Birthday.org Privacy
Policy
GENERAL MATTERS
Overview
At Birthday.org, protecting our users' privacy and security
is a top priority. For this reason, we have adopted the following
policy to advise you of your choices regarding the use of
your personal information online. This policy describes what
types of information we gather about you, how we use it, under
what circumstances we disclose it to third-parties, and your
rights to update or correct it.
Scope of Policy
This Policy applies to Birthday.org. It does not apply to
other companies' or organizations' web sites to which we link.
You should carefully review the privacy policies of those
web sites in order to determine how they treat your personal
information.
INFORMATION ABOUT YOU
Information Gathered From All Visitors
Aggregate Data
We gather certain generic information with respect to customers'
use of our web site, such as the number of unique visitors,
the frequency with which they visit, and the areas on the
web site that they favor. These statistics are very much like
television ratings that tell the networks how many people
tuned in to a program. We only use this type of data in aggregate-that
is, we look at the data on a collective basis, in summary
form, rather than on an individual basis. This data helps
us determine the extent to which our customers use certain
parts of our web site, which, in turn, enables us to make
it as appealing as possible. We may also provide statistical
"ratings" about how our customers collectively use
our web site to advertisers, sponsors, and other companies
with which we do business ("Business Partners").
We do this so they, too, can understand how often people use
their areas of the site in order for them to provide you with
the best possible experience. These statistical ratings do
not contain any personally identifiable information about
you or any of our users.
Cookies
We use a technology nicknamed "cookies" on our web
site. Cookies are pieces of information or data sent to your
browser from a web server and stored on your computer's hard
drive for record-keeping purposes. We use cookies to make
your visit to our web site easier. For example, cookies allow
us to recognize you when you re-enter our web site so that
you will not have to sign-in each time you visit. Cookies
also allow us to count the number of unique and return visitors
who use our site. Most browsers are initially set up to accept
cookies. If you prefer, you can reset your browser to notify
you when you've received a cookie or, alternatively, to refuse
to accept cookies. It is important to note that you may not
be able to use certain features on our web site if you choose
not to accept cookies -------such as ------. In addition,
you will not be able to participate in our contests or certain
promotions. Cookies can also enable us to track and target
the interests of our users to enhance their experience on
our site.
Third Party Advertiser Cookies
We use third-party advertising companies to serve our ads
on the Internet. These third-party advertising companies employ
cookie and Clear Gif technology (i.e. 1x1 Pixel .gifs, Web
bugs) to measure and improve the effectiveness of ads for
their clients. To do so, these companies may use anonymous
information about your visits to our Web site and other Web
sites. This information can include: date/time of banner ad
shown, the banner ad that was shown, their cookie, the IP
address. This information can also be used for online preference
marketing purposes. Birthday.org does not use or have access
to this information.
If you want to prevent a third-party advertiser from setting
and/or reading cookies on your computer, currently you may
either visit each ad network's web site individually and opt
out or visit the web site of the National Advertising Initiative
("NAI") to opt-out of all network-advertising cookies.
Click
here for the NAI gateway opt-out site. This site will
also allow you to review the third-party advertising companies'
privacy policies.
Advertising Research Cookies
From time-to-time, outside third party research companies
may set cookies on your browser regarding exposure to certain
ad placements. These cookies may be used later for research
purposes if you later opt-in to take a survey. If you choose
to take the survey, these companies may examine your browser
to see if a one of their cookies has been set. If the company
detects the cookie in your browser, it will gather only 2
pieces of information from it: where you have seen a particular
ad and; how many times you have seen it. If you do not want
these kinds of cookies to be set to your browser, you can
opt-out by clicking
here.
IP Addresses
We collect and analyze traffic on our web site by keeping
track of the IP addresses of our visitors. IP addresses are
unique numeric identifiers that are assigned to each computer
browser accessing the Internet. An IP address, by itself,
cannot identify you personally. However, when combined with
other information provided by your Internet Service Provider
(ISP), your IP address can be used to identify the computer
originating a message.
Birthday.org may include the sender ip address in the header
information of each greeting or notification e-mail it sends.
This is available to the greeting or notice recipient and
anyone else who is forwarded the notification e-mail. This
limits your ability to communicate anonymously using electronic
greetings. Electronic greetings are neither intended nor appropriate
for anonymous communications, and such activity is expressly
prohibited by the acceptable use policy in our terms of service.
When You Send A Greeting
If you use our web site to send an online greeting or any
other content, we collect your e-mail address and your recipient's
e-mail address. This information is necessary to send the
content and provide confirmation that it has been received.
We will not use your recipient's e-mail address for any purpose
other than to send the greeting. We may also use your e-mail
address to contact you if you have chosen to receive communications
from Birthday.org or its Partners. (See Opt-Out/Changing Your
Status, below).
Personalizing Your Experience on the Web Site
We try to personalize your experience on our web sites by
tracking greetings and other content you have sent and gifts
you have purchased in order to shape our recommendations about
the greetings, cards, games, and gifts that might be of interest
to you. We also examine customer traffic patterns and web
site usage to help us enhance the design and layout of the
site and make it easier to navigate.
