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Privacy Statement
SoundEngine.com, LLC ("SoundEngine.com" or "we") are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Statement sets out our privacy policy and explains what we do with the personal information that we collect from you. Please read the following to understand our views and practices regarding personal information, and how they affect you as you use our features and services. This statement discloses the current privacy practices for our Web sites. If we make any material changes to this policy, we'll announce them. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should contact SoundEngine.com's site coordinator at privacy@soundengine.com.
This Privacy Statement answers the following questions:
What Information Does SoundEngine.com Gather About You?
SoundEngine.com collects information about our readers so that we can provide a more interesting and useful service as well as more appropriate products and product information. We ask for your name, email address, and other personal information when you register to use certain areas of our Web site, such as our discussion boards and mailing lists, or if you sign up for special or personalized services, such as a subscription service. We also may ask for this information at other times, such as when you enter contests or other promotions sponsored by SoundEngine.com Sometimes we conduct surveys, too, although you don't have to respond to
them.
We also 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' overall experience. For similar quality reasons, we use a feature known
as a "cookie." Cookies contain bits of information that Web sites 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, it doesn't tell us who you are. Only you can do that. We discuss cookies later in this Privacy Statement.
When you place an order with SoundEngine.com, we need to know the sort of information typically used for credit card transactions, such as your name, mailing and billing addresses (and shipping address, if different), telephone number, and credit card number and expiration date. This allows us to process and fulfill your order and notify you of your order status. We'll also use your information to contact you regarding your order if necessary. All of this information is encrypted using Secure Socket Layers (SSL) technology.
In addition to helping us process your order, we use the information we collect from you to provide you with an enhanced, more personalized shopping experience. We'll also send you occasional discount alerts and
notices about products and services that we think may interest you. If you'd prefer us not to send you those notices, simply go to our Email Unsubscribe page and let us know.
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 Web sites and for auditing purposes.
* To determine aggregate information about users, including demographic and usage information.
* When we send HTML-formatted email messages (messages resembling Web pages that include graphics), we may include single-pixel GIFs to determine which email messages were opened and/or acted upon.
How Does SoundEngine.com Use Your Personal Information?
SoundEngine.com collects personal information to provide you, the user, with the best and most personalized experience possible. In short, by knowing a little about you, SoundEngine.com can deliver more relevant content and product information to you.
SoundEngine.com conducts research on our users' demographics, interests, and behavior based on the information you provide us when you contact us or order, participate in a contest or other promotion on our site, or from our server log files. This research is compiled and analyzed on an aggregated basis. We may also notify you of a product, service, or area of our site that we think may interest you based on the information we've received. If you'd prefer us not to contact you for these purposes, simply go to this page and let us know.
Sometimes we ask for personal information when providing special features and services. If you don't want to give us that information, you certainly don't have to, but you may not be able to take advantage
of certain products or services. For example, you may not be able to gain access to certain areas of our site
unless you register and/or subscribe.
How Do We 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 SoundEngine.com, send us an email message,
or buy something from us.
We may use IP addresses for various purposes, including:
* Diagnosing service or technology problems
* System security
* Sending the most appropriate product and service notices
* Studying how people use our site and how we can improve it
Cookies
Cookies are used on our sites in the following ways:
* We use cookies to automatically access your stored account information when you log on to our site in order to deliver a better and more personalized service.
* Cookies are used to estimate our audience size and usage patterns. Each browser accessing SoundEngine.com is given a unique cookie, which is then used to determine
usage patterns and help us target content and ads based upon user interests.
* When you shop for products or services on our sites, cookies help us keep track of your shopping cart and process your orders.
* We use cookies to allow you to automatically access your account information, as well as make changes to your personal information.
* Our search engines (when enabled) may use cookies to expedite your search for content or products.
Most browsers are set up to accept cookies, but you can configure yours to refuse cookies or notify you when you've received one.
Browsers differ, so check your Help menu to learn how to change your cookie preferences. If you reject cookies on our sites, though,
you will not be able to use many of their features, including our discussion boards or shopping cart. When you accept our cookies, we
can't use them to find out who you really are, unless you tell us. And even then, they won't tell us how you are voting, your favorite beverage,
or who you have a crush on.
For more information about cookies, read the CookieCentral.com FAQ.
Will SoundEngine.com Disclose Any of Your Personal Information?
SoundEngine.com will not disclose any personally identifiable information about individual users, except as described in this Privacy Statement. With the few exceptions
that we explain here, we do not give, rent, lend, or sell individual information to anyone. Only SoundEngine.com has access to individual accounts.
We may also disclose aggregate information (for example, we shipped 763 Kurzweil formatted CD ROMS last year) in order to describe our services
to prospective partners, sound developers, and other third parties, and for other lawful purposes.
As for individually identifiable information, we may disclose it only under the following circumstances:
* We may disclose information to others when we have your consent.
* If you buy something from us, we will disclose your personal information to the extent necessary to fulfill your order and charge your credit card (if applicable). We may use a fulfillment company to fill and ship your order (excluding products you download directly from our site) and a credit card processing company to verify your card number and process the transaction. For example, when you order a WAV CDROMS with your credit card, we'll need to give your address to the fulfillment house in order to
ship the cap to you and your credit card information to the processing company to confirm payment. We may also give your information to a delivery or postal service so they can get your order to you.
* We may disclose personal information in some other limited circumstances, but we will specifically describe them to you when we collect the information, such as in the rules of a contest or a new
service. For example, if we're going to give personal information to a contest's sponsor, we'll disclose it when you sign up for the contest, so that you can decide whether to enter.
* We may employ contractors to help with our operations. Some or all of these contractors may have
access to databases of user information. These contractors are subject to confidentiality agreements that restrict their use and disclosure of information they obtain through their relationship with SoundEngine.com.
What Kind of Security Measures Do We Take to Protect Your Information From Accidental Loss or Disclosure?
SoundEngine.com 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.
Will SoundEngine.com Use Your Information for Direct Mailings?
If you register with SoundEngine.com or sign up for or buy any of our products or services, we will send you information
about our various products and services, or other products and services we feel may interest you. Only SoundEngine.com or
people working on our behalf and under confidentiality agreements will send you these notices. If you do not want to receive
such offers and mailings, you can let us know on our Email Unsubscribe page or send snail mail to: Privacy at SoundEngine.com,
PO Box 1568, Arlington Heights, IL 60006, USA. We'll remove your name from our lists as soon as we can. Another way is to simply
to click the unsubscribe link found in our email messages.
How Do We Respect Children's Privacy?
Our sites are not directed at children under the age of 13. We operate our sites in compliance with
the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and will not knowingly collect or use personally identifiable information from anyone under 13.
This Privacy Statement applies to the operations of SoundEngine.com
Changes to This Privacy Statemen
We may change this Privacy Statement at any time, but we'll give notice of any material change.
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