PRIVACY POLICY
Northstar Investment Research, LLC, its affiliates, and its subsidiaries
(collectively referred to as “NSIR”) are dedicated to protecting the privacy of
those who visit our Website and use our Online Products. Your privacy and the
security of your personal information are very important to us. We want you to
be as comfortable as possible visiting our Website and using our Online
Products. This Privacy Policy governs our United States website
http://www.gotonorthstar.com and all other
websites owned or operated by NSIR (collectively our "Website") and our Online
Products, and explains how we collect your personal information on our Website
or through the Online Products, how we protect such information, and the choices
you have concerning the use of such information. Please read this Privacy Policy
carefully. Except as NSIR (collectively, "we", "us", or "our") disclose in this
Privacy Policy, we will not sell, share, license, trade, or rent your personal
information to others.
We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will post any changes to
this Privacy Policy here so that you will always know what information we
gather, how we might use that information, and whether we will disclose that
information to anyone. Please refer back to this Privacy Policy on a regular
basis. By using our Website or any of our products, offerings, features, tools
or resources that we provide on our Website (collectively, our "Online
Products") you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy.
Please remember that this Privacy Policy applies only to information
collected by our Website or through our Online Products. We are not responsible
for the privacy practices of websites that are operated or owned by third
parties.
WHAT INFORMATION ABOUT YOU IS COLLECTED ON OUR WEBSITE OR THROUGH OUR ONLINE
PRODUCTS?
We collect two types of information: personally identifiable information and
non-personally identifiable information.
Personally Identifiable Information.
Personally identifiable information is information that identifies you or can be
used to identify or contact you ("Personally Identifiable Information"). Such
Personally Identifiable Information may include your name, address, email
address, telephone number, birth date (primarily for eligibility purposes) and
billing and credit card information. We may request Personally Identifiable
Information from you when you register on our Website, subscribe to our Online
Products, or in connection with other Online Products we may make available on
our Website from time to time. In all of these cases, we will collect Personally
Identifiable Information from you only if you voluntarily submit such
information to us. Unless you give us permission to do so, we will not sell,
share, license, trade or rent your Personally Identifiable Information other
than as specified in this Privacy Policy.
You do not have to provide us with any Personally Identifiable Information to
visit our Website. However, if you choose to withhold requested information, you
may not be able to visit all sections of our Website or use all of our Online
Products.
Non-Personally Identifiable Information.
When you become a registered user of our Website, subscribe to one of our current
Online Products, or in connection with other Online Products we may make
available on our Website from time to time, we also may collect information that
by itself cannot be used to identify or contact you, such as demographic
information (like age, profession or gender) and health information (like
current weight) ("Non-Personally Identifiable Information"). Non-Personally
Identifiable Information may also include user IP addresses, browser types,
domain names, and other anonymous statistical data involving the use of our
Website. Non-Personally Identifiable Information is used to help us understand
who uses our Website and to improve and market our Website in general and our
Online Products in particular.
Information from Other Sources.
We may also supplement the information we collect with information from other
sources to assist us in evaluating and improving our Website and Online
Products, to determine your preferences so that we can tailor our Website and
Online Products to your needs.
WHERE AND WHEN IS INFORMATION COLLECTED ON OUR WEBSITE OR THROUGH OUR ONLINE
PRODUCTS (INCLUDING THROUGH THE USE OF COOKIES AND ACTION TAGS)?
We may collect information (including information that is Personally
Identifiable Information) from you in different manners and at different places
and times on our Website, such as when you register for our Website or subscribe
to one of our Online Products. We also may collect information from you in
connection with, or through, other Online Products we may make available on our
Website from time to time. The following is a description of the areas and/or
manners in which we primarily collect information about you.
Registered Use, Free Trial Use, and Subscription.
In order to access certain Online Products on our Website you must first complete
certain steps to become a registered user, free trial user, or a subscriber.
During these steps, you may be required to provide us with information
(including Personally Identifiable Information) such as name, birth date, and
email address. This information is used to help us understand who uses our
Website, to improve our Website and our Online Products, to contact users about
requested Online Products and/or for subscription billing purposes.
