BenchDoctor's Privacy Policy
Welcome to BenchDoctor's Web Site, produced by George Saxon, successors, and assigns (collectively referred to as "BenchDoctor's Website members "). All offerings and services on this site are made available subject to this Privacy Policy. By using this site, you agree, without limitation or qualification, to be bound by this Privacy Policy or to any other privacy or data collection policy applicable to any individual pages on this Web site and to receive any required legal notices regarding our privacy practices through the continuous posting of a clear and conspicuous link to the current version of this Privacy Policy throughout the Website in the footer at the bottom of most pages. We will adhere to the policies and practices described in this Privacy Policy, which may be revised on occasion.
Please note that the BenchDoctor's Site contains links to other sites and occasionally allows other sites to be linked with their name. Web sites that are linked to BenchDoctor's sites for marketing purposes may have privacy policies which differ from that of the BenchDoctor's site.
The BenchDoctor's Privacy Policy contains detailed information and discloses our privacy practices
1. What personal information does the BenchDoctor's site collect?
Our goal is to be a favorite Internet resource destination. Providing information, services, and offerings that are relevant to you. To achieve this goal, and become a dynamic experience, the BenchDoctor's Site collects information so we can understand what makes you different from other users. While you are not required to register for any services on the site, some offerings and services may not function correctly or may not be accessible unless you do so.
Information collected online is usually defined as being either anonymous or personally identifiable.
BenchDoctor's Site, collects anonymous information, which refers to data that cannot be tied back to a specific individual. For example, we collect information each time a visitor comes to the site so we can improve the overall quality of the visitor's online experience. BenchDoctor's Site collects the visitor's IP address (e.g., whether the user is logged on from yahoo.com or msn.com), referral data (e.g., the Internet address of the last web page visited by a user before clicking over to this site), and browser and platform type (i.e., a Netscape browser on a Linux platform). In the near future BenchDoctor's Site is also planning on collecting aggregate search terms from HotBot type search services for internal reporting and possibly for targeted advertising. In addition, BenchDoctor's Web Site collects your responses to online surveys displayed on this site; these anonymous and optional surveys will seek your opinions about the Site and its services or the possible advertisements displayed on the subsequent pages. You do not have to register with the BenchDoctor's Site before we can collect this information.
Personally identifiable information is data that tells us specifically who you are, such as your name and postal address, which may be collected in addition to the anonymous data described above. We collect personal information in the following ways from different parts of the Web site:
A BenchDoctor's Site Registration: When you register to use one or more pages or services on the BenchDoctor's Site, you provide BenchDoctor's Site with your name, postal address, ZIP Code, email address, birth date, gender, telephone number, occupation, marital status and other information. While not all of this data is required for our services to function, we are better able to customize your experience if you volunteer complete and accurate information. Users who complete the registration process are given a BenchDoctor's Site ID and can take full advantage of the many offerings across the entire Site.
Other Registration: In addition to registration for various fee based services on the BenchDoctor's Site, we may ask you for personal information, including when you enter a contest or promotion sponsored by the BenchDoctor's Site. As described further down , our partners may also ask for personal information. If you purchase services we will ask for a valid credit card number and personal contact information. If you choose not to provide the requested information, the BenchDoctor's Site will not be able to offer you some of the personalized services that depend on this type of information to function
Correspondence: If you contact the BenchDoctor's Site, we may keep a record of that correspondence. We also collect any email addresses of those who communicate with the BenchDoctor's Site via email. We use the information provided so that we may respond to the email.
BenchDoctor's Site reserves the right to collect certain information and store it in connection with your account. This information includes data about the different sites that you visit within the BenchDoctor's Site pages as well as the time and frequency at which you visit them. This information also includes the content that you transmit or post on the BenchDoctor's Site. For further information about BenchDoctor's Site's policy on maintaining transmitted or posted content, please see the BenchDoctor's Site Terms and Conditions.
