PRIVACY POLICY - COMMITMENT TO YOUR PRIVACY
This site is owned and operated by Waldron & Brown, LLC. Your privacy
on the
Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At Waldron & Brown, LLC,
we want to
make your experience online satisfying and safe.
Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel
you
should fully understand our policy and the terms and conditions
surrounding the
capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses what
information we gather and how we use it.
INFORMATION WALDRON & BROWN, LLC GATHERS AND TRACKS
Waldron & Brown, LLC gathers two types of information about users:
Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions.
These
are voluntary submissions to receive our electronic newsletters, to
participate
in our message boards or forums, to email a friend, and from participation
in
polls and surveys:
Information Waldron & Brown, LLC gathers through aggregated tracking
information
derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites. This
information
allows us to better tailor our content to readers' needs and to help our
advertisers and sponsors better understand the demographics of our
audience.
Because Waldron & Brown, LLC derives its revenue mainly from
sponsorships and
advertising, providing such aggregated demographic data is essential to
keeping
our service free to users. Under no circumstances does Waldron &
Brown, LLC
divulge any information about an individual user to a third party.
Waldron & Brown, LLC Gathers User Information In The Following
Processes:
Optional Voluntary Information
We offer the following free services, which require some type of voluntary
submission of personal information by users:
1. Electronic newsletters policy (Dispatches)
We will offer a free electronic newsletter to users. Waldron & Brown,
LLC
gathers the email addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe. Users may
remove
themselves from this mailing list by following the link provided in every
newsletter that points users to the subscription management page. Users
can also
subscribe to the newsletters at the time of registration.
2. "E-mail this to a friend" policy
Our site users can choose to electronically forward a link, page, or
documents
to someone else by clicking "e-mail this to a friend". The user
must provide
their email address, as well as that of the recipient. This information is
used
only in the case of transmission errors and, of course, to let the
recipient
know who sent the email. The information is not used for any other
purpose.
3. Polling
We may offer interactive polls to users so they can easily share their
opinions
with other users and see what our audience thinks about important issues.
Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not
identifiable to
any particular user. Waldron & Brown, LLC may use a system to
"tag" users after
they have voted, so they can vote only once on a particular question. This
tag
is not correlated with information about individual users.
4. Surveys
Waldron & Brown, LLC may occasionally conduct user surveys to better
target our
content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated demographic
information in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers and partners.
We
never share any of this information about specific individuals with any
third
party.
CHILDREN
Consistent with the Federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of
1998 (COPPA),
we will never knowingly request personally identifiable information from
anyone
under the age of 13 without requesting parental consent.
USAGE TRACKING
Waldron & Brown, LLC tracks user traffic patterns throughout all of
our sites.
However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual
users.
Waldron & Brown, LLC does break down overall usage statistics
according to a
user's domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this
information from
the browser string (information contained in every user's browser).
Waldron & Brown, LLC sometimes tracks and catalogs the search terms
that users
enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with
individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of
our
sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not
track
what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs
overall. This
helps us continue to build a better service for you.
COOKIES
We may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser files
of your
computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information although
it
will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you
have
specifically and knowingly provided. But the only personal information a
cookie
can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can't read data
off
your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. Waldron &
Brown, LLC
uses cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above). Our
advertising system delivers a one-time cookie to better track ad
impressions and
click rates.
You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you've set
your
browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning
message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use
this
site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in message
boards,
forums, polling and surveys.
USE OF INFORMATION
Waldron & Brown, LLC uses any information voluntarily given by our
users to
enhance their experience in our network of sites, whether to provide
interactive
or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content
based
on the interests of our users.
As stated above, we use information that users voluntarily provide in
order to
send out electronic newsletters and to enable users to participate in
polls,
surveys, message boards, and forums. We send out newsletters to
subscribers on a
regular schedule (depending on the newsletter), and occasionally send out
special editions when we think subscribers might be particularly
interested in
something we are doing. Waldron & Brown, LLC never shares newsletter
mailing
lists with any third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or
partners.
When we use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites
users
like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what
individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall.
This
helps us continue to build a better service for you. We track search terms
entered in Search function as one of many measures of what interests our
users.
But we don't track which terms a particular user enters.
Waldron & Brown, LLC creates aggregate reports on user demographics
and traffic
patterns for advertisers, sponsors and partners. This allows our
advertisers to
advertise more effectively, and allows our users to receive advertisements
that
are pertinent to their needs. Because we don't track the usage patterns of
individual users, an advertiser or sponsor will never know that a specific
user
clicked their ad. We will not disclose any information about any
individual user
except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect
the
personal safety of our users or the public.
SHARING OF THE INFORMATION
Waldron & Brown, LLC uses the above-described information to tailor
our content
to suit your needs and help our advertisers better understand our
audience's
demographics. This is essential to keeping our service free. We will not
share
information about individual users with any third party, except to comply
with
applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of
our
users or the public.
SECURITY
Waldron & Brown, LLC operates secure data networks protected by
industry
standard firewall and password protection systems. Our security and
privacy
policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only
authorized
individuals have access to the information provided by our customers.
OPT-OUT POLICY
We give users options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices
include:
Opting not to register to receive our electronic
newsletters.
Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas,
which
completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable
information
from our users
YOUR CONSENT
By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this
information by
Waldron & Brown, LLC. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we
will post
those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what
information we
collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006