Privacy Policy
Effective Date: Nov 30, 2007
This Privacy Policy discusses the personally identifying information that we collect about you when you use the services we provide at http://www.BuildingScoop.com/.
We at BuildingScoop.com are committed to protecting your privacy in every way possible. We collect a variety of information from and about the individuals who either contribute content to, or visit our site.
BuildingScoop.com is a great place to find and share information about home building and repair. When you visit the site you will have access to thousands of articles and even have the chance to write and share your ideas in articles of your own. All of the articles on BuildingScoop.com are "how to" articles about accomplishing a certain task about building and remodeling in construction.
How does this Policy relate to my use of the Site? This Policy is part of, and incorporated into, our Terms & Conditions, the contract between you and us that governs this Site. That means provisions of those terms impact this Policy so, if you have not read the Terms & Conditions, read them now by clicking on the link. All capitalized terms below that are not defined herein shall have the meanings ascribed to them in the Terms, and all other terms defined therein are incorporated herein by reference.
I. What Personal Information About Me Does BuildingScoop.com Gather?
• Information You Give Us:
We collect any information you enter on our site or give us in any other way (such as through an email or letter). We use the information that you provide for such purposes as responding to your requests, providing our services, our business operations, the maintenance of your Account (including without limitation, the preparation, distribution and filing by third party service providers of various tax and other reporting forms on our behalf), providing you with advertising and non-advertising content that we believe would be of interest to you, and communicating with you, all as described in greater detail below.
The information that we collect varies depending upon how you are interacting with our site. Our registration forms generally require that you provide us with your user name, birthday and e-mail address, and that you create and provide us with a password. We may also request certain other information such as your actual first and last name, gender, and postal or zip code. In addition, under the Terms & Conditions (full copy available here), to post content you must set up an account ("Account") by completing the Account set-up process required by the site and providing accurate and complete information about yourself.
You agree to provide, maintain and update true, accurate, current, and complete information about yourself as prompted by our registration processes (the "Registration Data"). If you provide any information that does not satisfy this provision, or we have reasonable grounds to suspect as much, we have the right to suspend or terminate your Account and refuse any and all current or future use of any portion thereof operated by any of our corporate affiliates.
In posting to our site you agree not to provide personally identifiable information or confidential or sensitive information relating to, or controlled by third parties unless: (1) you have obtained any required permission to do so under applicable law and, (2) for personally identifiable information relating to someone other than you, you have informed the person whose data will be included that their personally identifiable information will be subject to this Policy and you have obtained their consent to this Policy. You must do this even if an inability to obtain permission means that you cannot submit Content or other information. By providing information to us you represent and warrant that you have made all required disclosures and obtained all required permissions
We may highlight content you submit on the Site such as reviews, comments, or articles.
Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily provide information in public areas of the Site, such as the user profile pages or forums, that information can be viewed and possibly used by others. We therefore advise visitors not to disclose contact information, including phone number, email address, street address, or instant messenger address (within these public areas) that they do not wish to share. We are not responsible for personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these forums or pages.
We also may use your personally identifiable information to contact you regarding your Account, such as to inform you that content you submit has been accepted or rejected for posting, or to forward to you user comments about the Content you have posted. We may also email BuildingScoop.com messages, newsletters, and similar communications about the Site.
• Automatic Information:
We receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with us and the Site. For example, like many Web sites, we use "cookies," and we obtain certain types of information when your Web browser accesses our site. Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer's hard drive through your Web browser to enable our systems to recognize your browser. We use persistent, identifying cookies to remember your information and to link your activities to you.
Our cookies collect at least the following:
o the domain name and host from which you access the Internet and the Internet address of the site from which you direct-linked to ours;
o the date and time you access the Site and pages you visit;
o your computer's IP address and information about its operating system, platform, and the Web browser type and version you use; and
o Information to combat fraud or misuse.
In addition our cookies may house demographic and other non-personally identifiable profile information about you.
While you can take steps to warn of, block, or disable cookies, if you do, the Site won't function and/or appear as we have designed it. Nonetheless, if you want to take these steps, you can do so by following the instructions associated with your particular browser.
In our e-mails to you, we use "pixel tags" to determine if your email software or service can display html-formatted e-mail (this helps us optimize the size of our e-mail messages and conserve bandwidth). Some of the businesses that place advertisements and other content on our site may use cookies on our site. If you click on an advertisement, for example, a cookie might be placed on your computer. We have no access to or control over these companies, their privacy policies or their cookies, and their practice and policies may change from time to time so you should read their privacy policies and decide whether they are acceptable to you.
