This is the privacy policy ("Privacy Policy") that governs how we, ExpertsAnswers ("ExpertsAnswers", "we", "our" or "us"), use the Personal Information (defined below) that we collect, receive and store about individuals who use our website experts.answers.com (the â€œSiteâ€) and our question-and-response service (the â€œServiceâ€), which we refer to collectively as the â€œPlatformâ€. This Privacy Policy forms part of the Siteâ€™s Terms of Use, available at http://www.experts.answers.com/terms.html(the â€œTermsâ€). Capitalized terms not defined herein shall have the meaning ascribed to them in the Terms.

1. Introduction. We have implemented this Privacy Policy because your privacy and the privacy of other Platform users are important to us. We provide this Privacy Policy explaining our online information practices and the choices you can make about the way your Personal Information is collected and used in connection with the Platform and any other services that we offer through or in connection with the Platform. â€œPersonal Informationâ€ means any information that may be used, either alone or in combination with other information, to personally identify, locate, or contact an individual, including, but not limited to, a first and last name, a personal profile, an email address, a home or other physical address, or other contact information.

2. Consent and Modification. By using the Platform, you consent to the terms of this Privacy Policy and to ExpertsAnswersâ€™ processing of Personal Information for the purposes set forth herein. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Platform. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change this Privacy Policy at any time. Such change will be effective thirty (30) days following posting of the revised Privacy Policy on the Site. Your continued use of the Site thirty (30) days following such posting means you accept to be bound by those changes.

3. What Personal Information We Collect and How We Collect It. We do not currently require you to provide Personal Information in order to have access to general information available on the Site, but we do receive and/or collect Personal Information from you in the following ways:

3.1. Account. In order to have access to the Service, you need to create an account (â€œAccountâ€). When you create an Account you will be asked to provide us with information such as your name, email address, postal address, user name, and other specified information, as well as a password that you will use for your Account. We shall then send you an email instructing you how to confirm your registration.

3.2. 'Contact Us' Information. If you send us a "Contact Us" request, whether by submitting an online form that we make available or by using an email address that we provide, you may be required to provide us with Personal Information such as your name, telephone number, email address, as well as any other Personal Information you disclose.

3.3. The Service. We may collect, receive and store Personal Information in connection with your use of the Service. Please note, however, that your participation in the Service is at all times optional. In particular but without limitation, delivery of the Service will require ExpertsAnswers to collect your Personal Information in the following ways:

3.3.1. For the purposes of facilitating payments to Experts via PayPal&â„¢, we will ask you to provide us with you email address.
3.3.2. Customers who make online payments will be asked for their credit card information or a PayPal email address, either of which the Customer may choose to provide.
3.3.3. Additional Personal Information, including the names and email addresses of third parties, may need to be provided by you in order to use our referral program. Our referral program allows you to recommend potential Experts to the Site, notify others about the Site and ExpertsAnswers in general, and send other copies of a question and response thread for their own convenience and use.
3.3.4. If you wish to be registered as an Expert, you may be asked to provide us with your full name, contact address, telephone number, professional license and certification details, as well as other payment-related information.
3.3.5. Your cell phone number and the name of your cell phone company will be need to be provided to us if you subscribe to our text messaging service, whereby responses to your question are sent in the form of a text message to your cell phone.

3.4. Surveys, Newsletter Subscriptions, and Information Requests. The Platform may offer you the opportunity to participate in surveys, newsletter subscriptions, or other programs. If you choose to participate, we may request certain Personal Information from you, such as your name, email address, and other specified information. Your participation is completely voluntary and you therefore have a choice whether to disclose this information.

3.5. Log Files. The Platform may make use of log files. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, clicked pages and any other information your browser may send to us. We may use such information to analyze trends, administer the site, track user movement around the Site, and gather demographic information.

3.6. Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies. Some of our Site pages may utilize "cookies" and other tracking technologies, such as web beacons. A "cookie" is a small text file that may be used, for example, to collect information about Site activity. Certain cookies and other technologies may serve to recall Personal Information previously indicated by a Site user. Most browsers allow you to control cookies, including whether or not to accept them and how to remove them. You may set most browsers to notify you if you receive a cookie, or you may choose to block cookies with your browser. However, cookies must be activated in order for you to log in to your Account.

4. Publicly Available Information.

4.1. On the Service. The Service may permit you and other users to post, publish and transmit information, video, image, data, text, documents, and other content onto public areas of the Service and to other Service users ("User Submissions"). You acknowledge and agree that User Submissions are neither private nor confidential and will become publicly available and viewable to other users of the Service. This is the case even if your User Submission contains Personal Information. Please note that if you publish your contact information, you may receive unsolicited messages from Service users. We therefore encourage you to post and publish only information you are sure you want to be accessible to anyone. The notices and tools that we provide on the Service should help you become aware which User Submissions will become publicly available.

4.2. On the Site. The Service may permit you to send or post inquiries, responses, messages, and comments onto public areas of the Site (â€œSite Postsâ€). Portions of your Account profile information (such as your profile picture and name) may be displayed next to or in connection with your Site Post. You have the choice of deciding whether to make your inquiries, responses, messages, and comments generally available on a public area of the Service or to send or post them to one or several Service users.

