Privacy Statement for FreeAdvice.com
FreeAdvice, recognized as the Number
1 Legal Website for consumers and small businesses, respects the privacy of
visitors to our site. FreeAdvice.com is a unit of Advice Company (Advice &
Counsel Incorporated), a leading provider of information and advice and E-commerce
solutions on the Internet.
Please read this Privacy Policy so
that you can understand how we seek to enforce our firm commitment to privacy.
Questions regarding this statement should be directed to the Officer named below
by emailing admin@adviceco.com
We invite you to explore FreeAdvice.com
and its affiliated Websites, including www.AttorneyPages.com
and www.ExpertPages.com and www.DoItYourself.com.
Information this Site Gathers /
Tracks
The information gathered by Advice
Company falls into two categories: (1) information voluntarily supplied by visitors
to our websites when they register or initiate transactions, and (2) tracking
information gathered as visitors navigate through our sites. Third party providers
featured on or linked to from our websites, such as vendors of products and
services offered through our sites, may be gathering the same kinds of information.
To help make our sites more responsive
to the needs of our visitors, help you navigate between sections, tailor content
to your needs and to measure traffic within our sites, our web servers automatically
collect limited information about your computer's connection to the Internet,
including your IP address, when you visit our sites. They also invoke a standard
feature of browser software, called a "cookie," to assign each visitor
a unique, random number, a sort of user ID, which resides on your computer.
The cookie helps give us an idea of which parts of our site users are visiting
and doesn't actually identify the visitor, just the computer that a visitor
uses to access our site.
Unless you voluntarily identify yourself
(through registration, for example), we won't know who you are, even if we assign
a cookie to your computer. The only personal information a cookie can contain
is information you supply. Our cookies can't read unrelated data from your computer.
Our advertisers and the third parties that provide products or services through
our sites may also assign their own cookies to your browser, but we don't control
their cookies or their processes, and they do not regularly share information
they gather with us.
To make use of certain features on
our websites (such as free email, personal web pages, our ask a lawyer live
chat, bulletin boards and other interactive forums) visitors need to register
and to provide certain information as part of the registration process. We may
also ask for information from those who buy products or services or conduct
other transactions on our websites. We may ask, for example, for your name,
email address, street address, sex, age, city or town, zip code (and for those
who seek to purchase a product or service, credit card number), and we sometimes
request information on your interest in other topics.
The information you supply may help
us to offer you more personalized features, to tailor our sites to your interests
and make them more useful to you, and to process e-commerce transactions. Of
course, even if you want to remain completely anonymous, you're still free to
take advantage of the wealth of content available on our sites without registration.
The vast majority of our site does NOT require visitors to complete a registration
form or give us contact information (such as a name and email address) to visit.
The more we know about our visitors
the more value we can potentially offer them. Supplying such information is
entirely voluntary. But if you don't supply the information we require, we may
be unable to provide you with services we make available to other visitors to
our sites. For example, while we allow anyone to read postings in our Bulletin
Board / Forums without registration, asking a question or furnishing an answer
requires registration, which enables visitors to modify their own posts. Our
one-on-one live chat feature, FreeAdvice Live! also requires a separate registration.
And we can't send you targeted email alerting you to a relevant new service
we're offering, or articles on topics of interest to you, if you don't tell
us what you're interested in and give us your email address. Similarly, we can't
notify you that you've been lucky enough to win a prize in a promotional contest
if we don't know how to contact you. Such personal information is gathered by
us only with our users` knowing and active permission and participation.
Our online surveys and contests ask
visitors for contact information (like their email address) and demographic
information (like their zip code, age, or income level). Demographic and profile
data collected at our site may be shared with advertisers on an aggregate basis.
We collect financial information
(like an account or credit card numbers) only from visitors making a credit
card or other purchase. We use the financial information solely to bill the
user for products and services and necessary information from the order form
to send orders.
