AnswerSquad Privacy Statement
This privacy statement covers the site AnswerSquad.com.
Because we
want to demonstrate our commitment to our users' privacy,
this page discloses our information practices, including:
- What personally identifiable information AnswerSquad collects.
- What personally identifiable information third parties collect
through the Web site.
- What organization collects the information.
- How AnswerSquad uses the information.
- With whom AnswerSquad may share user information.
- What choices are available to users regarding collection, use
and distribution of the information.
- What types of security procedures are in place to protect the
loss, misuse or alteration of information under AnswerSquad
control.
- How users can correct any inaccuracies in the information.
If users have questions or concerns regarding this statement, they
should contact Dave Taylor, founder of AnswerSquad by email. To
do so, please use our contact form.
Information Collection and Use
Information Collection
AnswerSquad is the sole owner of the personal information collected on
the AnswerSquad Web site and mailing list. AnswerSquad collects
information from our users at several different points on our Web site.
Registration
In order to join the AnswerSquad group, a user must first complete the
registration form. During registration a user is required to
give contact information (such as name and email address). We use
this information to subscribe the user to our members-only mailing
list(s) and to allow them access to the AnswerSquad discussion
archives.
We currently request no demographic information (such as income level and gender) but reserve the right to request that information in the future for
a better customer profile. We do assign unique identifiers to all
customers (username and password) and those are only valid for one
person during the time they are paying for membership in the group.
Order
We request information from the user on our store order form. A user must
provide contact information (such as name, email, and shipping
address) and financial information (such as credit card number,
expiration date). This information is used for billing purposes and
to fill customer's orders. If we have trouble processing an order,
the information is used to contact the user.
Information Use
All of the information we collect is intended to be private and only
used for the specific purposes detailed during collection. If you
order an AnswerSquad T-shirt, for example, we'll use the billing
and shipping information to ensure that the shirt gets to your doorstep.
To be a part of AnswerSquad, you need to pay a subscription fee, and we
do work with Paypal to allow recurring billing.
Profile
We store information that we collect through cookies and log files
to create a profile of our users. But we don't actually use the profile
other than to ensure that store orders are filled and that you
are up-to-date with your subscription fees and receiving the mailings.
Cookies
A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's computer tied to
information about the user. We use cookies to allow easy access to
our discussion archives for members, and our partner
sites (Paypal and CafePress) both do: their cookie data is
not accessible by us, and frankly we're not interested in it anyway.
Each of those organizations has their own privacy policy if you
care to learn more.
Log Files
Like most standard Web site servers we use log files. This includes
Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service
provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp,
and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track
user's movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic
information for aggregate use. IP addresses, etc. are not linked to
personally identifiable information.
We use a tracking utility called Urchin that uses log files to
analyze user movement.
Communications from the Site
General Discussion & Updates
We send all new members a welcoming email to verify password and
username. Established members will receive a steady flow of
messages from the private members-only AnswerSquad mailing
list(s).
Out of respect for the privacy and preferences of our subscribers,
we do have an option to not receive these types of communications.
This makes the most sense for vacation breaks and similar: we do
not have an automated way of tracking off-list time, however, so
please contact us directly for arrangements.
Service Announcements
On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service
related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily
suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally,
users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can
deactivate their account. However, these communications are not
promotional in nature.
Sharing
We do not share information about our subscribers with any other
organization. We do not sell or give your information to marketers, and
we do not carry advertisements in our discussion mailing list messages.
Legal Disclaimer
Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to
disclose personal information when required by law wherein we have a
good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a
current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on
our Web site.
Aggregate Information (non-personally identifiable)
We do not share any aggregated demographic information
with our partners.
Third Party Intermediaries
We use an outside shipping company to ship orders, and both an online
financial system and a credit card processing company to bill users for
goods and services. We have
looked into these companies policies and they
do not share or use personally identifiable information
for any secondary purposes. If this changes, we reserve the right
to find new intermediaries and third-party partners.
Note that both Paypal and CafePress have their own
privacy statements: please see the
Paypal privacy statement and the
CafePress
privacy statement for
more details.
