PRIVACY STATEMENT
This privacy statement covers the site www.furnacecompare.com.
- What personally identifiable information FurnaceCompare collects.
- What personally identifiable information third parties collect through the Web site.
- What organization collects the information.
- How FurnaceCompare uses the information.
- With whom FurnaceCompare may share user information.
- What choices are available to users regarding collection, use and distribution of the information.
- What types of security procedures are in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of information under FurnaceCompare control.
- How users can correct any inaccuracies in the information.
If users have questions or concerns
regarding this statement, they should first contact the privacy officer
at privacy@furnacecompare.com.
Information Collection
FurnaceCompare is the sole owner of the information collected on www.furnacecompare.com.
FurnaceCompare collects information from our users at several different
points on our Web site.
Registration
In order to use this Web site, a user must first complete the registration form.
During registration a user is required to
give contact information (such as name, email address and password). We use this
information to contact the user about services on our site for which he has
expressed interest. It is optional for
the user to provide demographic information, but encouraged so we
can provide a more personalized experience on our site.
Order
We request information from the user on our
order form. A user must provide
financial information (such as credit card number,
expiration date and zip code). This information is
used for billing purposes and to fill customer’s orders.
If we have trouble processing an order, the
information is used to contact the user.
Information Use
Profile
We store information that we collect through 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 details their viewing preferences.
Consequently, collected information is tied
to the users 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 our Web site, and to direct pertinent marketing promotions to
them. We do not share your profile with other third parties.
Cookies
A
cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer tied to information
about the user. We use session ID cookies. For the session ID
cookie, once users close the browser, the cookie simply terminates.
If users reject 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 log in, or access
information which requires that the user be logged in.
Some
of our business partners use cookies on our site (for example,
advertisers).
However, we have no
access to or control over these cookies, once we have given permission for them
to set cookies for advertising.
Third Party Advertising
The ads appearing on this Web site are delivered to users by our web
advertising partners. Information about users’ visit to this site, such as
number of times they have viewed an ad (but not user name, address, or other
personal information), is used to serve ads to users on this site.
This privacy statement
covers the use of cookies by www.furnacecompare.com only and does not cover the use of
cookies by any advertisers.
Log Files
Like most standard Web site 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 site, track user’s
movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for
aggregate use. IP addresses are
not linked to personally identifiable information.
Clear Gifs (Web Beacons/Web Bugs)
We may employ (or our third
party advertising company may employ) a software technology called clear gifs
(a.k.a. Web Beacons/Web Bugs), that help us better manage content on our site
by informing us what content is effective.
Clear gifs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in
function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of Web users.
The main difference between the two is that clear gifs are invisible on the
page and are much smaller, about the size of the period at the end of this
sentence. Clear gifs may be tied to users’ personally identifiable information.
Clear Gifs can "work
with" existing cookies on a computer if they are both from the same Web
site or advertising company.
That means, for example, that if a person visited “www.companyX.com”, which uses an
advertising company's clear gif, the Web site (or advertising company) could
match the clear gif's identifier and the advertising company's cookie ID
number, to show the past online behavior for that computer. This collected
information would then be given to the advertising company (or Web site).
In addition, we may use clear
gifs in our HTML-based emails to let us know which emails have been opened by
the recipients. This allows us to gauge
the effectiveness of certain communications and the effectiveness of our
marketing campaigns. If users would
like to opt-out of these emails, please see the Opt-out section.
Communications from the Site
Special Offers and Updates
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 the Choice and Opt-out sections.
Newsletter
If a user wishes to subscribe to our newsletter, we ask for contact information
such as name and email address. Out of
respect for our users privacy we provide a way to opt-out of these communications.
Please see the Choice and Opt-out sections.
Service Announcements
On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related
announcement. For instance, if our
service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an
email. Generally, users may not opt-out
of these communications, though they can deactivate their account.
However, these communications are not
promotional in nature.
Customer Service
We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in
regards to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone, in
accordance with the user's wishes.
Sharing
Legal Disclaimer
Although we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose personal
information when required by law wherein we have a good-faith belief that such
action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order
or legal process served on our Web site.
Aggregate Information (non-personally identifiable)
We share aggregated demographic information with our partners and
advertisers. This is not
linked to any personally identifiable information.
Third Party Intermediaries
We use a credit card processing
company to bill users for goods and services. This company does not retain,
share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary
purposes.
Business Transitions
In the event FurnaceCompare goes through a business transition, such as a
merger, being acquired by another company, or selling a portion of its assets,
users’ personal information will, in most instances, be part of the assets
transferred.
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
information.
Users who no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications may
opt-out of receiving these communications by replying to unsubscribe in the
subject line in the email or email us at privacy@furnacecompare.com.
Links
This Web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we, FurnaceCompare,
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.
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.
FurnaceCompare will automatically send the friend a one-time
email inviting them to visit the site.
FurnaceCompare stores this information for the
sole purpose of sending this one-time email (and tracking the success of our
referral program).
Security
This Web site takes every precaution to protect our
users’ information.
We 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 user information.
Furthermore, ALL employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices.
Finally, the servers that
store personally identifiable information are in a secure environment,
If users have any questions about the security at our
Web site, users can send an email to privacy@furnacecompare.com.
Correcting/Updating/Deleting/Deactivating Personal Information
If a user’s personally identifiable information changes (such as zip code, phone,
email or postal address), or if a user no longer desires our service, we
provide a way to correct, update or delete/deactivate users’ personally
identifiable information. This can usually be done
by emailing our Customer Support at customer_support@furnacecompare.com.
Notification of Changes
If we
decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy
statement, the homepage, 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 by posting a notice on our Web site for 30 days.
Contact Information
If users have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please
contact us at: privacy@furnacecompare.com.
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