Privacy Policy

Effective Date: 10/01/2012
SmallBizMarkets.com respects the privacy of visitors to our website. This Privacy Policy governs the use and collection of information from you by GoSmallBiz.com (“we” or “us”) through your use of this website. This Privacy Policy does not apply to any information you may provide to us through other means; for example, through another website provided by us or one of our Affiliates (as defined below), at a live event, via mail, or via telephone.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully so that you understand our online privacy practices. By visiting this website, you agree that your visit, and any dispute over our online privacy practices, is governed by this Privacy Policy and our Visitor Agreement.

TYPES OF INFORMATION WE COLLECT

The information we gather falls into two categories: (1) information (for example, your name, address or phone number) that you voluntarily supply (for example, when you register as a visitor to the website, customize the SmallBizMarkets service to provide you with information about services specific to your neighborhood, or participate in the features we may offer through the website (such as providing comments in a discussion group or review)), and (2) information gathered on usage patterns and preferences as visitors navigate through our website. In some cases, one of our Affiliates or agents may collect the information on our behalf. Third-party Service Providers (as defined below) featured on or linked to by our website, such as vendors of products and services offered through our website, may be gathering the same kinds of information.

Registration Information. To make use of certain features available through this website you will need to register and to provide certain information, such as your name and email address as part of the registration process. (You may be able to bypass some of the steps within the registration process by using your user name and password associated with your account on certain specified social networking sites when you register for our website, but you will still have to complete the registration process after entering that information.) We may also ask you to provide us with other demographic information about yourself, such as your age, sex, and zip code, and we might request information on your interest in sports, personal finance, the performing arts, and the like.) The information you supply will help us to offer you more personalized features, to tailor our website to your interests and make them more useful to you.

Contests and Other Promotions. From time to time, we may offer contests, sweepstakes or other promotions on our website. If you enter one of these contests, sweepstakes, or promotions, you’ll have to provide information about yourself (such as your name, address, telephone number and email address) so that we can contact you if you win. If you don’t want us to collect the information requested in the registration form, please do not enter the contest, sweepstakes or promotion.

Email Newsletters. We may offer you the opportunity to subscribe to email newsletters on topics that we believe are of interest to you. If you have opted to receive newsletters, you may always unsubscribe later if you decide not to receive further mailings of any newsletters from us. Each newsletter will include instructions on how to unsubscribe from future issues by using either a designated reply email address or hyperlink.

Cookies. To help make our sites more responsive to the needs of our visitors, we keep track of the pages visited by our users by placing a “cookie,” a small entry in text file, on your hard drive. The cookie doesn’t actually identify you, just the computer or mobile device that you use to access our website. Unless you voluntarily identify yourself (through registration, for example), we won’t know who you are, even if we assign a cookie to your computer or mobile device. The only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply. A cookie can’t read unrelated data off your hard drive. Our advertisers and Service Providers that provide products or services through our website may also assign their own cookies to your browser, a process that we don’t control. We use cookies to help us tailor our website to your needs, to deliver a better, more personalized service. For example, we may use cookies to allow you to search for those businesses closest to your home. In addition, we may use cookies to track the pages on our website visited by our users. We can build a better website if we know which pages our users are visiting and how often. You can manage your browser’s cookie setting through the “options” menu on most commercially available web browsers, including options to set your browser to notify you before accepting a cookie or to disable cookies entirely. Of course, you can set your browser not to accept cookies, but if you do, you may not be able to take advantage of the personalized features enjoyed by other visitors to our website.

Web Beacons. Our web pages may contain electronic images (called “single-pixel GIFs” or “web beacons”) that allow us and our Affiliates, Service Providers, and, where necessary, our advertisers to count users who have visited particular pages of this site or sites owned or operated by third parties or to access certain cookies. We may use these tools and other technologies to recognize which pages users visit, and the links on which they click. These features may also be included in our email newsletters so that we can learn which messages have been opened and acted upon. We may also be able to verify your online purchases from us or from third-party sites that have agreed to share such information with us. We may use “clickstream” data collected using web beacons and cookies to help us tailor the content of promotional messages, including email messages, to the perceived interests of our users.