II. Does BuildingScoop.com Share the Information It Receives?
In general, we use the information to verify, evaluate, process, respond to, communicate about, investigate and enforce our rights and Content you may submit. We also use the information for purposes such as measuring the number of visitors to sections of our Site, making our Site more useful to visitors, and delivering targeted advertising and non-advertising content. We use IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the site, track a user's movement, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use.
We generally will retain information for as long as required, allowed, or we believe it useful, but do not undertake retention obligations. We may dispose of information at our discretion without notice, subject to applicable law that specifically requires the handling or retention of information. You must keep your own, separate records.
III. How Secure Is Information About Me?
• It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer or other internet access device. Be sure to sign off when finished using a shared computer. Your e-mails to us are not necessarily secure against interception so do not include sensitive information in them - we generally will not ask for passwords or the like in an email and you should assume that, if you get such a request, it might be fraudulent.
• You agree not to enter information on the Site, if you (or anyone else whose information you enter) desire a higher level of security than we describe in this Policy or, if you have not obtained any appropriate consents.
• We have put into place physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to help safeguard, prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security, and correctly use the information we collect from you. HOWEVER, WE DO NOT GUARANTEE SECURITY. Neither people nor security systems are foolproof, including encryption systems, and people can commit intentional crimes, make mistakes, or fail to follow policies. YOU ASSUME THE RISK OF ANY INADEQUACY OR FAILURE OF SECURITY AND AGREE TO DO WHAT YOU REASONABLY CAN TO PROMOTE SECURITY. If applicable law imposes any non-disclaimable duty (if any), you agree that the standard used to measure our compliance with that duty will be one of intentional misconduct.
IV. Links
Sites made available by BuildingScoop.com contain links to other sites. Please be aware that we 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 may collect their personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this Site.
V. CHOICE
If you are not comfortable with this Privacy Policy, our Terms & Conditions, or the Disclosures, please do not provide us with information or Content or otherwise use the Site.
We reserve the right to send you customary business communications (i.e. acceptance/rejection notices regarding content submissions, general system and administrative messages, address confirmations, transactional information about your Account, etc.) without offering you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving them. However, we provide you with the opportunity to elect not to receive other types of communications. If you want to update your email address or stop receiving our BuildingScoop.com email, you may opt out of this email by following the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.
VI. ACCESS
Information relating to our programs is not necessarily maintained in a retrievable form. However, you may make changes, corrections or updates to some information provided through this Site which we use for communications with you by visiting the "Edit My Profile" page on the BuildingScoop.com website. We may keep a record of all information that is changed (including deletions) and disclose it for any lawful purpose. We may determine what may be changed (e.g., if we are required to keep track of certain kinds of transactions, you may not change relevant information).
VII. Conditions of use, Notices, and Revisions
• If you choose to visit BuildingScoop.com, your visit and any dispute over privacy is subject to this Policy and our Terms & Conditions, including limitations on damages and application of the law of the State of Washington. If you have any concern about privacy at BuildingScoop.com, please send us a thorough description to legal@BuildingScoop.com, and we will try to resolve it. Our business changes constantly. This Privacy Policy and the Terms & Conditions will change also, and use of information that we gather now is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time of use. We may e-mail periodic reminders of our notices and conditions, unless you have instructed us not to, but you should check our Site frequently to see recent changes. Your Consent to Email Notice: We generally do not send "commercial e-mails" (e.g., e-mails whose primary purpose is to advertise a product or service); if we do, we will provide any "opt-out" choice required by applicable law. We reserve the right to communicate with you about any subject matter of the Terms or any other subject matter not prohibited by law.
• If we are required to disclose or provide notice of invasion of certain security systems, we will do so when required by posting notice on our Site or, at our discretion, by giving it to any email address provided to us by you at the time that you registered.
• Identity Theft. If you believe that you are a victim of identity theft, you are entitled by law to request information from us. Write us at our Legal Notice email address (see the "Legal Notices" section of the Terms or the next section of this Privacy Policy) and we will let you know what additional information you must provide to us. After we have received that information, we will supply, without charge, the information legally required to be disclosed that we then have, subject to applicable law and reserving all of our rights and defenses.
VIII. CONTACT INFORMATION AND INFORMATION ABOUT ENFORCEMENT OF OUR POLICY:
Contacting Us & Our Email Address for Legal Notices; Notices to You. For customer service matters (including questions relating to this Privacy Policy and the Terms & Conditions), you may email us at privacy@BuildingScoop.com
This Policy is part of the Terms & Conditions. If there is an inconsistency between the Terms & Conditions and this Policy, the latest version of this Policy shall control. As a contract, we and you are bound by this Policy. If you think we are in default, you may contact us at legal@BuildingScoop.com . BuildingScoop.com is a trademark or registered trademark of BuildingScoop.com Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.
Copyright © 2007. BuildingScoop.com, Inc.