If you choose to receive a free trial or to subscribe to one of our Online
Products, you are not required to provide credit card and billing information to
us. NSIR has chosen Amazon Payments to provide payment processing services for
our Website. To receive a free trial or to subscribe to one of our Online
Products, you are required to use a valid Amazon.com account and a valid credit
card (or other form of payment which Amazon.com may accept) to authorize
payments to Amazon Payments.
Cookies and Action Tags.
We also collect Non-Personally Identifiable Information passively using "cookies"
and "action tags."
"Cookies" are small text files that are placed on your computer or mobile device
in order to identify (i) your Web browser, (ii) the activities of your computer
on our Website and (iii) your activity in connection with our advertisements and
other marketing and promotional efforts. Cookies may be used to:
-
personalize your experience on our
Website (e.g., to dynamically generate content on web pages specifically
designed for you),
-
assist you in using our Online
Products (e.g., to save you time by not having to reenter your name upon each
visit to our Website), and
-
allow us to statistically monitor
how you are using our Website for purposes of improving our online offerings.
We also may use cookies to conduct marketing and promotional efforts, tailor
certain advertisements to your browser that we think may be of interest to you,
or to determine the popularity of certain content. We may link the information
stored in cookies to Personally Identifiable Information you provide us, and to
personalize your Website experience we may store Personally Identifiable
Information you provide us in an encrypted form in temporary or “session”
cookies, which are erased when you close your browser.
You do not have to accept cookies to use our Website, however, you may not be
able to use certain products, offerings, features, or resources of our Website
(including our Online Products) if you do not accept cookies. Although most
browsers are initially set to accept cookies, you may reset your browser to
notify you when you receive a cookie or to reject cookies generally. Most
browsers offer instructions on how to do so in the "Help" section of the
toolbar.
"Action tags," also known as web beacons or GIF tags, are a web technology used
to help track anonymous website usage information, such as how many times a
specific page has been viewed. Action tags are invisible to you, and any portion
of our Website, including advertisements, or e-mail sent on our behalf, may
contain action tags. Unlike cookies, action tags are not placed on your
computer.
By using cookies and action tags together, we are able to gain valuable
information to improve our Website and our Online Products and measure the
effectiveness of our advertising and marketing campaigns. We do not disclose any
of your Personally Identifiable Information to our advertising partners through
the use of cookies or action tags.
Finally, please note that advertisers and other third parties may also use their
own cookies or action tags when you click on their advertisement or link to
their website or service, on or from our Website. This Privacy Policy does not
govern the use by such third-party websites or providers of third-party
advertising.
Referral Programs.
Through third party referral program operators and others, we may offer referral
programs whereby referral websites can earn commissions through the referral of
subscribers or other purchasers to our Website. To track the earning of such
commissions, and to determine the effectiveness of the referral programs, the
users who become subscribers to our Online Products or purchasers through such
referral websites are tracked using technologies that do not include Personally
Identifiable Information (such as cookies and/or action tags). The program
operators and the referral websites themselves can only access non-Personally
Identifiable Information such as data relating to the number of impressions
served, the number of transactions completed, and their resulting earnings. They
cannot access our customers' personal data. If you choose to apply to be a
referral website, we use the data you provide strictly for conducting business
with you.
Online Products.
We
collect information, some of which may be Personally Identifiable Information,
which you voluntarily provide to us when you choose to use some of our Online
Products. We collect this information in order to personalize your online
experience.
Log Files.
We
also collect Non-Personally Identifiable Information through our Internet log
files, which record data such as user IP addresses, browser types, domain names,
and other anonymous statistical data involving the use of our Website. This
information may be used to analyze trends, to administer the Website, to monitor
our Website's use, and to gather general demographic information. We may link
this information to Personally Identifiable Information for these and other
purposes such as personalizing your experience on our Website and evaluating our
Online Products in general.
WHAT DO WE DO WITH THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT?
In general, we use the information collected on our Website and through our
Online Products to help us understand who uses our Website and Online Products
and how they are used, to personalize your experience, to assist you in using
our Online Products, to improve our Website and Online Products, and for
subscription billing purposes, if applicable.
