Last Updated April 14,
2009.
MustExist Privacy
Policy
MustExist, Inc. (referred to as “we,”
“our,” “us,” or “MustExist”) recognizes that you
care how information about you is collected and used. MustExist
has created this Privacy Policy to inform you of our information collection,
use, and sharing practices for our web site properties located at
www.mustexist.com,
and elsewhere on the Internet (collectively referred to as the “MustExist
Sites”), and through other network enabled technology services
that we make available, including without limitation data access and
messaging features for mobile devices (the MustExist Sites, together
with any such other services provided by MustExist are collectively
referred to as the “MustExist Service”).
Please be advised that the practices
described in this Privacy Policy apply only to information supplied
by you to MustExist through the MustExist Service and do not necessarily
reflect our practices with respect to information gathered through other
means, nor do they apply to any information collected by any third party.
Use of the MustExist Service is subject to our
Terms of Use
and to our personal information gathering and dissemination
practices and policies as described below. This policy may be
modified from time to time, and we will notify you of material changes
by publishing the updated Privacy Policy through the MustExist Service.
Links to Other Sites.
The MustExist Service may contain links to other web sites, and features
which enable you to integrate your experience with the MustExist Service
with other third party web sites or related services. If you choose
to take advantage of features that enable the integration of your account
on a third party service with the MustExist Service, that third party
may share Personal Information they have collected from you, such as
your user name, real name, profile picture, or other information back
with MustExist in order to facilitate the integration. Those third
party services are governed by their own terms and privacy policies,
which you should review before deciding whether or not to use such services.
We are not responsible for and shall not have any liability arising
from the privacy practices, terms of use, or the content of other sites,
even in the event that MustExist facilitated your use of a third party
service.
- Information We Collect
- Your Personal Information.
Although we do not request it, and it is not required for use of the
MustExist Service, in the course of using the MustExist Service, you
may provide us with personally identifiable information. This
refers to information about you that can be used to contact or identify
you, and information on your use of and activities through the MustExist
Service that may be connected with you (“Personal Information”).
When you create User Submissions (as defined in the MustExist Terms
of Use), for example, there is nothing to prevent you from including
your name, email address and other contact information. When you
use the MustExist Service (whether in connection with any third party
service or not), your anonymity may not be guaranteed.
- Technical Information.
When you use the MustExist Service, our web servers automatically gather
a variety of technical information that your browser or device send
along with your request, which may include information such as your
IP or other device or network address, operating system, browser type,
device type, the web page you were visiting immediately before you came
to the MustExist Site, and the search query you submitted to find the
MustExist Site on a search engine. Generally, we use this type
of technical information for diagnostic and statistical purposes, and
other purposes which enhance our ability to troubleshoot, analyze traffic
and usage patterns, improve, enhance, and otherwise administer the MustExist
Service.
- Cookies. Like
most web sites, we may also use “cookies” to store information about
you, such as your preferences, in order to make your use of the MustExist
Service more productive. Cookies are small data files that reside
on your computer’s hard drive and store information about your use
of a particular site. We use cookies to in order to enhance and
personalize your experience and to track usage of the MustExist Service.
You can instruct your browser, by changing its options, to stop accepting
cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from the websites
you visit. If you do not accept cookies from us, you may not be
able to utilize the MustExist Service to its fullest potential.
- Third Parties. In the course of using the MustExist Service, and interacting with related third party services, we might receive information about you from other sources and publish it through the MustExist Service or add it to our database. Examples of such information include service providers you transact with, and the nature of those transactions, or other information that those third parties collect and are authorized to disclose under the terms of the Privacy Policy that governs such third party’s collection, use, and disclosure of your information.
- How We Use Information
- Generally. Personal Information may be used for the following purposes: (i) to provide and improve our Site, services, features and content, including providing you with personalized services, (ii) to administer your membership and your use of the MustExist Service, (iii) to enable users to enjoy and easily navigate the MustExist Service, (iv) to better understand your needs and interests, (v) to fulfill requests you may make, (vi) to personalize your experience, (vii) to provide or offer software updates and product announcements, and (viii) to provide you with further information and offers from us or third parties that we believe you may find useful or interesting, including newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other information on services and products offered by us or third parties; (ix) to facilitate follow up and subsequent dealings with third party service providers listed on the MustExist Service, and to enhance their ability to serve you efficiently and effectively; and (x) to integrate your use of the MustExist Service with services offered by third party providers, such as social networks you may belong to. If you decide at any time that you no longer wish to receive communications from MustExist, please follow the unsubscribe instructions provided in any of the communications.
- Monitoring.
We may use technical information we collect for the above purposes,
to aid in the technical administration of the MustExist Service, and
to monitor and analyze how our Users interact with the MustExist Service,
including without limitation search terms entered, pages visited and
documents viewed. This information may be stored with an IP address.
Using this information, we are able to provide you with a more rewarding,
customized, and personalized experience with the MustExist Service.
For example, such monitoring and analysis helps us to increase the functionality
and user-friendliness of the MustExist Service, to better tailor it
to your needs, to generate and derive useful data and information concerning
the interests, characteristics and website use behavior of our Users,
and to verify that Users meet the criteria required to process their
requests. Aggregated information from many Users may also be used
in order to help us understand areas for future research and to identify
future features and functions to develop for the MustExist Service.
- Withholding Information. You may, of course, decline to provide MustExist with certain information, but then you may not be able to utilize the MustExist Service to its fullest potential.
