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The Details
In our efforts to serve the content you request in a meaningful manner and
to conduct ordinary operational business, it is necessary for us
collect a small amount of information from you. In this section
we do our best to divulge all the details you need to feel comfortable
as an educated and duly cautious consumer with our methods for collecting,
storing, and utilizing your information.
The Information Submitted by Members
All data collected at www.vocabvitamins.com, or otherwise collected
through the Vocab Vitamins Complete or MyWordaDay services, is solely
owned by Fire Escape Partners, the parent company and creator of
both services.
We collect data from our members and guests at several points, including
the following: Registration:
In order to access specific areas of the Vocab Vitamins website,
or to receive our daily newsletter, MyWordaDay, or to gain access
to our Vocab Vitamins Complete service, visitors must first register.
Information collected from the user during the registration process
is used to deliver the services requested and to help us understand
the demographics of our user base.
Username, Password: In order to store important user-specific
account settings and to provide the user with access to manage and
benefit from these settings, we need a username and password to
identify each member.
Email Address: We need the users? email
address to deliver MyWordaDay, as well to conduct standard communications
with the member regarding account administration and other news
and offers pertinent to the user as a member of our site and services.
In addition, our partners may contact a user with various items
of marketing material through the email address provided in the
event that the user opts-in to receive third party marketing. Registration
alone on the part of the user, without an additional opt-in to receive
such third party marketing material, will not be considered permission
to reach the user for these purposes.
Name: We request a name from the user
in an effort to communicate more personally from time to time, according
the purposes outlined in Email Address.
Gender, Year of Birth, Zip/Postal Code,
Country, Primary Language, Professional Industry: We collect
this information primarily to better understand the demographic
background of our users in aggregate form. The content or nature
of our site and services may be adjusted from time to time, based
in part on important shifts in these metrics. These statistics may
be shared with our marketing partners in aggregate form to help
them understand our audience. Answers to these questions also enable
us to select individuals for more targeted communication of administrative
news and for marketing purposes -- though we will always adhere
to the rules of contact stated in Email Address. It should
be noted that answers to demographic questions will not generally
qualify our users for additional communications -- to contrary,
we select by demographics, where appropriate, to limit the number
of members being contacted to only those for whom the communications
are most likely to be relevant. Without demographics, all users
would equally qualify for these communications, and would thus be
more likely to be contacted needlessly.
Email Program: This information helps
us optimize the features and aesthetics of email we send to our
various members according to their respective email programs.
We do not collect postal address or credit
card information: Any such data submitted by users wishing to
donate to Vocab Vitamins or to make a purchase at Vocab Vitamins
are handled by our third party billing partners, iBill, Wells Fargo,
and PayPal. We do not store or request access to this data, as we
have no need of it. All third party billing partners are carefully
screened and have committed to secure submitted information according
to strict industry standards. For additional information about the
data handling and usage practices of each billing partner, please
refer to their web sites directly:
IBill
Wells Fargo
PayPal
Tell-A-Friend, Gift Subscription, and similar features:
In various areas of the site we offer members and visitors the opportunity
to refer others to Vocab Vitamins, or to purchase subscriptions
or other products for others, through online forms. We require a
small amount of data about the individuals receiving a notice or
subscription, including, but not limited to email address. No information
submitted on behalf of these third parties, including email address,
will be used for any additional marketing purposes beyond those
explicitly stated on the form. We will not consider these individuals
consenting members of our service until the end user, to the best
of our knowledge, takes affirmative action. If, for any reason,
the receiving individual would like their information removed from
our database, they can request appropriate action in an email to
privacy@vocabvitamins.com.
Forgot My Password/Username, and other Account Administration
related forms:
We have created several forms to serve various account administration
related purposes in an effort to enhance the usability of individual
accounts and to minimize the waiting time for basic, common member
requests. Any data submitted in these forms, including email address,
username, name, etc., are used exclusively to serve the purposes
stated on the form, and they are never used for promotional or other
marketing purposes, unless such intention is stated explicitly on
the form.
Correspondence to Customer Service Representatives and Employees:
All correspondence sent to customer service representatives and
employees of Fire Escape Partners will be addressed discretely,
with matters handled privately between the originator of correspondence
and the appropriate representative at our company, whenever feasible
or prudent under prevailing law. Please note that Fire Escape Partners
exclusively owns all rights to correspondence submitted to its representatives,
and that under certain circumstances, such as when a member submits
correspondence that can be considered a testimonial, we reserve
the right to publicly display such correspondence, in all or in
part. In such instances, we will always protect the originator?s
personally identifiable information (email address, full name, etc.).
Additional Methods of Data Collection
Cookies:
A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user?s computer tied to
information about the user. 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.
We use cookies to save important information about the user (i.e.
username, password, state ? logged in, not logged in, etc.) to reduce
the number of times a user must engage in repetitive actions, such
as logging in, and to facilitate the progression and scoring of
various learning tools. If users reject cookies, they may still
use our site. The only drawback to this is that the user will be
limited in some. For example, the user may be forced to login repeatedly
every time they request a page or an item on a page that it restricted
to a particular member type, and various learning tools may be unable
to function, possibly resulting in unpredictable errors.
Some of our business partners, including advertisers, may use cookies
on our site from time to time. These cookies are designed and implemented
by the third party, and are generally used to monitor aggregate
statistics specific to party?s individual campaign.
Third Party Advertising:
The ads appearing on this Web site are delivered to users by BURST!
