Home / Privacy Policy
Privacy Statement
Equipment Finance Advisor, Inc. (hereafter referred to as “we" or "us") is committed
to protecting and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Statement sets out our privacy
policy and explains how we use/treat personal information we collect from you. Please
read this statement to gain a full understanding policies and practices regarding
personal information and how they may affect you. This statement discloses our current
privacy practices; material changes to these policies will be announced.
What we gather about you:
Equipment Finance Advisor collects information about our readers so that we can
provide a more interesting and useful service. . We ask for your name, email address,
and other personal information when you register to use certain features of our
Web site, or if you sign up for special or personalized services, such as our discussion
boards or email newsletters. We also may ask for this information at other times,
such as when you enter contests or other promotions sponsored by Equipment Finance
Advisor and/or our partners. We sometimes conduct surveys as well, although you
do not have to respond to them.
If you email one of our articles to a friend, you will need to provide us with your
friend's email address and your email address as a return address. We will automatically
send this person a one-time email, with the recommended article attached, as well
as invite your friend to visit and register with our site. We will not use these
email addresses for any other purpose.
We collect IP addresses for site security and to help us understand how people use
our sites so that we can improve our sites and our users' respective experiences.
For similar quality reasons, we use a feature known as a "cookie." Cookies contain
bits of information that websites transfer to your computer's hard drive for record-keeping
purposes. Cookies can make the Web more convenient by storing information about
your preferences on a site. Although we may assign your browser a cookie, the cookie
does not tell us who you are. Only you can tell us that.
We may also collect your email address when you submit content to our sites (submittal
of any type of content). Unless we get your approval, we will not display your address
with your submission.
Besides cookies, we may also use tiny electronic images (called "single-pixel GIFs"
or "Web beacons"), which allow us to count users who have visited specific pages
or access certain cookies. We may use single-pixel GIFs in the following ways:
- To count and recognize users.
- To conduct research on behalf of some partners on their websites, and for auditing
purposes.
- To determine aggregate information about users, including demographic and usage
information.
- To determine which email messages were opened and/or acted upon when we send HTML-formatted
email messages (messages resembling Web pages that include graphics).
Advertising networks that serve ads on our site may also use single-pixel GIFs in
their advertisements. In general, any electronic image viewed as part of a Web page,
including an ad banner, can act as a Web beacon.
How we may use your personal information:
Equipment Finance Advisor collects personal information to provide you, the user,
with the best and most personalized experience possible, and to provide our advertisers
with an efficient way to reach the right audience.
We conduct research on our users' demographics, interests, and behavior based upon
the information you provide us when you register or participate in contests or other
promotions on our site, or based upon the information on our server log files. This
research is compiled and analyzed on an aggregated basis. We may also notify you
of products, services, or areas of our site that we think may interest you based
on the information we've received. If you would prefer us not to contact you for
these purposes, go to our opt-out page and let us know.
We will also send you occasional discount alerts and notices about products and
services that we think may interest you. If you would prefer us not to send you
those notices, again, simply use our opt-out page to let us know.
How we may use "IP Addresses" and "Cookies":
IP Addresses
Your Web browser or email application automatically provides your Internet Protocol
address ("IP address") to other computers with which you communicate over the Internet,
so that they know where to send you information.
We receive an IP address each time you view one of our Web pages, because the browser
automatically reports it to us. We also may store the IP address when you register
with Equipment Finance Advisor, post a message, or buy something from us.
We may use IP addresses for various purposes, including:
- Diagnosing service or technology problems.
- Assessing and maintaining system security.
- Displaying the most appropriate advertising or content.
- Studying how people use our site and how we can improve it.
- Reporting to advertisers about aggregate, but not individual, information derived
from IP addresses.
Cookies
Cookies are used on our sites in the following ways:
- We use cookies to access your stored account information automatically when you
log on to our site, in order to deliver a better and more personalized service.
- We use cookies to estimate our audience size and usage patterns. The unique cookie
that is given to each browser accessing Equipment Finance Advisor is then used to
determine usage patterns and help us target content and ads based upon user interests.
- We use cookies to allow you to access your account information automatically, as
well as make changes to your personal information.
