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(Last
updated: January 2004)
FTC is committed to
protecting your privacy. This FTC Privacy Statement applies to this FTC
Networks, LLC Web site and governs data collection and usage at all FTC sites
and services; it does not apply to other online or offline FTC Networks, LLC sites, products or services. Please read the FTC Privacy Statement
below and also any supplementary information at the end of this statement for
additional details about particular FTC sites and services that you may use.
FTC is a general audience web
site, intended for users between the ages of 13 and 19 years of age. Personal
information of all users is collected, used and disclosed as described in this
Privacy Statement.
Collection of your Personal Information
At some sites, FTC collects
personal information, such as your e-mail address, name, home or work address
or telephone number. FTC may also collect demographic information, such as
your ZIP code, age, gender, preferences, interests and favorites. Information
collected by FTC may be combined with information obtained from other FTC
Networks, LLC services and other companies.
If you choose to sign up for
a paid subscription service we will collect additional personal information,
including your credit card number and billing address, in order to create a
FTC Networks, LLC billing account. You can always add to or update the
information in your billing account through the Account Update area located at
http://ShopFTC.com.
You can choose to create an
optional public profile, containing information about yourself - such as your
hobbies and interests. Any information you choose to enter in your public
profile will be visible to other users of FTC sites and services; and when you
interact with other users (for example, sending a FTC Email message to another
FTC email account or interacting in a FTC Chat room), a link to your public
profile may be displayed. FTC urges you to be careful only to enter
information on your public profile that you are comfortable sharing with the
public at large. You may change, edit or delete information about yourself
from your public profile at any time while online by going to [fill in profile
change info].
FTC also collects certain
information about your computer hardware and software. This information may
include: your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and
referring Web site addresses. This information is used by FTC for the
operation of the service, to maintain quality of the service, and to provide
general statistics regarding use of FTC.
FTC keeps track of the pages
our customers visit within FTC, in order to determine what FTC sites and
services are the most popular. This data is also used by FTC to deliver
customized content and advertising to customers whose behavior indicates that
they are interested in a particular subject area.
Some FTC services, such as
FTC Chat Rooms and FTC Groups, request that you create a social nickname,
which is the name you will be known by to others in those public places. You
may select a different social nickname at any time. Please keep in mind that
if you disclose personal information through FTC Chats, FTC Groups, or other
public online forums, this information may be collected and used by others.
FTC cautions you against giving out personal information to strangers online,
which they may use for illegal or harmful purposes.
FTC encourages you to review
the privacy statements of Web sites you choose to link to from FTC so that you
can understand how those Web sites collect, use and share your information.
FTC Networks, LLC is not responsible for the privacy statements or other
content on Web sites outside of the FTC Networks, LLC and FTC family of
Web sites.
Use of your Personal Information
FTC and its operational
service partners collect and use your personal information to operate FTC and
deliver the services you have requested. FTC does not use or disclose
sensitive personal information, such as race, religion, or political
affiliations, without your explicit consent.
FTC also uses your personal
information to inform you of other products or services available from FTC
Networks, LLC and its affiliates. FTC may also contact you via surveys to
conduct research about your opinion of current services or of potential new
services that may be offered.
FTC does not sell, rent or
lease its customer lists to third parties. FTC may, from time to time, contact
you on behalf of external business partners about a particular offering that
may be of interest to you. In those cases, your personal information (e-mail,
name, address, telephone number) is not transferred to the third party.
Certain FTC services may be
co-branded and offered in conjunction with another company. If you register
for or use such services, both FTC and the other company may receive
information collected in conjunction with the co-branded services. In such
cases, either a joint privacy statement or a link to the other company's
privacy statement will be provided, which will provide you with information
about how the other company will use the information and how you can contact
the other company with requests to access the information or other inquiries.
We occasionally hire other
companies to provide limited services on our behalf, such as handling the
processing and delivery of mailings, providing customer support, processing
transactions, or performing statistical analysis of our services. We will only
provide those companies the personal information they need to deliver the
service. They are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information
and are prohibited from using that information for any other purpose.
FTC may access and/or
disclose your personal information if required to do so by law or in the good
faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of
the law or comply with legal process served on FTC Networks, LLC or the
site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of FTC Networks, LLC,
including its FTC family of Web sites; or (c) act under exigent circumstances
to protect the personal safety of users of FTC services or members of the
public.
Personal information
collected on this site may be stored and processed in the United States or any
other country in which FTC Networks, LLC or its affiliates, subsidiaries
or agents maintain facilities, and by using this site, you consent to any such
transfer of information outside of your country. FTC Networks, LLC abides
by the safe harbor framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce
regarding the collection, use, and retention of data from the European Union.
Control your Personal Information
FTC offers its customers
choices for the collection, use and sharing of personal information. You may
go to the FTC Log In Preferences page to proactively make choices about the
use and sharing of your personal information. You may choose not to receive
marketing material from FTC or on behalf of external third party business
partners.
In addition, you may visit
the "FTC ?" to view, edit or delete your personal information from the FTC
database.
