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Privacy Policy
Research Hound is strongly committed to protecting your privacy and providing a
safe online experience for all our users. This Privacy Policy applies to information
collected online through Research Hound’s Web site(s), which includes all of the
Research Hound partner sites and governs online data collection and usage by Research
Hound. Please read the complete Research Hound Online Privacy Policy below and contact
us if you have any questions. What We Do with Collected Information, Use of Cookies,
Use of Web Beacons, Controlling Your Personal Information, Security of Your Personal
Information, Children's Privacy, Changes in Corporate Structure, Visitors World
Wide, Changes to Our Privacy Policy.
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Last Updated: January 20, 2009
COLLECTION AND TRACKING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
So that we can provide you with the most efficient and enhanced service(s) possible,
we request information about you. We collect personally identifiable information
such as names, email addresses and demographic information such as age, gender and
postal code. We also may collect your IP address, browser type, domain name, access
times and referring Web site address. This information is collected both during
registration on the site or in response to specific requests, for example when signing
up for a newsletter and answering a survey. Information collected at one Research
Hound Web site will be available within the Research Hound family of Web sites.
Sometimes we will give you the opportunity to opt in to offers from third parties
not affiliated with Research Hound. If you decide to accept these offers, we will
provide, with your consent, your information to the third party. However, you should
note that this Privacy Policy does not apply to information users consent to give
to third parties not affiliated with Research Hound. Any information users give
to another party is governed by the rules of that party's privacy policy, which
may differ from this Privacy Policy. Research Hound is not responsible for information
given to other parties. Please review their privacy policies prior to providing
any information to third parties.
WHAT WE DO WITH COLLECTED INFORMATION
We use personal information so that we may display custom, personalized content
to our visitors and send newsletters, emails, features, promotional material, surveys
and other updates to our users. A user may, at any time, opt out of receiving such
information. We also use collected information to evaluate and administer our service,
respond to any problems that may arise and to gauge user trends to determine what
part of our services are most popular with users. We may extend offers to users
on behalf of our partners about a particular product or service that may be of interest
to you, but we will never give out your name or personal information at any time
without your permission. As result, although Research Hound may receive a fee from
our partners for this service, Research Hound sends all the offers so that your
personal information is never shared with any outside third party. We may, at times,
produce reports for advertisers containing aggregate information about our users
such as demographic, age and online usage information. This allows us to work more
closely with advertisers to provide content and offers that are most relevant to
our users. We will never include any personal information of our users in these
reports. We allow users of our Web site to send articles or links by email to other
parties who may be interested in them. We do not retain any email addresses (unless
you are a member who already has voluntarily provided your email address) of either
the sender or recipient of such articles or links after they are sent. We reserve
the right to use or disclose any information without notice or consent as needed
to satisfy any law, regulation or legal request; to conduct investigations of consumer
complaints or possible breaches of law; to protect the integrity of our site and
our property; to protect the safety of our visitors or others; to fulfill your requests;
or to cooperate in any legal investigation. You should be aware that if you voluntarily
disclose information online (whether through Research Hound services or any other
service available online), personal or otherwise, that information can be collected
and used by others. For example, if you use chat, forums, bulletin boards, and your
e-mail or if you post personal information online, you may receive unsolicited messages
from others. Research Hound has no control over this use of your personal information.
USE OF COOKIES
Your browser offers so-called "cookies" which, if you allow their use, store small
amounts of data on your computer when you visit a Web site. Cookies do not contain
any personally identifiable information about you and therefore cannot be used to
identify you personally. Cookies simply assist us in tracking which of our features
you like best. Cookies also enable us to customize our content according to your
preferences. You have the ability to accept or decline cookies by modifying your
browser and our Web sites are viewable even if you disable the cookie function on
your browser. However, if you disable cookies, some advanced and customized features
of our site, as well as other Web sites, will not be available to you. We may also
place a cookie on your browser so that this and other Web Sites owned by Research
Hound will recognize you as a unique, anonymous user. This will enable us to make
sure that you do not see the same ad over and over, to sequence ads in a series,
and to measure more accurately the number of unique visitors across the network
of Research Hound Web sites.
USE OF WEB BEACONS Some of our Web pages may contain electronic images known
as Web beacons, which are also called single-pixel gifs. These images allow us to
count users who have visited those pages and to deliver co-branded services. We
also may include Web beacons in promotional e-mail messages or newsletters in order
to count how many messages have been opened and acted upon. Web beacons are not
used to access your personally identifiable information but they are a technique
we use to compile aggregated statistics about our Web site usage. Web beacons collect
only a limited set of information including a cookie number, time and date of a
page view, originating IP address, and a description of the page on which the Web
beacon resides. Some of our Web pages may also contain Web beacons placed there
by our advertising partners to help us determine the effectiveness of our advertising
campaigns.
