Scope
This Website Privacy Statement is effective as of the date listed above.
If we decide to change our Website Privacy Statement, we will post those changes
to this Website Privacy Statement accessible on the homepage of the Websites,
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 via either email or by posting a notice on the Websites
for 30 days.
- Personal Information and How We Use It
Generally it is possible to use the Websites without providing us with any personally
identifiable information, but on some of our Websites, users have the option
of providing various types of personal information to make the best use of available
services and features. This section describes what we collect and how we use
it. Providing the information is always voluntary, however, and you can always
choose not to provide the information by choosing not to use the service or
feature. By providing the information you agree to our use consistent with this
statement.
INFORMATION SUBMITTED BY YOU
Zip Code Only: On some of the Websites, you have the choice of providing
your ZIP Code. We use your ZIP Code to compute TruePrice including the cost
of shipping and sales tax. In connection with some of the matching services
we provide (e.g. mortgage and real estate services), we may also use your
ZIP Code to match you with third parties offering services in your area.
E-mail Address Only: On some of the Websites if you wish to sign
up as a registered user, register for either Price Alerts (through our Watch
List feature) or our Buyer's Alert Newsletter, provide product reviews,
be matched with participating service providers, we require that you provide
us with your email address. We will use this to email you with the Price
Alert, the Buyer's Alert Newsletter, and other information or service provider
match results you may have requested.
Basic Contact Info: On some of the Websites a user be able to become
a registered user. When a user decides to become a registered user , we
ask for some basic contact information, such as username, ZIP Codes, and
email address. We use this basic contact information to facilitate the use
of certain features of our Websites (e.g., TruePrice price and submission
of product/merchant reviews) and to send you information about our company,
services and products, and to communicate occasional offers from our partners
and advertisers.
Complete Contact Info: When a user wishes to be contacted by a merchant
such as an auto dealer in their local area, we collect full name, e-mail
address, and phone number.
On some of the Websites a registered user may decide to become a merchant.
When registering as a merchant, we collect complete contact information,
i.e., full name, address, e-mail address, and phone number, as well as credit
card number and expiration date. We use this information to validate the
merchant's identity and to bill the merchant for services provided by PriceBlaze
and approved in advance by the merchant. All credit card information is
encrypted.
Service User Information: On the Websites where it is available,
if a user wants to receive information about mortgages, real estate services,
personal finance, or insurance, PriceBlaze requests that users of certain
Website services complete a questionnaire, which includes personal financial
and contact information ("Service User Information"). Service User Information
enables PriceBlaze to provide Service Users with information specifically
about requested services.
Content or Correspondence Submitted By You: When a user chooses
to post content on any of the Websites where posting is available, for example,
in the form of a product or merchant review, or submits personal correspondence
to PriceBlaze, we may collect and maintain that information in a file specific
to the user.
INFORMATION ACQUIRED AUTOMATICALLY
We collect certain information on the Websites through the user's experience
and activities, cookies, log files, clear gifs, and/or third parties to create
a profile of our users. A profile is stored information that we keep on individual
users that detail their viewing preferences, activities and interactions with
PriceBlaze. Consequently, collected information is tied to the user's personally
identifiable information to provide offers and improve the content of the site
for the user. This profile is used to tailor a user's visit to the Websites,
and, subject to the Opt-Out Policy stated below, to direct pertinent marketing
promotions and communications to them.
Cookies: A cookie is a piece of data tied to information about the
user and stored on the user's computer. We use both session cookies, which
terminate when a user closes his browser, and persistent cookies, which
remain on the user's computer until manually deleted. Cookies are used to
help make your use of our Websites more enjoyable. PriceBlaze creates these
cookie files on your hard drive through your browser and uses them to save
information on your PriceBlaze username, ZIP Codes and Website preferences
so you can avoid re-entry of this information each time you visit our Websites.
Cookies also help us to deliver content specific to your interests. You
may decline our cookies if your web browser software permits, although this
may prevent you from accessing certain features on our Websites.
Log Files: Like most standard website 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 Web site, track user's
movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for
aggregate use. We use your IP address at times to help identify you as you
browse and to gather broad technical and demographic information on who
uses our Websites. We do not tie log files to personally identifiable information.
Clear Gifs (Web Beacons/Web Bugs): We employ and/or our third party
advertisers employ a software technology called clear gifs (also known as
Web Beacons or Web Bugs). They help us better manage content on our site
by informing us what content and which campaigns are effective. Clear gifs
are tiny graphics, about the size of a period at the end of a sentence,
with a unique identifier. Clear gifs are similar in function to cookies
and are used to track the online movements of Web users. In addition, PriceBlaze
and its advertisers may use clear gifs in HTML-based emails. This allows
us to gauge the effectiveness of certain communications and the effectiveness
of our marketing campaigns by showing how many emails recipients have opened.
We do not tie web-beacons to personally identifiable information.
GENERAL USES OF INFORMATION
In addition to the uses described above, we may use your personal information
for any of the following:
- To contact you in response to a customer service question from you, or
in relation to any issue arising in respect of the agreement between PriceBlaze
and you, or to resolve or attempt to resolve a dispute between users or
between PriceBlaze and you.
- To process credit card payments approved in advance by you.
- To allow you to send an email to another user who is listing an item for
sale on our site, where available.
- To assist law enforcement or other governmental agencies investigating
cases of possible illegal activities by third parties.
