Privacy
Policy
The privacy practices of this statement apply to our services
available under the domain and subdomains of www.astecs.org (the
"Site"). Astecs is operated by Cambridge Manhattan Group, LLC. For
the purposes of this Agreement, we refer to Cambridge Manhattan
Group, LLC as ‘Astecs’, ‘us’ or ‘we’. Similarly, this Agreement may
refer to you as ‘you’, ‘member’, ‘user’, or ‘viewer’.
Click here for details of our Terms
of Use Agreement.
Your privacy is very important to us. We do not sell or rent your
personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes
without your express consent. Please read this Privacy Policy to
learn more about the ways in which we use and protect your personal
information. By visiting this website you agree to be bound by the
terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree
please do not use or access our Site.
1—Introduction
This Privacy Policy describes the information, as part of the
normal operation of our services, we collect from you and what may
happen to that information. Although this Privacy Policy may seem
long, we have prepared a detailed this Privacy Policy because we
believe you should know as much as possible about our practices so
that you can make informed decisions.
By accepting this Privacy Policy and the Terms of Use Agreement in
registration, you expressly express consent to our use and
disclosure of your personal information in accordance with this
Privacy Policy. This this Privacy Policy is incorporated into and
subject to the terms of our Terms of Use Agreement. This this
Privacy Policy is effective upon acceptance in registration for new
registering users, and is otherwise effective on December 1st, 2005
for all users.
2—Children
We restrict access to the Site to adults. Please do not use this
website, or send any personal information to us, if you are under 18
years of age.
3—Information You Post on Message Boards and
Public Forums
Information you post on our message boards and other public
forums is available to the public. Do not disclose trade secrets and
sensitive information that you do not want to have in the public
domain. Refer to our Terms of Use Agreement.
4—Information We Collect
Our primary purpose in collecting personal information is to
provide you with a safe, smooth, efficient, and customized
experience. This allows us to provide services and features that we
hope will meet your needs, and to customize our service to make your
experience safer and easier. We only collect personal information
about you that we consider necessary for achieving this purpose.
In general, you can browse the Site without telling us who you are
or revealing any personal information about yourself. Once you give
us your personal information, you are not anonymous to us. If you
choose to use our services, we may require you to provide contact
and identity information, billing information, shipping information
and other personal information as indicated on the forms throughout
the Site. Where possible, we indicate which fields are required and
which fields are optional. You always have the option to not provide
information by choosing not to use a particular service or feature.
Under some circumstances we may require some additional financial
information, such as, but not limited to: if you are registering
using an email account at a free email service, or registering to
sell on the Site. We use your financial information, including
credit card information to verify the accuracy of your name,
address, and other information, as well as to bill you for your use
of our services.
We automatically track certain information based upon your behavior
on the Site. We use this information to do internal research on our
users' demographics, interests, and behavior to better understand,
protect and serve you and our Astecs community. This information may
include the URL that you just came from (whether this URL is on the
Site or not), which URL you next go to (whether this URL is on the
Site or not), your computer browser information, and your IP
address.
We use data collection devices such as "Cookies" on certain pages of
the Site to help analyze our web page flow, measure promotional
effectiveness, and promote trust and safety. Cookies are small files
placed on your hard drive that assist us in providing our services.
We offer certain features that are only available through the use of
a cookie. We also use cookies to allow you to enter your password
less frequently during a session. Cookies can also help us provide
information that is targeted to your interests. Most cookies are
"session cookies," meaning that they are automatically deleted from
your hard drive at the end of a session. You are always free to
decline our cookies if your browser permits, although in that case
you may not be able to use certain features on the Site and you may
be required to reenter your password more frequently during a
session.
Additionally, you may encounter "cookies" or other similar devices
on certain pages of the Site that are placed by third parties. For
example, if you view a web page created by a user, there may be a
"cookie" placed within that web page. We do not control the use of
cookies by third parties.
If you choose to request further information on a listing, we
collect information submitted by you in this regard and pass it on
to the lister. We also collect this information for our records.
If you establish a credit account with us to pay the fees we charge,
we collect some additional information, such as a billing address,
credit card number and a credit card expiration date and tracking
information from checks or money orders.
If you choose to post messages in our Message Boards or other
message areas, we will collect that information you provide to us.
Our system automatically records and stores the Internet protocol
('IP') address where all Message Board postings originate. So, if
you post messages in the Message Boards, your IP address will be
logged and stored on our system. We retain this information as
necessary to resolve disputes, provide customer support and
troubleshoot problems as permitted by law.
If you send us personal correspondence, such as emails or letters,
or if other users or third parties send us correspondence about your
activities or postings on the Site, we may collect such information
into a file specific to you.
