Our Commitment to Privacy
Our Privacy Policy was developed as an extension of our commitment to combine the highest-quality services with the highest level of integrity in dealing with our members. The Policy is designed to assist you in understanding how we collect, use and safeguard the personal information you provide to us and to assist you in making informed decisions when using our site and services. This statement will be continuously assessed against new technologies, business practices and our members' needs.
What Information Do We Collect?
When you visit our Web site you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and Web site use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our Web site.
Personal Information You Choose to Provide
In addition to providing the foregoing information to our partners, if you choose to correspond further with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.
Web Site Use Information
Similar to other commercial Web sites, our Web site utilizes a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and Web server logs to collect information about how our Web site is used. Information gathered through cookies and Web server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our Web site, and the Web sites visited just before and just after our Web site. This information is collected on an aggregate basis. None of this information is associated with you as an individual.
How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us?
We use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing member service and making available other products and services to our members and prospective members. Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our Web site, new services we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you product and service offers are developed and managed under our traditional corporate standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of our members' personal information.
What Are Cookies?
Cookies are a feature of Web browser software that allows Web servers to recognize the computer used to access a Web site. Cookies are regular pieces of data that are stored by a user's Web browser on the user's hard drive. Cookies can remember what information a user accesses on one Web page to simplify subsequent interactions with that Web site by the same user or to use the information to streamline the user's transactions on related Web pages. This makes it easier for a user to move from Web page to Web page and to complete commercial transactions over the Internet. Cookies should make your online experience easier and more personalized.
How Do We Use Information We Collect from Cookies?
We use Web site browser software tools such as cookies and Web server logs to gather information about our Web site users' browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our Web site and better serve our members. This information assists us to design and arrange our Web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our Web site to better meet the needs of our members and prospective members.
Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our Web site as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our Web site and evaluate our Web site's visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you although they do permit us to send focused online banner advertisements or other such responses to you.
What About Other Web Sites Linked to Our Web Site?
We are not responsible for the practices employed by Web sites linked to or from our Web site nor the information or content contained therein. Often links to other Web sites are provided solely as pointers to information on topics that may be useful to the users of our Web site.
Please remember that when you use a link to go from our Web site to another Web site, our Privacy Policy is no longer in effect. Your browsing and interaction on any other Web site, including Web sites which have a link on our Web site, is subject to that Web site's own rules and policies. Please read over those rules and policies before proceeding.
Your Consent
By using our Web site you consent to our collection and use of your personal information as described in this Privacy Policy. If we change our privacy policies and procedures, we will post those changes on our Web site to keep you aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances we may disclose it.