From time to time, we may send you surveys or solicit your
feedback. We use surveys to gage user interest in new products
and premiums we may offer. We will ask for your feedback on
greetings and other site features. We will use the information
we gather to improve our sites and provide a more meaningful
experience for our users. We may also use the information
to alert you to offers and products in which you have expressed
an interest.
Communications from Birthday.org
We may send to all of our users a Birthday.org Newsletter,
which alerts you to new features, content, and services, premiums
available on our site. From time to time, we will also send
you invitations to enhance your Birthday.org membership, offers
for new products and services from Birthday.org, special "Members
Only" premiums, or special offers from our affiliates
and sponsors. These communications are sent to you directly
by Birthday.org. We will not share your personally identifiable
information with any third parties in connection with the
Newsletter.
You can always decline the Newsletter by un-checking the
opt-out box on the registration pages on our site. If you
are already receiving the Newsletter and you want to unsubscribe,
you can simply follow the "unsubscribe" links at
the bottom of each edition.
Communications from Our Business Partners
Birthday.org may offer you the opportunity to receive money-saving
offers, discounts, and promotions from our Business Partners.
These communications may come from Birthday.org or directly
from the Partners themselves. We may also share with them
certain demographic, geographic, preference, and other personally
identifiable information we have gathered about you. This
will help them in directing to you offers that are more likely
to be of interest.
This program is conducted strictly on an opt-in basis. In
order to receive the offers, you must affirmatively check
the clearly marked box on our "My Space" pages and
registration pages on our site. If you leave the box unchecked,
you will not receive any offers. If you do sign up for the
program but later change your mind, you are free at any time
to opt-out by following the procedures outlined in Opt-Out/Changing
Your Status, below.
Mandatory Communications
Birthday.org reserves the right to communicate with you from
time to time about important administrative, policy, legal,
credit card, and billing matters, which will affect your use
of our web sites, including without limitation any alleged
violations of our Terms of Service.
These communications are mandatory.
Information Gathered From Members
If you elect to purchase a Membership on Birthday.org, you
will be required to provide us with certain personal information,
including your name, e-mail address, credit card number, expiration
date, and billing address (this required information is subject
to change from time to time). There will also be opportunities
for you to provide us with additional information regarding
your preferences and interests. This information, however,
is not required and is completely optional on your part.
Additional data may be collected from Members based upon
certain services they elect to utilize on our web site. For
example, we may track the categories of greetings you send
in order to make appropriate recommendations for products
or services available on our site or those of our Business
Partners. Members may register for Birthday.org reminders,
which are e-mail alerts to notify you of important dates and
occasions. Birthday.org Membership allows you to store reminder
information online. By obtaining this information, we can
provide our Members with specific content and advertising
in which they might be interested. None of this information
is required to use our service or to become a Member; however,
the omission of certain types of data will limit the value
of your membership.
Birthday.org's Uses of Personal Information
If you have provided us your consent, we may use the information
we have collected about you in five ways:
" To send personalized, targeted information that we
think our users will find relevant, either from Birthday.org
or directly from its Business Partners;
" To include targeted advertising within such messages;
" To send promotions and coupons based on the user's
interests;
" To contact the user for feedback and surveys; and
" To send the user other information about Birthday.org.
On-Site Advertising
Birthday.org may also use information about you to target
advertising while you are visiting our site. For example,
we may serve ads from gift companies to users searching the
View Member pages. We may also use geographic or other information
we have collected from you to make sure that the ads you see
are for goods and services that are actually of interest to
you or are available in your area. We may use cookie files
to assure that you will not be served the same ads repeatedly.
Order Fulfillment
From time to time, you may be given the opportunity to order
products and services directly on the Birthday.org site, the
Newsletters, or in other communications you may receive from
Birthday.org. These orders are typically fulfilled by Birthday.org's
Business Partners directly. To process your order, Birthday.org
may provide these Partners with your name, street address,
e-mail address, phone number, and credit card information.
Birthday.org will limit the types of information shared to
the minimum necessary to efficiently process your order. However,
in accepting these offers, you become a customer of the Business
Partner and therefore subject to its privacy policy. Birthday.org
will alert users whenever a Business Partner will be fulfilling
an order for products or services ordered on our site. We
encourage you to review these companies' privacy policies
and only do business with those who adhere to personal information
practices with which you are comfortable.
Privacy of Greeting Card Information
We treat all of our greetings products as private correspondence
between the sender and the recipient and will not disclose
the contents of any greeting other than to the intended recipient,
except under the specific situations outlined in Disclosure
Exceptions, below. This policy applies to all aspects of our
greetings, including your personalized messages. Under normal
circumstances, we will not monitor or edit the contents of
the online greetings you send. On occasion, however, we may
need to view your message in connection with the technical
processing of your greeting or the maintenance of our network.
Also, if you ask one of our customer service representatives
to help you send a greeting or to verify that a greeting was
sent, that representative will be able to access all information
about the card, including the recipient's e-mail address and
the message.
