Security & Privacy

 

LAST UPDATE OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY:  This Policy was last updated on September 1, 2010.

 

ExpertCarAdvice.com’s (hereinafter “ECA,” “Us,” the “Company,” or “ECA’s”) Customer Privacy Policy covers the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information that may be collected by Us anytime you interact with ECA, such as when you visit our website (hereinafter the “Site”), when you engage with experts on our community site, when you click on a vendor’s ad or banner and temporarily leave the Site, or when you contact us for customer support.

For convenience, throughout this Policy material, we will refer to you as “You” (includes use of possessives like “Your” and “Yours”).

Please carefully read the following to learn more about our information practices, including what type of information is gathered, how the information is used and for what purposes, to whom we disclose the information, and how we safeguard Your personal information. Your privacy is of the utmost importance to ECA, and we strive to protect it.

TWO TYPES OF INFORMATION COLLECTED

There are two types of information transmitted and received on the ECA Site: (i) information about You collected during registration and Your use of the Site (“Personal Information”); and (ii) the information You type while on the Site (such as questions to experts) or information that you may upload onto the Site that includes Your photographs or diagrams.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

We necessarily collect limited personal information like your name and for a brief moment your credit card number because there is a link between your access of the Site for the payment of experts or for diagrams and the like and you.  Please be informed about our policy concerning the information we guard for you:

·     We collect the minimum information necessary to make the system recognize you when you log in and use the Site. You may set up an account on the Site that collects information for repeated uses of the Site. We do keep credit card information within our system, and it is forwarded to a secure third party processing services provider by secure link, encrypted;

·     Most systems have a password retrieval system that asks questions like “What is your youngest child’s middle name?” used to reference tables that give those other sites comfort in identifying you with an eventual refreshing of a password or the sending of the password to your e-mail address. Our system has this capability and will electronically mail you your password to the e-mail address You have on file.  

·     We do not directly sell or use Your personal information for marketing purposes.  We do, however, have advertisers who pay to use space on Our Site to attract business.  We do not give or sell Your personal information to our advertisers (NO information about Our customers is given out except, on occasion, how many customers we have, no names, e-mail addresses or profiles are ever distributed or sold), but they are free to collect the information they need from You should You be willing to give it to them voluntarily—of course, should You volunteer information to an advertiser, then Your relationship with that advertiser is completely apart and separate from any relationship You may have with Us and We have no responsibility or ability to control that relationship.

YOUR QUESTIONS and ANSWERS ON THE SITE (EXCLUDING QUESTIONS TO CUSTOMER SUPPORT)

While Your Personal Information is guarded and safeguarded with no one except Our staff having access to it, and Personal Information is never distributed (except in cases of the subpoena power of the courts whereby we are, by law, forced to surrender certain information).  In contrast, the information posted on Our Site in the exchange between You and Our experts is completely open to public scrutiny and NOT guarded or safeguarded or edited in any way.

The primary focus of the Site is for You to ask a question that an expert may answer for You.  The question and the answer are public in nature and are not protected in any way.  One of the principal reasons for choosing Our Site is that the experts peruse the “pool” of questions and, if they are so qualified for Your vehicle and the question posed, an expert may select Your question to answer.  Contact information such as your name, address, telephone number and credit card information ARE NEVER open to the public under any circumstances.  Neither the experts nor the public can see this private information unless you reveal it yourself within the question.  ECA STRONGLY ADVISES YOU TO NEVER REVEAL YOUR NAME, ADDRESS OR TELEPHONE NUMBER WITHIN A POSTING ON THE SITE BECAUSE IT IS VIEWABLE BY THE GENERAL PUBLIC AND IF SUCH A REVELATION IS MADE, SINCE OUR SYSTEM IS AUTOMATED, IT MAY TAKE SEVERAL DAYS FOR US TO RESCIND OR DELETE THAT POSTING UPON YOUR REQUEST.   ECA DOES NOT SCREEN OR EDIT THE CONTENT OF ANY COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE USER (YOU) AND THE EXPERT AND IS ONLY CAPABLE OF DELTING ANY POSTING UPON WRITTEN DEMAND AND A REASONABLE TIME FOR US TO DELETE OFFENSIVE OR DEFECTIVE POSTINGS, IN NO CASE FEWER THAN TWO DAYS’ TIME.  EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION IN REVEALING PERSONAL INFORMATION ON OUR SITE. WE WILL SPECIFICALLY HAVE SCREENS PLAINLY IDENTIFIED WHERE PERSONAL INFORMATION IS REQUIRED TO BE ENTERED AND WHERE ANYTHING ENTERED ON THIS IDENTIFIED SCREEN IS CONFIDENTIAL, PRIVATE AND WILL NOT BE REVEALED.

