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FTC INTERNET
SERVICES / FTC NETWORKS, LLC Privacy Statement
(last updated: January
2005)
FTC Internet
Services, a division of FTC Networks, LLC (“FTC”) is committed to
protecting your privacy. This FTC Privacy Statement applies to this
FTC NETWORKS, LLC Web site and governs data collection and usage at
all FTC sites and services; it does not apply to other online or
offline FTC NETWORKS, LLC sites, products or services. Please read
the FTC Privacy Statement below and also any supplementary
information at the end of this statement for additional details
about particular FTC sites and services that you may use.
FTC is a general
audience web site, intended for users of all ages. Personal
information of all users is collected, used and disclosed as
described in this Privacy Statement.
Collection
of your Personal Information
At some sites, FTC
collects personal information, such as your e-mail address, name,
home or work address or telephone number. FTC may also collect
demographic information, such as your ZIP code, age, gender,
preferences, interests and favorites. Information collected by FTC
may be combined with information obtained from other FTC NETWORKS,
LLC services and other companies.
If you choose to
sign up for a paid subscription service we will collect additional
personal information, including your credit card number and billing
address, in order to create a FTC NETWORKS, LLC billing account. You
can always add to or update the information in your billing account
through the Account Update area located at
http://FTCInternet.net/billing.
You can choose to
create an optional public profile, containing information about
yourself - such as your hobbies and interests. Any information you
choose to enter in your public profile will be visible to other
users of FTC sites and services; and when you interact with other
users (for example, sending a FTC Email message to another FTC email
account or interacting in a FTC Chat room), a link to your public
profile may be displayed. FTC urges you to be careful only to enter
information on your public profile that you are comfortable sharing
with the public at large. You may change, edit or delete information
about yourself from your public profile at any time while online by
going to settings.
FTC also collects
certain information about your computer hardware and software. This
information may include: your IP address, browser type, domain
names, access times and referring Web site addresses. This
information is used by FTC for the operation of the service, to
maintain quality of the service, and to provide general statistics
regarding use of FTC.
FTC keeps track of
the pages our customers visit within FTC, in order to determine what
FTC sites and services are the most popular. This data is also used
by FTC to deliver customized content and advertising to customers
whose behavior indicates that they are interested in a particular
subject area.
Some FTC services,
such as FTC Chat Rooms and FTC Groups, request that you create a
social nickname, which is the name you will be known by to others in
those public places. You may select a different social nickname at
any time. Please keep in mind that if you disclose personal
information through FTC Chats, FTC Groups, or other public online
forums, this information may be collected and used by others. FTC
cautions you against giving out personal information to strangers
online, which they may use for illegal or harmful purposes.
FTC encourages you
to review the privacy statements of Web sites you choose to link to
from FTC so that you can understand how those Web sites collect, use
and share your information. FTC NETWORKS, LLC is not responsible for
the privacy statements or other content on Web sites outside of the
FTC NETWORKS, LLC and FTC family of Web sites.
Use of your
Personal Information
FTC and its
operational service partners collect and use your personal
information to operate FTC and deliver the services you have
requested. FTC does not use or disclose sensitive personal
information, such as race, religion, or political affiliations,
without your explicit consent.
FTC also uses your
personal information to inform you of other products or services
available from FTC NETWORKS, LLC and its affiliates. FTC may also
contact you via surveys to conduct research about your opinion of
current services or of potential new services that may be offered.
FTC does not sell,
rent or lease its customer lists to third parties. FTC may, from
time to time, contact you on behalf of external business partners
about a particular offering that may be of interest to you. In those
cases, your personal information (e-mail, name, address, telephone
number) is not transferred to the third party.
Certain FTC
services may be co-branded and offered in conjunction with another
company. If you register for or use such services, both FTC and the
other company may receive information collected in conjunction with
the co-branded services. In such cases, either a joint privacy
statement or a link to the other company's privacy statement will be
provided, which will provide you with information about how the
other company will use the information and how you can contact the
other company with requests to access the information or other
inquiries.
We occasionally
hire other companies to provide limited services on our behalf, such
as handling the processing and delivery of mailings, providing
customer support, processing transactions, or performing statistical
analysis of our services. We will only provide those companies the
personal information they need to deliver the service. They are
required to maintain the confidentiality of your information and are
prohibited from using that information for any other purpose.
FTC may access
and/or disclose your personal information if required to do so by
law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:
(a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process
served on FTC NETWORKS, LLC or the site; (b) protect and defend the
rights or property of FTC NETWORKS, LLC, including its FTC family of
Web sites; or (c) act under exigent circumstances to protect the
personal safety of users of FTC services or members of the public.
Personal
information collected on this site may be stored and processed in
the United States or any other country in which FTC NETWORKS, LLC or
its affiliates, subsidiaries or agents maintain facilities, and by
using this site, you consent to any such transfer of information
outside of your country. FTC NETWORKS, LLC abides by the safe harbor
framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding
the collection, use, and retention of data from the European Union.
Control your
Personal Information
FTC offers its
customers choices for the collection, use and sharing of personal
information. You may go to the FTC Log In Preferences page to
proactively make choices about the use and sharing of your personal
information. You may choose not to receive marketing material from
FTC or on behalf of external third party business partners.
In addition, you
may visit the settings and personal profile section of any FTC Site
to view, edit or delete your personal information from the FTC
database.