2. Who is collecting the information?
When you register for a service within the BenchDoctor's Site, that information is generally collected and maintained solely by the BenchDoctor's Site unless specifically stated otherwise at the point of collection. If data is collected and/or maintained by any company other than BenchDoctor's Site, we will tell you at the point of collection. If you do not want to share your information with that company, you can choose not to use that service.
BenchDoctor's Site runs occasional promotions across its pages. These promotions may be sponsored or co-sponsored by third-party companies. Data collected during a promotion is typically shared with the sponsor or co-sponsor. BenchDoctor's Site will inform you at the point of collection whether or not we are sharing your personal data as a result of your participation in a promotion. If you do not want to have the BenchDoctor's Site share your data, you can choose not to participate in the promotion.
Be aware that BenchDoctor's Site and other advertisers have links on the Network that take you to external sites. Some of these sites may collect personally identifiable information from you, and third-party advertising networks for BenchDoctor's Site may use cookies and Web beacons in their advertisements to collect certain information from you. Please see Section 7 of this policy for more information about advertising on the BenchDoctor's Site. While BenchDoctor's Site hopes that all third parties involved adhere to our policies regarding the privacy of our users, the BenchDoctor's Site Privacy Policy does not cover third-party data collection practices and the BenchDoctor's Site does not assume any responsibility for any actions of third parties.
3. What are "cookies" and "Web beacons" and how does BenchDoctor's Site use them?
In addition to the personally identifiable information that BenchDoctor's Site actively collects when you register, we also collect anonymous information passively using cookies and Web beacons . This technology plays an important role in making the Internet work, but there is much confusion among Internet users about what cookies and Web beacons are and how they are used.
A cookie is a small text file containing a unique identification number that is transferred from a Web site to the hard drive of your computer so that the site administrator may identify your computer and passively track its activities on the Web site. This unique number identifies your Web browser to our computer system whenever you visit one of the sites in the BenchDoctor's Site. A cookie will not allow a Web site to learn any personally identifiable information (such as your real name and address) that you have not otherwise disclosed.
Cookies allow BenchDoctor's Site to automatically remember your Web browser when you visit any pages of our Web Site. To help serve you better, BenchDoctor's Site generally uses cookies to:
Cookies allow us to deliver offerings and services more efficiently. By storing certain registration and preference information on cookies or associating cookies with registration, preference or profile information stored on our computers, we can deliver products and services that use such information more quickly and efficiently for more users. This information is sometimes saved in an encrypted form that only BenchDoctor's Site can interpret when needed.
Cookies can be used to prevent others from using your account . On some BenchDoctor's pages, cookies help us efficiently determine that only one user is logged on under the same member name at a time.
We measure statistics such as audience size and traffic patterns. This information is only collected in aggregate form and will not be linked to your personally identifiable information.
Display advertisements . Cookies let us know whether a Web browser has seen a particular advertisement (so we can show you a variety of material) and count the number of advertisements displayed to a particular browser. We also use cookies to customize the advertising you see based on non-personally identifiable demographic information that you provide when you register. Third-party advertising networks linked to BenchDoctor's Site may issue cookies on the BenchDoctor's Site and other sites when serving advertisements.
The use of cookies is an industry standard, and they are currently used on most major Web sites. It is possible to adjust your Web browser preferences to alert you when a cookie is sent to your hard drive, or to refuse cookies altogether. While BenchDoctor's Site does not require you to use cookies, keep in mind that certain sites and services will not function properly if you set your browser to refuse all cookies.
Web beacons , also known as clear GIFs or single-pixel GIFs, are small image files that BenchDoctor's Site may place on Web pages and within Web-based email that we send. Working in conjunction with cookies, Web beacons allow BenchDoctor's Site to count the number of users who have visited specific pages on the BenchDoctor's Site and the number of times those pages are displayed. We can also use Web beacons to let us know how many people opened a Web-based email. This information is only collected in aggregate form and will not be linked to your personally identifiable information.