Any questions You may refer to Customer Support in the event of wrong diagrams received, poor quality of service or other issues unrelated to the question and answer format for experts to assist You are confidential and will not be subject to review or scrutiny by anyone other than ECA’s staff or its professional consultants, in complete privacy.

COOKIES

Our Site may use a standard technology in the insertion of a “cookie” onto your computer to collect information on how You use the Site and to assist in identifying You the next time You visit Our Site.  Cookies remain on Your computer in its memory and are used primarily to assist in making Your following visits a continuation of the previous visits and not like You are coming to the Site for the first time.  We only use cookies to the extent indicated in this Policy.  We may also utilize “session cookies” that are in use while You are on Our Site and expire when You leave; these cookies do not retain any information as opposed to ordinary cookies that remain in Your computer’s memory while You are away from the Site. 

From time-to-time, advertisers may be present on Our Site that will use cookies or similar technologies to present advertising tailored to the interests You have shown in browsing on this Site and others and to determine which advertisements You may have already seen to prevent duplication.  The use of these types of cookies is subject to the advertisers’ privacy policies, not ours.  While we screen advertisers and demand information to assure the privacy of Our users, we cannot control the technological implementation of certain cookies or beacons.  If you do not want the benefit of these advertising cookies, visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/optout_nonppii.asp.

CHILDREN AND THEIR USE OF THE SITE

We do not knowingly collect the personal information of children under the age of thirteen, in compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (hereinafter “COPPA”).  Our Site is geared for persons over the age of eighteen primarily because of the nature of repairing dangerous machines that could inflict harm or death if not respected when in operation or assembled properly.  We require anyone under the age of eighteen to have permission of a parent to use our Site.  We will delete any information we believe originates from an underage person (under 13 according to COPPA) as soon as we are made aware of such a posting.

YOUR ECA ID AND RELATED INFORMATION

The ECA website and Service allows you to create an “ECA ID” based on your personal information. This service saves you time and allows for easier use of our Service. You obtain an ECA Account by creating a personal profile and choose a password and password hint for security. The system saves your information and allows you to create a personal ECA ID.

WHEN WE DISCLOSE YOUR INFORMATION

ECA is committed to protecting your privacy.  ECA does not sell or rent your contact information.  If we were under subpoena by the courts and forced to disclose information, we would, under protest and under vigorous enforcement of every legal remedy that we could use to prevent such a disclosure, do what we are minimally legally obligated to disclose.  In the end, there may well be a time and place where we are forced as an organization to give out private information under direct court order, and we hope that day never arrives.

HOW WE PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

ECA takes administrative, technical, and physical measures to safeguard your personal information against loss, theft, and misuse, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction.

The Service uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption on all web pages where personal information is required. To make purchases from the Service, you must use an SSL-enabled browser such as Internet Explorer, Safari, or Netscape Navigator 3.0 or later. Doing so protects the confidentiality of your personal and credit card information as it’s transmitted over the Internet. 

It is also important that you take precautions to protect your personal data when you are on the Internet. Change your passwords often using a combination of letters and numbers, and make sure you use a secure web browser.  See particular representations, warranties and related disclaimers in our Terms of Service documentation, found on the “Terms of Service” tab on our front page.

INTEGRITY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

ECA has safeguards in place to keep your personal information accurate, complete, and up to date for the purposes for which it is used. Of course, you always have the right to access the personal information you have provided in order to change or correct it. You can ensure that your contact information and preferences are accurate, complete, and up to date by refreshing Your ECA account as often as necessary.

