DateCetera.com Privacy Policy
THIS PRIVACY POLICY WAS LAST UPDATED ON JUNE 18, 2007
DateCetera.com (the "Website") is owned and operated by
DateCetera Media ("DateCetera"). Your privacy on the Internet is very important to us. At DateCetera,
we want to make your experience online satisfying and safe. Because we gather
certain types of information about our users, we feel you should fully understand
our policy and the terms and conditions surrounding the capture and use of that
information. This privacy statement discloses what information we gather and how
we use it.
Information DateCetera Gathers and Tracks
DateCetera gathers two types of information about users:
- Information that users provide through optional,
voluntary submissions. These are voluntary submissions to sign up for the dating
service, to participate in our message boards or forums, to use our internal email
system, to use our instant messaging service and from participation in polls and
surveys.
- Information DateCetera gathers through aggregated
tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites.
This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers' needs and to
help our advertisers and sponsors better understand the demographics of our audience.
Because DateCetera derives its revenue mainly from sponsorships and advertising,
providing such aggregated demographic data is essential to keeping our service free
to users.
DateCetera Gathers User Information In The Following Processes:
Optional Voluntary Information
We offer the following free services, which require some
type of voluntary submission of personal information by users:
1. Dating Service policy
We offer a free dating matching service to users. Users of this service voluntarily
register with the Website. During registration the user is required to supply
a username , password, email address, birth date, and any other information related
to the user's online profile. Users may remove themselves from the site and
service any time by clicking on the delete profile link within their profile.
2. Forums/Message Boards policy
We offer a free forum/message board service. Users do not need to register
to visit the site. To post a message, a user must be a registered user of
the DateCetera.com site. Users do not need to explicitly register on the forum/message
board site. When a user registers on DateCetera.com, access to post to the
forums/message boards is granted using the same username and password credentials.
3. Internal Email policy
We offer a free internal email/messaging service to registered users of DateCetera.com
to get in contact and share information with other registered users of the site.
This is an internal email/messaging system and cannot be used to email or interact
with external email systems or external email addresses. All messages sent
through the internal email/messaging system are stored on our systems.
4. "Refer a Friend" policy
Registered users or visitors to DateCetera.com can access a page to send an email
to refer a friend to sign up with the site. The referrer must provide their
first name and email address as well as the first name, email address, country,
state/province, and city/town of the friend they're referring. This information
is used only in the case of transmission errors and, of course, to let the recipient
know who sent the email.The information provided by the referrer is not used for
any other purpose and is deleted from our systems 30 days from the date it was created.
5. Email reminders
We may send registered users of DateCetera.com email reminders about the services
we offer or upcoming new services. Depending on how your profile is set up,
we may send emails with a list of users that matches your profile criteria.
We will not send any external third party advertisements in these emails.
6. Polling
We may offer interactive polls to users so they can easily
share their opinions with other users and see what our audience thinks about important
issues. Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not identifiable
to any particular user. DateCetera.com may use a system to "tag" users after
they have voted, so they can vote only once on a particular question. This tag is
not correlated with information about individual users.
7. Surveys
DateCetera.com may occasionally conduct user surveys
to better target our content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated
demographic information in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers and partners.
We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third
party.
Usage Tracking
DateCetera.com tracks user traffic patterns throughout all of our sites. We may collect, store, and
use information about your computer and about your visits to and use of this Website, such as your IP address,
geographical location, browser type, referral source, length of visit and number of page views. DateCetera.com
does break down overall usage statistics according to a user's domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading
this information from the browser string (information contained in every user's browser). DateCetera.com sometimes
tracks and catalogs the search terms that users enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated
with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don't like
based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs
overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.
Cookies
We use "cookies" on this Website. A cookie is a text file sent by our web server to your web browser, and stored by
the browser. The text file is then sent back to our server each time the browser requests a page from the server.
This enables the web server to identify and track the web browser.
We will place a cookie(s) in the browser files of your computer's hard drive. The cookie itself does not contain personal
information although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and
knowingly provided. But the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie
can't read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. DateCetera.com uses cookies to track user
traffic patterns (as described above). Our affiliated advertising system may also deliver cookie(s) to better track ad
impressions and click rates. You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you've set your browser to
warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. However, blocking cookies will
have a negative impact upon the usability of this Website, as well as limiting your ability to actively participate in
message boards, forums, polling and surveys.
We use Google Analytics to analyze the use of this website. Google Analytics generates statistical and other information
about website use by means of cookies, which are stored on users' computers. The information generated relating to our
website is used to create reports about the use of the website. Google will store this information. Google's privacy policy
is available at: http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html
Use of Information
DateCetera uses any information voluntarily given by
our users to enhance their experience in our network of sites, whether to provide
interactive or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content
based on the interests of our users. As stated above, we use information that
users voluntarily provide in order to send out emails and to enable users to participate
in polls, surveys, message boards, and forums. We send out emails to register users
on a regular schedule (depending on how your profile is set up and the number of
searches saved with your profile), and occasionally send out promotional emails
when we think users might be particularly interested in something we are doing.
DateCetera never shares our mailing lists with any third parties, including advertisers,
sponsors or partners.
We use tracking information to determine which areas
of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We
do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs
overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. We
may track search terms entered in Search function as one of many measures of what
interests our users.But we don't track which terms a particular user enters.
We allow users to save their search parameters in their profile.
Sharing of the Information
DateCetera uses the above-described information to tailor
our content to suit your needs and help our advertisers better understand our audience's
demographics. DateCetera creates aggregate reports on user demographics
and traffic patterns for advertisers, sponsors and partners. This allows our advertisers
to advertise more effectively, and allows our users to receive advertisements that
are pertinent to their needs. This is essential to keeping our service free.
Other Disclosures
In addition to the disclosures reasonably necessary for the purposes identified elsewhere
in this privacy policy, we may disclose information about you:
- to the extent that we are required to do so by law;
- in connection with any legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings;
- in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information
to others for the purposes of fraud prevention);
- in order to protect the personal safety of our users or the public; and
- to the purchaser (or prospective purchaser) of any business or asset which we are
(or are contemplating) selling.
Except as provided in this privacy policy, we will not disclose or share your information
with any third party.
Third Party Websites
This Website contains links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy policies
or practices of third party websites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of these websites
when you leave our Website.
Security
DateCetera operates secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password
protection systems. We will take reasonable technical and organizational precautions to prevent
the loss, misuse or altercation of your personal information. Our security and privacy policies
are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized DateCetera staff have access
to the information provided by our users.
Opt-out Policy
We give users options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices include:
- Opting to delete your profile off our system at any time
- Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas such as the forums/message boards or polls/surveys
- Opting not to communicate with certain users of the system
Your Consent
By using this site, you consent to the collection and
use of this information by DateCetera. If we decide to change our privacy
policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of
what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose
it.
If you have any questions or concerns about this privacy policy, you can contact us at privacyofficer *at* datecetera.com