LAST UPDATE: OCTOBER 2008
GENERAL MATTERS
Overview
At Spicy Chicken Cards.com ("SCC"), protecting our
users' privacy and
security is a top priority. For this reason, we have adopted
the following policy to
advise you of our use of your personal information online and
your choices
regarding that use. This policy describes what types of information
we gather
about you, how we use it, under what circumstances we disclose
it to thirdparties,
and your rights to update or correct it.
Scope of Policy
This Policy applies currently to Spicy Chicken Cards, but may,
in the future,
apply to any and all SCC-branded sites. This Policy does not
apply to other
companies' or organizations' web sites to which we link. You
should carefully
review the privacy policies of those web sites in order to
determine how they treat
your personal information.
INFORMATION ABOUT YOU
Information Gathered From All Visitors
Data
We gather certain generic information with respect to customers'
use of our web
site, such as the number of unique visitors, the frequency
with which they visit,
and the areas on the web site that they favor. These statistics
are very much like
television ratings that tell the networks how many people
tuned in to a program.
We only use this type of data in aggregate, that is, we look
at the data on a
collective basis, in summary form, rather than on an individual
basis. This data
helps us determine the extent to which our customers use
certain parts of our
web site, which, in turn, enables us to make it as appealing
as possible. We may
also provide statistical "ratings" about how our
customers collectively use our
web site to advertisers, sponsors, and other companies
with which we do
business ("Business Partners"). We do this so they,
too, can understand how
often people use their areas of the site in order for them
to provide you with the6
best possible experience. These statistical ratings do not
contain any personally
identifiable information about you or any of our users.
Cookies
We use a technology nicknamed "cookies" on our web
site. Cookies are pieces
of information or data sent to your browser from a web
server and stored on your
computer's hard drive for record-keeping purposes. We use
cookies to make
your visit to our web site easier. For example, cookies allow
us to recognize you
when you re-enter our web site so that you will not have
to sign-in each time you
visit. Cookies also allow us to count the number of unique
and return visitors who
use our site.
Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. If
you prefer, you can reset
your browser to notify you when you've received a cookie
or, alternatively, to
refuse to accept cookies. It is important to note that you
may not be able to use
certain features on our web site, including, but not limited
to, various promotions
and contests, if you choose not to accept cookies. Cookies
can also enable us to
track and target the interests of our users to enhance their
experience on our
site.
IP Addresses
We collect and analyze traffic on our web site by keeping
track of the IP
addresses of our visitors. IP addresses are unique numeric
identifiers that are
assigned to each computer browser accessing the Internet.
An IP address, by
itself, cannot identify you personally. However, when combined
with other
information provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP),
your IP address can
be used to identify the computer originating a message.
SCC INCLUDES THE SENDER IP
ADDRESS IN THE HEADER INFORMATION OF EACH ECARD NOTIFICATION
E-MAIL IT SENDS. IT IS AVAILABLE TO
THE ECARD RECIPIENT AND ANYONE ELSE WHO IS FORWARDED THE
NOTIFICATION E-MAIL. THIS LIMITS YOUR ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE
ANONYMOUSLY USING ECARDS. ECARDS ARE NEITHER INTENDED NOR
APPROPRIATE FOR ANONYMOUS COMMUNICATIONS, AND SUCH
ACTIVITY IS EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED BY THE ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY
IN OUR TERMS OF SERVICE DOCUMENT.
When You Send An eCard
If you use our web site to send an online eCard or any other
content, we collect
your e-mail address and your recipient's e-mail address.
This information is
necessary to send the content and provide confirmation that
it has been
received. We will not use your recipient's e-mail address
for any purpose other
than to send the eCard. We may also use your e-mail address
to contact you if
you have chosen to receive communications from SCC or its
Partners.
Personalizing Your Experience
on the Web Site
We try to personalize your experience on our
web sites by tracking eCards and
other content you have sent and gifts you have purchased
in order to shape our
recommendations about the eCards, and gifts that might be
of interest to you.
We also examine customer traffic patterns and web site usage
to help us
enhance the design and layout of the site and make it easier
to navigate.
From time to time, we may send you surveys or solicit your
feedback. We use
surveys to gage user interest in new products and premiums
we may offer. We
will ask for your feedback on eCards and other site features.
We will use the
information we gather to improve our sites and provide a
more meaningful
experience for our users. We may also use the information
to alert you to offers
and products in which you have expressed an interest.