- Our search engines may use cookies to expedite your search for content or products.
- In the course of serving advertisements to this site, our Web advertising partner,
DoubleClick, may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. For more on
how to opt-out of these cookies, please see below.
- Some of our advertisers use third-party networks to serve their advertisements on
our sites and in our HTML-formatted newsletters. Often, these third-party advertising
companies use cookies, Web beacons, and similar technologies to measure advertisement
effectiveness. We do not control, nor do we have access to, their cookies or the
information they obtain. Use of their tracking technology is subject to their own
privacy policies.
Our policy on disclosing your personal information:
Equipment Finance Advisor will not disclose any personally identifiable information
about individual users, except as described in this Privacy Statement. We do not
give, rent, lend, or sell individual information to our advertisers, although we
do provide aggregate information. We may also use this aggregated information to
help the advertisers reach the kind of audience they want. We may also disclose
aggregate information in order to describe our services to prospective partners,
advertisers, and other third parties, and for other lawful purposes.
Equipment Finance Advisor may disclose individually identifiable information under
the following circumstances:
- We may disclose information to others when we have your consent.
- If you sign up for a service that relies upon third parties for important elements,
we will provide your personal information to the third parties so that they can
provide you with their services, and those companies will treat the data under their
own policies. We will tell you about these service providers at the time you sign
up for the service.
- We may disclose information to selected partners, under nondisclosure agreements,
only for the purpose of marketing Equipment Finance Advisor co-branded offerings
(such as The Advisor Daily eBlast).
- If you use our service to email one of our articles to a friend, Equipment Finance
Advisor will automatically send this person a one-time email, with the recommended
article attached. The email address you give us will appear on the "From" line of
the email, thereby disclosing this information to whoever opens and reads the email.
Similarly, if you send email from our site, by using "Reply to Author" or "Email
this Post," your address may appear as the return address of that email.
- We may disclose your personal information as required by applicable law, or in response
to legal process, to protect the rights or property of Equipment Finance Advisor.
- We may sometimes conduct mailings to other people's lists. To make it easier for
us to comply with the Federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, we may share our email list
of people who have requested not to receive promotional communications from us with
the list providers (or contractors) so that we can avoid sending emails to people
who have asked not to receive them.. We provide these lists only to list providers
or contractors that we consider to be reputable, and only under strict nondisclosure/nonuse
agreements.
- We may employ contractors or other third parties to help with our operations. We
may give them access to databases of user information, so that they can perform
their services for us, including performing system maintenance, displaying personalized
content (such as portfolios), performing list analysis or management, or sending
mailings for us from our advertisers. These parties are all subject to confidentiality
agreements that restrict their use and disclosure of information they obtain through
their relationship with The Motley Fool.
- Information about your visits to equipmentfa.com, such as the number of times you
have viewed an ad (but not your name, address, or other personal information), is
used to serve ads to you.
Security measures we utilize to protect your information from disclosure or accidental
loss:
Equipment Finance Advisor is committed to protecting your personal information.
We store information you provide us on our secure servers. Further, the information
you provide when making a purchase is encrypted with SSL technology.
Personalized areas of our site are password-protected. Only you have access to these
password-protected areas. Do not share your passwords with anyone. Equipment Finance
Advisor will never ask you for your password in an unsolicited phone call or email.
If you are using a computer to which others have access, such as one in a computer
lab, Internet cafe, or public library, always remember to log out and close your
browser window when leaving our site.
Other:
When you post information on our web site, that information, along with your screen
name, is visible to the public. Please remember that whenever you disclose personal
information publicly that information can be collected and used by others. If you
do not want strangers to have your email address, you should not post your email
address.
While we do our best to protect your personal information, Equipment Finance Advisor
cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, and
you do so at your own risk. You are responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any
password and/or account information. Please be careful and responsible whenever
you are online, especially when using a computer that other people can use also.
Many of our advertisers or partners link from our site to their own sites where
they sell their own products and services. If you follow links from our site to
others, you are doing business with those other sites, which have their own privacy
and data collection practices. Equipment Finance Advisor has no responsibility or
liability for these other sites.
Last Updated: October 16, 2011
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