CONTROLLING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
A user may, at any time, change, correct, modify or delete any personal information
they may have provided to Research Hound by visiting the Member Center located on
the Research Hound homepage. Users can also unsubscribe from any newsletters or
opt out of various promotional emailings at any time by visiting the Newsletters
or Profile section in the Member Center or clicking on "unsubscribe" links at the
bottom of each of our newsletters or emails.
SECURITY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
Research Hound employees are made aware of its privacy practices through periodic
communications and training. We limit access to private and confidential data only
to those employees with a specific need to retrieve this information and we store
data on multiple service systems, in controlled, secure environments. To maintain
our level of security, we conduct both internal reviews and external audits of our
security measures and procedures on a regular basis.
CHILDREN'S PRIVACY
Some portions of the Research Hound Web site may be used by children under the age
of 13. Research Hound is strongly committed to protecting the safety and privacy
of children who visit our Web site. Research Hound has a system in place to effectively
screen its users to ensure compliance with this Privacy Policy and the Children's
Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA). COPPA and its accompanying regulations
establish United States federal law that protects the privacy of children using
the Internet. Our site and services may collect information about children under
13, including e-mail forum participation and chat rooms. Use of such activities
requires initial registration by the participant. Children under the age of 13 who
wish to register are asked to have a parent or legal guardian do so for them. The
parent must provide suitable proof for verification that he/she is an adult. Upon
verification, the parent can choose in which activities he or she would like the
child to participate. Parents can change the selected activities at any time. Only
after verifying age in accordance with Federal standards, do we collect and maintain
the name, date of birth and email address of children who register. With proper
proof of identification (including name and suitable verification), parents can
review their child's personal information, ask to have it deleted and refuse to
allow any further collection or use of their child's information. We use cookies
to check the age of registered users who enter chat rooms. We do not knowingly permit
users under 13 into chat rooms unless their parents have consented to their participation.
Research Hound includes many topical areas that all users may access. When a parent
provides verifiable consent to allow his or her child to use chat and forums and
to receive newsletters or other materials where a child may provide personally identifiable
information, the child will also have access to those relevant services throughout
the Research Hound site, including areas that may not be directed toward children.
In particular, if you allow your child to participate in chat or forums, your child
will have access to all chat and forum areas on Research Hound. Many chat areas
are not monitored and private chat is permitted. Chat areas may contain information
or language unsuitable for young children and visitors of all ages may participate.
If you authorize your child to participate in these features, we encourage you to
monitor their use closely. We also allow guests to participate in chat and forum
areas at Research Hound but use techniques to prevent unregistered children under
13 from participating in areas unsuitable for them. Parents can change these options
at any time. Except as authorized under COPPA, Research Hound will NOT: collect
online contact information from a user under 13 without prior verifiable parental
consent, which includes an opportunity for the parent to prevent use of the information
and participation in the activity. When we do not obtain prior verifiable parental
consent, online contact information will be used only to directly respond to the
child's request and will not be used to contact the child for other purposes. Collect
personally identifiable offline contact information from users under 13 without
prior verifiable parental consent. Distribute to third parties any personally identifiable
information collected from children known to be under 13. Give the ability to children
to participate in forums or chat rooms without prior verifiable parental consent.
Entice a child under 13 by the prospect of a special game, prize or other activity,
to divulge more information than is needed to participate in such activity. We will
also place prominent notice wherever personally identifiable information is collected
requesting the child to ask a parent for permission to proceed. If you have any
questions regarding the privacy and safety of children on our site, please either
email or call us.
CHANGES IN CORPORATE STRUCTURE
In developing our business, we might sell certain assets or the company, or parts
of it, may be sold, merged or otherwise transferred. In such transactions, user
information, whether personally identifiable or otherwise, may be one of the transferred
assets.
WORLD WIDE VISITORS
Our Web site and the servers that make this site available worldwide are located
in many different countries. All matters relating to these sites are governed by
the laws of the countries in which they are located. Any information you provide
will be transferred to those countries for storage. By visiting our sites and submitting
information, you authorize this transfer.
THIRD PARTY DATA
Research Hound utilizes public domain web sites outside its control and therefore
the information presented is controlled by third party entities and is outside our
domain of control. The quality, accuracy and persistent maintenance of the links
we provide is solely the responsibility and property of those third party web sites.
Information presented by Research Hound is provided as is at the time of capture
and edits made to that content may or may not be reflected in our articles.
CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY
We will occasionally update this Privacy Policy as necessary to maintain the highest
protection for our users and to comply with a changing environment. We recommend
that you check the policy when you visit our site to be sure you are aware of and
understand our current policy. If we make material changes to this policy or in
how we will use or collect your personally identifiable information, we will prominently
post such changes prior to implementing the change. We will not make changes in
how we handle previously collected personal information that have retroactive effect
unless legally required to do so.