Without cookies and Web beacons, it would be difficult for BenchDoctor's Site to know which services have a larger audience than others. If you are seriously concerned about information tracking please remember that any image file on a Web page can act as a Web beacon, not just a transparent spacer gif. Third-party advertising networks for BenchDoctor's Site may use such methods in their advertisements.
Because Web beacons work in conjunction with cookies, you can prevent our Web beacon from collecting anonymous information by setting your Web browser to refuse all cookies or the BenchDoctor's Site cookie in particular. Web beacons are built into our Web pages, so non-functional Web beacons will continue to appear even if you refuse the BenchDoctor's Site cookie.
4. How do we use the information we collect?
Any personally identifiable information you share with BenchDoctor's Site when registering at any of our page sites is maintained and accessible only by BenchDoctor's Site unless specifically stated otherwise. BenchDoctor's Site requests information from its users so that users can enjoy customized experiences across the BenchDoctor's Site, including personalized services, interactive communications, and much more. Some of these offerings and services are even available to you at no cost. We can also better prepare future content based on your interests.
The following are examples of how the BenchDoctor's Site may use the information it collects:
BenchDoctor's Site uses the information collected (both anonymous and personal) to personalize and enhance the content you see on the BenchDoctor's Site, such as online reports, advertisements and more. In some cases, our offerings and services cannot work unless you have volunteered accurate information (for example, we need your valid mailing address to display BenchDoctor franchises in your local area).
BenchDoctor's Site collects anonymous data and shares it with third-parties in an aggregate form. We will disclose to those parties the numbers of BenchDoctor's Site users who have certain demographic characteristics and the number of those people who have seen and "clicked" on a particular display. We will also disclose to those parties the overall demographics available regarding who saw and "clicked" on their information. In addition, we may disclose anonymous results from online surveys to third-parties or to BenchDoctor's Site's offerings and service providers. No personally identifiable information will be disclosed as part of this process.
BenchDoctor's Site also uses the data to perform statistical analyses of the collective characteristics and behavior of our registered users and visitors, to measure user demographics and interests regarding specific areas of the BenchDoctor's Site, and to analyze how and where best to use our resources. Without such data, we would not know which parts of the BenchDoctor's Site are the most popular, and we would not be able to change and update the content and services appropriately. Please note that we may share this aggregate information with disclosed third-parties.
BenchDoctor's Site collects a list of search terms from its HotBot and BenchDoctor's Site search services. This information is collected anonymously and used primarily for the purposes of product development, monitoring, and improvement, as well as possible targeted advertising. Please note, however, that we may share this anonymous information with third-party companies.
BenchDoctor's Site will on occasion use an individual registered user's data to "pre-populate" online forms that are displayed for the purpose of collecting additional individual data by the BenchDoctor's Site, selected third-party sites, and/or sponsors and advertisers.
BenchDoctor's Site may, use your information to contact you about changes or enhancements to offerings and services on the BenchDoctor's Site, issues regarding your account, or BenchDoctor's Site Terms and Conditions violations or suspensions.
If you enter a contest of any kind on the BenchDoctor's Site, we will use the information you provided to contact you in the event you win.
Subscription Customers: Your credit card information is used to collect your recurrent subscription fees for pay services.
BenchDoctor's Site Family Membership Customers: Your credit card information is used to validate the age of a parent or guardian of a child. The credit card will not be charged during the BenchDoctor's Site Family Membership registration process, and only the last 4 digits and a transaction number will be stored as proof of the transaction. Click here for more information relating to the protection of children.
5. Who does the BenchDoctor's Site share collected information with?
By providing BenchDoctor's Site with your personally identifiable information, you authorize BenchDoctor's Site to internally share that information with other companies in the BenchDoctor's Site group, including companies that become part of the BenchDoctor's Site group in the future. You can see a current list of BenchDoctor's Site companies here: http://www.benchdoctor.com/affiliates.com .
