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ShopMyGold.Com Privacy Policy
Last Updated on February 7, 2012
ShopMyGold.com (“SMG” and sometimes referred to as “we,” “us,” or “our”) appreciates your interest in our website, WWW.SHOPMYGOLD.COM (the “Site”). Your privacy is important to us. Our Site is designed to bring scrap gold buyers and sellers together. The Site contains advertisements from gold buyers which provides users information such as the particular buyer’s 14k purchase price, store hours, location and similar information. In connection with providing this information and service, there are times when we may ask for or collect information from you, either in the form of anonymous data or personally identifiable information. As part of our commitment to honoring your privacy, this Privacy Policy explains the approach we take in protecting and using the information that we gather from you on our Site. This Privacy Policy is incorporated in the site’s Terms of Service.
Types of Information We Collect
Cookies: When you visit the Site, we ask your browser to store small text files containing a string of alphanumeric characters known as a cookie. We use both session cookies and persistent cookies. If you have chosen to identify yourself on a Site, we use session cookies containing encrypted information to identify you and facilitate your use of the Site. Session cookies are required to access much of the content and services offered on the Site. After you leave our Site and close your browser, a persistent cookie remains. Persistent cookies can be removed by following your help file directions in your web browser. If you refuse our cookies, some features of the Site may not function properly for you.
User Provided Information: When you choose to submit personally identifiable information to our Site (including your name, zip code, email address), your information is used only for the specific purpose for which it was submitted, unless you consent otherwise or as required by law. In many cases, you choose the amount of information you supply. There may be instances where some of the information that we ask you to provide is identified as mandatory and some as voluntary. In such cases, if you do not provide mandatory personal information with respect to a particular activity, you will not be able to engage in that activity. We may collect personally identifiable information when you:
• Inquire about the Site or our services;
• Search the Site for a list of gold buyers using your zip code;
• Sign up for email updates; or
• Submit a publicly-posted review regarding a gold buyer.
We maintain the data that you provide us in a secure database. We may combine this information with data that is publicly available and data that we receive from other sources.
Log Files: Our servers automatically record certain information (e.g., web request, Internet Protocol ("IP") address, browser type, browser language, URLs, etc) that your web browser sends whenever you visit our Site.
Web Beacons: We may employ clear GIFs or Web Beacons to track anonymously how users use the Site. We may also use Web Beacons in our emails to track which emails are opened by recipients.
Use of Information
We always want to provide you with the best possible service and experience. In order to do this, we collect information that allows us to:
• Provide the services you request;
• Contact you about the status of a review you submitted regarding a gold buyer;
• Send you promotional offers we believe will be of interest to you;
• Send you email updates; and
• Customize our communications to you.
We collect personal information from visitors to our Site on a voluntary basis; however, visitors are not required to give such information to access many portions of our Site. Personal information may include, without limitation, name, zip code, phone number and e-mail address. A user’s personal information may be used for purposes of responding to reviews of gold buyers posted to the Site by a user, publicly posting a user’s review of a gold buyer to the Site, and searching for a list of gold buyers in close geographic proximity to user.
When someone visits the Site, our web servers automatically gather information that allows the Site to communicate with the visitor's computer during the visit. We also may use any of the following information: the number of visits to the Site, which parts of the Site visitors select, IP address (the Internet address assigned to your computer from your Internet service provider), domain type, browser type (e.g., Netscape or Internet Explorer) and date and time of day. We use this information for statistical purposes that help us design and administer the Site. We may also use this information to determine the validity of reviews posted on the Site. Those types of information do not disclose personally identifiable information that would permit us to identify or locate individual visitors.
Disclosure of Information
We do not sell, trade or rent to any unaffiliated third parties your personally identifiable information collected on our Site. We do use the anonymous data and the personally identifiable information collected through our Site for statistical purposes and for improving the Site, as well as for our marketing purposes, as part of our responses to your questions or requests for information, in response to publicly-posted reviews a user may write regarding a gold buyer, and potentially when sending commercial emails to you. We may engage a third party’s software or services to assist us with these analyses and activities in which case such information may be shared with them for these purposes (e.g., your email address with our outbound email marketing provider).
We may contract with other companies to provide certain services such as email distribution, market research, and promotions management. We provide these companies with only the information they need to perform their services and work closely with them to ensure that your privacy is respected and protected. This may include sending you emails periodically. However, you will have the choice to opt out of receiving promotional emails for our services. These companies are prohibited by contract from using this information for their own marketing purposes or from sharing this information with anyone other than us.
If we or our assets are sold or transferred or used as security, the information collected on our Site may be transferred or shared with third parties as part of that transaction. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Privacy Policy, we may also disclose personally identifiable information in order to respond to a subpoena, court order or other similar request or legal process. We may also provide such personally identifiable information in response to a law enforcement agency's request, as otherwise required by law, or if we believe, in our reasonable judgment, that providing such information is necessary for us to avoid criminal or civil liability.
Security Measures
We use a variety of current technologies and processes for protection of our customer data. We maintain a private database on our web server for the storage of all information collected through our Site. It is our practice to use encryption whenever we receive or transmit sensitive data. We will take reasonable measures which we believe are appropriate to protect your information from loss, misuse, alteration or destruction, and, where possible, will ask that any third parties to whom we may transfer your information take comparable steps to protect that security. Although we will use all reasonable efforts to safeguard the confidentiality of any visitor information collected, we shall have no liability for disclosure of any visitor information obtained due to errors in transmission or the unauthorized acts of third parties. Email is not a secure form of communication. Please do not send us any personally sensitive information via email.
Other Websites
Please be aware that our Site and email communications may contain links to other websites on the Internet that are owned and operated by third parties. The information practices of those websites linked to our Site are not covered by this Privacy Policy and, therefore, we are not responsible for the content or privacy policies of websites to which our Site links. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of other websites to understand their privacy practices.
Public Forum
Any information you submit in a public forum (e.g. review of a gold buyer, a blog, chat room, or social network) can be read, collected, or used by us and others, and could be used to personalize your experience. You are responsible for the information you choose to submit in these instances. Such user-posted material is not subject to this Privacy Policy.
If you submit a review to our Site regarding your experience with a particular gold buyer, we shall have the right to reproduce your review and use your first name and city and state information in such section in connection with our answer to the question, should we choose to publish your question and our response on our Site.
Who May Use Our Site
Our Site is designed for users from the United States. Users from other countries are advised not to disclose personal information unless they consent to having their information used as set forth in this Privacy Policy, rather than under the law of user's home country. When you use our Site, you may transmit data to servers located in Illinois which are subject to United States and Illinois law. You should not send any personal information to these Site unless you agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy and by United States and Illinois law.
Children
We do not knowingly collect personal information from people younger than the age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence. Minors are not encouraged to use the Site and we request that minors not submit any personal information to the Site. Since information regarding minors is not collected, we do not knowingly distribute personal information regarding minors.
Opt Out/Modify Information
If you would like to add your name to our marketing list, request that your name be removed, or correct your current information, please write us at our Contact Us Page.
Please include your full name and email address in case we have any questions. You can also opt-out of receiving email communications from us by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link in our emails. We will make a reasonable effort to accommodate your request.
Changes and Updates to this Privacy Policy
We may make changes to the Privacy Policy from time to time and at any time without notice to you by posting modifications to the Privacy Policy at the Site. By using the Site following such changes, you agree to be bound by such changes. Please check the Site periodically to familiarize yourself with any changes that may have been made to the Privacy Policy. You can determine when the Privacy Policy was last changed by checking the “Last Updated” reference above.
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