Communications
From SCC
We send to all of our users our exclusive SCC Newsletter,
which alerts you to
new features, content, and services, premiums available on
our site. From time
to time, we will also send you invitations to enhance your
SCC membership,
offers for new products and services from SCC, special "Member's
Only"
premiums, or special offers from our affiliates
and our sponsors. These
communications are sent to you directly by SCC. We do not
share your
personally identifiable information with any third parties
in connection with the
Newsletter.
You can always decline the Newsletter. Every Spicy Chicken
Card Newsletter
has, at the bottom, an “Opt Out” link that you can click.
The “Opt Out” link will
take you to a link where you can control mail from Spicy
Chicken Cards to you.
If you are already receiving the Newsletter and you want
to unsubscribe, you can
simply follow the "unsubscribe" links at the bottom
of each edition.
Mandatory Communications
SCC reserves the right to communicate with you
from time to time about
important administrative, policy, legal, credit card, and
billing matters, which will
affect your use of our web sites, including without
limitation any alleged violations
of our Terms of Service. These communications are mandatory.
Information Gathered From Members
If you elect to purchase a Membership on SCC, you will be
required to provide us
with certain personal information, including your name,
e-mail address, phone
number, credit card number, expiration date, and billing
address (this required
information is subject to change from time to time). There
will also be
opportunities for you, from time to time, to provide us with
additional information
regarding your preferences and interests. This information,
however, is not
required and is completely optional on your part.
Additional data may be collected from Members based upon
certain services
they elect to utilize on our web site. For example, we may
track the categories of
eCards you send in order to make appropriate recommendations
for products or
services available on our site or those of our Business Partners.
Members may
register for SCC Reminders, which are e-mail alerts to track
important dates and
occasions they specify. SCC Membership allows you to store
eCards for future
delivery, and bookmark favorite eCards.
If you become a Member of SCC from one of our co-branded
sites, we may share your registration information
with the co-branded partner. In such
instances, the site will be clearly labeled with the branding
information of our
partner and links to its privacy policy will be conspicuously
posted.
SCC'S USES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
If you have provided us your consent, we will use the information
we have
collected about you in five ways:
• To send personalized, targeted information that we think
our users will find
relevant;
• To include targeted advertising within such messages;
• To send promotions and coupons based on the user's interests;
• To contact the user for feedback and surveys; and
• To send the user other information about SCC.
Third Party
Information Sharing
Generally, we do not share your information with third parties.
We do reserve the
right to share your information with third party companies
we may use to offer
premiums, maintain subscriptions and perform other service
functions. We do not
share equipment or databases with these companies and will
not share your
credit card information with them without your express permission.
Additionally,
any company we use will not share, sell, distribute or use
your information except
to provide us services.
Order Fulfillment
From time to time, you may be given the opportunity to order
products and
services directly on the SCC site, the Newsletters, or in
other communications
you may receive from SCC. These orders are typically fulfilled
by SCC's
Business Partners directly. In accepting these offers, you
become a customer of
the Business Partner and therefore subject to its privacy
policy. We encourage
you to review these companies' privacy policies and only
do business with those
who adhere to personal information practices with which you
are comfortable.
Privacy of eCard Card Information
We treat all of our eCard products as private correspondence
between the
sender and the recipient and will not disclose the contents
of any eCard
other than to the intended recipient, except under the specific
situations
outlined in Disclosure Exceptions, below. This policy applies
to all aspects of our eCards, including your personalized
messages, attached photos or graphics, or paper cards. Under
normal
circumstances, we will not monitor or edit the contents of
the online eCards you
send. On occasion, however, we may need to view your message
in connection
with the technical processing of your eCard or the maintenance
of our network.
Also, if you ask one of our customer service representatives
to help you send an
eCard or to verify that an eCard was sent, that representative
will be able to
access all information about the card, including the recipient's
e-mail address and
the message.
Disclosure Exceptions
Notwithstanding the above policies, we reserve the right
to disclose your
personal information to appropriate third-parties if we are
required to do so by
law or we believe that such action is necessary:
• To comply with legal process such as a search warrant,
subpoena or court
order;
• To protect the company's rights and property;
• To investigate reports of users sending material using
a false e-mail
address or users sending harassing, threatening, or abusive
messages;
• To protect against misuse or unauthorized use of our web
site and/or the
Spicy Chicken Cards.com service; or
• During emergencies, such as when we believe someone's physical
safety
is at risk.
