COMMITMENT TO YOUR PRIVACY
This site is owned and operated by Florentine Design Group. Your privacy on
the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At Florentine Design Group,
we want to make your experience online satisfying and safe.
Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel you
should fully understand 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.
Definition of the Information Florentine Design Group gathers and keeps track
of.
Florentine Design Group 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 Florentine Design Group 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 our advertisers and sponsors better understand the demographics of our
audience. Because Florentine Design Group derives its revenue mainly from sponsorships
and advertising, providing such aggregated demographic data is essential to
keeping our service free to users. Under no circumstances does Florentine Design
Group divulge any information about an individual user to a third party.
Florentine Design Group Gathers User Information In The Following Processes:
Optional Voluntary Information
We offer the following free services, which require some type of voluntary
submission of personal information by users:
1. Electronic newsletters (Dispatches)
We will offer a free electronic newsletter to users. Florentine Design Group
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. Users can also subscribe
to the newsletters at the time of registration.
2. Message boards/forums
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" Service
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. The information is not used for any other purpose.
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. Florentine Design Group 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
Florentine Design Group may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target
our content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated demographic information
in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers and partners. We never share
any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.
CHILDREN
Consistent with the Federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998
(COPPA), we will never knowingly request personally identifiable information
from anyone under the age of 13 without requesting parental consent.
USAGE TRACKING
Florentine Design Group tracks user traffic patterns throughout all of our
sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual
users. Florentine Design Group does break down overall usage statistics according
to a user's domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information
from the browser string (information contained in every user's browser).
Florentine Design Group sometimes tracks and catalogs the search terms that
users enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with
individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our
sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track
what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall.
This helps us continue to build a better service for you.
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. Florentine Design
Group uses cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above). Our
advertising system delivers a one-time cookie to better track ad impressions
and click rates.
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 and surveys.
USE OF INFORMATION
Florentine Design Group 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. Florentine Design Group never shares newsletter mailing
lists with any third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or partners.
When we use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users
like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual
users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue
to build a better service for you. We track search terms entered in Search function
as one of many measures of what interests our users. But we don't track which
terms a particular user enters.
Florentine Design Group creates aggregate reports on user demographics and
traffic patterns for advertisers, sponsors and partners. This allows our advertisers
to advertise more effectively, and allows our users to receive advertisements
that are pertinent to their needs. Because we don't track the usage patterns
of individual users, an advertiser or sponsor will never know that a specific
user clicked their ad. We will not disclose any information about any individual
user except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect
the personal safety of our users or the public.
SHARING OF THE INFORMATION
Florentine Design Group uses the above-described information to tailor our
content to suit your needs and help our advertisers better understand our audience's
demographics. This is essential to keeping our service free. 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
Florentine Design Group 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 Florentine Design Group. 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.
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