WineInfo.com Privacy Policy

 

Version 04/01/2009

 

At WineInfo.com, we recognize that privacy is an important issue, so we design and operate our services with the protection of your privacy in mind. This Privacy Policy outlines the types of personal information we gather when you use the WineInfo.com website, as well as some of the steps that we take to safeguard it.

This policy does not apply to the practices of companies that WineInfo.com does not own or control, or to people that WineInfo.com does not employ or manage.

The following principles apply to the personally identifying information we ask for and that you provide. "Personally identifying information" is information that individually identifies you, such as your name or email address.

Data Collection

·         Most of the WineInfo.com web pages do not require any personally identifying information.  WineInfo.com collects limited non-personally identifying information your browser makes available whenever you visit a website.  This log information includes your Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your query and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser. We use this information to operate, develop and improve our services.

·         Some of our services require you to register for an account, such as the WineInfo.com forum.  WineInfo.com asks you for some personally identifying information in order to create an account (typically your name, email address and a password for your account) and we will use that information to provide the service. For certain services, such as our advertising programs, we may request credit card or other payment information which we maintain in encrypted form on secure servers.

·         When we require personally identifying information, we will inform you about the types of information we collect and how we use it.

Cookies

WineInfo.com may set and access WineInfo.com “cookies" on your computer for the WineInfo.com forum as a means to store regular participants’ names and e-mail addresses for their convenience in posting messages to the group.  A cookie is a small file containing a string of characters that is sent to your computer when you visit a website.  Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. You can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent.  You can also erase cookies that are already on your computer.  Please note, however, that cookies are required in order to use the WineInfo.com forum.

Information Sharing

·         We do not rent, sell or share personally identifying information about you with other people or companies, except under the following conditions.

·         We respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process, or to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims.

·         We believe it is necessary to share information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of WineInfo.com's terms of use, or as otherwise required by law.

·         In the event of a transfer of ownership of WineInfo, LLC, such as acquisition by or merger with another company, we will provide notice before any personally identifying information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

·         We may share aggregated information with others, such as how many users clicked on a particular advertisement.  This aggregated information does not include your personally identifying information.

Public Forums
WineInfo.com features public forums such as chat rooms, message boards, bulletin boards, or similar activities where you and other users of our websites can communicate with one another. This Policy does not protect you when you use these public forums or provide information (including personally identifying information) about yourself. Any information you share in a public forum such as a chat room, message board, or bulletin board is public information and may be seen or collected by anyone, including third parties that do not adhere to our Privacy Policy.  WineInfo.com is not responsible for events arising from the distribution of any information you choose to publicly post or share through our website.

Information Security

·         We take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data.

·         We restrict access to your personally identifying information to employees who need to know that information in order to operate, develop or improve our services.

Updating or Deleting Your Information

We provide mechanisms for updating and correcting your personally identifying information for our services at any time, and you can delete this information at any time.

Links

The sites displayed as search results or linked to by WineInfo.com are developed by people over whom WineInfo.com exercises no control. These other sites may place their own cookies on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information.

Changes to This Policy

This Privacy Policy may change from time to time.  We will post those changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will also provide a more prominent notice. Each version will be noted at the top of the page.

Updated Policy Information

The following changes have become effective as of April 1, 2009, as a requirement for using certain Google applications:

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please click on this link:  http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html