Privacy Policy

Your online privacy is taken seriously

 

May 19, 2009

Merchant's Mirror™ (MM) is owned and operated by Firelace, Inc. (FL) Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel that you should fully understand our policy and the terms and conditions surrounding the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses what information we gather and how we use it.

INFORMATION MM GATHERS AND TRACKS MM gathers two types of information about users: Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions. These are voluntary submissions to receive our electronic newsletters, to participate in our message boards or forums, to email a friend, and from participation in polls and surveys. Information MM gathers through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites. This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers' needs and to help better understand the demographics of our audience. Under no circumstances does MM divulge any information about an individual user to a third party without proper concent. MM gathers user information in the following processes:

  1. Electronic newsletters policy (Dispatches)
    We offer a free electronic newsletter to users. MM gathers the email addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe. Users may remove themselves from this mailing list by following the link provided in every newsletter that points users to the subscription management page.
  2. Message boards/forums policy
    Users of the site's Message Boards and Forums must register separately for these services (both are free of charge) in order to post messages, although they needn't register to visit the site. During registration the user is required to supply a username, password, and email address.
  3. "E-mail this to a friend" policy
    Our site users can choose to electronically forward a link, page, or documents to someone else by clicking "e-mail this to a friend". The user must provide their email address, as well as that of the recipient. This information is used only in the case of transmission errors and, of course, to let the recipient know who sent the email.
  4. Polling
    We may offer interactive polls to users so they can easily share their opinions with other users and see what our audience thinks about important issues. Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not identifiable to any particular user. MM may use a system to "tag" users after they have voted, so they can vote only once on a particular question. This tag is not correlated with information about individual users.
  5. Surveys
    MM may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target our content to our audience. We may sometimes share the aggregated demographic information in these surveys with our sponsors and partners. We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.

COOKIES
We may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. But the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can't read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. MM uses cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above).

You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you've set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in message boards, forums, polling, surveys, and the application itself.

USE OF INFORMATION
MM uses any information voluntarily given by our users to enhance their experience in our network of sites, whether to provide interactive or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our users. As stated above, we use information that users voluntarily provide in order to send out electronic newsletters and to enable users to participate in polls, surveys, message boards, and forums. We send out newsletters to subscribers on a regular schedule (depending on the newsletter), and occasionally send out special editions when we think subscribers might be particularly interested in something we are doing. MM never shares newsletter mailing lists with any third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or partners.

MM will not share any financial or accounting-related data input from its users with any third party at any time without expressed written consent of its users.

MM may create aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic patterns for advertisers, sponsors, and partners. This allows our partners to be more effective, and allows our users to receive information that is pertinent to their needs.

SHARING OF THE INFORMATION
MM uses the above-described information to tailor our content to suit your needs and help our advertisers better understand our audience's demographics. We will not share information about individual users with any third party, except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.

SECURITY
MM operates secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our customers.

OPT-OUT POLICY We give users options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices include:

  • Opting not to register to receive our electronic newsletters.
  • Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas, which completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable information from our users

YOUR CONSENT
By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by Firelace, Inc. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.

privacy@merchantsmirror.com