Any company in the BenchDoctor's Site group (including BenchDoctor's Site) is authorized to share your personally identifiable information with any other company of the BenchDoctor's Site group for the following purposes: to manage, administer, provide, expand and improve the existing BenchDoctor's Site group offerings and services, and to offer new products and services; to adapt such offerings and services to your tastes and preferences; to send service updates to BenchDoctor's Site users; to send, by traditional and/or electronic means, technical, operational and commercial information relating to the products and services offered by the BenchDoctor's Site group or through any of the sites operated by the BenchDoctor's Site group, currently and in the future; and to send you survey forms, which you are not required to fill in. Of course, BenchDoctor's Site and the BenchDoctor's Site group will always give you the option to opt out of receiving any information or notices as described above, other than legal notices and other notices that are necessary to the functioning of the offerings and services, during the time that you are using the offerings and services or maintain an active registration with the BenchDoctor's Site. Affiliates in the BenchDoctor's Site group may have a physical address in a foreign country (most likely New Zealand, Australia and the United States of America). BenchDoctor's Site will take precautions to maintain the confidentiality and security of all user information sent abroad.
The BenchDoctor's Site will sometimes share personally identifiable information with third-party companies and organizations. In most cases, you agree to share your information when you choose to register at a linked Web site. Partner sites are operated by third-party companies and offer a particular service or product to BenchDoctor's Site members. We may also maintain private label relationships where a third-party company provides BenchDoctor's Site with technology, services and/or content under BenchDoctor's Site Network logo or trademarks.
Whenever you provide registration information on linked or private label sites, that data may be shared with the third-party company providing the service. You should make every effort to read the individual privacy policies of such third parties and make an informed decision on your own whether to continue based upon these sites' privacy practices and your own discretion. You may opt-out of sharing your information with such providers by choosing not to use that service or content.
When you find goods or services through BenchDoctor's Site, you submit data directly to the individual merchants from whom you order goods or services. Please review carefully the privacy policies of particular merchants that you access through BenchDoctor's Site.
In addition to finding linked and private label sites, you will find direct links on our site to sites offered by third parties. Some of these sites are authorized to use the BenchDoctor's Site links and/or logos. No third-party sites are covered by this Privacy Policy. If you feel that a site using a BenchDoctor's Site link and/or logo does not follow an acceptable privacy policy, please contact the BenchDoctor's Site Privacy Site Coordinator by email at privacy@benchdoctor.co.nz .
BenchDoctor's Site may disclose information about individual users to third parties who agree to provide services to BenchDoctor's Site and who agree to maintain the confidentiality of such information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. These third parties will provide a variety of services to BenchDoctor's Site, including, without limitation, processing and storing user information, helping to create new content and promotions for the BenchDoctor's Site, and sending or coordinating the sending of marketing communications that users have consented to receive. BenchDoctor's Site will disclose information about individual users to governmental or judicial authorities or law enforcement agencies, or to other individuals or entities in response to subpoena, court order, or other legal process. In matters involving a danger to personal or public safety, BenchDoctor's Site may voluntarily provide information to appropriate governmental authorities.
If you elect to receive BenchDoctor's Site Registration Offers during registration for the BenchDoctor's Site, BenchDoctor's Site will release personally identifiable information to the applicable sponsor or advertiser. Information released may include name, email address, postal address and other information supplied in the BenchDoctor's Site registration process. Please note that the sponsor or advertiser will not be bound by this BenchDoctor's Site Privacy Policy.
Should the BenchDoctor's Site be acquired by or merged with another company, BenchDoctor's Site may transfer personally-identifiable information about you to that company. BenchDoctor's Site will notify you in the event that your personally-identifiable information is transferred under these circumstances and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
BenchDoctor's Site Domains Customers: Users of BenchDoctor's Site Domains will be required to designate an administrative contact and, in some instances, a technical contact for any domain names they register. BenchDoctor's Site will assume that the BenchDoctor's Site member who registers for the BenchDoctor's Site Domains service will serve as these contacts, although users will have the ability to designate other contacts. BenchDoctor's Site will disclose the name, address, phone number, fax number, and email address of the administrative and technical contacts to BenchDoctor's Site's domain name provider, which in turn will make such information publicly available through an online WHOIS database.
