Privacy Policy
What This Privacy Policy Covers
This privacy policy covers the use of the web site located at http://www.askingmatters.com and the services provided by Asking Matters, including how Asking Matters treats personal information that Asking Matters collects and receives. Pursuant to Asking Matters’ Terms of Use, you must be 18 years and older to use this site or have permission from a legal guardian. Therefore, this policy makes no provision for individuals under 18 years old. This policy does not apply to the practices of third parties that Asking Matters does not own or control, or individuals that Asking Matters does not employ or manage.
This Policy provides notice to users, including those who are California residents and fall within the definition of “consumers” as provided for in the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”), that we collect Information. As required by the CCPA, the following sections of the Policy also details the categories and sources of Information collected and the business and commercial purposes for the collected Information. We also include a description of rights afforded to California consumers at “RIGHTS OF CALIFORNIA USERS WITH REGARD TO THEIR INFORMATION” including rights to know the Information we have collected and sold and the right to opt-out from the sale of Information and the right to deletion.
Effective Date: 1/31/2010
Information Collection and How it is Used
Asking Matters will not sell or disclose your name or email address to third parties,except as specified in this privacy policy.
Asking Matters collects personal information when you register as a member or user of Asking Matters services, buy products from the Asking Matters Store, and post content on Asking Matters.
Asking Matters automatically receives and records information on our server logs from your browser, including your IP address, cookies, and the pages you request. This data is only used in the aggregate.
Asking Matters uses information for the following general purposes: products and services provisioning, billing, identification and authentication, services improvement, contact, research, and anonymous reporting. IP addresses are automatically reported by your browser each time you view a web page. Your IP address is stored in Asking Matters’ databases when you register as a member of Asking Matters, open a user account at Asking Matters, post content on Asking Matters, or make a purchase in the Asking Matters Store. IP addresses may be used for various research purposes.
Service-related Announcements
Asking Matters will send you a welcome/confirmation email when you register as a member or open a user account. Receipt of this email is required for using Asking Matters’ services.
Asking Matters will send you service-related announcements when it is necessary to do so.
You may not opt-out of service-related communications, which are not promotional in nature. If you do not wish to receive them, you have the option to deactivate your membership or user account by emailing kevin@askingmatters.com from the email address you signed up with.
Newsletter Emails
Asking Matters offers subscriptions to Asking Matters e-mail newsletters. Members and those with user accounts automatically receive Asking Matters e-mail newsletters. Those without an account can opt to receive Asking Matters e-mail newsletters. Asking Matters will ask for your email address and the newsletter(s) you wish to receive. You may change your subscription or unsubscribe at anytime by following the instructions contained in the e-mail.
Cookies
A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier, that is sent to your browser from a web site’s computers and stored on your computer’s hard drive. You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is set. If you reject all cookies, you will not be able to use Asking Matters’ products or services that require you to “sign in,” and you may not be able to take full advantage of the Asking Matters service. Asking Matters’ uses its own cookies for a number of purposes, including to: Access your information when you “sign in”; keep track of preferences you specify while you are using Asking Matters’ services; display the most appropriate advertising banners, based on your interests and activity on Asking Matters; estimate and report Asking Matters’ total audience size and traffic; conduct research to improve Asking Matters’ content and services. Asking Matters cookies do not collect personal information, and Asking Matters does not combine information collected through cookies with other personal information to tell us who you are or what your username or email address is.
Tracking Technologies
We employ a software technology called clear gifs (a.k.a. Web Beacons/Web Bugs), that help us better manage content on our site by informing us what content is effective. Clear gifs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of Web users. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on a user’s computer hard drive, clear gifs are embedded invisibly on Web pages and are about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. We do not tie the information gathered by clear gifs to your personally identifiable information. The use of cookies by our third party tracking partners is not covered by our privacy statement. We do not have access or control over these cookies. Our partners use session ID cookies to support our site functionality such as web analytics reporting.