Media and Advertising.com, our Web advertising partners. Information
about users? visit to this web 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. For more
information about BURST! Media and Advertising.com, please visit
their individual web sites:
BURST! Media
Advertising.com
This privacy statement covers the use of cookies by Fire Escape
Partners 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.
Clear Gifs:
Our third party affiliate marketing partner, ShareaSale, employs
a software technology called clear images or gifs, that helps us
better track the effectiveness of various partners in bringing us
new members. 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. Email address
is the only element of personally identifiable information that
may be tied to Clear gifs, and they are used in this context only
to track the leads referred to us by partners, not for any additional
communication to the members in question. To learn more about our
affiliate marketing company?s use of clear gifs, please go
to their site directly.
In addition, we sometimes use clear gifs in our HTML-based emails
to let us know which emails have been opened by recipients. This
allows us to gauge the effectiveness of certain communications and
the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns.
The Sharing of User Information
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.
As an example, we may, in the course of finding sponsors for our
online and email products, share or promote this information where
it is beneficial. In addition, certain regular advertising partners,
including BURTST! Media, are given ongoing access to these statistics,
and they may even assist in the collection of further aggregated
statistics through our site, to better equip both parties in the
ongoing process of selling our advertising inventory.
Instances where we will share a users? personal information:
We only release a users? personal information in instances where
we elect to use a third party to facilitate the fulfillment of a
service a user has requested at our site, and the fulfilling party
requires information submitted by the user to administer its services.
We do not make this information available marketers or advertisers
on a rental or purchase basis.
Third Party Intermediaries -- NetCreations:
When members opt-in to receive product and service notices in addition
to their membership to our services, we share pertinent demographic
information, in addition to email address and the particular areas
of interest specified, with our email list management partner, NetCreations,
Inc. NetCreations will securely store this information in order
to match users with offers that match their specified interests,
and to deliver these offers via email. NetCreations has agreed never
to reveal user information, including email address, to any advertiser.
Advertisers only purchase the right to email users on a per mailing
basis, through servers owned by NetCreations. Opt-out information
is included at the top of every message sent to the user from NetCreations
(the header may reference the service PostMasterDirect, rather than
the parent company name, NetCreations), and the user may opt-out
of this service at any time without affecting their membership to
any of our services. If the user has opted-in for this service and
no longer wishes to receive such promotional email, they can also
remove themselves by accessing
their account at NetCreations online.
Business Transitions
In the event Fire Escape Partners 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. Users will be notified
via email and a prominent notice on our Web site for 30 days prior
to a change of ownership or control of their personal information.
If as a result of the business transition, the users? personally
identifiable information will be used in a manner different from
that stated at the time of collection they will be given choice
consistent with our Notification of Changes section.
Choice/Opt-out
Due to our stringent privacy standards, as a default we only contact
users for purposes that are directly related to our site and services,
though, as stated elsewhere, users may opt-in to receive promotional
email at various points, including in our registration process.
Users who no longer wish to receive our newsletter, MyWordaDay,
can unsubscribe online through
this form.
Users who no longer wish to be contacted occasionally about account
details or news about our site and related services, can send an
email to nomail@vocabvitamins.com.
Please request that your account be removed from all Vocab Vitamins
mailing lists.
Users that have opted-in to receive promotional email, that now
wish to disable this option, can unsubscribe at the website of our
email list management partner, NetCreations. More information about
this above, in Third Party Intermediaries - NetCreations.
If you are having difficultly with any of the above unsubscribe
options, please notify us at
unsubscribe@vocabvitamins.com,
and we will assist you in a timely manner.
Links
This Web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that
we, Fire Escape Partners, 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
From time-to-time our site requests information from users via
surveys. Participation in these surveys is completely voluntary
and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose this
information. The requested information typically includes demographic
information, such as country, zip code, gender, etc. Survey information
will be used for purposes of monitoring or improving the use and
satisfaction of our site and services. 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, they may not use users? personally identifiable information
for any secondary purposes.
Our Commitment to Security
Vocab Vitamins 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.
When our registration process asks users to enter sensitive information,
such as credit card number, we refer users to a third party partner?s
site where their information is encrypted and is protected with
the best encryption software in the industry - SSL. While on a secure
page, the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers such as Netscape
Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes locked, as opposed
to un-locked, or open, when users are just ?surfing.?
If users have any questions about the security at our web site,
users can send an email to privacy@vocabvitamins.com.
Our Commitment To Children's Privacy
Protecting the privacy of the very young is especially important.
For that reason, we never collect or maintain information at our
website from those we actually know are under 13, and no part of
our website is created specifically for anyone under 13.
Notification of Changes
Business and education on the Net are evolving quickly, and from
time to time we may modify our business practices to reflect these
changes in such a manner that elements of this Privacy Policy will
need to be updated or altered. If we decide to change our Privacy
Policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement 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 plan to use users? personally identifiable information
in a manner different from that stated at the time of collection
we will notify users via email. Users will have a choice as to whether
or not we use their information in this different manner. However,
if users have opted out of all communication with the site, or deleted/deactivated
their account, then they will not be contacted, nor will their personal
information be used in this new manner. In addition, if we make
any material changes in our privacy practices that do not affect
user information already stored in our database, we will post a
prominent notice on our Web site notifying users of the change.
In some cases where we post a notice we will also email users, who
have opted to receive communications from us, notifying them of
the changes in our privacy practices.
Effective Date: October 31, 2002
Contact Information
If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please
contact us at:
privacy@vocabvitamins.com
Vocab Vitamins
3465 25th Street
Suite 17
San Francisco, CA 94110
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