LinkGrinder - Privacy Policy

LinkGrinder is committed to safeguarding your privacy online. Please read the following policy to understand how your personal information will be treated as you make full use of our many offerings. This policy may change from time to time so please check back periodically.

This policy will let you know:

1. What personally identifiable information is collected from you;

2. What cookies are and how they are used;

3. How your information is used;

4. Who is collecting your information;

5. With whom your information may be shared;

6. What choices are available to you regarding collection, use, and distribution of your information;

7. How you can access, update or delete your information;

8. How LinkGrinder treats your personal financial and health-related information;

9. The kind of security precautions that are in place to protect the loss, misuse, or alteration of your information;

10. What else you should know about your online privacy.

What personally identifiable information does LinkGrinder collect?

LinkGrinder collects information in several ways from different parts of our network of services.

Some personal information is gathered when you register. During registration, LinkGrinder asks for your name, address and email address. The more information you volunteer (and the more accurate it is), the better we are able to customize your experience. Once you register you are no longer anonymous to LinkGrinder - you are given a LinkGrinder ID and are able to take full advantage of LinkGrinder's many offerings.

What are cookies and how does LinkGrinder use them?

As part of offering and providing customizable and personalized services, LinkGrinder uses cookies to store and sometimes track information about you. A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer's hard drive. All sites on LinkGrinder where you are prompted to log-in or that are customizable require that you accept cookies.

Generally, we use cookies to:

(1) Remind us of who you are and to access your account information (stored on our computers) in order to deliver to you a better and more personalized service. This cookie is set when you register or "Sign In" and is modified when you "Sign Out" of our services.

(2) Estimate our audience size. Each browser accessing LinkGrinder is given a unique cookie which is then used to determine the extent of repeat usage, usage by a registered user versus by an unregistered user, and to help target advertisements based on user interests and behavior.

(3) Track your progress and number of entries in some of our services. When a LinkGrinder-hosted promotion uses cookies, the information written to the cookie indicates the player's progress through the promotion, and may be used to track entries, submissions, and any other useful information related to that service.

(4) Measure certain traffic patterns, which areas of LinkGrinder's network of web sites you have visited, and your visiting patterns in the aggregate. We use this research to understand how our users' habits are similar or different from one another so that we can make each new experience on LinkGrinder a better one. We may use this information to better personalize the content, banners, and promotions that you and other users will see on our sites.

Advertising networks that serve ads onto LinkGrinder may also use their own cookies.

How does LinkGrinder use my information?

LinkGrinder's primary goal in collecting personal information is to provide you, the user, with a customized experience on our network of sites. By knowing a little about you, LinkGrinder is able to deliver more relevant advertisements and content, and hence better service, to you.

In our role of delivering targeted advertisements, LinkGrinder plays the middleman. Advertisers give us an advertisement and tell us the type of audience they want to reach (for example, males over 35 years old). LinkGrinder takes the advertisement and displays it to users meeting that criteria. In this process, the advertiser never has access to individual account information. Only LinkGrinder has access to individuals' accounts. This kind of advertisement targeting is done with banner ads and email advertisements.

LinkGrinder does research on our users' demographics, interests, and behavior based on the information provided to us upon registration, during a promotion, from our server log files or from surveys. We do this to better understand and serve our users. This research is compiled and analyzed on an aggregated basis. LinkGrinder may share this aggregated data with advertisers or business partners.

LinkGrinder WILL send advertisements to you! DO NOT use this service is you do NOT want advertisements.

Who is collecting information

When you are on a LinkGrinder site and are asked for personal information, you are sharing that information with LinkGrinder alone, unless it is specifically stated otherwise. If data is being collected and/or maintained by any company other than LinkGrinder, you will be notified prior to the time of the data collection or transfer. If you do not want your data to be shared, you can choose not to allow the transfer by not using that particular service.

Promotions that run on LinkGrinder may be sponsored by companies other than LinkGrinder or may be cosponsored by LinkGrinder and another company. Some or all data collected during a promotion may be shared with the sponsor. If data will be shared, you will be notified prior to the time of data collection or transfer. You can decide not to participate in the promotion if you don't want your data to be shared.