We also use customer contact information
from the various registration forms, opt in features and service features to
send the user information about our site, our company and our affiliates. Users
may opt-out of receiving routine future mailings; see the choice/opt-out section
below
As this privacy policy reaffirms,
we strive to protect confidentiality for our visitors. We do reserve the right
to use customer contact and other information when we deem it necessary or appropriate
to comply with applicable laws, rules, or lawful orders of courts and governmental
agencies, to enforce compliance with the terms and conditions for use of our
sites, or to protect third parties from what we regard as threats of serious
harm.
Links to Other Sites
This site contains links to thousands
of other sites. The establishment of a link does not mean that FreeAdvice.com
has approved of a site, is endorsing a site, has reviewed its content, or is
in any manner recommending a visit. FreeAdvice.com is not responsible for the
privacy practices or the content of linked Web sites.
Third Party Features
Certain features of and portions
on our site are also the result of special relationships, such as "Powered
By" or Co-Branding or affiliate programs. For example, we provide a Free
Email feature in cooperation with EveryOne.net, the latest SEC information in
cooperation with Edgar Online, a bookstore in affiliation with Amazon. and Legal
Forms in conjunction with US Legal Forms, and interactive chat using LivePerson’s
technology. These firms share varying amounts of information with us. You are
encouraged to review the privacy policies of such providers before providing
information to them.
Advertising and Cookies
FreeAdvice displays advertising on
the Web site and we also work with several unaffiliated companies that serve
ads when you visit portions of our website. Among the outside ad companies
are Latitude 90, DoubleClick’s Sonar Network, and Engage Media’s Flycast to
display ads on our site. These ads may contain cookies. Cookies received
with such banner or other ads are collected by our advertisers and/or ad companies,
and we do not have access to such information. These companies may use that
information (not including your name, address, email address, telephone number,
or credit card number) about your visits to this and other websites in order
to provide advertisements on this site and about other sites and goods and services
that they think may be of interest to you.
To find out more about their practices,
how these sites have told us they manage the privacy of information in conjunction
with serving ads on our site, and to know your choices about not having this
information used by such companies, please go to:
http://www.sonar.com/content/privacy.htm
and http://www.flycast.com/about_us/about-privacy.html
and http://www.l90.com/external_site/privacy_policy.html
Public Forums
This site makes chat rooms, forums,
message boards, and/or news groups available to its users. Please remember that
any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information
and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information.
We do reserve the right to delete any postings at any time.
Security
This site has numerous security measures
in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under
our control. The measures include passwords, linkages to secure servers, encryption,
backup tapes, and conventional locks and alarm systems. However we cannot guarantee
that the measures in place have been, are now, or will remain adequate.
Children's Guidelines
This Web site is directed at adults,
not children, and we do not seek to collect from children online contact information, or
distribute to third parties any personally identifiable information from children,
or entice children by the prospect of a special game, prize or other activity,
to divulge information to us. We won't knowingly allow anyone under 13 to register
with any of our sites or to provide any other personally identifying information
without written approval of a parent or guardian.
Choice/Opt-Out
Our site provides users the opportunity
to opt-out of receiving communications from us and sites associated with us
at the point where we request information about the visitor. This site gives
users various options for removing postings and other information, and to discontinue
receive future communications from us. For example, the Forums have provisions
for visitors to edit or remove postings they have made, and our Newsletters
have linkages or return addresses for recipients to direct that they unsubscribe.
For specifics concerning a matter impacting you, you can send email to admin@adviceco.com
or by mail to the following postal address: PO Box 1739, Sausalito, CA
94965
Revisions / Corrections / Updates
We reserve the right to change our
privacy policy from time to time. If we do change our privacy policy in the
future, we'll post the changes when they take effect. This site gives users options for
changing and modifying information previously provided, often at the feature
on which you registered. For specifics concerning a matter impacting you, you
can send email to admin@adviceco.com
or by mail to the following postal address: PO Box 1739, Sausalito, CA 94966
Contacting the Web Site
If you have any questions about this
privacy statement, which is effective March 21, 2001, the practices of this
site, or your dealings with this Web site, you can contact
Mary Martin, Vice-President
FreeAdvice.com / Advice Company
PO Box 1739
Sausalito, CA 94966
admin@adviceco.com |