Privacy Policy

Kickstartnews.com and Kickstartnews Inc. is a leading publisher of computer software, hardware and book reviews and information. More information about kickstartnews.com may be obtained at http://www.kickstartnews.com/about.html or by writing to info@kickstartnews.com.

Overall Privacy Statement

Kickstartnews.com takes your privacy seriously. Because we gather certain types of information about our users we want to help you understand the terms and conditions surrounding the collection and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses the types of information we gather, how we use it, and how to correct or change it. These privacy practices apply to the Web site that you were viewing when you clicked through to this policy. The web site is owned and managed by kickstartnews.com but hosted by an independent company with no affiliation to kickstartnews.com.

1. What personally identifiable information does Kickstartnews.com collect?

Kickstartnews.com's primary goal in collecting personal information is to provide you with the best and most useful content and services. Because Kickstartnews.com derives its revenue from advertising, content sales and technical consulting, collecting information is essential to keeping our services affordable to users.

Kickstartnews.com collects personally identifiable information when you provide it to us, such as when you register or subscribe, when you use certain services, and when you visit Kickstartnews.com' pages and read reviews and articles. Several of the services that we offer on our sites, technical support and products for sale, may require registration as a condition of use. Once you register with one of our Kickstartnews.com sites you are no longer anonymous to us. Kickstartnews.com may also receive information about you from other sources and add it to the information you provided to us.

2. What anonymous information does Kickstartnews.com collect?

Cookies
Your Internet browser has a feature called "cookies". These small text files store small amounts of data on your computer about your visit to any of our pages and sites. However, cookies tell us nothing about who you are unless you specifically give us personally identifiable information. You do not need to have cookies turned on to visit most Kickstartnews.com pages and sites, although active participation in certain areas of our pages and sites may require cookies. In addition, you may elect not to allow cookies to be collected by selecting certain options on your browser.

Web Bugs & Servers
We do not use electronic images known as Web Bugs - sometimes called transparent GIFs, clear GIFs, or beacons - which allow tracking of general user traffic patterns. If the Web Bug policy changes in the future, this privacy policy statement will be amended appropriately. kickstartnews.com automatically receives and records information from our servers and from your browser, including your IP address, the time, and information about the page you requested.

We use tracking technologies in a variety of ways, including:

* Keeping count of return visits to our site or our advertisers' or partners' sites
* Accumulating and reporting anonymous, aggregate (data collected in mass), statistical information on Web site and advertisement usage
* Determining which features users like best
* Saving your password so you don't have to re-enter it each time you visit our sites
* Third-party advertisement servers
* Some of our advertisers use third-party companies to serve their advertisements on our sites and, in some cases, in our HTML-formatted newsletters. Often, these third-party advertising companies employ cookie and Web Bug technologies to measure advertisement effectiveness. We do not give any personally identifiable information to them as part of this relationship. Use of their tracking technology is subject to their own privacy policies. If you would like more information about the privacy policies of the third-party advertising providers including information on how to opt out of their tracking methods, visit NAI.

3. How does Kickstartnews.com use the information?

Kickstartnews.com uses the information we gather for four general purposes:

* To customize the advertising and content you see
* To enhance the user experience in our network of sites. We use tracking information to determine how well each page performs overall based on aggregate user demographics and traffic patterns to those pages. This helps us continue to build a better service for you
* To fulfill your requests for certain products and services, such as sending out electronic newsletters and enabling users to participate in services such as the online store.
* To send you information you agreed to receive about topics we think will be of interest to you and to send answers to you regarding your technical questions.

4. How does Kickstartnews.com share the information?

Personally Identifiable Information
Kickstartnews.com will make your personally identifiable information available to other companies or people only when:

* We have your consent to share the information
* We have engaged companies to work with or on behalf of kickstartnews.com to provide a product or service in the online store
* You use co-branded services. When you use a co-branded service within our network of pages and sites you grant us permission to pass your registration information back to that service partner. Their use of your information is subject to their applicable privacy policies.
* We respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process; or we believe that your actions violate applicable laws, Kickstartnews.com's Terms of Use (see Legal Notice) and any usage guidelines for specific products or services, or threaten the rights, property, or safety of kickstartnews.com, our users, or others or our copyrights or trademarks.

Aggregate Information
Kickstartnews.com aggregates personally identifiable information and discloses such information in a non-personally identifiable manner to advertisers and other third parties for marketing, promotional, and other purposes. We do not disclose to these entities any information that could be used to identify you personally.

Business Transfers
We are always seeking to improve our network of Web sites and our business. In accomplishing these objectives, we may buy or sell a company, or one or more of the companies in our corporate family may merge with or be acquired by another company. If we sell a business, we may transfer some or all of your information as a part of the sale in order that the service being provided to you may continue or for other business purposes.

5. What are my options?

Users who would rather not provide any of the user data requested by our registration process do not need to register with us. You can still view much of the content and use many of the services offered by our pages and sites without registering.

We also give users the following options:

* Opting not to receive our electronic newsletters or those of third parties when registering. Users who opt-in may remove themselves from mailing lists at any time through the subscription management pages or by following the instructions at the end of the e-mail they received from us;
* Opting not to provide certain personal information when registering for a site.

6. How can I update my personally identifiable information?

You can correct or change the information collected from registration. You may also completely remove your personal information and registration data from our records by sending a clearly worded request to info@kickstartnews.com.