Information Sharing and Disclosure
When you post a message or engage in a blog discussion, your Asking Matters user name is visible to other users. If you post personal information online that is accessible to the public, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return. Asking Matters may be required to disclose personally identifiable information under special circumstances, such as to comply with subpoenas or when your actions violate the Asking Matters Terms of Use. Asking Matters may disclose personally identifiable information to parties in compliance with Asking Matters’ Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy, as Asking Matters in Asking Matters’ sole discretion believes necessary or appropriate in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, piracy, or other unlawful activity. In such events, Asking Matters may disclose name, street address, city, state, zip code, country, phone number, email address and company name.
Asking Matters may share aggregated demographic information with business partners.
Asking Matters is affiliated with a variety of businesses and works closely with them. These businesses may sell items to you from the Asking Matters website. Asking Matters may also provide services or sell products jointly with affiliated businesses. Due to the nature of Asking Matters’ business model, when an affiliated business is associated with your transaction, you will share customer information that is related to such transaction with that affiliated business.
Asking Matters employs other companies and people to perform tasks on our behalf and needs to share your information with them to provide products and services to you. Examples include but are not limited to fulfilling orders, handling billing disputes and collections, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance and providing customer service.
Asking Matters will not rent, sell, or share personal information about you with nonaffiliated parties except as specified in this Privacy Policy to provide products or services you have requested or when Asking Matters has your permission. It may be necessary to share information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of Asking Matters’ Terms of Use, as specified in this Privacy Policy or as otherwise required by law. In some cases, Asking Matters may choose to buy or sell assets. In these types of transactions, customer information is typically one of the business assets that is transferred. Asking Matters will transfer information about you if Asking Matters is acquired by or merged with another company. In this event, Asking Matters will notify you by email or by putting a prominent notice on the Asking Matters web site before information about you is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
Without limiting the above, in an effort to respect your privacy and Asking Matters’ ability to keep the community free from bad actors, Asking Matters will not otherwise disclose your personal information to law enforcement, other government officials, or other third parties without a subpoena, court order, legal process, or substantially similar legal procedure, except when Asking Matters believes in good faith that the disclosure of information is necessary to protect Asking Matters’ rights, prevent imminent physical harm or financial loss, or to report suspected illegal activity.
Message Boards/ Blogs/ Videos/Testimonials
If you use a message board or blog on this site, or submit a video or testimonial to Asking Matters for publication on the site, you should be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by others or could be used to send you unsolicited messages. Asking Matters is not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these forums.
Third Parties
Except as otherwise expressly included in this Privacy Policy, this document addresses only the use and disclosure of information Asking Matters collects from you. If you disclose your information to others, whether they are buyers or sellers on Asking Matters or throughout the internet, different rules may apply to their use or disclosure of the information you disclose to them. Asking Matters does not control the privacy policies of third parties, and you are subject to the privacy policies of those third parties where applicable. Asking Matters is not responsible for the privacy or security practices of other websites on the Internet, even those linked to or from the Asking Matters site. Asking Matters encourages you to ask questions before you disclose your personal information to others.
Editing and Deleting Account Information
You can change your Asking Matters Account Information (except your username), at any time. Asking Matters may send you certain communications relating to the Asking Matters service, such as service-related announcements and administrative messages that are considered part of your Asking Matters account. You can delete your Asking Matters account by emailing kevin@askingmatters.com. Please note that your identification, billing and contact information may remain in Asking Matters’ records for some period.
Asking Matters limits access to personal information about you to employees and other third parties engaged by Asking Matters who Asking Matters believes reasonably need to come into contact with that information to provide products or services to you or in order to do their jobs. Your Asking Matters Account Information is password-protected.
If your personally identifiable member information changes you may correct or update it by making the change on your Managing Your Profile page. You may delete or deactivate your account by emailing Customer Support at kevin@askingmatters.com or by postal mail at the contact information listed below. Asking Matters will respond to your request within 10-20 business days.
