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Last Revised: April 22, 2013
Your privacy is important to Hoodle, Inc. (“us” or “we”). This Privacy Policy explains the following:
This notice applies to all information we collect at the www.hoodle.net website (“our Website”). By using our Website you acknowledge that information collected by us is provided voluntarily and that we may use such information in accordance with our Terms of Service, which include this Privacy Policy. We can update this Privacy Policy and/or our Terms of Service generally at any time, and we will update the Last Revised date above and/or within the Terms of Service when we do so. If you decide to register on our Website you must agree with our Terms Service, including this Privacy Policy.
You must register in order to use most features of our Website. The required information that we collect about you at registration is:
We use your email address in case we every need to get in touch with you about your account. Having your first and last name allows us to address you more personally in any communications we have with you, and also helps us to find your account information if you ever forget what email address you are registered on our Website with. Finally, your zip code is required so we can limit the pages of our Website that we show you based on where you live.
In addition to the required registration information, we will collect the following optional information if you provide it:
If you provide optional information it may be used to help display advertisements or sponsored information that is most applicable to you. Providing your time zone allows us to display times on our Website based on where you live (we default to using Central time if you don’t choose a time zone). We don’t have any current use for your street address, but we have plans in the future where it would be used to help you determine which advertisers and/or sponsors to visit based on their distance from your home.
Finally, we collect list of possible email subscriptions you can choose at registration. You are not required to subscribe to any of the emails that are offered. If you check the box (or leave the box checked, if it is already checked) for any of these subscriptions, you will receive periodic emails from us based on those selections. Some email subscriptions will collect additional information from you in order to tailor their content or delivery to your preferences.
Every computer connected to the Internet is assigned a unique number known as an Internet Protocol (IP) address. We store the IP address for your computer when you take certain actions on our site, such as registering, changing your user profile information, and adding, changing, or deleting a comment you make about a store. This allows us to better answer questions that you might have about this information. We may also store the IP address with other information that you post in order to help prevent fraudulent information from being posted on our Website. In addition to your IP address, your computer provides information about what type of computer and operating system you have, which web browser you are using, etc. We don’t use or save that information, but the analytical tools described below may collect this information to provide us with statistics on this information which helps us ensure that our Website works with the systems and browsers that are most popular with our users.
We use “cookies” to store information on your computer. A cookie is a small file that is placed on your computer when you access our Website. These cookies allow us to keep track of your information after you log in, and also help us know if another website (perhaps an online advertisement or someone’s blog) is what initially linked you to our Website.
We use different third-party analytical tools (“Tools”) to help us understand how our users are interacting with our Website. These Tools use cookies to help track these interactions. Cookies that the Tools create allow them to record, for example, that anonymous user A has visited certain pages of our Website in a certain order, and anonymous user B returns to the site about once a week and usually just visits one page. The statistics about how our users travel through our Website and which links and features are the most popular help us to continually improve the services we provide to you. We do not share any personal information about our users with these Tools, and they do not collect such information on our behalf.
Cookies do not install any software on your computer, cannot be used to deliver viruses to your computer, and don’t contain any personally identifiable information when used by our Website. You have the ability to accept or reject cookies with your web browser. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser settings to reject cookies. If you reject cookies by changing your browser settings, then be aware that you will be unable to login to our Website.
Emails that we send you for any subscriptions that you have chosen may contain electronic images known as web beacons (sometimes also called single-pixel images). These allow us to determine whether these email messages have been opened by you.
Our Website may mark or tag you with retargeting pixels so that based upon your previous interaction with our Website ads from certain advertisers and/or sponsors, and/or for certain types of products, may be displayed to you on our Website as well as on sites other than our Website.
To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of information, we have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.
We use the information you provide about yourself at registration to show you content that is relevant to where you live. We may also share this personal information with outside parties as set forth below.
