Privacy Policy

Overview

Effective: 17 February 2007

 

1. Under 18s  Children are not eligible to use our services and we ask that minors (under 18 years of age) do not submit any personal information to us.
 
 2. Information We Collect.  Our primary goal in collecting personal information from you is to provide you with a smooth, efficient, and personalized experience while using our services. This allows us to provide services and features that most likely meet your needs, and to customize our service to make your experience easier and quicker.

We automatically track certain information about you based upon your behavior on our site. We use this information to do internal research on our users' demographics, interests, and behavior to better understand and serve our users. This information is compiled and analyzed on an aggregated basis.

Using the Site's web server log files, we use IP addresses to analyze trends, track users' movement, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information. This information may include the URL that you just came from (whether this URL is on our site or not), which URL you next go to (whether this URL is on our site or not), what browser and operating system you are using, your IP address etc.

In addition, we use cookies on certain pages of our site. We may also offer certain features that are only available through the use of a cookie. Cookies can also help us provide information which is targeted to your interests. Cookies are stored on your hard drive, not on our site. Most cookies are "session cookies," meaning that they are automatically deleted at the end of a session. The other type of cookie we use is a 'persistent' cookie. This stays on your hard drive and we use this to automatically identify who you are. We use this cookie so that you do not need to log in manually every time you visit the site if you are a registered user. The cookie itself contains no personally identifiable information but it does pass an ID to our server which allows us to tie the cookie to your personal information. We do this to allow us to let you know on the homepage what has changed on the site since your last visit. We also use the cookie to track how often you visit the site so we know who our most loyal users are. You are always free to decline our cookies if your browser permits, although in that case you will not be able to use certain features on our site. For example, if you disable cookies, you will need to log in manually each time you visit the site as we cannot use a cookie to remember who you are. Some of our business partners (e.g. net-filter.com; hitbox.com) use cookies on our site. These are used to monitor site performance and to measure site traffic and usage. We have no access to or control over these cookies. This privacy statement covers the use of cookies by E-consultancy only and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.

Surveys:  From time-to-time our site may request information from users via surveys, contests or for a particular service (e.g. newsletter). Participation in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose this information. Information requested will include contact information (as supplied to the site during registration) and supplementary information on your professional interests, opinions and preferences. We will use the contact information to notify winners. We will not publish winners' details on the site though on request we will provide details of any winners' name and organization. If the survey or contest has a sponsor then we will share information given by entrants with the sponsor.

3. Our Use of Your Information.  We use personally identifiable information about you to improve our marketing and promotional efforts, to statistically analyze site usage, to improve our content and product offerings and to customize our site's content, layout, and services. We believe these uses allow us to improve our site and better tailor it to meet our users' needs.

We use your e-mail address to send you newsletters or other communications (for example, digests of the forum posts) that you have requested from the Site. Out of respect for our users we offer an opt-out (see 4. below).

We use information in the file we maintain about you, and other information we obtain from your current and past activities on the Site, to resolve any disputes, troubleshoot problems and enforce our User Agreement. At times, we may look across multiple users to identify problems or resolve disputes, and in particular on rare occasions we may evaluate your information to look for users using multiple User IDs or alias.

4. Opt-Out of Email Communications  If at any stage you wish no longer to receive any e-mails that you receive from the site you can stop them coming by using the opt-out or link attached to the bottom of each email.   

5. Our Disclosure of Your Information  Unfortunately, due to the existing regulatory environment, we cannot ensure that all of your private communications and other personally identifiable information will never be disclosed in ways not otherwise described in this Privacy Policy.

By way of example (without limiting the foregoing), we may be forced to disclose information to the government or third parties under certain circumstances, or third parties may unlawfully intercept or access transmissions or private communications. We can (and you authorize us to) disclose any information about you to law enforcement or other government officials as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate, in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringements, or other activity that is illegal or may expose us to legal liability.

As a general proposition, we do not sell or rent any personally identifiable information about you to any third party.

Advertisers: We do aggregate personally identifiable information and disclose such information in aggregate to advertisers and for other marketing and promotional purposes. However, in these situations, we do not disclose to these entities any information that could be used to personally identify you.

E-commerce community:. Throughout the Site, you are identified by your User ID, which is thereby disclosed to other users and third parties. Your User ID can be used to identify you and your activities throughout the Site. Other people can see your rating, your postings on the Site, and so on. We also provide others a number of ways to allow other users to find more out about you and your site activities if you give them permission to access this information. Please be aware that if you post personal information online that is accessible to the public, you risk receiving unsolicited messages from other parties in return. We cannot be liable for any such communications.

Legal Requests: Our Company cooperates with law enforcement inquiries and other third parties to enforce laws, intellectual property and other rights. Local and international law enforcement agents can request and may receive your personally identifiable information.

Suppliers and Other Service Providers:  From time to time we use third party Suppliers and Service Providers to facilitate our services. Where any Service Provider collects information directly from you (such as the situation where we ask a Service Provider to conduct a survey for us) you will be notified of the involvement of the Supplier or Service Provider, and all information disclosures you make will be strictly optional.

6. Discussion Forums  If you choose to post messages in our forums, or leave a message or comment in other areas of the site (e.g. comments in the Providers section of the site), or leave feedback for us or other users, we will store such information in a file personal to you. This is so that we can see what contributions you have made to the site.

Where you make such comments or forum posts, your User ID will also be given on the site allowing other users to click on it to find out more about you. Although you may update and choose your own User ID, it is always publicly available information.

We track which forum messages individual site users read. This is in order to help us understand which content that user is most interested in. We use this intelligence to help personalize the site to match the interests of the user.

7. "Tell a friend" services  Our site offers a service whereby you can e-mail site content (for example, a particular forum post) to a friend or colleague. This will involve entering the e-mail address of your friend. We do not use the e-mail addresses you enter for any purpose other than to send your e-mail. We do not store, rent or sell these e-mail addresses.

8. Other Information Collectors:  Except as otherwise expressly discussed in this Privacy Policy, this document only addresses the use and disclosure of information we collect from you. To the extent that you disclose your information to other parties, whether they are other members of the Site or other sites throughout the Internet, different rules may apply to their use or disclosure of the personal information you disclose to them.

9. No part of this can be copied:  All parts of part of this web site logo's, language, or source code, strategy, or anything arriving from this site are considered to be registered trade marks and confidential and propriety information of GeeksTechniques.com.  No parts of it may be replicated or shared with out the prior written consent.