6. How can you access or edit your information?
The BenchDoctor's Site provides its registered users the ability to access and edit the personal information in their user profiles. For most membership sites on the BenchDoctor's Site ( My BenchDoctor's Site and BenchDoctor's Site Mail, ) you can access your user profile by following these steps: Go directly to this page . You will receive a prompt to log in to the Network with your BenchDoctor's Site Network Member Name and password.
After you log in, you will be taken to the Membership Information page, which contains your user profile. If you see a field that needs to be updated, click the appropriate Edit button.
Make the necessary changes and click the Update button to save your changes.
For some other sites on the BenchDoctor's Site, you will have to follow different steps to update the personal information in your user profile:
7. Policies concerning advertising on the BenchDoctor's Site are?
BenchDoctor's Site is generally not an advertising site. When an instance of advertising does occur, then the mechanism for opting out will be available to the user of the site. Often advertising packets are built into internet site partnerships, and since at this time the BenchDoctor's Site has no commercial partnerships other than Geocities.com© that is not a big concern.
8. The opt-out policy for the BenchDoctor's Site is?
You have control. If you do not wish to share your personally identifiable information with any third-party service or content providers in any areas of the BenchDoctor's Site, then do NOT use such areas.
In addition, you have the choice of opting out of third party information gathering when initially registering on the BenchDoctor's Site. Simply do not check the boxes at the bottom of any registration page that gives third party information permissions. After the point of initial collection, we offer you the ability to opt-out of receiving updates and information about new or additional BenchDoctor's Site offerings and services, as well as direct mail offers from selected service providers and sponsors. The instructions to opt out of most BenchDoctor's Site email newsletters and direct mail communications are the same as the instructions for editing user information profiles. Simply follow these steps:
Go directly to the registration page . You will receive a prompt to log in to the Site with your BenchDoctor's Site Member Name and password.
After you log in, you will be taken to the Membership Information page, which contains your email subscriptions. Click the Edit button under the Email Subscriptions banner.
Make the necessary changes and click the Update button to save your changes.
In addition, all BenchDoctor's Site direct email communications have easy-to-follow unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of each email. Simply follow the unsubscribe instructions found at the bottom of each email or newsletter.
To prevent 24/7 Real Media from setting and/or reading cookies on your computer, you may opt out at 24/7 Real Media's Web site at: www.247realmedia.com/privacy . You may also visit the Network Advertising Initiative gateway opt-out site to opt out of certain advertising cookies.
If you have a question about the BenchDoctor's Site opt-out process that is not answered here, please send an email to privacy@benchdoctor.co.nz
9. What security procedures are in place to protect you from the loss of, misuse of, or alteration of your information?
It must be realized that hacker's goals are to crack code and the internet is nothing but code. That being said, BenchDoctor's Site has attempted to protect against loss, misuse and alteration of your user data under our control. BenchDoctor's Site uses electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect any personally identifiable data stored on the computers. Only authorized people have access to any information you provide us. Any particularly sensitive information, such as a credit card numbers used to purchase fee based services are encrypted prior to transmission.
While we cannot guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration to data will not occur, we take multi layered precautions to prevent such occurrences.
You are ultimately responsible for the security of your BenchDoctor's Site Network ID and password. Please take care when using and storing them. BenchDoctor's Site recommends that you do not divulge your password to anyone. You should log out of your browser at the end of each computer session to ensure that others cannot access your personal information and correspondence, especially if several people have access to your personal computer or you are using a computer in a public place like a library or Internet cafe.
10. How do we comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)?
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998 provides safeguards to protect children who use the Internet by regulating the online collection of personal information from children under the age of 13. Because of these safeguards, children under 13 may not be able to access or use all services on the BenchDoctor's Site. With a special registration process, parents of children under 13 can authorize their children to use some of our services by signing up for a BenchDoctor's Site Family Membership.