- How We Share And Disclose Information. The security of your Personal Information is important to us, and we are not in the business of selling Personal Information to others. We may, from time to time, share your Personal Information as described below. Generally, such disclosures are made under terms comparable to this Privacy Policy.
- Users. We will share your Personal Information (and any Personal Information included in your User Submissions) through the MustExist Service according to choices you make and the activity you engage in on the MustExist Service. You can, for example, choose to make your User Submissions available through third party networks, and once you do, they will be available to that third party and users of that service, pursuant to that third party’s policies on collection, use, and disclosure of your Personal Information. Any information you choose to provide should reflect how much you want all other MustExist Users (and users of third party services through which MustExist content may be syndicated) to know about you. We recommend that you guard sensitive information and we encourage users to think carefully about what information about themselves they disclose through the MustExist Service, including through their User Submissions.
- Aggregate Information. We may collect aggregate demographic and usage information about our users, such as age, interests, queries, etc. We may share certain aggregate demographic information that we collect with our business partners regarding the Users of the MustExist Service. The aggregate information that we provide is not directly linked to any personally identifiable information.
- Services Providers, Business Partners and Others. We may employ third party companies and individuals to facilitate our service, to provide the service on our behalf, to perform other services related to providing the MustExist Service (including but not limited to maintenance services, database management, web analytics, improvement of the features of the MustExist Service, and postal and e-mail services, and personal assistance) or to assist us in analyzing how the MustExist Service is used. These third parties have access to your Personal Information for purposes of performing these tasks on our behalf. We may also provide Personal Information to our business partners or other entities with which we have cooperative relationships so that they can send you promotional and other information and engage in any of the activities described in Section 2 above.
- Compliance with Laws and Law Enforcement. MustExist cooperates with government and law enforcement officials and private parties to enforce and comply with the law. We will disclose any information about you to government or law enforcement officials or private parties as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate to respond to claims and legal process (including but not limited to subpoenas), to protect the property and rights of MustExist or a third party, to protect the safety of the public or any person, or to prevent or stop any activity we may consider to be, or to pose a risk of being, illegal, unethical, inappropriate, or legally actionable.
- Business Transfers. MustExist may sell, transfer, or otherwise share some or all of its assets, including your Personal Information, in connection with a change of control, merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale of assets or in the event of bankruptcy, or other related business event or transaction.
- Storage of Your Personal Information
- Generally. Any changes to information which the features of the MustExist Service permit you to make will be reflected within a reasonably time in our active databases. However, for a variety of reasons, we may store all information collected via the MustExist Service, including without limitation your Personal Information, indefinitely. For example, we retain Personal Information after it is changed or deleted to discourage users from engaging in fraudulent behavior. We also retain previously supplied Personal Information in various formats for backup, archival, and analytics purposes.
- Passwords.
To protect your privacy and security, we take reasonable steps to verify
your identity before granting you access to certain features, including
by interfacing with third party services to accomplish this task.
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MAINTAINING THE SECRECY OF YOUR UNIQUE PASSWORD
AND ACCOUNT INFORMATION AT ALL TIMES.
- Our Commitment to Data
Security.
- Security Precautions.
MustExist is very concerned with safeguarding your information.
We employ reasonable physical, managerial, and technical safeguards
to preserve the integrity and security of your personal information.
We cannot, however, ensure or warrant the security of any information
you transmit to MustExist, and you do so at your own risk. Once
we receive your transmission of information, MustExist makes commercially
reasonable efforts to ensure the security of our systems. However,
please note that this is not a guarantee that such information may not
be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our
physical, technical, or managerial safeguards.
- If MustExist learns of a security systems breach, then we may attempt to notify you electronically so that you can take appropriate protective steps. Depending on where you live, you may have a legal right to receive notice of a security breach in writing. To receive a free written notice of a security breach you should notify us at "privacy at mustexist dot com".
- Our Commitment to Children's Privacy
- MustExist is particularly
concerned with safeguarding the privacy of children. This Site
is not directed to children under 18, and children under 18 are prohibited
from using the Site under the Terms and Conditions. We do not knowingly
collect personally identifiable information from children under 13.
If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided
us with Personal Information without their consent, he or she should
contact us at "privacy at mustexist dot com". If we become aware that a
child under 13 has provided us with Personal Information, we will delete
such information from our files as quickly as possible. IF YOU
ARE UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE, THEN YOU MAY NOT USE OR ACCESS MUSTEXIST
AT ANY TIME OR IN ANY MANNER.
- As part of our commitment to children's privacy, we refer the following resources that parents and legal guardians may find useful in monitoring and limiting children's access to certain types of material on the Internet. While MustExist does not endorse these products and services, we provide information about them as a public service to our community.
"OnGuard Online," maintained
by the Federal Trade Commission. <http://onguardonline.gov/
WiredSafety <http://www.wiredsafety.org>
NetSmartz <http://www.netsmartz.org>
The Child Safety Network <http://www.csn.org/index.jsp>
Control Kids <http://www.controlkids.com>
Cyber Sitter <http://www.solidoak.com>
Net Nanny <http://www.netnanny.com>
- Changes to Our Privacy Policy. We reserve the right to change or modify our information collection, use and disclosure practices set forth in this Privacy Policy. Any such change will be made in accordance with the Terms of Use. If you object to the change to our Privacy Policy, then you must contact us using the information provided in the notice. We will otherwise use and disclose Users’ Personal Information in accordance with the Privacy Policy that was in effect when such information was collected.
- Questions. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy and/or MustExist’s Personal Information practices, please email your questions to: "privacy at mustexist dot com".
