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Privacy on QuitNet
This Privacy Policy governs the QuitNet Web site and explains how we collect your personal information on QuitNet, how we protect it, and the choices you have concerning its use. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, you should not use QuitNet.
Your privacy and the security of your personal information are very important to us. We want you to be as comfortable as possible visiting QuitNet and using our services. Except as disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will not sell, share, license, trade, or rent your email address or other personally identifiable information to anyone or any entity outside of the QuitNet Web site without your consent unless we are required to do so by law. Period.
QuitNet is committed to protecting the privacy of children. QuitNet is not designed for or directed to children under the age of 13. We do not collect personally identifiable information from any person we actually know is under the age of 13.
Please remember that this Privacy Policy applies only to information collected by QuitNet. We are not responsible for the privacy of any information you reveal or post in any public forum (e.g., message board or chat room) or portions of your profile that you choose to make public, or for the privacy practices of Web sites that are operated or owned by third parties.
Profile information which you voluntarily provide will be used to create personalized content and services on the QuitNet Web site. QuitNet may use your profile data to generate aggregate reports and in scientific research, but will not associate personally identifiable information with such reports.
Q-mail communications between you and a QuitNet smoking cessation counselor are confidential and will not be disclosed or used in any personally identifiable way.
Non-personal information, communications or material you send to QuitNet by email are on a non-confidential basis. We reserve the right to use comments you provide in QuitNet forums in the "User Quotes" feature on QuitNet and on QuitNet-powered Web sites without seeking permission. For use in other publications we will seek permission from you prior to use. We welcome ideas, suggestions, concepts and techniques from users, and we reserve the right to use them in the future. However, we will not provide compensation for any such use.
QuitNet does not require a user to provide personally-identifiable information to use Basic Membership services.[But see the statement in the Terms of Use that we require all Premium Members and Members of Sponsored QuitNet sites to provide a valid email address.] Information that can identify a visitor is collected only when it is voluntarily provided by the visitor.
The only profile data we will store about you is information that you have entered. Only you can enter or modify registration data associated with your account or information on your personal profile page and only you can decide what, if any, information is to be revealed to other members.
QuitNet does not provide functionality to perform "reverse searches" which find individual names from address, e-mail or phone number information.
QuitNet Mail (Q-Mail) communications are accessible only by the designated recipients (and by QuitNet personnel involved in maintaining the system).
Recommendations to users are generated solely based on a user's submitted information and the preferences of other users.
QuitNet will not release your screenname and password to any other user. However, you remain responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your password and other identifying information on a QuitNet-powered Web site.
QuitNet collects non-personal information in aggregate form from online visitors, including information about the total number of visitors, the type of internet browser (for example Internet Explorer ® or AOL) and operating system (such as Windows ® or Mac®) used by visitors, the demographic breakdown of registered members, and the activities that visitors engage in while on QuitNet. This information helps us maintain and improve our Web site and other QuitNet-powered Web sites. Personally identifiable information such as your name is not collected in this process.We may provide such information to third parties, including potential or actual advertisers, providers of advertising services (including Web site tracking services), commercial partners, sponsors, licensees, researchers and other similar parties.
We manage your visit to our Web site by giving you a "cookie" when you enter. Cookies are pieces of information that Web sites transfer to your computer's hard drive for record-keeping purposes. QuitNet.com uses cookies to make visiting our Web sites easier and to enable the tailoring of content for you. Cookies help us track user trends and patterns. In addition, third party advertising networks may issue cookies when serving advertisements. The use of cookies is now an industry standard, and you'll find them used on almost every major Web site.
We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads on our Web site. These companies may employ cookies and action tags (also known as single pixel gifs or web beacons) to measure advertising effectiveness. Any information that these third parties collect via cookies and action tags is completely anonymous. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.
Personally identifiable information collected for billing purposes may only be accessed or updated by the account owner on a QuitNet powered Web site. QuitNet staff has access to this information for account management purposes only.