You may also stop the
delivery of future promotional e-mail from FTC by following the specific
instructions in the e-mail you receive. The instructions explain how to stop
receiving such e-mails.
There are some FTC services,
including FTC Free Email, that send out periodic e-mails informing you of
technical service issues, product surveys, new feature announcements and news
about FTC products and services. You will not be able to unsubscribe to these
mailings, as they are considered a part of the service you have chosen.
Security of your Personal Information
FTC is committed to
protecting the security of your personal information. We use a variety of
security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal information
from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. For example, we store the
personal information you provide on computer systems with limited access, that
are located in controlled facilities. When we transmit highly confidential
information (such as a credit card number) over the Internet, we protect it
through the use of encryption, such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol.
When an FTC service knows
that a user is a child, it will not condition the child's participation in an
activity, such as a game or a prize drawing, on the provision of more personal
information than is reasonably necessary to participate in that activity.
Additionally, you have the right, subject to verification that you are the
child's parent, to change or revoke the consent choices you have previously
made for FTC services and to review or request the deletion of your child's
personal information. You may send such requests, or any questions you have
about FTC's practices with regard to personal information about your child, by
clicking
Contact Us to send e-mail or by
sending postal mail to the address in the "Contact Information" section of
this Statement.
Use of Cookies
FTC may use "cookies" to help
you personalize your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed
on your hard disk by a Web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs
or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and
can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.
One of the primary purposes
of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. For example,
if you personalize FTC's pages, or register with FTC sites or services, a
cookie helps FTC to recall your specific information on subsequent visits.
This simplifies the process of recording your personal information, such as
billing addresses, shipping addresses, and so on. When you return to FTC, the
information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use
the FTC features that you customized.
You have the ability to
accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but
you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer.
If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the
interactive features of the FTC services or Web sites you visit.
Use of Web Beacons
FTC Web pages may contain
electronic images known as Web beacons - sometimes called single-pixel gifs -
that allow FTC to count users who have visited those pages and to deliver
co-branded services. FTC may include web beacons in promotional e-mail
messages or FTC Newsletters in order to count how many messages have been
opened and acted upon. Web beacons are not used to access your personal
information on the FTC network of sites and services; they are a technique we
use to compile aggregated statistics about FTC Web site usage.
Web beacons collect only a
limited set of information including a cookie number, time and date of a page
view, and a description of the page on which the Web beacon resides. FTC Web
pages may also contain Web beacons placed there by third parties to help
determine the effectiveness of our joint promotional or advertising campaigns.
Use of Third Party Ad Networks
The majority of the online
banner advertisements you see on FTC Web pages are displayed by FTC.
In addition, FTC allows other
companies, called third-party ad servers or ad networks, to display
advertisements on FTC Web pages. Some of these ad networks may place a
persistent cookie on your computer. Doing this allows the ad network to
recognize your computer each time they send you an online advertisement. In
this way, ad networks may compile information about where you, or others who
are using your computer, saw their advertisements and determine which ads are
clicked on. This information allows an ad network to deliver targeted
advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you. FTC
Networks, LLC does not have access to or control of the cookies that may be
placed by the third-party ad servers or ad networks.
Changes to this Statement
FTC will occasionally update
this Privacy Statement to reflect company and customer feedback. When FTC
posts changes to this Statement, you will see the word "updated" next to the
Privacy Statement link on the front page of FTC. If there are material changes
to this Statement or in how FTC will use your personal information, FTC will
prominently post such changes prior to implementing the change. FTC encourages
you to periodically review this Statement to be informed of how FTC Networks,
LLC is protecting your information.
Contact Information
FTC welcomes your comments
regarding this Privacy Statement. If you believe that FTC has not adhered to
this Statement, please contact FTC by telephone, e-mail, or postal mail.
FTC
Privacy
FTC Networks, LLC
Contact Us
or by fax at:
(US)
309-439-8852
(UK)
44-870-121-0363
(Asia) 852-301-42039
FTC Customer Survey Program
The FTC Customer Survey Program is an optional service in which you can choose
to participate. If you choose to participate, you allow FTC Networks, LLC
to collect anonymous information about how you use FTC Networks, LLC
software and services, as well as some information about your computer.
For example, this program
details how many times you attempt to sign in, how long it takes on average to
open the home page, and how much time you spend online during a given session.
All of this information is anonymous and does not include any personal
information.
FTC performs this service to
help improve the technical quality of FTC Networks, LLC products and
services. The Customer Experience Improvement Program can be turned on or off
at any time in FTC Explorer or FTC Internet Software on the Privacy settings
page.
FTC Health
FTC Health is provided by
various third party mental health organizations. Such third party mental
health organizations may request personal information and demographic data to
provide you with the health related services you have requested. FTC does not
collect or use any of this information.
FTC Newsletters
When you subscribe to an FTC
Newsletter, FTC requests your e-mail address. FTC uses your e-mail address to
send you the newsletter(s) you have requested. You may subscribe and
unsubscribe to FTC Newsletters by going to http://funteenchat.com/newsletter
(coming soon). In addition, each FTC newsletter you receive will have
instructions on how to unsubscribe prominently mentioned in it.
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