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PRIVACY STATEMENT
This privacy statement discloses the privacy practices for Friends and Benefits
The Online Privacy Alliance is an
independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to build users’ trust
and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information
practices. Because this web site wants to demonstrate its commitment to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose
its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance
by Online Privacy Alliance.
By displaying the Online Privacy Alliance trustmark,
this web site has agreed to notify you of:
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What personally identifiable information of yours or third party personally identification is
collected from you through the web site
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The organization collecting the information
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How the information is used
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With whom the information may be shared
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What choices are available to you regarding collection, use and
distribution of the information
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The kind of security procedures that are in place to protect the loss,
misuse or alteration of information under Friends and Benefits control
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How you can correct any inaccuracies in the information.
If you feel that this company is not abiding by its posted privacy policy, you
should first contact Darlene Fischer by EMAIL,
[Click Here To Email Darlene Fischer].
If you do not receive acknowledgment of your inquiry or your inquiry has not
been satisfactorily addressed, you should then contact
Online Privacy Alliance.
The Online Privacy Alliance
will then serve as a liaison with the Web site to resolve your
concerns.
Information Collection and Use
Friends and Benefits is the sole owner of the information collected on this site.
We will not sell, share, or rent this information to others in ways
different from what is disclosed in this statement.
Friends and Benefits collects information from our users at several different points
on our website.
Registration
In order to use this website, a user must first complete the registration form.
During registration a user is required to give their contact information
(such as name and email address) and unique identifiers (such as social security number).
This information is used to contact the user about the services on our site for which
they have expressed interest.
It is optional for the user to provide demographic information (such as income level
and gender), but
encouraged so we can provide a more personalized experience on our site.
Order
We request information from the user on our order form.
Here a user must provide contact information (like name and
shipping address) and financial information (like 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, this contact information is used
to get in touch with the user.
Cookies
A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s hard drive containing
information about the user. Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally
identifiable information while
on our site. Once the user closes their browser, the cookie simply terminates.
For instance, by setting a cookie on our site, the user would not have to
log in a password more than once, thereby saving time while on our site.
If a user rejects the cookie, they may still use our site.
The only drawback to this is that the user will be limited in some areas
of our site. For example, the user
will not be able to participate in any of our Sweepstakes, Contests or monthly
Drawings that take place. Cookies can also enable us to track and target the
interests of our users to enhance the experience on our site.
Log Files
We use IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s
movement, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use.
IP addresses are linked to personally identifiable information.
Sharing
We will share aggregated demographic information with our partners.
This is not linked to any personal information that can identify
any individual person.
We use an outside shipping company to ship orders, and a credit card processing
company to bill users for goods and services. These companies do not retain,
share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary
purposes.
We partner with another party to provide specific services. When the user signs up
for these services, we will share names, or other contact information that is
necessary for the third party to provide these services.
These
parties are not allowed to use personally identifiable information except for
the purpose of providing these services.
Links
This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we Friends and Benefits 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.
Newsletter
If a user wishes to subscribe to our newsletter, we ask for contact
information such as name and email address.
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.
Information requested may include contact information (such as name and
shipping address), and demographic information (such as zip code, age level).
Contact information will be used to notify the winners and award prizes.
Survey information will be used for purposes of monitoring or improving
the use and satisfaction of this site.
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.
Friends and Benefits will automatically send the friend a one-time email inviting them to visit
the site. Friends and Benefits stores this
information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email.
The friend may contact Friends and Benefits at http://friendsandbenefits.info to request the removal
of this information from their database.
Security
This website
takes every precaution to protect our users’ information.
When users submit sensitive information via the website, your information
is protected both online and off-line.
When our
registration/order form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as
credit card number and/or social security number), 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 you are just
‘surfing’. To learn more about
SSL, follow this link http://friendsandbenefits.info.
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.
Our employees must use password-protected screen-savers when they leave
their desk. When they return, they
must re-enter their password to re-gain access to your information.
Furthermore, ALL employees are kept up-to-date on our security and
privacy practices.
Every quarter, 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 customers’ information is
protected. Finally, the servers
that we store personally identifiable information on are kept in a secure
environment, behind a locked cage.
If you have any
questions about the security at our website, you can send an email to Friendsbarter@gmail.com .
Special Offers
We send all new members a welcoming email to verify password and username.
Established members will occasionally receive information on products, services,
special deals, and a newsletter. Out of respect for the privacy of our users we
present the option to not receive these types of communications. Please see our
choice and opt-out below.
Site and Service Updates
We also send the user site and service announcement updates. Members are not able
to un-subscribe from service announcements, which contain important information
about the service. We communicate with the user to provide requested services
and in regards to issues relating to their account via email or phone.
Correction/Updating Personal Information:
If a user’s personally identifiable information changes (such as your zip code),
or if a user no longer desires our service, we will endeavor to provide a way to
correct, update or remove that user’s personal data provided to us.
This can usually be done at the member information page
or by emailing our Customer Support
[Some sites may also provide telephone or postal mail options for
updating or correcting personal information].
Choice/Opt-out
Our users are given the
opportunity to ‘opt-out’ of having their information used for purposes not
directly related to our site at the point where we ask for the information.
For example, our order form has an ‘opt-out’ mechanism so users who
buy a product from us, but don’t want any marketing material, can keep their
email address off of our lists.
Users
who no longer wish to receive our newsletter or promotional materials from our
partners may opt-out of receiving these communications by replying to
unsubscribe in the subject line in the email or email us at Friendsbarter@gmail.com
[Some sites are able to offer opt-out mechanisms on member information
pages and also supply a telephone or postal option as a way to opt-out.]
Users
of our site are always notified when their information is being collected by any
outside parties. We do this so our
users can make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with
services that require an outside party, or not.
Notification of Changes
If we decide to change our
privacy policy, we will post those changes on our Homepage 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
at any point we decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner
different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will notify users by
way of an email. Users will have a
choice as to whether or not we use their information in this different manner.
We will use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the
information was collected.
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