We may use independent contractors, vendors and suppliers (collectively, "Outside Contractors") to provide services and products related to QuitNet, such as hosting and maintaining our chat rooms, providing credit card processing, product fulfillment and fraud screening, and developing applications for QuitNet and e-mail services.
You may be given the opportunity through QuitNet to buy (or to obtain more information regarding) certain content, products or services which are sold through a person or company other than us (collectively, "Third Party Sellers"). If you purchase a product or service through one of our co-branded stores, you will likely be purchasing it through a Third Party Seller. We will try to make it clear when you are dealing with a Third Party Seller by opening a new browser or otherwise notifying you that you are leaving QuitNet. For example, if you see a phrase like "powered by" or "brought to you by" followed by the name of someone else, then you are likely on, or about to enter, a Web site hosted or operated by a Third Party Seller. Third Party Sellers may ask you to give them information in order to buy their products or services or to get information from them. You do not need to give this information or purchase any products or services from Third Party Sellers to access QuitNet. By submitting the requested information, you affirmatively consent to have that information shared with the Third Party Seller. This information is used by the Third Party Seller and may be subject to a different privacy policy. We do not otherwise share your personally identifiable information with or disclose it to Third Party Sellers.
We reserve the right to transfer information to a third party in the event of a sale, merger or other transfer of all or substantially all of the assets of Healthways QuitNet.com, Inc. provided that the third party agrees to follow the terms of this Privacy Policy.
We may disclose information (including personally identifiable information) about you to our affiliates (any person or entity which directly or indirectly controls, is controlled by or is under common control with HealthWays QuitNet.com, Inc., whether by ownership or otherwise). Any information relating to you that we provide to our affiliates will be treated by those affiliates in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy.
We may disclose your information (including personally identifiable information) if we believe in good faith that we are required to do so in order to comply with an applicable statute, regulation, rule or law, a subpoena, a search warrant, a court or regulatory order, or other valid legal process. We may disclose personally identifiable information in special circumstances when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be violating our Terms of Use or our Premium Membership Terms and Conditions, or to protect the safety and/or security of our users, QuitNet or the general public.
We want your information on QuitNet to be as secure as possible and use industry-standard techniques to help ensure that it is. We use Secured Socket Layer (SSL) encryption technology in transmitting Personally Identifiable Information pertaining to financial transactions over the Internet to our servers, and we secure such information you provide on servers located in controlled, secure environments, protected from unauthorized access, use or alteration. Only those who need access to your information to perform a specific task or function are granted access. All QuitNet employees and Third Party Contractors must abide by this Privacy Policy and are kept up-to-date on security practices. Any employee who violates this Privacy Policy is subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination. However, you should be aware that, notwithstanding our commitment to protect your information, there is always some risk involved in transmitting information over the Internet, and there is also some risk that someone could defeat our security systems. As a result, while we try to protect the security and privacy of your information, we cannot guarantee it.
You can contact us at any time in order to (1) update or correct your personally identifiable information, (2) change your preferences with respect to communications and other information you receive from us, or (3) cancel your account and have your personally identifiable information deleted from our systems (subject to the following paragraph), by accessing My Profile or contacting our helpdesk. Such updates, corrections, changes and deletions will not have an effect on other information that we maintain, or information that we have provided to third-parties in accordance with this Privacy Policy prior to such update, correction, change or deletion.
You should be aware that it is not technically possible to remove all copies of your information from our system. The need to back up our systems to protect information from inadvertent loss means that copies of your personally identifiable information may exist in a non-erasable form that will be difficult or impossible for us to locate. We promise that promptly after receiving your request, all personally identifiable information stored in databases we actively use and other readily searchable media will be updated, corrected, changed or deleted, as appropriate, as soon as reasonably practicable.
We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will post any changes here. [If at any point we were to decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner significantly different from that stated in this Privacy Policy or otherwise disclosed to you at the time it was collected, we would notify you by email, and you would have a choice as to whether or not we used your personally identifiable information in the new manner.]
If you have questions regarding this Privacy Policy, you should contact our Privacy Agent in any of the following ways:
