articles.ratecomparison.org (“Company” “we” or “our”) is committed to advising you of the right to your privacy, and strives to provide a safe and secure user experience. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, store, share and use personal information, provided by you on our website. It also explains how we collect and use non-personal information. By accessing and using our website, you explicitly accept, without limitation or qualification, the collection, use and transfer of the personal information and non-personal information in the manner described in this Privacy Policy. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully, as it affects your rights and liabilities under the law. If you disagree with the way we collect and process personal and non-personal information, please do not use this website.
1. Information You Provide and We Collect. We collect general types of information about you when you visit and use our website; examples include personal information, demographic information, behavioral information, and indirect information. Sometimes we collect combinations of these types of information.
1.1 “Personal information” is information that can be used to identify you or any other individual to whom the information may relate. This is information which you to provide to us. Such information may include your name, address, telephone number, mobile number, payment source number or other personal information you provide to us during the registration process, or in the course of communicating with us about the products and services provided on our website. We may collect this same information about all other persons you provide to us. It is always your choice whether to directly provide to us you’re Personal Information. Please note that if you decline to provide us Personal Information, then we may not be able to provide you with certain products or services and you may not be eligible for certain sweepstakes, contests, or other promotions we run.
1.2 “Demographic information” is information that may or may not be unique to you in the sense that it refers to selected population characteristics. Such information may include, but is not limited to, zip code, mobile phone carrier, age, gender, salary range, education and marital status, occupation, industry of employment, personal and online interests. This information is not Personal Information but may be linked to Personal Information through the use of a cryptographic hash of an email address. In such a case, your identity is not specifically provided.
1.3 “Behavioral information” is information which is automatically collected pertaining to how you use our website, the areas of our website that you visit, what services you access, and information about your computer hardware and software, including your IP address, geographic location, browser preference, operating system type, domain names, times that you access the internet, and other websites you have visited.
1.4 “Third party information” is information about you that we acquire from a third party which may include personal, demographic, behavioral and indirect information. This collection may include, but is not limited to, first party cookies, third party cookies, anonymous cookies, persistent identifiers, email opt in and search engine keywords. We have no access or control over these cookies and other tracking devices used by third party advertisers and networks. We have no responsibility or liability for the policies and practices of these parties.
1.5 “Web technology information” is information we automatically collect from you when you visit our website. This includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and/or clickstream data. This information is collected from the use of cookies, web beacons, pixel tags, log files, local storage, and other similar mechanisms to automatically collect information.
1.6 No Information Collected from Children. We will never knowingly collect any Personal Information from children under the age of 13. If we obtain actual knowledge that we have collected Personal Information about a child under the age of 13, that information will be immediately deleted from its database. Because it does not collect such information, we have no such information to use or to disclose to third parties.
1.7 No sensitive health information is collected. We do not collect information about past, present or potential future medical conditions or treatments.
1.8 Credit Card Information and Bank Account Information. We may, in certain instances, collect credit card number(s), bank account information and related information, when you place an order on our website. When the credit card or bank account information is submitted to us, such information is encrypted and is protected with SSL encryption software. We will use the credit card information or bank account information for purposes of processing and completing the transaction you requested. Such information will be disclosed to third parties as necessary to complete the requested purchase transaction.
2. Collection of Information Through Web Technologies.
2.1. Generally, we as well as third party vendors and supporting advertisers use technologies such as cookies, web beacons, pixel tags, log files, local storage and similar mechanism to automatically collect information when you visit and use our website. These technologies collect internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and/or clickstream data. This information is used to analyze trends, administer our Website, track a user’s movements through our website and gather demographic information about our entire user base. We may receive reports based on these technologies on an individual or aggregated basis.
2.1.2 Cookies. “Cookies” are a feature in your browser software which places a small text file on your computer. We use both session cookies and persistent cookies. A persistent cookie remains after you close your browser and may be used by your browser on subsequent website visits. These persistent cookies can be removed, but each web browser is different. Please review your browser’s settings to learn how to manage your cookies. Our services may also use web beacons (also known as clear gifs or pixel tags), which are tiny graphics with unique identifiers that are placed in the code of a webpage. If enabled, cookies store small amounts of data on your computer about actions you take on the pages of our website. Cookies assist us in tracking which of our features you visit most often, and what content you viewed on past visits. When you visit this website again, cookies allow us to remember you’re your settings and may be used for authentication. We may use cookies to keep track of the number of return visits, accumulate and aggregate statistical information generally pertaining to our website, and deliver specific content to you based on your past viewing history. You can disable cookies, although our website may not function properly for you. Your browser preferences can be modified to accept or reject all cookies, or request a notification when a cookie is set. You may read more about cookies at http://cookiecentral.com. In order to use all of the features and functionality of our website, you need to accept cookies.
2.1.3 Third Party Cookies. We allow third-party companies to use cookies, pixels or other similar technologies on our website to collect and use demographic and behavioral information. This includes hashed data, click stream information, browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over, content viewed, search terms, location of the device, a cookie identifier, communication type and browser information. These third parties include advertisers, service providers, affiliate-marketing networks and other companies with whom we partner to provide certain offers, promotions or features available on or through our website, or to display advertising on our or a third party website. Such third parties may use cookies to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of interest to you, to track transactions and to assist us in providing, evaluating, and improving our website, products and services. Further, third parties may use information they directly collect from you in combination with information we provide or information they collect from another source. We do not have access to or control of the third-party tracking technology. We also use Google Analytics which is an analysis service also provided by Google Inc. Google utilizes the data collected through its cookies to track and examine the use of this website, to prepare reports on its activities, and to share them with other Google services. You may opt-out of the Google Analytics service using Google’s Browser Add-available at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user’s prior visits to your website or other websites. Finally we use Google AdSense service whose use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to our or other websites on the Internet. You may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Ads Settings. (Alternatively, you can opt out of a third-party vendor’s use of cookies for personalized advertising by visiting www.aboutads.info.)
2.1.4 Social Media Cookies. When our website includes social media features. These features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our website, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our website. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.
2.2. Web Beacons. We use electronic images known as Web Beacons (sometimes called single-pixel gifs, clear gifs or action tags) which allow us to collect information about your visit to our website, measure and improve the effectiveness of advertisements and track delivery of advertising. Web Beacons collect only a limited set of information including a cookie number, time and date of page view, as well as a description of the page on which the Web Beacon resides. We may also use Web beacons in email messages sent to you. This allows us to determine if you opened or acted upon the email messages. Because Web beacons are the same as any other content request, you cannot opt out or refuse them. However, they can be rendered ineffective by either opting out of cookies or changing the cookie setup in your browser.
2.3 Social Media Sharing. You may be given the opportunity to register with us via third party accounts such as Facebook. These services will authenticate your identity and may provide you the option to share certain information (such as your name and email address) with us. We may store the information you provide us through such accounts and combine it with other information, including Personal Information. Disabling your Facebook or other such account may not terminate your account with us. Our services may also include social media features, such as sharing widgets provided by Facebook, Twitter, Google and Pinterest. These features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our site, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Services. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing them.
2.4 User-Generated Content. We may offer features that allow users to post comments, photos, video and other user-generated content to public areas within our website which is public facing. Your account name and photo may be associated with the content and may be displayed publicly. Your user profile may also link to your public profile from a third party account if you registered with us through Facebook or other such service. Please take note that your user profile and any user-generated content that you post, including any Personal Information, are intended for public consumption, will be publicly accessible and will not be considered confidential. We may display user-generated content on our website and in our marketing including comments and we or our users may share such content with third party sites and services.
3. How We Use Information Collected.
3.1. Providing Services and Products. We use the information we gather on our website to provide you with the services and or products you have requested. This may include passing your information on to a third party to provide such services or products. We do not control the privacy practices of these third parties. If you have any questions or wish to remove your information from the third party databases, you will need to contact that party directly.
3.2. Improving Our Website. We use the information we gather to respond to any inquires you make, operate and improve the functionality of our website, and deliver the products and services advertised on our website. Our services include the display of personalized products, content, and advertising, relating to your experience and interests. In addition, we use this information to comply with all legal obligations and resolve any disputes or concerns you may have.
3.3 Marketing. We also use the information you provide to us to send you advertisements, promotions and content by third parties that we think will be of interest to you. To provide this service we may anonymize and aggregate information for different purposes which include traffic flow, analysis usage, product development, market analysis, reports and other insights.
4. Disclosure of Information to Others.
4.1. We will share your personal information with third parties only in the ways that are described in this privacy policy.
(i.) Product and Service Delivery. We share your information with third parties who help us in the delivery of the products and services you have requested.
(ii.) Website Functionality. We share your information with companies and individuals we employ to perform technical functions on our behalf. Examples include third parties who host our website, analyze our data, provide marketing assistance, process credit card payments, and provide customer service.
(iii) Third Party Products and Services. We share your information with third parties who will provide you with their opportunities, products or services. This includes your personal and non-personal information, and includes your interests and preferences, so they may determine whether you might be interested in their products or services.
(iv.) Anonymous information. We share aggregated anonymous information about you, combined with other persons using our website with third parties, so that they can understand the kinds of visitors that come to our website, and how those visitors use our website. This includes demographic information and behavioral information.
(v.) Legal Process. We disclose your information if legally required to do so, or at our discretion, pursuant to a request from a governmental entity, or if we believe in good faith that such action is necessary to (a) conform to legal requirements or comply with legal process; (b) protect our rights or property, or our affiliated companies; (c) prevent a crime or protect national security; or (d) protect the personal safety of users or the public.
(vi.) Acquisition or Merger. We may disclose and transfer your information to a third party who acquires any or all of our business, whether such acquisition is by way of merger, consolidation or purchase of all or a substantial portion of our assets. In the event we become the subject of an insolvency proceeding, whether voluntary or involuntary, we or our liquidator, administrator, receiver or administrative receiver may sell, license or otherwise dispose of, such information in a transaction approved by the court.
5. Third Party Collection and Use of Information.
5.1. Third parties collect and use information about you on or through our website in the following way:
(i) Advertisers. Advertising agencies, advertising networks, and other companies who place ads on our website, may use their own cookies, Web beacons, and other technology, to collect information about you. We do not control the use of such technology and have no responsibility for the use of such technology to gather information about you.
(ii) Hyperlinks. Our website and email messages sometimes contain hypertext links to websites owned by third parties. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such other websites. These links are provided for your convenience and reference only. We do not operate or control any information, software, products or services, available on these third party websites. The inclusion of a link on our website does not imply any endorsement of the services, products or website, or its sponsoring organization.
(iii) Analytics. As described above, we use third parties to monitor analyze and report on the traffic to, from and within our website and email messages.
6. Security.
6.1. We endeavor to safeguard and protect your information. When you submit information on our website, such information is protected both online and offline. We have security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of personal information under our control. The servers in which we store your information are kept in a secure physical environment. The servers have industry standard firewalls. Access to such servers is password protected and access by our employees is limited. Currently, we use Secure Socket Layer software (“SSL”) to protect data and to secure any transactions. SSL encrypts information including credit card number(s), and names and addresses, as they are transmitted over the Internet. Please be advised that, although we take commercially reasonable technological precautions to protect your data, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure; therefore, we cannot and do not warrant that your information will be absolutely secure. Any transmission of data at or through our website is at your own risk. However, access to your information is strictly limited and not accessible to the public.
7. Changes to Privacy Policy.
7.1. We reserve the right to make material changes to the substance of this Privacy Policy. We will post those changes through a prominent notice on the website, so that you will always know what information we gather, how we might use that information, and to whom we will disclose it.
8. Your California Rights.
8.1 Under California’s “Shine the Light” law, California residents who provide personal information in obtaining products or services for personal, family, or household use are entitled to request and obtain from us once a calendar year information about the personal information we shared, if any, with other businesses for their own direct marketing uses. If applicable, this information would include the categories of customer information and the names and addresses of those businesses with which we shared customer information for the immediately prior calendar year. If you are a California resident and want a copy of this information, please submit a written request to us at the address provided in the Introduction above. In your request, please specify that you want a “Your California Privacy Rights Notice.” Please allow 30 days for a response.
8.2 In addition California residents have the right to know if we respond to do not track signals or cookies. We do not respond to such signals or cookies.
CONTACT US
If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us at [email protected]
Who we are
Our website address is: http://articles.ratecomparison.org.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Contact forms
Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Notice to California Residents
We are required by the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) to provide this CCPA Notice to California residents to explain how we collect, use and share their personal Information, and the rights and choices we offer California residents regarding our handling of their personal information.
CCPA Scope and Exclusions
This CCPA Notice, including the description of our Privacy Practices and your Privacy Rights apply only to California residents whose interactions with us are limited to:
- Visiting our consumer websites,
- Signing up for email alerts,
- Commenting on or contributing to our blogs,
- Establishing an account that does not include financial products or services, or
- Applying for our job openings on our websites (however, note that the CCPA does not extend Privacy Rights to job applicants).
This CCPA Notice does not apply to the personal information we collect, use or disclose about:
- Consumers who initiate or complete the process of applying for financial products or services. This is because this information is subject to the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”) and implementing regulations, or the California Financial Information Privacy Act (“FIPA”), or
- Representatives of businesses that seek to obtain our products or services, or to provide products or services to us.
Privacy Practices
We do not sell personal information. As we explain in our Privacy Policy:
We use cookies and other tracking technologies to analyze website traffic and facilitate advertising. If you would like to learn how you may opt out of our (and our third party advertising partners’) use of cookies and other tracking technologies, please review the instructions provided in the Online Tracking Opt-out Guide.
| How you interact with us | Personal information collection | CCPA-defined categories | Sources of personal information | Purposes for which we may collect and use the personal information | Sharing |
|
Sign up for email alerts Interact with our blogs Establish an account |
Name or alias Email address |
Identifiers Online Identifiers |
You |
Operations Communications Research and development Marketing |
Shared with service providers Made public at your direction |
|
Visit our websites Receive and respond to marketing emails |
Device data Online activity data Information derived from device data and online activity data |
Identifiers Inferences Internet or Network Information Online Identifiers |
Automatic collection |
Operations Communications Marketing Advertising Research and development |
Collected directly by or shared with our service providers Collected directly by advertising partners |
|
Apply for our open positions on our website |
Contact information Professional credentials and skills Educational and work history Other resume data you provide Diversity information you voluntarily provide Disability information where necessary |
Identifiers Online identifiers Education information Professional or employment information Protected classification characteristics |
You References Background check and/or drug testing companies Employment agencies or recruiters |
Facilitate recruitment activities Process employment applications Monitoring recruitment statistics |
Shared with service providers Collected directly by or shared with background check and drug testing companies |
|
How you interact with us |
Sign up for email alerts Interact with our blogs Establish an account |
|
Personal information collection |
Name or alias Email address |
|
CCPA-defined categories |
Identifiers Online identifiers |
|
Sources of personal information |
You |
|
Purposes for which we may collect and use the personal information |
Operations Communications Research and development Marketing |
|
Sharing |
Shared with service providers Made public at your direction |
|
How you interact with us |
Visit our websites Receive and respond to marketing emails |
|
Personal information collection |
Device data Online activity data Information derived from device data and online activity data |
|
CCPA-defined categories |
Indentifiers Inferences Internet or Network Information Online Identifiers |
|
Sources of personal information |
Automatic collection |
|
Purposes for which we may collect and use the personal information |
Operations Communications Marketing Advertising Research and development |
|
Sharing |
Collected directly by or shared with our service providers Collected directly by advertising partners |
|
How you interact with us |
Apply for our open positions on our website |
|
Personal information collection |
Contact information Professional credentials and skills Educational and work history Other resume data you provide Diversity information you voluntarily provide Disability information where necessary |
|
CCPA-defined categories |
Indentifiers Online identifiers Education information Professional or employment information Protected classification characteristics |
|
Sources of personal information |
You References Background check and/or drug testing companies Employment agencies or recruiters |
|
Purposes for which we may collect and use the personal information |
Facilitate recruitment activities Process employment applications Monitoring recruitment statistics |
|
Sharing |
Shared with service providers Collected directly by or shared with background check and drug testing companies |
Please note that we may also disclose all personal information as described in Who Do We Share Your Information With? section of the Privacy Policy.
Privacy Rights
The CCPA grants individuals the following rights:
- Information. You can request information about how we have collected, used and shared your Personal Information during the past 12 months.
- Access. You can request a copy of the personal information that we maintain about you.
- Deletion. You can ask us to delete the personal information that we collected or maintain about you.
Please note that the CCPA limits these rights by, for example, prohibiting us from providing certain sensitive information in response to an access request and limiting the circumstances in which we must comply with a deletion request. We will also respond to requests for information and access only to the extent we are able to associate with a reasonable effort the information we maintain with the identifying details you provide in your request. If we deny your request, we will communicate our decision to you.
You are entitled to exercise the rights described above free from discrimination.
How to Submit a Request via Email
To request access to or deletion of personal information:
Email [email protected]
Identity verification. The CCPA requires us to verify the identity of the individual submitting a request to access or delete personal information before providing a substantive response to the request. We will ask you to verify your identity when you submit a request.
Authorized agents. California residents can empower an “authorized agent” to submit requests on their behalf. We will require the authorized agent to have a written authorization confirming that authority.