If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should contact Dennis Smith at the address listed at the end of this statement.

Revision history:

Information Collection and Use

Information Collection

CompanySmith, Inc. is the sole owner of the information collected on CompanySmith.com. CompanySmith, Inc. collects information from our users in conjunction with our email newsletter.

Registration

In order to receive our email newsletter, a user must first complete the registration form. During registration a user is required to give email address so we can deliver our newsletter and other occasional correspondence. 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, and unique identifiers (such as, name and location), 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 contact information such as name, email, and shipping address. Credit card and other payment information is not collected on this site.

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 and our newsletters for the user. This profile is used to tailor a user’s visit to our Web site, direct specific newsletter topics to users, and to direct pertinent marketing promotions to them. Your profile is shared in aggregate form only and in ways where your personal information cannot be determined.

Cookies

Cookies are used on this website to provide information about site usage including pages visited and number of unique visitors. This helps us make the site more useful to users. No specifically identifiable personal information is gathered.

A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer tied to information about the user. Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information while on our site. We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. For the session ID cookie, once users close the browser, the cookie simply terminates. A persistent cookie is a small text file stored on the user’s hard drive for an extended period of time. Persistent cookies can be removed by following Internet browser help file directions.

By setting a cookie on our site, users would not have to log in a password more than once, thereby saving time while on our site. 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. Persistent cookies enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our site. See the “Profile” section.

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

Third party advertising on this site is selected for inclusion by Google. Constant Contact, our email newsletter services provider appends ads to our newsletters with links to their website.

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, etc. are not linked to personally identifiable information.

Clear Gifs (Web Beacons/Web Bugs) We employ [or our third party advertising company employs] 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 are not 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] would 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 an advertising company [or Web site].

In addition, we 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.

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 users wishes.

Legal Disclaimer

Though 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 Advertisers

We do not share information with third party advertisers.

Third Party Intermediaries

We use an outside shipping company to ship orders, and a credit card processing company to bill users for goods and services. These companies do not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes.

Service Providers

We partner with other third parties such as www.roving.com and bcentral.com to provide specific services. Such as email newsletter services. When the user signs up for these particular services, we share names, or other contact information that is necessary for the third party to provide these services. These third parties are not allowed to use personally identifiable information except for the purpose of providing these services.

Business Transitions

In the event CompanySmith, Inc. 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. For example, our order form has an ‘opt-out’ mechanism so users who buy a product from us, but don’t want any marketing material, can keep their email address off of our lists.

Users who no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications may opt-out of receiving these communications by replying with unsubscribe in the subject line in the email or contact us at the address given at the end of this statement.

Users of our site are always notified when their information is being collected by any outside parties. We do this so our users can make an informed choice as to whether or not they should proceed with services that require an outside party.

Links

This Web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we, CompanySmith, Inc 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.

Surveys & Contests

From time-to-time our site requests information from users via surveys or contests. Participation in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose this information. The requested information typically includes contact information (such as name and shipping address), and demographic information (such as zip code). Contact information will be shared with the contest [survey] sponsors to notify the winners and award prizes. Survey information will be used for purposes of monitoring or improving the use and satisfaction of this site and our email newsletter. Users’ personally identifiable information is not shared with third parties unless we give prior notice and choice. Though we may use an intermediary to conduct these surveys or contests, they may not use users’ personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes.

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. www.roving.com will automatically send the friend a one-time email inviting them to visit the site. www.roving.com stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and tracking the success of our referral program.

Chat Rooms, Message Boards, and Public Forums

Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information online - for example on message boards, through e-mail, or in chat areas - that information can be collected and used by others. In short, by posting personal information online that is publicly accessible, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return.

Security

This Web site takes every precaution to protect our users’ information. When users submit sensitive information via the Web site, their information is protected both online and off-line.

None of the information collected on this site is secured with SSL or other methods. Caution should be used in disclosing any information that is felt to be personal or confidential. Users sending credit card transitions on our behalf through third parties should check security of that site.

WE NEVER ASK YOU FOR YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER, CREDIT CARD INFORMATION OR CHECKING INFORMATION ON THIS WEBSITE OR VIA EMAIL FROM COMPANYSMITH.COM.

If users have any questions about the security at our Web site, users can contact us at the address below.

Supplementation of Information

In order for this Web site to properly fulfill its obligation to users it is necessary for us to supplement the information we receive with information from 3rd party sources.

Credit Check

For example, to determine if clients are creditworthy, we use their name and social security number to request a credit report. Once we determine a user’s credit-worthiness, this document is destroyed.

Enhancement of Marketing Profile

We purchase third party marketing data and add it to our existing user database to better target our advertising and provide pertinent offers we think our users would be interested in. We use this information to enhance or overlay the ‘profile’ of individual users. This aggregate marketing data is therefore tied to the users’ personally identifiable information. See also the “Profile.”

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 using the links at the end of our newsletter or by contacting us directly.

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:

Phone:                508-250-7570

Postal Address:    CompanySmith, Inc. 

                         82 Carrington Lane

                         Uxbridge, MA  015639

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