Browser Level Information and IP Addresses. Our web servers automatically collect limited information about your computer configuration or your mobile device when you visit our website, including the type of browser software you use, the operating system you’re running, the resolution of your computer monitor, the Web website that referred you, the type of device you are using, and your IP address. (Your IP address is a numerical address that is used by computers connected to the Internet to identify your computer so that data such as the web pages you want to view can be transmitted to you.) We also use IP address information for systems administration and troubleshooting purposes. Your IP address does not tell us who you are. We use this information to deliver our web pages to you upon request, to tailor our website to the interests of our users, and to measure traffic within our website.

DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION

Why we want to know. We collect information in order to make this website more useful and relevant to you. For example, we may ask you for an address so that you can map a route from your work or home address to that of a service provider, or so you can narrow your search to businesses that serve your neighborhood.

Service Providers. All or portions of our website may be provided or supported by our third-party service providers (“Service Providers”), and we may share any of the information that we collect from you through this website (e.g., registration information, anonymous information collected through cookies on your browser or through web beacons, information you submit to us to enter a contest, sweepstakes or promotion offered through the website, etc.) with such Service Providers. Their use of the information may be subject to the terms of their respective privacy policies, which you can find on their websites.

Contest Co-Sponsors. If you enter any contest, sweepstakes or other promotion that we make available through this website, we may share the information you submit to us with the co-sponsor(s) of the contest, sweepstakes, or promotion. We will identify any co-sponsor(s) in the official rules for the promotion.

Our Affiliates. We may share any of the information that we collect from you (including anonymous information and personally identifying information that you may provide) with any of our affiliates (which include, without limitation, entities owned and/or operated by our parent company(ies) and its/their subsidiaries) (collectively, “Affiliates”) so that we and they can provide you with products and services that may be of interest to you.

Statistical Information. Much of the information we collect is in the form of aggregated statistics, such as the traffic that visits various pages within our sites, and the habits and preferences of our audience. Such aggregated information does not include any information that would identify you personally. We may use such aggregated information and disclose it to third parties as we see fit.

Sites to Which We Link. Our website includes links to plenty of other Web sites, and provides access to products and services offered by third parties, whose privacy policies we don’t control. When you access another site or purchase products or services or conduct other transactions through our sites, use of any information you provide is governed by the privacy policy of the operator of the site you’re visiting or the provider of such products or services.

Other Disclosures. We reserve the right to release information about visitors to this website when release is necessary to comply with law, to enforce this Privacy Policy, or to protect the rights, property or safety of visitors to our website, the public, our customers, or our company and its employees, agents, partners and Affiliates. As our business grows, we may buy or sell various assets. In the unlikely event that we merge with another entity or otherwise transfer substantially all of our assets to another entity (including, without limitation, to one of our Affiliates as part of an internal reorganization), information collected from this Service would be among the transferred assets.

CHILDREN’S PRIVACY
Children should always get permission from their parents before sending any information about themselves (such as their names, email addresses, and phone numbers) over the Internet, to us or to anyone else. We won’t knowingly allow anyone under 18 to register with our website, to provide business information to our website, or to provide any other personally identifying information. If you’re under 18, please do not provide us with any personally identifying information about yourself (such as your name, your email address or your phone number). If we become aware that we have collected any personally identifying information from a user under the age of 18, we will remove such information from our records as soon as possible.

OPTING IN/OPTING OUT
If you have registered with SmallBizMarkets.com, you may change your registrant information at any time. In addition to the disclosures described above that we may make to third parties, if you consent (for example, by checking a box or by some other means) when registering or managing your account, we will make your information available to additional third parties so that they, we, or both may contact you directly regarding special offers, promotions, products or services that may be of interest to you. If you remove your registration information completely, you will not be able to continue using the aspects of this website that require registration. You agree that, subject to applicable law, we may use your information to contact you for customer service, to inform you of important changes or additions to our website or the services offered over our website and to send you administrative notices or any communications relevant to your use of our website.

If you have subscribed to our email newsletters, you will always have the opportunity to unsubscribe from future mailings (for example, by clicking on an unsubscribe link in an email newsletter).

STORAGE OF INFORMATION
All information gathered on our website is stored within a database operated by us. Sensitive information, such as password or information, is encoded (not encrypted) for storage. We cannot guarantee the security of our database, nor can we guarantee that information you supply won’t be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the Internet.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
We may change the terms of this Privacy Policy or introduce new terms and conditions from time to time, in which case we will post an updated version of this Privacy Policy on this website and will update the date above to reflect the date the changes take effect. By continuing to use this website after we post any such changes, you accept this Privacy Policy, as modified.