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Usenet.com Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy is designed to inform you how
Usenet.com, Inc. (“we”, “our” or “us”)
collects, uses and safeguards information you provide
in connection with your use of the Usenet.com service,
including without limitation this website (the “Service”).
Your use of the Service constitutes your consent to
the collection and use of your information as described
in this Privacy Policy. If you do not accept the terms
of this Privacy Policy, do not use the Service.
Due to changes to the Service, changes in the law,
and the changing nature of technology, our information
gathering and sharing practices may change from time
to time, and we reserve the right to modify this Privacy
Policy, in whole or in part, at any time without notice
to you. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy
regularly in your use of the Service to ensure you
are aware of our current practices. Any use of the
Service by you following the date on which we implement
changes to this Privacy Policy shall constitute your
acceptance of all such changes.
What information do we collect?
Visitors to this website have the option of becoming
a subscriber to the Service by completing and submitting
an online registration form. To complete a registration
form, you will be required to select a user name and
password, and to provide certain personally identifiable
information, including without limitation your name,
address, telephone number, e-mail address, credit card
number and other relevant information (all such information, “User
Information”). Submitting a registration form
is strictly voluntary but is required in order for
you to subscribe to the Service. When you submit this
information, you are sharing this information with
us and our affiliates. You acknowledge that we may
utilize, your billing information may be collected
on our behalf by, third parties in connection with
the processing of your account fees.
We may give you
the opportunity to participate in sweepstakes or
contests from time to time. Information
we collect in connection with these sweepstakes and
contests may include contact information and survey
questions. Contact information provided in connection
with a sweepstakes or contest may be used to notify
winners, and we may use survey information to develop
future promotions, service improvements, and/or new
services.
We maintain a log of posts to newsgroups through the
Service by each Service user. Also, we may from time
to time maintain a log of certain information concerning
the network profile of Service users, including without
limitation users’ IP addresses (a computer’s
numerical Internet address) and the type of web browsers
used to access the Service, in anonymous, “aggregate” form
(in other words, we do not associate this information
with a specific subscriber, and you remain anonymous).
We do not process financial information. We do, however, use seperate billing agents, USAepay and CCBill; please review their respective privacy policies for more information.
Except as described in this Privacy Policy, we do
not collect any personally identifiable information
through the Service without your knowledge and consent.
How do we use information we collect?
We do not share your User Information with other
companies (except with companies providing any
portion of the
Service on our behalf and then only as necessary
for those companies to provide their services).
We may use your information to answer a customer
service
or billing question or other inquiry from you regarding
the Service or your account subscription, and for
its own internal business purposes. We may use
logged information (whether anonymous or linked
to you)
for its own internal business purposes only, including
without limitation to help diagnose problems with
our servers and for system administration.
We may disclose
your personally identifiable information in any
of the following circumstances: (1) in response
to a subpoena, search warrant, court order, or other
legal process, or as may otherwise be required by
applicable law or regulation; (2) to protect and defend
our rights
or property or those of our affiliates or others;
or (3) as we, in its sole discretion, believe is appropriate
under exigent circumstances in response to a perceived
significant threat to the personal safety or property
of any subscriber to the Service or any other person.
In addition, as our subscriber database is our business
asset, in the event we are reorganized or is sold to
or merged with another company, you consent to the
sale, assignment, or transfer of your personally identifiable
information to a purchaser of all or substantially
all of our business assets, or to our subsidiary or
affiliate, as appropriate.
Except as described above, we will not disclose, sell,
rent, or otherwise provide your personally identifiable
information to any third party without your consent.
How do we protect the security of the information
you provide?
We take what we believe to be reasonable precautions
and have implemented managerial and technical procedures
to try to protect the security of your User Information.
We strive to maintain the reliability, accuracy, completeness
and currency of User Information provided by Service
subscribers and to protect their privacy and security.
Although we cannot guarantee against any loss, misuse,
unauthorized disclosure, alteration or destruction
of data, we try to prevent such unfortunate occurrences.
Do we use cookies?
“
Cookies” are small pieces of information that
are stored by your web browser on your computer’s
hard drive. We use cookies only to log “inbound
links” to this website (e.g., through an online
advertisement, through a link in a search engine result,
through a link on a web page, etc.). We do not use
cookies to capture any personally identifying information
about you.
What’s our relationship with other websites
you can access through the Service?
This website, and newsgroup postings accessible through
the Service, may contain links to other Internet websites,
products, and/or services (“Third Party Services”)
which provide you with convenient access to publicly
available information that you may find of interest.
If you use a link to go from the Service to a Third
Party Service, this Privacy Policy will no longer apply.
Your use of a Third Party Service will be subject to
the rules and policies of that Third Party Service,
and you are encouraged to read over those rules and
policies. Your use of Third Party Services is at your
own risk.
How You Can Access Or Correct Your Information
You can access all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain by logging into the Members Area and visiting the account administration page. If you wish to change other details of your account, such as your username or factual errors, please submit a support request. To protect your privacy and security, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your indentity before granting access or making corrections.
What other information should you know about your
privacy?
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”)
prohibits certain commercial practices related to gathering,
storing, and disclosing personal information about
children under the age of 13 who use the Internet.
We will not knowingly or intentionally collect personal
information about children under the age of 13 without
prior parental consent. We cannot prohibit minors from
using the Service if they supply a valid username and
password issued to another person (e.g., a parent or
friend). We must rely on parents, guardians and those
responsible for supervision of children to monitor
the Internet activities of children under the age of
13. Each time you submit personally identifiable information
about yourself or your family through the Service,
you are representing to us that your are 18 years of
age or older.
All electronic communication services such as ours
are required to comply with the “mandatory reporting” requirements
of 42 U.S.C. § 13032(b), which requires such services
to report any apparent child pornography to the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In the event
we are required to make a report, it will include all
information regarding the apparent child pornography
it believes may be of importance. We will strictly
comply with this reporting requirement.
BBB Online Privacy Program
Your privacy is important to us. By participating in the Council of Better Business Bureau's BBBOnLine Privacy Program we have made a commitment to meet the program's strict requirements regarding how we treat your information and have it verified by BBBOnLine. Further information about this program is available at www.bbbonline.org
All BBBOnLine Privacy Program participants are required to work with the program's dispute resolution process. The Privacy Program will only accept complaints regarding the misuse of personally identifiable information by a website operator. For more information about the Privacy Program dispute resolution process visit www.bbbonline.org/privacy/dr.asp
How can you contact us with questions on this privacy
policy?
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy,
please e-mail us at privacy@usenet.com.
Copyright © 2004 Usenet.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
Rev. 121106
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