Security
The security of your personal information is important to us. Your Asking Matters account information is protected by a password for your privacy and security. You need to work to protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer by signing off once you have finished using a shared computer. When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number) for registration Asking Matters encrypts that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). Asking Matters follows generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once Asking Matters receives it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, while Asking Matters strives to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, Asking Matters cannot guarantee its absolute security. If you have any questions about security on Asking Matters’ web site, you can e-mail Asking Matters at kevin@askingmatters.com.
RIGHTS OF CALIFORNIA USERS WITH REGARD TO THEIR INFORMATION
California users have several rights regarding the collection, use, disclosure and sale of their information under the CCPA. One of these rights, notice of collection of Information, is described above; the balance of these rights are described below and include the following rights:
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Disclosure of information collected and sold
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Opt-out from the sale of Information
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Deletion of Information
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Access and portability of Information collected
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Non-discrimination
Exercising Your Rights, Verification and Timing. To exercise your CCPA rights, please email us at kevin@askingmatters.com. To prevent an unauthorized third party from accessing or making decisions regarding a user’s Information, we verify all requests to exercise these rights (a verifiable consumer request). We do not charge a fee to process or respond to a verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, unfounded or abusive.
In general, we will verify a request by matching the identifying information supplied by the user with the Information we already have for the user. If we cannot verify the user using the foregoing method, we may request additional information which we will not retain or use for any other purpose.
For all verifiable consumer requests, we strive to respond within forty-five (45) days of receipt. If we require additional time, which can be up to ninety (90) days in the aggregate, we will provide written notice. Any disclosures we provide will cover only the 12-month period preceding the verifiable consumer request’s receipt and will be delivered electronically in a secure fashion. If, for some reason, we cannot fulfill or comply with your request, our response will explain that decision.
Disclosure of Information Collected and Sold. While users have the right to request different levels of disclosure regarding the collection, use, disclosure and sale of Information, we have elected to treat all requests from California residents as an exercise of expanded disclosure requests by businesses that sell Information. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will disclose to you for the 12 months prior to your request:
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The categories and sources of Information collected;
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Our business and commercial purposes for collecting and selling that Information;
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The categories of third parties with whom we shared that Information;
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The specific pieces of Information collected;
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If we sold or disclosed your personal information for a business purpose, we will disclose:
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For sales – the Information categories for each category sold and the categories of third parties to whom the Information was sold; and
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For disclosures – the Information categories for each category disclosed and the categories of third parties to whom the Information was disclosed
Right to Opt-Out. Users have the right to opt-out from the sale of their Information. You can email us at kevin@askingmatters.com and elect to opt-out from the sale of your Information. We reserve the right to verify all opt-out requests using the methods described above.
While our agreements with third parties to whom we sell or disclose Information prohibit the further sale or use beyond the scope of our agreement with them, if a California user opts-out, we will notify all third parties to whom we have sold or disclosed the California user’s Information within the previous 90 days and remind them not to further sell the Information. We will not ask a California user who has opted out to re-opt-in for one year after the California user opts-out. If the user requests a transaction with us that requires the sale of their Information, we will inform them that they have opted out and if they want to proceed with the transaction, we will offer the opportunity to opt-in by completing a two-step process.
Deletion of Information. You have the right to request that we delete any of your Information that we collected from you, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request using the process set forth above, we will delete or deidentify (and direct our service providers, vendors and other applicable third parties to delete) your Information from our system other than from our archive servers (which we maintain for compliance purposes), unless there is an applicable exception.
We may decline to process your deletion request if the Information is necessary for us or our service providers, vendors or other applicable third parties for a number of reasons. The following are some of the reasons we may decline your deletion request:
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Complete the transaction for which we collected the Information or provide the goods or services you requested;
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Detect security incidents, protect, investigate and respond to malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities;
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Identify and correct errors that negatively impact intended functionality; and
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Comply with a legal obligation, including Federal and/or State tax liability and reporting.