Business Transitions
In the event AnswerSquad goes through a business transition,
such as a merger, being acquired by another company, or selling a
portion of its assets, users' personal information will, in most
instances, be part of the assets transferred.
Choice/Opt-out
You're not given the opportunity to `opt-out' because
there's nothing to opt out of. For example, our order form doesn't
have an 'opt-out' mechanism because we don't send out marketing material
and don't build any sort of list of that nature.
Users who no longer wish to receive our subscription mailings
may opt-out of receiving these communications by explicitly
requesting to unsubscribe using our contact
form.
Please note that stopping the delivery of your messages via the Web
interface is insufficient because we have no way of knowing that
this has occurred.
Links
This Web site contains links to other sites. Lots of them. Please be
aware that we, AnswerSquad, are not responsible for the privacy practices of
such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave
our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every Web site
that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy
statement applies solely to information collected by this Web site.
Surveys & Contests
From time-to-time our site requests information from users via
surveys or contests. Participation in these surveys or contests is
completely voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether or
not to disclose this information. The requested information typically
includes contact information (such as name and shipping address), and
demographic information (such as zip code). Contact information will
be used to notify the winners and award prizes. Anonymous survey
information will be used
for purposes of monitoring or improving the use and satisfaction of
this service. Users' personally identifiable information is not shared
with third parties unless we give prior notice and choice. Though we
may use an intermediary to conduct these surveys or contests, they may
not use users' personally identifiable information for any secondary
purposes.
Tell-A-Friend
If a user elects to use our referral service for informing a friend
about our site, we ask them for the friend's name and email address.
AnswerSquad will automatically send the friend a one-time email
inviting them to visit the site. AnswerSquad uses
this information for the sole purpose of sending this
one-time email.
Chat Rooms, Message Boards, and Public Forums
Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal
information online - for example in the email discussion list, on any
message boards or weblogs we might set up, or
in chat areas - that information can be collected and used by others.
In short, by posting personal information online that is publicly
accessible, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in
return.
Security
This Web site takes every precaution to protect our users'
information. When users submit sensitive information via the Web
site, their information is protected both online and off-line.
When our registration/order form asks users to enter sensitive
information (e.g. credit card number or Paypal ID information),
that information is encrypted and is protected with the best
encryption software in the industry - SSL. While on a secure page,
such as our order form, the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers
such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes
locked, as opposed to un-locked, or open, when users are just
"surfing".
While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online,
we also do everything in our power to protect user-information
off-line. All of our users' information, not just the sensitive
information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only
employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for
example, our billing clerk or a customer service representative) are
granted access to personally identifiable information.
Furthermore, ALL employees are kept up-to-date
on our security and privacy practices. Every blue moon or so, as well as
any time new policies are added, our employees are notified and/or
reminded about the importance we place on privacy, and what they can
do to ensure our users' information is protected. Finally, the
servers that store personally identifiable information are in a secure
environment.
If users have any questions about the security at our Web site, users
can use our contact form to let us know.
Correcting/Updating/Deleting/Deactivating Personal Information
If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as zip
code, phone, email or postal address), or if a user no longer desires
our service, we provide a way to correct, update or delete/deactivate
users' personally identifiable information. This can usually be done
at the member information page or by emailing our Customer Support
through our contact page. Please note
that disabling your subscription is not the same as canceling your
service and we will continue our recurring billing process until
you notify us that you wish to drop.
Notification of Changes
If we decide to change our privacy policy, which isn't bloody likely
since this is such a monster document in the first place and it's
like getting a free lobotomy to even edit this thing, we will post
those changes to this privacy statement, to the Web site, to our
discussion lists, and other places we deem appropriate so our users
are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it,
and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
If, however, we are going to use users' personally identifiable
information in a manner different from that stated at the time of
collection we will notify users by both sending a message to the
discussion list(s) and posting a notice on our Web site.
Contact Information
If users have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy
policy, please contact us through our
contact form so that it'll be routed to the proper person.