- To improve the experience of using the Websites, improve PriceBlaze's
products and services, improve marketing and promotion of our products and
services, customize the Websites' content and layout, and generally improve
the Websites to meet your needs better.
- Who We Share Your Personal Information With
Aggregated information: We aggregate personal information into statistics
about users, their usage of the Websites, traffic patterns, and demographics.
We may provide third parties with such statistics, but never in a way that
would make the information personally identifiable: this data is aggregated
from millions of users to the Websites each month.
Merchants and Lenders: If you choose to submit to us your Complete
Contact Info as part of a request to be contacted by a merchant or merchants,
we will supply to the merchant(s) your Complete Contact Info and those merchant(s)
will contact you using the information regarding the specific query which
you have raised. Merchant(s) that receive your Complete Contact Info may contact
you regarding other products and/or services. If you choose to submit to us
a questionnaire which includes Service User Information, we may provide the
information submitted in that questionnaire to any of our participating merchants
or Lenders who may provide the products or services to which your request
relates. Your submission of the questionnaire will be your consent to our
disclosure to any such merchant(s) or Lender. PriceBlaze does not have control
over the use of the Service User Information once provided to merchant(s)
or Lenders: your rights in respect of their treatment of your information
will be governed by their own policies.
Processing Agents: We may from time to time use external service providers
to facilitate or outsource elements of our service or operation of the Websites,
including without limitation the use of agencies to process credit card transactions.
Business Transfer: As we continue to develop our business we might
buy or sell companies, subsidiaries, or business units. In such transactions,
customer information is generally one of the transferred assets but remains
subject to the promises made in any pre-existing privacy policy. In the event
that our company, or substantially all of its assets, is acquired, your information
may be one of the transferred assets and we may share it with an actual or
potential acquirer.
Legal Requests and Customers' Requests: We cooperate with law enforcement
inquiries and third parties to enforce all applicable laws including but not
limited to laws relating to intellectual property rights, fraud, and other
rights. Therefore, we can (and you authorize us to) release your name, city,
state, telephone number, email address, previous fraud complaints, if any,
and other account and personal information without a subpoena, court order
or other substantially similar legal procedure to law enforcement entities
when we believe release is necessary to comply with the law to protect the
rights, property, or integrity of the Websites, our customers, users or third
parties, or to prevent illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving
potential threat to the physical safety of any person, or violation of PriceBlaze's
Term of Use. Further we can (and you authorize us to) disclose your name,
street address, city, state, zip code, country, phone number, email, and company
name to consumers who have alleged fraud or any other consumer dispute relating
to their transactions and/or communications with you.
Other Trusted Parties: We may provide your contact information and
other personal data to trusted third parties to provide information on products
and services that may be of interest to you.
- Accessing and Changing your Personal Information
For registered users on some of the Websites, a user can review personal identifiable
information by logging in with the user email and password and then clicking
on the "My Account" link located at the top right of each page. After accessing
the user's My Account page, click the appropriate link under the General Account
Information section to make changes as necessary.
For access and changes of any other data, please contact
us. Upon receipt of your request, and possibly subject to identification
measures, we will provide you with reasonable access and comply with appropriate
data correction requests in accordance with applicable law. For access requests,
we will respond within thirty (30) days upon receiving your request.
You should also note that if we have provided your information to third parties,
you will have to make a separate request to them directly if you want to have
your information removed from, or corrected in, their databases.
- Third Party Advertising and Links to Third Party Websites
Third parties displaying advertisements on our Websites may also use cookies
or clear gifs which are activated when you click on those advertisements. PriceBlaze
does not control the use of cookies and clear gifs by third parties. The use
of cookies and clear gifs by these companies is subject to their own privacy
policies, which you may review by visiting their websites.
- Choice/Opt-out Policy
We understand you may not want to receive email from us or from our partners
and advertisers. You can choose to opt-out of receiving email communications
from us - and from our sharing your contact data with our partners and with
advertisers for direct marketing purposes - by selecting to opt out if and when
you register on our Websites, by following the unsubscribe instructions in the
email communication or by contacting the partner or advertiser directly.
To opt out of receiving all other PriceBlaze mailings after you have registered,
click the appropriate unsubscribe link contained within the email that you
receive. Please note that opting out may prevent you from receiving email
from PriceBlaze regarding updates and improvements to the Websites or offers
and promotions we may be offering.
In some cases we request that you submit personal information in order to
forward this information to our partners that have products or services in
which you may be interested. In the event we share this information with our
partners (e.g., Lenders or car dealers), we no longer have control over the
use of such information and your rights regarding such use will be governed
by the policies of our partners. You will then have to contact them directly
with any opt-out request.
- YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS
Beginning on January 1, 2005, California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits
residents of California who are registered users and use our service for private,
family or household purposes to request certain standard information regarding
our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing
purposes (including a list of categories of data disclosed in the previous calendar
year and names and addresses of data recipients). To make such a request, please
contact us as provided below.
- Internet Crime Complaint Center
PriceBlaze wants your Internet surfing experience to be safe. Help protect yourself.
If you believe you have been a victim of Internet crime you can file a complaint
with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center. Their
website is http://www.ic3.gov/.
- Contact
Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of the Websites,
or your use of the Websites, please contact us at
PriceBlaze.com
2622 W. Lincoln Ave
Suite 106
Anaheim, CA 92801