5—Our Use of Your Information
We use your personal information to facilitate the services you
request. We use your personal information in the file we maintain
about you, and other information we obtain from your current and
past activities on the Site to: resolve disputes; troubleshoot
problems; help promote safe trading; collect fees owed; measure
consumer interest in our products and services, inform you about
online and offline offers, products, services, and updates;
customize your experience; detect and protect us against error,
fraud and other criminal activity; enforce our Terms of Use
Agreement; and as otherwise described to you at the time of
collection. At times, we may look across multiple users to identify
problems or resolve disputes, and in particular we may examine your
personal information to identify users using multiple User IDs or
aliases. We may compare and review your personal information for
errors, omissions and for accuracy.
If you choose to open an account, or otherwise provide us with your
financial information, we use your address and billing information
to bill you and provide associated support.
You agree that we may use personal information about you to improve
our marketing and promotional efforts, to analyze site usage,
improve our content and product offerings, and customize the Site's
content, layout, and services. These uses improve the Site and
better tailor it to meet your needs, so as to provide you with a
smooth, efficient, safe and customized experience while using the
Site.
You agree that we may use your personal information to contact you
and deliver information to you that, in some cases, are targeted to
your interests, such as targeted advertisements, administrative
notices, product offerings, and communications relevant to your use
of the Site. By accepting the Terms of Use Agreement and this
Privacy Policy, you expressly agree to receive this information. If
you do not wish to receive these communications, we encourage you to
opt out of the receipt of certain communications on the notification
preferences page.
6—Our Disclosure of Your Information
As a matter of this Privacy Policy, we do not sell or rent any of
your personal information to third parties for their marketing
purposes without your express consent. However, the following
describes some of the ways that your personal information may be
disclosed in the normal scope of business to provide our services.
a. Advertisers. We aggregate (gather up data across all user
accounts) personal information and disclose such information in a
non-personally identifiable manner to advertisers and other third
parties for their marketing and promotional purposes. However, in
these situations, we do not disclose to these entities any
information that could be used to identify you personally. Certain
information, such as your name, email address, password, credit card
number, and bank account number, are not disclosed to these third
parties in a personally identifiable manner without your express
consent.
b. Astecs Community. If you use the messageboard service on the
Site, your User ID is displayed throughout the Site and is therefore
available to the public. All of your activities on the Site will be
identifiable to your User ID. Therefore, if you associate your name
with your User ID, the people you have revealed your name to will be
able to personally identify your Astecs activities. Others may
illegally attempt to automatically collect your email address from
the Site. We also provide a number of ways to allow other users to
find out more about you and your site activities. Further, we may
send out notices to you or other community members regarding
suspicious activity or this Privacy Policy violations on the Site.
c. External Service Providers. There are a number of separate
services offered by third parties that we refer to as external
service providers that may be complimentary to your use of the Site
(e.g. listing agents, escrow, authentication, mediation
organizations). If you choose to use these separate services,
disclose information to the external service providers, and/or grant
them permission to collect information about you, then their use of
your information is governed by their this Privacy Policy. We do not
disclose your personal information to external service providers
unless you provide your express consent. With your express consent
we may provide some of your personal information to the external
service provider offering such services, for your convenience. To
prevent our disclosure of your personal information to an external
service provider, you can decline such express consent or simply not
use their services. Because we do not control the privacy practices
of these third parties, you should evaluate their practices before
deciding to use their services. Users who register on a Astecs
co-branded web site grant Astecs permission to pass your email
address back to that co-branded web site. The use of your email
address by the co-brand web sites is limited by their applicable
privacy policies.
d. Internal Service Providers for Our Operations. We may use third
parties that we refer to as internal service providers to facilitate
or outsource one or more aspects of the business, product and
service operations that we provide to you (e.g., search technology,
discussion boards, bill collection, affiliate and rewards programs,
co-branded credit cards) and therefore we may provide some of your
personal information directly to these internal service providers.
These internal service providers' are subject to confidentiality
agreements with us and other legal restrictions that prohibit their
use of the information we provide them for any other purpose except
to facilitate the specific outsourced Astecs related operation,
unless you have expressly agreed or given your prior permission to
them for additional uses. In some instances, the internal service
provider may collect information directly from you (such as for
Astecs surveys or for a co-branded credit card). In these cases, you
will be notified of the involvement of the internal service
provider, and all additional information you provide them and their
additional uses will be strictly up to you. If you provide
additional information to an internal service provider directly,
then their use of your personal information is governed by their
applicable this Privacy Policy.
e. Other Corporate Entities. We share much of our data, including
personal information about you, with our subsidiaries and joint
ventures that are committed to serving your online trading needs and
related services, throughout the world. To the extent that these
entities have access to your information, they will treat it at
least as protectively as they treat information they obtain from
their other users. Our subsidiaries and joint ventures follow
privacy practices no less protective of all users than our practices
described in this document, to the extent allowed by applicable law.
