| At MouthShut.com, we are
extremely proud of our commitment to protect your privacy. We
value your trust in us and assure you that we would use the information
we collect only to provide a more personalized experience. We
will work hard to earn your confidence so that you can enthusiastically
use our services and recommend us to friends and family. Please
read the following policy to understand how your personal information
will be treated as you make full use of our many offerings. This
document provides a thorough description of tools that MouthShut.com
provides to help you interact with other users and MouthShut.com's
practices to help you understand MouthShut.com's approaches to
privacy. You should carefully read this Privacy Statement (the
"Statement"). If you have any questions about this Statement,
email privacy@MouthShut.com.
This Statement supplements the MouthShut.com
User Agreement (the "Agreement"). Thus, this Statement
is incorporated into and governed by all of the terms of the Agreement.
In the event of any conflict between the terms of the Agreement
and this Statement, the terms of this Statement shall control.
This Statement applies only to information
collected on the MouthShut.com web site. It does not speak about
MouthShut.com's practices for information collected elsewhere
or the practices of any third parties, including those who may
operate sites on MouthShut.com's behalf and that display MouthShut.com
branding.
1. Unregistered
Guests:The MouthShut.com site is optimized for
registered users. By registering, you can obtain benefits such
as the opportunity to write Opinions, accrue MS-Points credits
and personalize your experience using our proprietary tools such
as SORT™ and Trusted Circle™. If you choose not to
register, you can still use some portions of the site. In that
case, MouthShut.com may obtain your IP addresses and by analyzing
what URLs you came from and go to.
2. Registered
Users: If you register, MouthShut.com stores your
preferences and passwords for your convenience, to provide you
with a more personalized experience. At present MouthShut.com
does not use cookies to store your login sessions.
3. Your
Registration Information: When you register, MouthShut.com
asks you for a number of pieces of information. If you register
through a co-branded site, the co-brand partner may be transferring
to MouthShut.com some or all of the required registration information
or possibly other information about you.
MouthShut.com uses registration information
internally for a number of purposes, including:
• email distribution as described
in the Agreement, as you request on the site (such as promotional
opportunities or newsletters if you check the applicable boxes
on the registration page, and as described below in Section 9),
and for administrative purposes (such as to notify you about changes
to the Agreement or this Statement or to contact you regarding
redemptions of MS-Points credits or other problems with your account).
In accordance with instructions on the site, you may opt not to
receive certain emails in the future, and MouthShut.com will use
reasonable efforts to honor your request.
• possible special opportunities,
such as to become a featured reviewer, get extra exposure on the
site or accrue more MS-Points credits.
• display banner (and similar)
advertising to you in connection with the site that is more targeted
to you specifically. In doing this type of targeting, MouthShut.com
or its ad server, and not the advertiser, connect you with the
targeting criteria.
Through your account page, you have some choices about whether
or not to display your registration information publicly on the
site.
If you register through a co-branded site,
MouthShut.com may be required to give the co-brand partner some
or all of your registration information to them. While MouthShut.com
will use such information in accordance with this Statement, it
does not always control how the co-brand partners use or disclose
such information. However, the co-brand partner is governed by
their privacy policies. If you have any concerns about such privacy
policies, you should contact the co-brand partner.
You may request to cancel your registration
to the site or request the removal of your registration information
from member records by emailing support@MouthShut.com
which permission may or may not be granted. However, MouthShut.com
will send you an email to confirm your request. After you respond,
MouthShut.com will in most cases, remove your information from
its "live" database, but residual information may remain
in archives and records. MouthShut.com may not be able to propagate
changes to your registration information to its co-brand partners
who have received such information. In addition, if your account
is being terminated for violations of the Agreement, MouthShut.com
may keep some of your registration information active to prevent
re-registration.
4. Your
Opinions: All information you submit as part of
an Opinion is automatically displayed on the site (so long as
it passes the software filters). MouthShut.com may use such information
in accordance with the license granted in the Agreement. This
includes the right to use the Opinion or teaser portions (including
your identity and photo) throughout the site, on other sites on
the web, and offline. If you have registered through a co-branded
site, please be aware that MouthShut.com may be required to transfer
your Opinions to the co-brand partner for their use and display.
Subject to the limitations discussed in the Agreement, you can
change an Opinion at any time using the tools available to you
on each Opinion page. If you wish to delete an Opinion, you may
request support@MouthShut.com
on a case-by-case basis. Your request may or may not be granted,
depending on the reason of your request. In all cases, MouthShut.com
will protect your privacy, as laid down in this policy. However,
if the Opinion has been transferred to other sites or parties,
your changes may not propagate to these other places.
5. Comments
on Opinions: Posting comments to other people's
Opinions automatically displays your identity. This is true even
if you have rated the Opinion anonymously. MouthShut.com may choose
to transfer your comments to third parties if MouthShut.com transfers
the associated Opinion.