Please be aware that LinkGrinder advertisers or web sites that have links on our site may collect personally identifiable information about you. The information practices of those web sites linked to LinkGrinder are not covered by this privacy statement.

With whom does LinkGrinder share my information?

As a general rule, LinkGrinder will not disclose any of your personally identifiable information except when we have your permission or under special circumstances, such as when we believe in good faith that the law requires it or under the circumstances described below. Please see the Terms of Service or Use Agreements for each of our products and services for more detailed information about how your personal information may be shared. The following describes some of the ways that your information may be disclosed.

Business Partners & Sponsors: LinkGrinder may disclose your personal information to business partners or sponsors, but this is specifically described to you prior to data collection or prior to transferring the data. Details of shared use can be found in specific Terms of Service or Use Agreements, and sweepstakes and promotions rules. Some or all data collected during a LinkGrinder promotion may be shared with a sponsor. If personally identifying data about you will be shared, we will tell you before we collect or transfer the data.

Many promotions offer opportunities to request additional information from sponsors. By requesting more information, you give LinkGrinder permission to transfer your personal information to the sponsor so they can fulfill your request. In many instances, only your email address will be shared. If more information will be shared with the sponsor, you will be notified prior to the transfer.

From time to time, you may be offered the opportunity to receive materials or special offers from third parties. If you opt-in to receive information from these third parties, LinkGrinder will (with your permission) share your name and email address with them.

Third Party Data & Data in the Aggregate: Under confidentiality agreements, LinkGrinder may match user information with third party data. Also, LinkGrinder discloses aggregated user statistics (for example, 45% of our users are female) in order to describe our services to prospective partners, advertisers, and other third parties, and for other lawful purposes.

Other: LinkGrinder may also disclose account information in special cases 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 LinkGrinder's Terms of Service or may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) LinkGrinder's rights or property, other LinkGrinder users, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities. LinkGrinder may disclose or access account information when we believe in good faith that the law requires it and for administrative and other purposes that we deem necessary to maintain, service, and improve our products and services.

What are my choices regarding collection, use, and distribution of my information?

LinkGrinder may, from time to time, send you email regarding our products and services. In addition, we may occasionally send you direct mail about products and services that we feel may be of interest to you. Only LinkGrinder (or agents working on behalf of LinkGrinder and under confidentiality agreements) will send you these direct mailings and only if you indicated that you do not object to these offers. If you do not want to receive such mailings, THEN DO NOT USE OUR SERVICE.

You also have choices with respect to cookies. By modifying your browser preferences, you have the choice to accept all cookies, to be notified when a cookie is set, or to reject all cookies. If you choose to reject all cookies you will be unable to use those LinkGrinder services that require registration in order to participate.

What is LinkGrinder's policy on allowing me to update, correct, or delete my personally identifiable information?

You may edit your LinkGrinder Account Information at any time by using your LinkGrinder ID and password. If you have forgotten your password, please click here to request a new password.

Your LinkGrinder account can be deleted or deactivated, but doing so will result in not being able to access any members-only area of the LinkGrinder network. If you saved the confirmation email you received when you first created your LinkGrinder account, you can use the URL provided in that message to delete your account at any time.

What security precautions are in place to protect the loss, misuse, or alteration of my information?

Your LinkGrinder Account Information password-protected so that you and only you have access to this personal information. You may edit your LinkGrinder Account Information by using your LinkGrinder ID and password.

We recommend that you do not divulge your password to anyone. LinkGrinder will never ask you for your password in an unsolicited phone call or in an unsolicited email. Also remember to sign out of your LinkGrinder account and close your browser window when you have finished your work. This is to ensure that others cannot access your personal information and correspondence if you share a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place like a library or Internet cafe.

Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, LinkGrinder cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or from our online products or services, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.

What else should I know about my privacy?

Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information online - for example on message boards, through email, or in chat areas - that information can be collected and used by others. In short, if you post personal information online that is accessible to the public, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return.

Ultimately, you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your passwords and/or any account information. Please be careful and responsible whenever you're online.