If you become a registered user of our Website or subscribe to one of our Online
Products, we may use your information to send you a welcoming email that may
confirm your username. In addition, if you identify yourself to us by sending us
an email with questions or comments, we may use your information (including
Personally Identifiable Information) to respond to your questions or comments,
and we may file your questions or comments for future reference. We may also use
the information collected to contact you about important service announcements
and updates regarding our Website or Online Products or, if you are a
subscriber, about your billing account status. You will not be able to opt-out
of these service announcements and updates as they contain important information
relevant to your use of our Website and/or our Online Products and are not
promotional in nature. (If you do not wish to receive these service
announcements, you may cancel your account with us and delete the Personally
Identifiable Information maintained about you on our systems by contacting our
Privacy Coordinator at the address set out below.)
We may also use the information gathered on our Website and through our Online
Products to perform statistical analysis of user behavior, to analyze and
evaluate issues relating to our Online Products, or to evaluate and improve our
Online Products. We may link some of this information to Personally Identifiable
Information for internal purposes only or to assist you with your use of our
Website and/or our Online Products.
WHEN DO WE DISCLOSE INFORMATION TO THIRD PARTIES?
Except as set forth in this Privacy Policy or as specifically agreed to by you,
we will not disclose any information we gather from you on our Website.
Affiliates
We may disclose information (including Personally Identifiable Information) about
you to our Affiliates. For purposes of this Privacy Policy, "Affiliate" means
any person or entity which directly or indirectly controls, is controlled by or
is under common control with NSIR, whether by ownership or otherwise. Any
information relating to you that we provide to our Affiliates will be treated by
those Affiliates in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy.
Laws and Legal Rights.
We
may also disclose your information (including Personally Identifiable
Information) if we believe in good faith that we are required to do so in order
to comply with an applicable statute, regulation, rule or law, a subpoena, a
search warrant, a court or regulatory order, or other valid legal process. We
may disclose Personally Identifiable Information in special circumstances when
we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to
identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be violating our
Terms of Service and Subscription Agreement or to
protect the safety and/or security of our users, our Website or the general
public.
Third Parties Generally.
We
may provide to third parties information about you that does not allow you to be
identified or contacted, including where such information is combined with
similar information of other users of our Website. For example, we might inform
third parties regarding the number of unique users who visit our Website, the
demographic breakdown of the registered users of our Website, or the activities
that visitors to our Website engage in while on our Website. The third parties
to which we may provide this information may include potential or actual
advertisers, providers of advertising services (including website tracking
services), commercial partners, sponsors, licensees, researchers and other
similar parties.
Outside Contractors.
We
may employ independent contractors, vendors and suppliers (collectively,
"Outside Contractors") to provide specific services and products related to our
Website or Online Products, such as providing credit card processing and fraud
screening, and developing applications for our Website and e-mail services.
These Outside Contractors may sometimes have limited access to information
collected on our Website, including your Personally Identifiable Information, in
the course of providing products or services to us. Access to your Personally
Identifiable Information by these contractors is limited to the information
reasonably necessary in order for the Outside Contractors to perform their
limited function for us. We also require that these Outside Contractors (i)
protect the privacy of your Personally Identifiable Information consistent with
this Privacy Policy, and (ii) not use or disclose your Personally Identifiable
Information for any purpose other than providing us with products or services
for which we contracted.
Third Party Sellers.
In
addition, through our Website, you may be given the opportunity to purchase (or
to obtain more information regarding) certain content, products or services
which are sold through a person or company other than us or our Affiliates
(collectively, "Third Party Sellers"). We will attempt to make it clear to you
when you are dealing with a Third Party Seller by opening a new browser or
otherwise notifying you that you are leaving our Website. For example, if you
see a phrase such as "powered by" or "brought to you by" followed by the name of
a person or company other than NSIR, then you are likely on, or about to enter,
a website hosted or operated by a person or company other than us. Third Party
Sellers may request that you submit certain information to them in order to
purchase their products or services or to obtain additional information from
them. You do not need to submit this information or purchase any products or
services from Third Party Sellers to access our Website. By submitting the
requested information, you affirmatively consent to have that information shared
with the Third Party Seller. This information is used by the Third Party Seller
and may be subject to a different privacy policy. We do not otherwise share or
disclose your Personally Identifiable Information to Third Party Sellers.
Sale of Business.