Parents can learn more about the BenchDoctor's Site Family Membership and obtain detailed answers about our compliance with COPPA by clicking here . Our COPPA policy has been updated. Please click here to review the changes.
11. What are the policies concerning software downloads?
BenchDoctor's Site may make certain software available for download. This software may be created by BenchDoctor's Site or by third party licensors. The software may be programmed to access our servers and/or third party servers in order for the software to operate and in order to check for program upgrades or enhancements. From time to time, new files may be added to your computer in order to upgrade the software or add new functionality to it. These changes may occur without notice to you. If at any time you wish to uninstall the software program, you may do so by following the instructions that accompany the software. Use of the software will be governed by a separate license agreement.
12. What you can do to protect yourself on the Internet?
Know about potentially harmful activities .
Meeting new people in an online community (chat room, forum, newsgroup, message board, Web page, etc.) is a nice thing about the Internet, but you should always be extremely careful about giving out personal information such as your actual name, or member name, your email address, and so on. This information may be collected and used by others within the online community to send unsolicited email messages from other parties, outside the BenchDoctor's Site. Some of the messages you receive may be useful to you, but others may be harmful. We reserve the right to block certain email addresses and domains from sending messages to email addresses at our domains in an effort to curtail harmful activities.
Research More Privacy Issues.
For further information about privacy issues on line try TRUSTe -- an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to build trust and confidence in the Internet. In addition the Federal Trade Commission has a great Web site with useful information on being a Smart Internet Traveler along with other privacy initiatives. Privacy resources can also be found by clicking on any of the following links
Department of Education: Parents Guide to the Internet
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/parents /internet/
Better Business Bureau (BBB)
http://www.bbbonline.com
Center for Democracy and Technology
http://www.cdt.org/privacy/ - Data Privacy
http://www.cdt.org/privacy/guide/ - Guide to Online Privacy
Electronic Privacy Information Center
http://www.epic.org
Georgetown Internet Privacy Study
http://www.msb.edu/faculty/culnanm/gippshome.html
NetCoalition.com
http://www.netcoalition.com
Network Advertising Initiative
http://www.networkadvertising.org/
Online Privacy Alliance
http://www.privacyalliance.org/
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
http://www.privacyrights.org/
Tell your children: "Don't ever talk to strangers online!"
While BenchDoctor's Site works hard to protect children on the sites within the BenchDoctor's Site, we cannot protect their privacy once they leave. Please teach children that they should not reveal their names or personal information to anybody they do not know or encounter on the Internet. They should also be instructed never to fill out any forms or register at any Web site without your knowledge and consent. Commercially available parental control protections (such as computer hardware, software, or filtering services) are readily available to assist parents in making their children's web experience safer. Such things as NetNanny, CyberSitter and GetNetWise can assist you.
Use PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) http://www.pgp.com or another encryption program.
Contact Us
Questions regarding this statement should be directed to: privacy@benchdoctors.co.nz
BenchDoctor's Site Privacy Site Coordinator
BenchDoctor's Site,
Bench Doctors Limited
Phone 0800 Bench Dr (236-243)
Phone +64 9 274 7900
Fax +64 9 274 6800
Post
P. O. Box 58-219
Greenmount
Auckland 1730
New Zealand
privacy@benchdoctors.co.nz
Normal enquiries info@benchdoctors.co.nz
Franchise enquiries franchise@benchdoctors.co.nz
If you do not receive acknowledgment of your inquiry or your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, you should then contact TRUSTe , who will serve as a liaison with the BenchDoctor's Site to resolve your concerns.
Updates to Terms of Use
The BenchDoctor's Site will update this policy occasionally so please check back. Should we decide to use personally identifiable information in a different manner from that stated at the time it was collected, we will post such changes prior to implementing them.
We would like to thank and acknowledge LYCOS.COM© on whom this privacy policy was modeled.
Last updated September, 2004.
