Privacy
We have created this privacy policy in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to safeguarding your personal information online. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for this web site. Please read this privacy policy before using the site or submitting any personal information. By using the site, you accept the practices described here.
We may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should always check this page when visiting our site to ensure that you understand any changes made and how any personal information you choose to provide will be used.
Log Files
The great majority of websites online, ours included, collect data contained in server log files. The information in the log files include your IP (internet protocol) address, your ISP (internet service provider, such as AOL, AT&T or Comcast), the browser you used to visit our site (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox), the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site. We may use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer our Web site. Your IP address is used to help identify your computer and to gather broad demographic information, such as what countries our users come from.
Cookies and Web Beacons
A cookie is a small file placed on your computer’s hard drive which helps analyze web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to recognize and respond to you in a personalized way. We may use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you visit our site. This could include only showing you a popup once in your visit, or the ability to login to some of our features, such as forums.
We also use third party advertisements (such as Google AdSense or Kontera) to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites). You can choose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.
Deleting cookies does not mean you have permanently opted out of any advertising program. Unless you have browser settings that disallow cookies, the next time you visit a site running the advertisements, a new cookie will be added.
DoubleClick DART cookies
We also may use DART cookies for ad serving through Google’s DoubleClick program, which places a cookie on your computer when you are browsing the web and visit a site using DoubleClick advertising (including some Google AdSense advertisements). This cookie is used to serve ads specific to you and your interests (”interest based targeting”). The ads served will be targeted based on your previous browsing history. For example, if you have been viewing sites about buying hammocks, you may see hammock advertisements when viewing a non-related site, such as on a site about hockey. DART uses “non personally identifiable information”. It does NOT track personal information about you, such as your name, email address, physical address, telephone number, social security numbers, bank account numbers or credit card numbers. You can opt-out of this ad serving on all sites using this advertising by visiting http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/dart_adserving.aspx
User Registration
Our site’s registration form requires users to give us contact information, like their name and email address, and unique identifiers. We require this information to provide you with quality service, and in particular for the following reasons: to facilitate a specific request on our site, for example, to post a comment on our blog or to subscribe to our email/RSS feed. Unique identifiers are collected to verify the user’s identity and for use in our record system. The contact information is also used to contact the visitor when necessary if they have subscribed to the mail list. All emails or feed subscriptions from this site allow you to opt out of further mailings. We absolutely will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes unless we have your permission. We hate sp@m as much as you do. However, we may share information with governmental agencies or other companies assisting us in fraud prevention or investigation. We may do so when: (1) permitted or required by law; or, (2) trying to protect against or prevent actual or potential fraud or unauthorized transactions; or, (3) investigating fraud which has already taken place.
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, please know that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be and are not responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you may provide while visiting such sites. Such websites are not governed by this privacy statement.
You should exercise caution and read the privacy statement of the linked website in question to understand their privacy practices.
Security
This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. All data is protected using the most advanced methods available. We do not store financial information like credit card numbers or unique personal information such as social security numbers on this site.
Our website may contain links to other sites. We cannot be and are not responsible for the security practices or the content of such web sites. Again, exercise caution and review the privacy policy of the linked site in question.
Your privacy is very important to us. Thank you for visiting and taking the time to read our privacy policy.
updated April 3, 2009