5. The Way We Use Personal Information. If you submit or if we collect Personal Information through the Platform, then such Personal Information may be used in the following ways:

5.1. Providing the Service. We will use your Personal Information to provide and improve our Service to you, to contact you in connection with the Service, or additional programs and offerings that you may have registered for, and to identify and authenticate your access to the parts of the Service that you are authorized to access. We may also use your designated contact details (such as your email address) to send you updates, a newsletter or news regarding the Platform and our products and services, or to contact you in response to a "Contact Us" request. Furthermore, in the event that we publish testimonials of the Service on the Site, we will obtain your consent in advance before publishing any Personal Information (if any) associated with such testimonials.

5.2. Sharing with Affiliates. We may share your Personal Information with our subsidiaries, affiliates, joint venturers, other business or persons for the purpose of processing such information on our behalf. Such information may be transferred to other countries around the world. We require, however, that these third parties agree to process such Personal Information in compliance with our Privacy Policy.

5.3. Refer-A-Friend. If you choose to tell your Friend(s) about the Platform, we will use the contact information that you provide us to automatically send your Friend(s) a one-time email inviting them to visit the Site and/or subscribe to the Service. We will include your name in the invitation email. We store this information for the sole purpose of sending the one-time invitation email and tracking the success of whether your Friend registers an Account and/or subscribes to the Service. Your Friend may contact us at experts@answers.comto request that we do not store this information or to opt-out from receiving future communications.

5.4. Payment Processing. We may transfer your Personal Information to our third party service providers (such as credit card payment processors or hosting providers), but only for the purposes of payment processing, fraud prevention, and customer service. Such information may be transferred to other countries around the world. We use commercially reasonable efforts to only engage or interact with third party service providers that post a Privacy Policy governing their processing of Personal Information.

5.5. Compliance with Law. We may disclose your Personal Information or any information you submitted via the Platform if we have a good faith belief that disclosure of such information is helpful or reasonably necessary to (i) comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request; (ii) enforce our Terms including investigations of potential violations thereof; (iii) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud or security issues; or (iv) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of ExpertsAnswers, its users, yourself or the public.

6. Use of Anonymous Information. We may use Anonymous Information (as defined below) or disclose it to third party service providers in order to improve our services and enhance your experience with the Platform. We may also disclose Anonymous Information (with or without compensation) to third parties, including advertisers and partners, for purposes including, but not limited to, targeted advertising. "Anonymous Information" means information which does not enable identification, location, or contacting of an individual user, such as aggregated information about the use of our Platform.

7. Access and Accuracy. To the extent that you do provide us with Personal Information, ExpertsAnswers wishes to maintain accurate Personal Information. You may check your profile and add information, delete information, or correct any incorrect information. You may also send us a request to remove your Personal Information from the Platform, and we will use commercially reasonable efforts to implement your request. Please note, however, that we may maintain deleted or modified information for a reasonable prior of time for backup purposes or to comply with legal rules and obligations.

8. Choice. At all times, you may choose whether or not to provide or disclose Personal Information to ExpertsAnswers. The notices that we provide on the Platform in circumstances where we collect Personal Information should help you to make this choice. For example, if you choose not to provide the Personal Information we request, you may still visit parts of the Site, but you may be unable to access and use the Service or other options, programs, offers, and services that involve our interaction with you.

9. Collection of Information by Third-Party Sites. We may use a reputable third party to present or serve advertisements that you may see on the Site. These third party ad servers may use cookies, web beacons, clear gifs or similar technologies to help present such advertisements, and to help measure and research the advertisements' effectiveness. The use of these technologies by these third party ad servers is subject to their own privacy policies and is not covered by our Privacy Policy.

10. Links to Other Sites. The Site may contain links to third party websites that are not owned or controlled by ExpertsAnswers. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of third party websites, and you visit them at your own risk.

11. Children's Privacy. The Service is not structured to attract individuals under the age of 18 and is intended for adult use only. Accordingly, we do not intend to collect Personal Information from anyone we know to be under 18 years of age, and we reserve the right to delete and remove any Personal Information belonging to persons we believe to be under the age of 18.

12. Security. The security of Personal Information is important to us. ExpertsAnswers utilizes industry-standard security procedures and practices to ensure your Personal Information is kept safe from unauthorized access or use. We also take reasonable precautions to protect your Personal Information from loss or destruction. To this end, we employ physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards and our datacenter(s) is/are secured with both network- and application-level firewalls. In addition, all Personal Information sent to us is transmitted by us in an encrypted format and hashed by us when stored. However, no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. If you have any questions about security on the Service, you can contact us at experts@answers.com.

13. In the Event of Merger, Sale, or Bankruptcy. In the event that ExpertsAnswers is acquired by or merged with a third party entity, we reserve the right to transfer or assign Personal Information that we have collected as part of such merger, acquisition, sale, or other change of control. In the unlikely event of our bankruptcy, insolvency, reorganization, receivership, or assignment for the benefit of creditors, or the application of laws or equitable principles affecting creditors' rights generally, we may not be able to control how Personal Information is treated, transferred, or used. In any of the circumstances described in this paragraph, the information will be subject to the privacy policy of the purchaser or assignee.

14. Your California Privacy Rights. California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits users of ExpertsAnswers who are California residents to request certain information regarding its disclosure of Personal Information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an email to experts@answers.com. Please note that we are only required to respond to one request per customer each year.

15. Commitment. We are committed to protecting your privacy. Protecting your privacy online is an evolving area, and we are constantly evolving our Service to meet these demands. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions regarding our Privacy Policy, please contact us at (919) 825-0301.

Last modified: June 11, 2012

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