 

IN THE EVENT OF A MERGER OR ACQUISITION OF ECA

If Our Company is sold or merges with another entity, the information collected by Us on this Site may become the property of the purchasing entity.  Should this occur, We will make our best effort to obligate the purchasing entity to use any information in a manner consistent with this Policy. We cannot guarantee that the purchaser will have the same regard for the privacy of Our customers and we may be unable to impose the same standards for their operation of the ExpertCarAdvice.com website.

OTHER COMPANIES’ WEBSITES

ECA’s website has links to the sites of other companies. ECA is not responsible for their privacy practices. We encourage you to learn about the privacy policies of those companies.  Clicking on advertisers’ ads or buttons within their ads will take You out of Our Site and onto another website where We have no control over how that Site maintains the integrity of its customers’ private information and other important topics addressed in this Privacy Policy.  Please review the Terms and Conditions of Use of Our Site—should You exit Our Site via a link and leave Our Site: (i) we are not responsible for the integrity of that Site, the veracity of the information there; (ii), we are not responsible for cookies or other intrusive technologies that the outside vendor may place onto Your computer; (iii) we cannot guarantee that the session You started on Our Site will still be operable when You return; therefore, any information that You received or uploaded may be lost as well as anything You were in the process of typing at the time You went off the Site via link; (iv) we are not responsible for information the third party may collect from You while You were a visitor to their site.  

PRIVACY QUESTIONS

If you have questions or concerns about ECA’s Customer Privacy Policy or data processing, please contact us at customersupport@expertcaradvice.com. We will respond to your inquiry within 30 days.

PRIVACY POLICY UPDATES

ECA may update its privacy policy from time to time without notifying You individually. If and when we change the policy in a material way, a notice will be posted on our website along with the updated privacy policy and a notice will appear the next time You login to ECA.  Be forewarned that policies and terms of use will change regularly and if You do not logon regularly, changes may occur between Your login opportunities. 

GOVERNING LAW

This Policy and the Agreement with which it is incorporated is entered into in Douglas County, Colorado, and shall be governed by the laws of the State of Colorado except in those circumstances where Federal law applies, and, in the case of any matters under Federal law.  You agree the venue shall be that federal Court with jurisdiction over Douglas County, Colorado. You agree that the performance of this Policy and the Agreement with which it is incorporated does not take place outside of the County of Douglas, State of Colorado for any purposes.
 
GENERAL CONDITIONS

This Policy and the Agreement with which it is incorporated constitutes the entire agreement between you and  and governs your use of the Service, superseding any prior agreements between you and .  You also may be subject to additional terms and conditions that may apply when you use affiliate services, third-party content, or third-party software. If any part of this Agreement is held invalid or unenforceable, that portion shall be construed in a manner consistent with applicable law to reflect, as nearly as possible, the original intentions of the parties, and the remaining portions shall remain in full force and effect. ECA's failure to enforce any right or provisions in this Agreement will not constitute a waiver of such provision, or any other provision of this Agreement. If any provision of this Policy is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the other provisions will remain in full force and effect.  ECA will not be responsible for failures to fulfill any obligations due to causes beyond its control.   We reserve the right to assign our rights and duties under this Agreement to any person at any time without notice to you, nor will we contact you or seek your approval on any such assignment.

CORRESPONDENCE POLICY

We will not send you electronic mail messages except under certain circumstances when it affects the relationship between Us and You.  For example, we will send You an e-mail when you initially start using .  We may also send you an e-mail regarding expected interruptions in service, changes in the Company such as a merger or acquisition or any type of court ordered demand for personal information.  If Your credit card is declined for any reason, we may contact You as a courtesy.  Do not expect that we will be sending regular e-mails, we know it is irritating to receive unsolicited e-mail and we respect that.  On occasion, but never more than once per year, we may elicit a survey on customer satisfaction to try and improve our service offering.  We know these are also irritating, but we need feedback both positive and negative in order to make sure we are addressing the needs of our customer, You.

Experts, however, should expect a more regular form of daily e-mail communications from the Company including recent postings of questions that require answers, and because of the status as expert, there is no way for You to opt out of receipt of these e-mails if you are registered as an expert on Our Site.