Disclosure Exceptions
Notwithstanding the above policies, we reserve the right to
disclose your personal information to appropriate third-parties
if we are required to do so by law or we believe that such
action is necessary:
" To comply with legal process such as a search warrant,
subpoena or court order;
" To protect the company's rights and property;
" To investigate reports of users sending material using
a false e-mail address or users sending harassing, threatening,
or abusive messages;
" To protect against misuse or unauthorized use of our
web site and/or the Birthday.org service; or
" During emergencies, such as when we believe someone's
physical safety is at risk.
Your IP address can be accessed by greetings recipients in
the header of the notification e-mail. Under certain circumstances,
recipients, their legal representatives, and/or law enforcement
authorities may be able to combine this with information disclosed
by ISPs to determine the source of a particular communication.
By using this service, you knowingly and voluntarily assume
any risks associated with such disclosure.
YOUR CONTROL OVER YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
Opt-Out/Changing Your Status
At any time, you can change choices you have previously made
as to the use of your personal information. Every communication
Birthday.org sends you will contain a clearly worded "Opt-Out"
or "Unsubscribe" link allowing you to withdraw your
permission for future mailings. Permission changes will however
not affect any information which you provided to us and which
we previously shared with our Business Partners.
Editing Your Profile
If you are a registered member, you have the ability to review
and correct your personally identifiable information at any
time. Simply sign into the site and click the "My Space"
link on the header of every page. There, you can change your
address information, e-mail, sign-in, and e-mail permissions.
You can revise, add, delete, or completely cancel all remiders
by following the links to "Reminders".
OTHER MATTERS
Protection For Children - COPPA Compliance
We are committed to protecting the privacy and rights of children
online. We believe that children should be able to use the
Internet in a safe, productive, and efficient manner and should
be afforded the highest protection available with respect
to their personal information. To that end, we have made it
our policy to not collect any individually identifiable information
from users whom we know are under the age of 13.
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA")
imposes certain requirements upon web sites and online services
that are directed toward children. To learn more about COPPA,
click
here for the Federal Trade Commission COPPA Web Site.
Contests and Promotions
Occasionally, Birthday.org may sponsor contests and/or promotions
on our sites or in our e-mail products. Participation in such
contests is purely voluntary. In order to enter a contest
or promotion, you may be asked to provide personally identifiable
information. By entering, you agree to all of its terms and
conditions, which will be clearly outlined in the rules. Where
a contest or promotion is not sponsored by Birthday.org, the
identity of the sponsor will be clearly disclosed in the rules.
Birthday.org cannot be responsible for actions or policies
of third-party contest sponsors. Users are encouraged to review
the relevant privacy policy of the sponsor before entering.
Data Security
When you place orders for purchased products or access your
payment information, we use an advanced encryption technology
known as Secure Socket Layer (SSL) to protect the storage
and transfer of your data from unauthorized parties. While
on a secure page, such as our registration form, a lock or
key icon appears on the bottom of your web browser.
In addition to our online security efforts, we take steps
to protect your personal data offline, as well. All of your
information, not just the sensitive information mentioned
above, is restricted in our offices. Employees are granted
access on a need-to-know basis (for example, our billing clerk
or a customer service representative). Furthermore, employees
are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices.
Finally, the servers on which we store personally identifiable
information are kept in a secure environment, behind a locked
door.
Birthday.org's main servers are operated from a dedicated
data communications facility with state-of-the-art physical
security features, including smoke detection and fire suppression
systems and 24x7 secured access, as well as video camera surveillance
and security breach alarms. If you have any questions about
the security at our website, you can send an email to Customer
Service.
Changes to the Privacy Policy
Birthday.org will occasionally update this Privacy Policy
in response to changing business circumstances and legal developments.
Birthday.org encourages you to periodically review this Policy
to be informed of how we are protecting your information.
USE COMMON SENSE IN ALL YOUR ONLINE ACTIVITIES
Even the best policy can't protect your online privacy and
security in all circumstances. Unscrupulous advertisers, hackers,
and scam artists are constantly searching the Internet looking
for new targets. Your best protection is to understand the
limits to privacy on the Internet and use common sense in
all of your on-line activities.
Be aware that e-mail is an inherently insecure form of communication.
Remember that third parties are sometimes able to illegally
intercept your unencrypted messages, including online greetings.
Anytime you visit a chat room or post a message to an on-line
bulletin board, your e-mail address can be accessed by advertisers
looking to compile lists for unsolicited commercial e-mail
(also known as spam). Be sure that you only disclose your
e-mail address in circumstances in which it is safe to do
so.
Beware of scams in which persons unknown to you request your
screen name, password, or credit card information. Make sure
you verify the identity of anyone asking for personal information.
Always monitor your children's on-line activities and educate
them as to the rules for safe Internet use. For more information,
click here for the
Internet Education Foundation's Online Safety Guide for Kids.
As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to
contact us at Birthday.org Customer Support support@birthday.org.
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