6. Your
Personal Profile Pages: MouthShut.com allows you
to display a large variety of personal information about yourself
through the tools that edit your personal profile page. As you
can see when you edit your preferences on this page, you have
choices about whether to display or hide this information, and
you can change this information at any time (although, as discussed
elsewhere, it may not be possible to propagate all of these changes
instantly or ever). Please note that whatever URL you choose to
link to your photo will cause that photo to be displayed in many
places throughout the site (not just on the personal profile page).
MouthShut.com does not transfer your personal
profile in total to third parties, but may transfer pieces of
your personal profile page in accordance with your instructions,
in situations similar to those described under the Registration
Information heading above, or as described elsewhere in this Statement.
7. Your
Rating of Others and the Trusted Circle: One of
the most powerful aspects of the site is that it personalizes
your experience based on your personal interests using the Trusted
Circle™. The system assesses your prior experiences on the
site (as evidenced by how you've rated other Opinions or trusted/distrusted
other members), and then uses these experiences to dynamically
sort the database of Opinions for you based on those that are
more likely to interest you. To do this, MouthShut.com captures
information about your interactions with other users and then
processes this information each time you look for Opinions. The
more you interact with others, the more personalized your subsequent
uses of the site will be.
In rating and commenting on others' Opinions, your MS-ID
is displayed. This causes the Opinion author and all other readers
of the Opinion to see your rating. You can choose to hide your
identity when rating on an Opinion-by-Opinion basis by making
a special request to support@mouthshut.com.
You can also hide or reveal your identity in trusting and distrusting
others across all people you trust. You can change your mind and
hide/reveal your identity in trusting and distrusting others by
following the instructions on the site. However, you cannot prevent
from your MS-ID being displayed if another member trusts or distrusts
you. Similarly, even if you choose to hide your Trusted and Distrusted
Member list, the members who you trust and distrust will know
that you trust or distrust them.
Except as otherwise contemplated in this Statement, MouthShut.com
does not transfer the complete database of rating and transactional
information to others. However, the database is used throughout
all of the sites MouthShut.com operates or may operate in future,
whether branded solely by MouthShut.com, co-branded with others,
or operated for others on a private-label basis.
8. MS-Points
Credit Redemption: MouthShut.com may ask you for
additional information to process a request for MS-Points credit
redemption. MouthShut.com may choose to add such information to
our database record about you, which will be treated the same
as other business records. Without limiting the foregoing, MouthShut.com
uses your mailing address information to send you redeemed MS-Points
credits and, in limited circumstances, other communications. Also,
MouthShut.com may choose to feature your Member ID in promotional
materials (both online and offline) to highlight your earnings
successes.
9. Email
Notifications: In a number of places, MouthShut.com
provides the option to receive an email when an activity occurs.
For example, you can choose to be emailed if a specific other
member writes an Opinion or a comment, or if a new Opinion is written
on a certain product. If you choose to be notified when another
member writes an Opinion or comment, that other member will be
able to see that you've done so.
10. Scratch-Pad
Feature: The Scratch-Pad feature allows you to
store links and notes in a centralized place in your account.
Except as may otherwise be specified in the notebook feature,
the information you store in your notebook is not displayed on
your profile page or otherwise in the public areas of the MouthShut.com
site.
11. Integrated
Services: Although MouthShut.com doesn't currently
offer any integrated services operated by third parties as part
of your registration, MouthShut.com expects to do so in the future.
These could include functionality like a MouthShut.com email account.
In these circumstances, MouthShut.com may transfer some or all
of your registration information and other information to the
third party to operate the integrated service if you choose to
use these services.
12. Internal
Analyses and Reports: MouthShut.com uses all of
the information in its databases, including personal information
you've submitted, and other server and usage logs, to analyze
the site and user behavior, troubleshoot technical problems, resolve
disputes and address complaints, and prepare aggregated reports
that are shared with others, including the management of MouthShut.com.
13. Other
Information: Specific uses of personal information
that vary from this Privacy Statement (if any) may be found throughout
the site. To the extent that, during your submission of information
on the site, you are notified of privacy practices that are different
from those described in this Privacy Statement, those alternative
disclosures will govern that submission.
There may be situations where MouthShut.com
collects data through a survey or similar process when the page
does not link to this Statement. In those cases, unless you are
informed otherwise, you should assume that MouthShut.com treats
all information from such pages as it treats its other valuable
business records.
Of course, there are many other ways in
which MouthShut.com could get information from or about you that
are not described elsewhere in this Statement. For example, you
might send email through a customer service email address, or
MouthShut.com may get a complaint about you from a third party.
MouthShut.com's practices with respect to such information are
pretty much as you'd expect-MouthShut.com uses and discloses this
information in a commercially reasonable business manner.
