow you to make
purchases, and to allow you to participate in online contests, surveys
and games. We use aggregated non-personal information about our users to
understand our website's demographics, such as the percentage of male
and female users, the geographic distribution of our users, the age
ranges of our users, or a combination of these or other demographics. We
use the non-personal information we collect to analyze how our websites
are being used, and to improve the content of our websites, online
product offerings, and marketing and promotional efforts.
Email Communications
If you send us an email with questions or comments, we may use your
personal information to respond to your questions or comments, and we
may save your questions or comments for future reference. 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 that involves email
communications, you otherwise consent to being contacted by email or if
such contact is to communicate with you about products purchased through
our online stores, to provide customer support in connection with those
products, and to send you information about other products and services
which we believe may be of interest to you. There may be times when you
will have the opportunity to subscribe to an email list or electronic
newsletter that will send information about our websites or our
advertisers to your email address. However, we will provide you with the
option to change your preferences and opt-out of receiving those
communications. You may request at any time that we not email you in the
future by clicking the "unsubscribe" link which is included at the
bottom of any email that you receive from us, or by contacting us at
info@TRECNews.com. If you unsubscribe, we will make reasonable efforts
to discontinue these email communications as soon as practicable.
III. Disclosure of Information to Third Parties
Affiliates and Non-Affiliates
Except as specifically set forth in this Policy, we do not share your
personal information with any non-affiliated third party without your
permission. We may disclose aggregate information, such as demographic
information, and our statistical analyses to third parties, including
advertisers or other business partners.
Service Providers
We sometimes engage unaffiliated businesses to assist us in providing
you certain services. For example, we may hire a shipping company to
help us deliver our products or services to you. We may also use third
parties to process online transactions and credit card payments, provide
advertising, marketing and promotional assistance, provide email
services, or facilitate our online services (such as message boards,
chat rooms, and surveys). In those instances, we may need to share your
personal information with them. We require these companies to use your
personal information only to provide the particular product or service
and do not authorize them to use your personal information for any other
reason.
We sometimes offer promotions (like sweepstakes or free subscriptions)
in conjunction with a third party sponsor. If you choose to participate
in one of those promotions, we may share your information with the
sponsor if they need it to send you a product or other special promotion
they offer.
Business Transactions
As TRECNews.com and its websites continue to develop, we may buy, sell
or combine with other businesses. If so, personal and non-personal
information that we or other businesses have collected will likely be
transferred as part of the transaction. If we sell a business, we will
attempt to ensure that requests made of us regarding email
communications will be honored.
Public Forums
We feature public forums such as chat rooms, message boards, bulletin
boards, or similar activities where you and other users of our websites
can communicate with one another. This Policy does not protect you when
you use these public forums or provide information (including personal
information) about yourself. Any information you share in a public forum
such as a chat room, message board, or bulletin board is public
information and may be seen or collected by anyone, including third
parties that do not adhere to our Privacy Policy. TRECNews.com is not
responsible for events arising from the distribution of any information
you choose to publicly post or share through our websites.
Third Party Advertisers
We use third-party advertising companies to deliver specific
advertisements to you, which appear on pages throughout our websites.
These companies collect non-personal information about your visits to
our websites and other websites in order to provide advertisements about
products and services that may be of interest to you. These companies
may also aggregate your non-personal information for use in targeted
advertising, marketing research, and other similar purposes. These
companies may place their own cookies on your computer. If you want to
prevent a third-party advertiser from collecting and using this
information, you may visit each third party advertiser's website
directly and opt-out.
Other Disclosures
We may disclose personal information when we are required or requested
to do so by law, court order or other government or law enforcement
authority or regulatory agency; to enforce or apply our rights and
agreements; or when we believe in good faith that disclosing this
information is necessary or advisable, including, for example, to
protect the rights, property, or safety of TRECNews.com, our users, or
others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and
organizations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction. We reserve
the right to use or disclose non-personal information in any way we see
fit.
IV. Security of the Information We Collect
The security of your personal information is important to us. We
maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to secure your
personal information. However, "perfect security" does not exist on the
Internet, and there is always some risk in transmitting information
electronically. The personal information we collect is stored within
databases that we control. As we deem appropriate, we use security
measures consistent with industry standards, such as firewalls and
encryption technology, to protect your information. However, since no
security system is impenetrable, we cannot guarantee the security of our
databases, nor can we guarantee that information you supply won't be
intercepted while being transmitted to us over the Internet. Of course,
any information you post to any message board, discussion group, or
other public posting area on our websites is available to anyone with
Internet access.
V. Accuracy of the Information We Collect
Any questions you may have regarding our Privacy Policy, the accuracy of
your personal information or the use of your personal information, or
any requests that we correct, update, or remove your information in our
databases, should be directed via email to
info@TRECNews.com
After receiving a request to change your information, we will make
reasonable efforts to ensure that all of your personal information
stored in databases we actively use to operate our website will be
updated, corrected, changed or deleted, as appropriate, as soon as
reasonably practicable. However, we reserve the right to retain in our
archival files any information we remove from or change in our active
website databases. We may retain such information to resolve disputes,
troubleshoot problems and enforce our terms of use. In addition, it is
not technologically possible to remove each and every record of the
information you have provided to us. A copy of your personal information
may exist in a non-erasable form that will be difficult or impossible
for us to locate.
This Policy is effective as of January 1, 2009. We reserve the right to
change this Policy at any time, and will post any changes to this Policy
as soon as they go into effect. Please refer back to this Policy on a
regular basis.
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