In order to better provide you with our numerous services, we collect two types of information about our users: Personally Identifiable Information and Non-Personally Identifiable Information. Our primary goal in collecting information from you is to provide you with a smooth, efficient, and customized experience while using our site.
Personally Identifiable Information:
This refers to information that lets us know the specifics of who you are. When you engage in certain activities on this site, such as registering for a membership, ordering a product or service, submitting content and/or posting content in discussion forums or other public areas, entering a contest or sweepstakes, filling out a survey, or sending us feedback, we may ask you to provide certain information about yourself by filling out and submitting an online form. It is completely optional for you to engage in these activities. If you elect to engage in these activities, however, we may ask that you provide us personal information, such as your first and last name, mailing address (including zip code), e-mail address, employer, job title and department, telephone and facsimile numbers, and other personal identifying information. When ordering products or services on the site, you may be asked to provide a credit card number. Depending upon the activity, some of the information we ask you to provide is identified as mandatory and some as voluntary. If you do not provide the mandatory data with respect to a particular activity, you will not be able to engage in that activity.
Non-Personally Identifiable Information:
This refers to information that does not by itself identify a specific individual. We gather certain information about you based upon where you visit on our site in several ways. This information is compiled and analyzed on both a personal and an aggregated basis. This information may include the Web site’s Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) that you just came from, which URL you go to next, what browser you are using, and your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address. A URL is the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web. An IP address is an identifier for a computer or device on a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (“TCP/IP”) network, such as the World Wide Web. Networks like the Web use the TCP/IP protocol to route information based on the IP address of the destination. In other words, an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the web, allowing web servers to locate and identify your computer. Computers require IP addresses in order for users to communicate on the Internet.