privacy policy
COMMITMENT TO YOUR PRIVACY
This site is owned and
operated by Prism Computer Services, LLC.
Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance
to us. At Prism Computer Services, 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 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.
Prism Computer Services, LLC gathers two
types of information about users:
1. 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:
2. Information Prism
Computer Services, 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 Prism
Computer Services, 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
Prism Computer Services, LLC divulge any
information about an individual user to a third party.
Prism Computer Services, 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 (Dispatches).
We will offer a free electronic newsletter to users.
Prism Computer Services, 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. Message Boards/Forums.
Users of the site's Message Boards and Forums must
register separately for these services (both are free of
charge) in order to post messages, although they needn't
register to visit the site. During registration the user
is required to supply a username, password, and email
address.
3. "Email this to a friend" Service.
Our site users can choose to electronically forward a
link, page, or documents to someone else by clicking
"email 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.
4. 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. Prism
Computer Services, 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.
5. Surveys.
Prism Computer Services, 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
Prism Computer Services, LLC tracks user
traffic patterns throughout all of our sites. However,
we do not correlate this information with data about
individual users. Prism Computer Services, 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).
Prism Computer Services, 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. Prism Computer Services, 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
Prism Computer Services, 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.
Prism Computer Services, 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.
Prism Computer Services, 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
Prism Computer Services, 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
Prism Computer Services, 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:
1. Opting not to register
to receive our electronic newsletters.
2. 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 Prism Computer
Services, 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.