Your IP address can be accessed
by greetings recipients in the header of the
notification e-mail. Under certain circumstances, recipients,
their legal
representatives, and/or law enforcement authorities may be
able to combine this
with information disclosed by ISPs to determine the source
of a particular
communication. By using this service, you knowingly and voluntarily
assume any
risks associated with such disclosure.
YOUR CONTROL OVER YOUR
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Opt-Out/Changing Your Status
At any time, you can change choices you have previously made
as to the use of
your personal information. Every communication SCC sends
you will contain a
clearly worded "Opt-Out" or "Unsubscribe" link
allowing you to withdraw your
permission for future mailings Permission
changes will be honored as soon as
possible after receipt. Please allow five to seven days for
processing. Permission
changes will not affect any information which
you provided to us.
Editing Your Profile
If you are a registered member, you have the ability to review
and correct your
personally identifiable information at any time.
Simply click on the "My Account"
link at the top of the every page to the "Edit My Personal
Info" page. There, you
can change your address information,
e-mail type, sign-in, and e-mail
permissions.
California Residents. As of
January 1, 2005, California Civil Code Section
1798.83 permits visitors to this Site who
are residents of California to request
information regarding SCC's disclosure of their information
to third parties for
direct marketing purposes. To make such a
request, please send an e-mail to our
customer Care Center at thegang@SpicyChickenCards.com.
Contests and Promotions
Occasionally, SCC may sponsor contests and/or promotions
on our sites or in
our e-mail products. Participation in such
contests is purely voluntary. In order to
enter a contest or promotion, you may be asked to provide
personally identifiable information. By entering,
you agree to all of its terms and conditions, which will
be clearly outlined in the rules. Where a contest or promotion
is not sponsored by
SCC, the identity of the sponsor will be clearly disclosed
in the rules. SCC
cannot be responsible for actions or policies of third-party
contest sponsors.
Users are encouraged to review the relevant privacy policy
of the sponsor before
entering.
Sale of Assets
In the event that SCC and/or its units or subsidiaries are
ever sold, acquired,
merged, liquidated, reorganized, or otherwise transferred,
we reserve the right to
transfer our user databases together with any personally
identifiable information
contained therein, to a third-party acquiring SCC's assets.
In the event we do so,
we will place a prominent notice of the sale on the homepage
of our site, with
links to information as to how you can change your privacy
preferences.
Data Security
When you place orders for purchased products or access your
payment
information, we use an advanced encryption technology known
as Secure Socket
Layer (SSL) to protect the storage and transfer of your data
from unauthorized parties. While on a secure page, such as
our registration form, a lock or key icon
appears on the bottom of your web browser.
In addition to our online security efforts, we take steps
to protect your personal
data offline, as well. All of your information, not just
the sensitive information
mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Employees
are granted access on a
need-to-know basis (for example, our billing clerk or a customer
service
representative). Furthermore, ALL employees are kept up-to-date
on our security
and privacy practices. Finally, the servers on which we store
personally
identifiable information are kept in a secure environment,
behind a locked cage.
Changes to the Privacy Policy
SCC will occasionally update this Privacy Policy in response
to changing
business circumstances and legal developments. When SCC posts
changes to
this Policy, you will see the word "updated" next
to the Privacy Policy link on the
front page of SCC Sites.
If there are material changes
to this Policy or in how
SCC uses your personally identifiable information, SCC will
prominently post
such changes prior to implementing
the change. SCC encourages you to
periodically review this Policy to be informed of how we
are protecting your
information.
USE COMMON SENSE IN ALL YOUR
ONLINE ACTIVITIES
Even the best policy can't protect your
online privacy and security in all
circumstances. Unscrupulous advertisers, hackers, and scam
artists are
constantly searching the Internet
looking for new targets. Your best
protection is
to understand the limits to privacy on the Internet and use
common sense in all of
your on-line activities.
Be aware that e-mail is an inherently insecure
form of communication.
Remember that third parties are sometimes able to illegally
intercept your
unencrypted messages, including online eCards.
Anytime you visit a chat room or post a message to
an on-line bulletin board,
your e-mail address can be accessed by advertisers looking
to compile lists for
unsolicited commercial e-mail (also known as spam). Be sure
that you only
disclose your e-mail address in circumstances
in which it is safe to do so.
Beware of scams in which persons unknown to you request your
screen name,
password, or credit card information. Make sure you
verify the identity of anyone
asking for personal information.
Always monitor your children's on-line activities and educate
them as to the rules
for safe Internet use.
As always, if you have any
questions, please feel free to contact us at
thegang@SpicyChickenCards.com.