Astecs, its subsidiaries, its joint ventures, or any combination of
such, will share some or all of your personal information with
another business entity should we plan to, merge with, or be
acquired by that business entity. Should such a combination occur,
we will require that the new combined entity follow this Privacy
Policy with respect to your personal information. If your personal
information will be used contrary to this Privacy Policy, you will
receive prior notice in as provided in Section 11 ("Notices & Policy
Modifications").
f. Legal Requests. Astecs cooperates with law enforcement inquiries,
as well as other third parties to enforce laws, such as:
intellectual property rights, fraud and other rights, to help
protect you and the Astecs community from bad actors. Therefore, in
response to a verified request by law enforcement or other
government officials relating to a criminal investigation or alleged
illegal activity, we can (and you authorize us to) disclose your
name, city, state, telephone number, email address, UserID history,
fraud complaints and listing history without a subpoena. Without
limiting the above, in an effort to respect your privacy and our
ability to keep the community free from bad actors, we will not
otherwise disclose your personal information to law enforcement or
other government officials without a subpoena, court order or
substantially similar legal procedure, except when we believe in
good faith that the disclosure of information is necessary to:
prevent imminent physical harm or financial loss; or report
suspected illegal activity.
Due to the existing regulatory environment, we cannot ensure that
all of your private communications and other personal information
will never be disclosed in ways not otherwise described in this
Privacy Policy. By way of example (without limiting the foregoing),
we may be forced to disclose personal information to the government
or third parties under certain circumstances, third parties may
unlawfully intercept or access transmissions or private
communications, or users may abuse or misuse your personal
information that they collect from the Site. Therefore, although we
use industry standard practices to protect your privacy, we do not
promise, and you should not expect, that your personal information
or private communications will always remain private.
7—Your Use of Other User’s Information
In order to facilitate interaction among all our community
members, our Site allows you limited access other users' contact
information. You agree that, with respect to other users' personal
information that you obtain through the Site or through a related
communication Astecs hereby grants to you a license to use such
information only for: (a) Astecs-related communications that are not
unsolicited commercial messages, (b) using services offered through
Astecs (e.g. escrow, and fraud complaints), and (c) any other
purpose that a user expressly agrees to after you tell them the
purpose you would like to use it for. In all cases, you must give
users an opportunity to remove themselves from your database and a
chance to review what information you have collected about them. In
addition, under no circumstances, except as defined in this Section,
can you disclose personal information about another user to any
third party without our express consent and the express consent of
that user. You agree that other users may use your personal
information to communicate with you in accordance with this Section.
Astecs and our users do not tolerate spam. Therefore, without
limiting the foregoing, you are not licensed to add a Astecs user,
even a user who has purchased an item from you, to your mail list
(email or physical mail) without their express consent. To report
Astecs related spam to us, please email:
reportspam@astecs.org.
8—Control of Your Password
You are responsible for all actions taken with your User ID and
password, including fees charged to your account. Therefore we do
not recommend that you disclose your Astecs password to any third
parties. If you choose to share your User ID and password or your
personal information with third parties, you are responsible for all
actions taken with your account and therefore you should review that
third party's this Privacy Policy. If you lose control of your
password, you may lose substantial control over your personal
information and may be subject to legally binding actions taken on
your behalf. Therefore, if your password has been compromised for
any reason, you should immediately change your password.
9—Other Information Collectors
Except as otherwise expressly included in this Privacy Policy,
this document only addresses the use and disclosure of information
we collect from you. To the extent that you disclose your
information to other parties, whether they are buyers or sellers on
our site or other sites throughout the Internet, different rules may
apply to their use or disclosure of the information you disclose to
them. Since we do not control the privacy policies of third parties,
you are subject to the privacy policies of that third party. We
encourage you to ask questions before you disclose your personal
information to others.
10—Security
Your information is stored on Astecs's servers located in the
United States. We use procedural and technical safeguards to protect
your personal information against loss or theft as well as
unauthorized access and disclosure to protect your privacy. We treat
data as an asset that must be protected against loss and
unauthorized access. We employ many different security techniques to
protect such data from unauthorized access by users inside and
outside the company. However, "perfect security" does not exist on
the Internet.
11—Notices & Policy Modifications
We may update this Privacy Policy. We will notify you about
significant changes in the way we treat personal information by
sending a notice to the primary email address specified in your
account or by placing a prominent notice on our site.
Questions
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please email
us at the following address:
PrivacyPolicyQuestions@astecs.org .