We
reserve the right to transfer information to a third party in the event of a
sale, merger or other transfer of all or substantially all of the assets of NSIR
provided that the third party agrees to adhere to the terms of this Privacy
Policy. We will notify users of any such transfer through notice on our site and
through email.
DOES THIS PRIVACY POLICY APPLY WHEN YOU LINK TO OTHER WEBSITES?
Our Website contains links to other websites not owned or operated by NSIR (for
example, if you "click" on a banner advertisement, you will likely be taken off
our Website). We will attempt to make it obvious to you when you leave our
Website and enter these websites by opening a new browser or otherwise notifying
you that you are leaving our Website. However, please be aware that we are not
responsible for the privacy practices of such websites. We encourage you to be
aware when our Website links to other websites and to read the privacy policies
or statements of each and every website. This Privacy Policy applies solely to
information collected by our Website or through our Online Products.
IS THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT SECURE?
We want your information (including Personally Identifiable Information) to
remain as secure as possible. We strive to provide secure transmission of your
information from your computer to our Website servers through industry-standard
techniques. We secure the Personally Identifiable Information you provide on
servers located in controlled, secure environments, protected from unauthorized
access, use, or alteration.
Notwithstanding the above commitments to protect your information (including
Personally Identifiable Information) from loss, misuse or alteration by third
parties, you should be aware that there is always some risk involved in
transmitting information over the Internet. There is also some risk that others
could find a way to thwart our security systems. As a result, while we strive to
protect your information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security and privacy
of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.
WHAT CHOICES DO YOU HAVE REGARDING THE COLLECTION, DISCLOSURE AND
DISTRIBUTION OF PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION?
Except as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy, we will only use
Personally Identifiable Information for the purposes described above or as
otherwise disclosed at the time we request such information from you.
CAN YOU UPDATE OR CORRECT YOUR PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE
INFORMATION?
You can always contact us in order to (1) update or correct your Personally
Identifiable Information, (2) change your preferences with respect to
communications and other information you receive from us, or (3) delete the
Personally Identifiable Information maintained about you on our systems, by
contacting our Privacy Coordinator at the address set out below. Such updates,
corrections, changes and deletions will not have an effect on other information
that we maintain, or information that we have provided to third parties in
accordance with this Privacy Policy prior to such update, correction, change or
deletion.
You should be aware that it is not technologically possible to remove each and every
record of the information you have provided to us from our systems. The need to
back-up our systems to protect information from inadvertent loss means that a
copy of your Personally Identifiable Information may exist in a non-erasable
form that will be difficult or impossible for us to locate. We promise that
promptly after receiving your request, all Personally Identifiable Information
stored in databases we actively use and other readily searchable media will be
updated, corrected, changed or deleted, as appropriate, as soon as reasonably
practicable.
HOW WILL YOU KNOW IF THERE ARE ANY CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY?
If we decide to change this Privacy Policy, we will post those changes on our
Website so you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it,
and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any point we decide
to use Personally Identifiable Information in a manner significantly different
from that stated in this Privacy Policy, or otherwise disclosed to you, at the
time it was collected, we will notify you by email or otherwise, and you will
have a choice as to whether or not we use your Personally Identifiable
Information in the new manner. We may also make non-significant changes to our
Privacy Policy that generally will not affect our use of your Personally
Identifiable Information. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy
Policy, you should not use our Website.
WHOM DO YOU CONTACT IF YOU HAVE ANY PRIVACY QUESTIONS?
If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy or feel that we are not
abiding by the terms of our posted Privacy Policy, please contact our Privacy
Coordinator in any of the following ways:
Email our Privacy Coordinator at:
info@gotonorthstar.com
Or, write to our Privacy Coordinator at:
Northstar Investment Research, LLC
P.O. Box 15225
Pittsburgh, PA 15237
Attn: Privacy Coordinator
If you have questions regarding this Privacy Policy, you should first contact our
Privacy Coordinator at the address set out above.
BY USING OUR WEBSITE, YOU SIGNIFY YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY. IF
YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY, YOU SHOULD NOT USE OUR WEBSITE. YOUR
CONTINUED USE OF OUR WEBSITE FOLLOWING THE POSTING OF CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY
POLICY WILL MEAN THAT YOU ACCEPT THOSE CHANGES.
(Last Modified on February 18, 2010)