We use return email addresses to answer the email we receive from you. We may also periodically send email to the email address you login with if you have chosen to receive any email subscriptions that we offer. You can manage your email subscriptions on your Account Settings page within your dashboard, and any emails that you receive from your subscriptions will include information on how you can remove yourself from further mailings of that category, or all email subscriptions that we offer. Email subscriptions may include information about the favorite products and stores that you have indicated interest in on our Website. Anyone with access to your email account will be able to view the content of these subscription emails.
We may aggregate personal information provided by you and other users of our Website, and may disclose such aggregated information to third parties only in an anonymous/non-personally identifiable manner for purposes including the following:
Such information does not identify you individually. For example, we may tell advertisers or sponsors that X number of individuals visited a certain page on our Website, or that Y number of men and Z number of women within different ranges of birth years have registered at our site, but we will not disclose anything that could be used to identify specific individuals. We may also use anonymous/non-identifying category information to display advertisements or sponsored information to you while you visit our Website based on the User Profile information that you have provided. Some parts of our Website are financially supported by sponsors and display content that may be matched to you based on information you have posted to our Website or actions you have taken on our Website. Advertisers, sponsors, or other entities may also purchase information from us for their own research purposes, which will also provide only anonymous/non-identifying and aggregate information. Since advertising and sponsorship revenues support the benefits that you have in using our Website, we strive to provide advertising and sponsorship opportunities that will be of value to both you and the advertiser or sponsor. When you click on an advertisement or a sponsored link that is displayed on our site, we may provide this anonymous/non-identifying category information to the advertiser or sponsor. Once you leave our Website to visit an advertiser’s or sponsor’s site, you should read the privacy policy of that site before providing it with any information.
Access to your account information and any other personal information you provide is strictly restricted to our employees, as needed in order to answer any questions that you have, and to operate, develop, or improve our Website.
We always assume that you would opt-out or otherwise prohibit any use not described above, and your specific authorization is required before any such unrelated uses. In summary, we never use or share the personal information collected by us in ways unrelated to the ones described above without a specific authorization from you, except in cases where we are compelled to do so by order or requirement of a court, administrative agency, or other governmental body.
Should we ever merge with another company or be acquired, the successor company will either continue to comply with this Privacy Policy or notify you of changes that will be made to this Privacy Policy so you may take appropriate action if you do not wish to accept the planned changes.
Protecting the privacy of children is especially important. For that reason, our Website Terms of Service require anyone that registers on our Website to be of a legal age required to form a binding contract with us (this age is typically 18 or 21, depending on the state in which the person resides). Since no child under that age is permitted to register on our Website, we never collect or maintain information on our Website from those we actually know are under that age. No part of our Website is designed to attract anyone under this age. We will terminate your access in the event that we become aware you are under the required age.
You can access all of the information that we collect at the time of your registration and correct errors in it by visiting the Account Preferences in your dashboard. Any errors in the purchase information you have posted cannot be corrected at this time. You may at any time edit or delete comments that you have posted for stores by using standard features on our Website.
You may disable your account at any time by using the Disable Account link on your Account dashboard page. This will archive all personally identifiable information that we collected prior to you disabling your account. Your personal information, purchasing history and store ratings will remain in the system, however, in order to benefit other users without providing any personally identifiable information to them about you, and also so that such information will be available with respect to your account if you re-register at a later time.
To protect your privacy and security, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access to our Website. We depend on SSL Encryption services to secure all webpages where you provide sensitive information, and an important part of your security is your choice of a good password and your protection of that password.
Our Website includes links to other websites that are owned and operated by merchants, online service providers, and other third parties. Since we do not have control over the policies or practices of these third parties, we are not responsible for the privacy practices of those sites. We recommend and encourage that you always review the privacy policies of any website before you provide any personal information or complete any transaction on such website.
Should you have other questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, please send an email to support@myhoodle.com, or get in touch with us on our “Contact Us” page on the website to send an inquiry.