14. Children:
MouthShut.com feels strongly about protecting the privacy of children
and encourages kids to involve their parents in any interactive
activity they participate in online. If you are 12 or younger
and we collect your age information through the registration process,
you are not eligible to use the site. If you are under 18, MouthShut.com
encourages you to use the site with the help of your parents or
guardians of legal age, but you are not eligible to participate
in the MS-Points program
15. Contractors
and Third Party Service Providers: MouthShut.com
uses contractors to help with its operations. Some or all of these
contractors may access the databases of user information. Usually
these contractors will enter into an agreement that places restrictive
provisions on their use and disclosure of all information they
obtain through the relationship.
MouthShut.com may also use third party
service providers to help with certain aspects of its operations
that may require disclosure of your personal information to them.
For example, MouthShut.com may use a third party service provider
to mail MS-Points redemption rewards, serve ads, or deliver some
or all of the emails sent as part of the site's normal operation.
Again, usually MouthShut.com will place extensive restrictions
on the ability of these third parties to use and disclose your
personal information except as necessary to perform the services
they are asked to perform.
16. The
"Corporate Family": MouthShut.com may
share some or all of your information with its subsidiaries or
parent company (if any in future), in which case MouthShut.com
will ask such entities to honor the promises in this Statement.
In addition, as part of a diligence review, MouthShut.com may
disclose some or all of your personal information to a potential
acquirer or merger partner, although in this case MouthShut.com
would try to restrict their use and disclosure of this information.
17. Government
Relations and Lawsuits: In some cases, the government
can compel the disclosure of information about you, and of course
MouthShut.com will need to comply. However, irrespective of those
situations, MouthShut.com can unilaterally turn over information
about you to the government if it believes such disclosure to
be appropriate, in which case you authorize it to do so. You also
consent to MouthShut.com disclosing information about you to actual
or potential parties to a lawsuit that MouthShut.com is or may
become involved in (a) if it is required to do so, (b) if it
reasonably believes that such disclosures will potentially mitigate
its liability, or (c) to enforce its rights.
18. Collecting
Personal Information from the Site: Many friendships
have developed through the site, and MouthShut.com wants the community
to be vibrant and engaged. Thus, MouthShut.com is delighted when
users begin communicating with each other outside the context
of the site. However, not every user wants to engage in these
types of dialogue, and MouthShut.com believes each user should
have the right to set the boundaries that feel right to them.
Thus, you may not collect, use or store any personal information
about other users on the site for any purpose whatsoever unless
the user invites you to do so. Thus, if a user displays an email
address in his or her personal profile, you can assume that the
user is willing to receive a single personal email from you that
has some relation to the site. However, without that user's permission,
you may not contact the user about something that has nothing
to do with MouthShut.com, store that user's contact information
in a database for further communications, or continue to contact
the user if they have requested you not to. In all circumstances,
as described in the Agreement, you may not use robots, scripts
or other automated procedures to collect any information, including
user contact information, from the site. You may also not email
users inviting them to join your own review site under any circumstance-doing
so is a theft of MouthShut.com's valuable rights and an affront
to users. MouthShut.com will protect its users' interests-and
its own interests-very vigorously in this regard.
19. Your
Use of Email Tools: MouthShut.com may provide
you with some tools that allow you to send email to your friends.
If you use this tool, the email will include your email address,
as well as any personal message you choose to include. MouthShut.com
does not store, in any easily-retrievable way, the email addresses
of the friends you are communicating with. You may not use these
tools to send spam or to send content that would violate the Agreement.
Without limiting the foregoing, you may not send "Tell a
Friend" invitations to anyone who would not welcome the message
or post any invitations to any web sites, message boards, mail
lists or USENET groups (unless you are the owner of that venue).
In any case, you should not assume that emails processed by MouthShut.com
are private communications.
20. Limits
on MouthShut.com' Abilities: A site and service
as complicated as MouthShut.com is never perfect, and thus MouthShut.com
may inadvertently make uses or disclosures of your information
in ways not contemplated by, or in direct contravention of, this
Statement. For example, if the software has a temporary glitch,
your personal information could be displayed on the site even
though you've configured your preferences otherwise. MouthShut.com
might also make ad hoc uses of your information in ways it can't
contemplate here. MouthShut.com will do its best to work with
you if these types of situations arise, but your sole remedy in
these cases is to have MouthShut.com try to rectify the problem
as soon as it can.
In addition, although highly unlikely,
it is possible for Internet transmissions containing your personal
information to be intercepted by others. It is impossible for
MouthShut.com to ensure the privacy and security of all transmissions
made to and from the site while in transit.
Of course, MouthShut.com does not control
the privacy practices of its advertisers and other third-party
sites that it promotes or links to. If you click through a banner
ad or link and submit your information to an advertiser, you will
be subject to their privacy policies. Please make sure you understand
these policies before submitting your information.
21. Security Practices: MouthShut.com
uses industry-standard methods of securing its databases of user
information, such as, if and where appropriate, firewalls and
limits on who can access user information databases. However,
please keep in mind that there is no such thing as perfect security
on the Internet.
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