You may also stop
the delivery of future promotional e-mail from FTC by following the
specific instructions in the e-mail you receive. The instructions
explain how to stop receiving such e-mails.
There are some FTC
services, including FTC Free Email, that send out periodic e-mails
informing you of technical service issues, product surveys, new
feature announcements and news about FTC products and services. You
will not be able to unsubscribe to these mailings, as they are
considered a part of the service you have chosen.
Security of
your Personal Information
FTC is committed to
protecting the security of your personal information. We use a
variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your
personal information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.
For example, we store the personal information you provide on
computer systems with limited access, that are located in controlled
facilities. When we transmit highly confidential information (such
as a credit card number) over the Internet, we protect it through
the use of encryption, such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
protocol.
When an FTC service
knows that a user is a child, it will not condition the child's
participation in an activity, such as a game or a prize drawing, on
the provision of more personal information than is reasonably
necessary to participate in that activity. Additionally, you have
the right, subject to verification that you are the child's parent,
to change or revoke the consent choices you have previously made for
FTC services and to review or request the deletion of your child's
personal information. You may send such requests, or any questions
you have about FTC's practices with regard to personal information
about your child, by clicking
on our
Contact Us
form to send e-mail or by sending postal mail to the address in
the "Contact Information" section of this Statement.
Use of
Cookies
FTC may use
"cookies" to help you personalize your online experience. A cookie
is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a Web page
server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to
your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be
read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.
One of the primary
purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you
time. For example, if you personalize FTC's pages, or register with
FTC sites or services, a cookie helps FTC to recall your specific
information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of
recording your personal information, such as billing addresses,
shipping addresses, and so on. When you return to FTC, the
information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can
easily use the FTC features that you customized.
You have the
ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers
automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your
browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to
decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the
interactive features of the FTC services or Web sites you visit.
Use of Web
Beacons
FTC Web pages may
contain electronic images known as Web beacons - sometimes called
single-pixel gifs - that allow FTC to count users who have visited
those pages and to deliver co-branded services. FTC may include web
beacons in promotional e-mail messages or FTC Newsletters in order
to count how many messages have been opened and acted upon. Web
beacons are not used to access your personal information on the FTC
network of sites and services; they are a technique we use to
compile aggregated statistics about FTC Web site usage.
Web beacons collect
only a limited set of information including a cookie number, time
and date of a page view, and a description of the page on which the
Web beacon resides. FTC Web pages may also contain Web beacons
placed there by third parties to help determine the effectiveness of
our joint promotional or advertising campaigns.
Use of Third
Party Ad Networks
The majority of the
online banner advertisements you see on FTC Web pages are displayed
by FTC.
In addition, FTC
allows other companies, called third-party ad servers or ad
networks, to display advertisements on FTC Web pages. Some of these
ad networks may place a persistent cookie on your computer. Doing
this allows the ad network to recognize your computer each time they
send you an online advertisement. In this way, ad networks may
compile information about where you, or others who are using your
computer, saw their advertisements and determine which ads are
clicked on. This information allows an ad network to deliver
targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest
to you. FTC NETWORKS, LLC does not have access to or control of the
cookies that may be placed by the third-party ad servers or ad
networks.
Changes to
this Statement
FTC will
occasionally update this Privacy Statement to reflect company and
customer feedback. When FTC posts changes to this Statement, you
will see the word "updated" next to the Privacy Statement link on
the front page of FTC. If there are material changes to this
Statement or in how FTC will use your personal information, FTC will
prominently post such changes prior to implementing the change. FTC
encourages you to periodically review this Statement to be informed
of how FTC NETWORKS, LLC is protecting your information.
Contact
Information
FTC welcomes your
comments regarding this Privacy Statement. If you believe that FTC
has not adhered to this Statement, please contact FTC by telephone,
e-mail, or postal mail.
FTC Privacy
FTC NETWORKS, LLC
Click our
Contact Us
form to email our Privacy Department
or by fax at:
(US) 309-439-8852
(UK) 44-870-121-0363
(Asia) 852-301-42039
FTC Customer Survey
Program
The FTC Customer Survey Program is an optional service in which you
can choose to participate. If you choose to participate, you allow
FTC NETWORKS, LLC to collect anonymous information about how you use
FTC NETWORKS, LLC software and services, as well as some information
about your computer.
For example, this
program details how many times you attempt to sign in, how long it
takes on average to open the home page, and how much time you spend
online during a given session. All of this information is anonymous
and does not include any personal information.
FTC performs this
service to help improve the technical quality of FTC NETWORKS, LLC
products and services. The Customer Experience Improvement Program
can be turned on or off at any time in FTC Explorer or FTC Internet
Software on the Privacy settings page.
FTC Health
FTC Health is
provided by various third party mental health organizations. Such
third party mental health organizations may request personal
information and demographic data to provide you with the health
related services you have requested. FTC does not collect or use any
of this information.
FTC
Newsletters
When you subscribe
to an FTC Newsletter, FTC requests your e-mail address. FTC uses
your e-mail address to send you the newsletter(s) you have
requested. You may subscribe and unsubscribe to FTC Newsletters by
going to http://FTCInternet.net/newsletter (coming soon). In
addition, each FTC newsletter you receive will have instructions on
how to unsubscribe prominently mentioned in it.
©2002-2005 FTC
NETWORKS, LLC. All rights reserved.
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