This Hintbug.com Privacy Statement discloses the information privacy practices for www.hintbug.com. The Hintbug.com Web site is intended for use by persons that are over 13 years of age.
Hintbug.com collects personally identifiable information ("PII") about you that you specifically and voluntarily provide. PII includes information that can identify you as a specific individual, such as your name, phone number, or e-mail address. Although you are required to register as a member of Hintbug.com in order to use selected registry tools, and some PII is needed in order to create an account, many areas of Hintbug.com can be accessed without providing any PII.
On all Hintbug.com pages that collect PII, we specifically describe what information is required in order to provide you with the service you have requested.
Information collected about you
Hintbug.com collects PII when you:
Become a member/create an account
Hintbug.com collects your name and e-mail address when you register to become a member of our service.
Add or edit member profile information
Hintbug.com collects your address (in part or in full) in the member profile. This is so that the people you designate as your friends and family members will have your shipping address handy. This information is stored in the 'Your Account' area of a member's Hintbug.com account.
Participate in surveys
Hintbug.com may offer our members and site visitors an opportunity to participate in surveys regarding their experience with our site. For our members, we may also send these surveys via e-mail. You are under no obligation to respond to any survey, and you may unsubscribe from receiving these e-mail surveys by following the unsubscribe instructions in any e-mail survey you receive. Information collected by Hintbug.com when you participate in a survey may include your full name, e-mail address, and street address.
Contact Hintbug.com
Hintbug.com collects PII such as your full name, e-mail address, and/or contact number whenever you submit a question or suggestion, or request assistance with logging in to Hintbug.com, viewing your account, or viewing another member’s Hintlist.
Do business with our affiliates
Hintbug.com has entered into affiliate programs with reputable third parties to offer our members and site visitors a variety of products and services. All products and services throughout Hintbug.com that are provided by a third-party partner are described as such. Although we only work with reputable third parties, our business affiliates may have different privacy policies and practices than Hintbug.com. We encourage you to review our business affiliates’ privacy policies to further understand their procedures for collecting, using, and disclosing your information.
Other information we collect
Some information is collected automatically every time you visit Hintbug.com (e.g., cookies and computer information). In addition, information may be collected from other independent, third-party sources.
Cookies and other Web technologies
When you visit Hintbug.com we collect information about your computer and assign you a "cookie" (a small, unique identifier text file). You do not provide this information—it is collected automatically as a means of supporting your visit to our site. This cookie does not contain any PII. You can always choose to not receive a cookie file by enabling your Web browser to refuse cookies or prompt you before accepting a cookie. Be advised that, by refusing to accept a cookie, you will not be able to access many services offered by Hintbug.com.
When you sign in to Hintbug.com as a member, we record the name on the member account in the cookie file on your computer. Your name and password are stored in the cookie file as encrypted data, so no one can view the information it contains by obtaining unauthorized access to your computer. Permanent cookie files remain on your computer's hard drive until you manually delete the file.
A cookie file may also be placed on your hard drive by Hintbug.com's third-party advertising and traffic measurement companies. Some of these companies may use aggregated statistics about your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services that you may be interested in. The information they collect does not include your PII.
The third-party advertising and traffic measurement companies may also employ technology that is used to measure the effectiveness of ads and the Web site in general. This is primarily accomplished through the use of a Web beacon (a single-pixel GIF), which is placed on our site to collect anonymous information. They may use this anonymous information about your visits to this and other sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of potential interest to you. No PII is collected during this process. The information is anonymous and does not link online actions to an identifiable person.
Computer information
Hintbug.com collects certain technical information from your computer each time you request a page during a visit to Hintbug.com. This information is collected from your computer's Web browser to enhance your experience on our site and may include your IP address, operating system, Web browser software (e.g., Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer), screen resolution, and referrer Web site.
Use of your information
Information collected on Hintbug.com may be used to:
Register you as an Hintbug.com member
When you register to become a member of Hintbug.com, we use your information to create your member account. You will then receive a "Welcome to Hintbug.com" e-mail that confirms your email address.
Send marketing communications or surveys to you
As a registered Hintbug.com member, you may receive e-mails from us about upgrades to the Hintbug.com Web site, special promotions, surveys, contests, or other newsworthy events. To assess the effectiveness of these e-mails, we may attach a Web beacon that provides confirmation when you open an e-mail from Hintbug.com. This only occurs if your computer supports such technology.
Respond to your questions or suggestions
We will use your e-mail address or telephone number to respond when you submit a question or suggestion, or request assistance with logging in to Hintbug.com, viewing your account, or viewing another member’s Hintlist.
Improving the quality of your visit to our site
We collect certain information based on your navigation of our site in order to better understand and serve our customers. This data allows us to streamline your navigation of the site and develop featured programs and content that will be of interest to our members and site visitors. No PII is collected unless you explicitly provide it.
This information can also be used to display targeted advertisements. Advertisement information is taken from data you explicitly provide on the Hintbug.com Web site, such as a brand preferences and interests. No PII is used to deliver targeted advertisements.
Sharing your information
Hintbug.com does not sell or rent your PII to anyone.
Service providers
Hintbug.com will occasionally share aggregated information with our service providers. This information does not contain any PII and is used to develop featured programs and content that will be of interest to our members and site visitors.
Our obligations
Hintbug.com may be required by law to disclose information you have provided in obtaining our services. Hintbug.com may also disclose information against someone who poses a threat to Hintbug.com's interests (such as customer fraud) or whose activities could bring harm to others.
Other Web sites
There are several places throughout Hintbug.com that may link you to other Web sites that do not operate under Hintbug.com's information privacy practices. When you click through to these Web sites, Hintbug.com's information privacy practices no longer apply. We recommend that you examine the privacy statements for all third-party Web sites to understand their procedures for collecting, using, and disclosing your information.
Control over and access to your information
Hintbug.com believes that members and site visitors should have control over the collection and use of their PII. You have access to your information in the following areas of Hintbug.com:
Your Account
The Your Account page on Hintbug.com allows members to view and change their account settings. The e-mail settings option lets you change your e-mail address. You can change your password. You can update or correct names, phone numbers, preferences, etc.
Communications from Hintbug.com
Members will receive communications from Hintbug.com when they:
Sign up to become a Hintbug.com member
When you sign up as a new Hintbug.com member, you will receive a "Welcome to Hintbug.com" e-mail. This e-mail is used to confirm your email address.
Are invited to use Hintbug.com by another member
When a friend or family member invites you to join Hintbug.com, you will receive a “Welcome to Hinbug.com" e-mail. This e-mail will contain a link that will permit you access to your new account.
Have forgotten your password
If you forget your password, there is a link that will trigger the system to create a new password for you and email it to the email address in your member profile.
Protecting your information
We want our members and site visitors to feel confident about using Hintbug.com, so we are committed to protecting the information we collect. Hintbug.com has implemented a security program to keep information that is stored in our systems protected from unauthorized access. Currently, Hintbug.com only stores the information you provide when registering to become a Hintbug.com member and when creating a profile.
Our systems are configured with data encryption, or scrambling, technologies and industry-standard firewalls.
Changes to the Hintbug.com Privacy Statement
This Privacy Statement was produced and posted on Hintbug.com on August 29, 2005. Hintbug.com reserves the right to modify or amend this Privacy Statement at any time and for any reason. If there are material changes to this statement or in how Hintbug.com will use your PII, Hintbug.com will prominently post such changes prior to implementing the change.
Regardless of later updates, we will abide by the information privacy practices described in this Privacy Statement at the time you provided us with your information.