Privacy Policy

Our Privacy Policy is designed to assist you in understanding how we collect and use the personal information you provide to us and to assist you in making informed decisions when using our Web site.

What Information Do We Collect?

When you visit our Web site, you may provide us with two types of information: personal information that you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis; and Web site use information that is collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our Web site.

1. Personal Information You Choose to Provide

E-mail Information

If you choose to correspond with us through e-mail, we may retain the content of your e-mail messages together with your e-mail address and our responses.

2. Web site Use Information

Similar to other commercial Web sites, our Web site utilizes a standard technology called “cookies” (see “What Are Cookies, Web Beacons, Pixel Tags and GIF’s?” explanation below) and Web server logs (”log files”) to collect information about how our Web site is used. Information gathered through cookies and Web server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent on our Web site, and the Web sites visited just before and just after our Web site. We, our advertisers and third party ad serving companies may also use small pieces of code called “web beacons,” “pixel tags,” or “clear GIF’s” to determine which advertisements and promotions users have seen and how users responded to them. Personally identifiable information is not stored in these cookies, web beacons, pixel tags, or clear GIF’s. We use a third-party tracking service that uses cookies and log files to track non-personally identifiable information about visitors to our site in the aggregate, for usage and volume purposes, and to help us better understand the needs of our visitors.

How Do We Use the Information You Provide to Us?

We use personal information for purposes of administering and expanding our business activities, providing customer service, and making available other products and services to our customers and prospective customers. We may retain your personal information for administrative, reporting and analytic purposes. We will not share or sell your information unless you affirmatively opt in to such information sharing.

What Are Cookies, Web Beacons, Pixel Tags and GIF’s?

A cookie is a very small text document that often includes an anonymous unique identifier. When you visit a Web site, that site’s computer asks your computer for permission to store this file in a part of your hard drive specifically designated for cookies. Each Web site can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser’s preferences allow it. In order to protect your privacy, your browser only permits a Web site to access the cookies it has already sent to you and not the cookies sent to you by other sites. Some of our business partners (e.g. advertisers) use cookies that originate from their Web sites. We have no access to, or control over, these cookies. For more information, see “Third Party Advertisers.”

A Web beacon is a graphic image, such as a pixel tag or clear GIF, that is placed on a Web page or in an e-mail message to monitor user activity, such as whether the Web page or e-mail message is read or clicked. They are often invisible because they are very small in size. They are also used on many Web pages for alignment purposes. We sometimes use Web beacons to provide an independent accounting of how many people visit our Web sites or to gather statistics about browser usage at our Web sites. Some of our Web pages and HTML-formatted e-mail newsletters use Web beacons in conjunction with cookies. It is difficult for you to limit the use of Web beacons because there is no easy way to distinguish their use from alignment and other purposes. They may be loaded from a different Web server than the rest of the page.

We also use third party contractors to monitor how guests use our Web site and determine which of our online features they prefer. We report information to our contractors about our customers and the products and services they order, as well as aggregated, non-identifiable information about our guests’ use of our site.