Date Last Revised: April 26, 2011
BrightScope, Inc. ("BrightScope") is committed to maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and security of any personal information about our users that is not already publicly available or is not made publicly available by you through the use of the Services (as defined below), such as by adding information or content to your Advisor Pages profile. We are proud of our privacy practices and the strength of our site security and want you to know how we protect your information and use it to provide you the services on BrightScope.com, and any other linked pages, features, content, or any other services we offer from time to time (the "Services"). By visiting or using the Services, you acknowledge that you accept the practices and policies outlined in this Privacy Policy, and you hereby consent that we will collect, use, and share your information in the following ways.
Simply put, we do not and will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information ("Personal Information") to anyone, for any reason, at any time, and will only use your Personal Information as set forth in this Privacy Policy.
Access to your Registration Information is strictly restricted to BrightScope employees and contractors working on behalf of BrightScope to operate, develop or improve the Service. These individuals have been subject to prior background checks and are bound by confidentiality obligations.
BrightScope does not sell, rent or disclose your Registration Information. BrightScope discloses your Registration Information (which may include Personal Information) only as set forth in this Privacy Policy.
BrightScope may use your Registration Information as follows:
In the event that you access the Service through one of our partners, such as through a co-branded URL, your email address used for registration on the Service may be provided to such partner. BrightScope may anonymize or aggregate data derived from Registration Information and disclose such data only in way that does not identify you personally to:
If your Registration Information changes during your subscription to BrightScope, you may update it by emailing us at support@brightscope.com and providing us with your new information.
When you visit the Website or use the Services, we automatically record technical and navigational information, such as computer browser type, Internet protocol address, pages visited, and average time spent on our website. This information may be used, for example, to alert you to software compatibility issues, or it may be analyzed to improve our Web design and functionality. Some of this automatically collected information may or may not be Personal Information, depending on whether it is personally identifiable in nature or not. We may use third party service providers to help us analyze certain online activities. For example, these service providers may help us measure the performance of our online campaigns or analyze visitor activity on the Website. We may permit these service providers to use cookies and other technologies to perform these services for BrightScope. We do not share any Personal Information about our customers with these third party service providers, and these service providers do not collect such information on our behalf. Our third party service providers are required to comply fully with this Privacy Policy.
"Cookies" are alphanumeric identifiers in the form of text files that are inserted and stored by your Web browser on your computer's hard drive. BrightScope may set and access cookies on your computer to track and store preferential information about you. When we collect this information, we only use this data in aggregate form and not in a manner that would identify you personally. For example, BrightScope may assign a cookie to you, to limit the amount of times you see a particular BrightScope Offer or to help better determine which BrightScope Offers to serve to you. You may be able to change the preferences on your browser to prevent or limit your computer's acceptance of cookies, but this may prevent you from taking advantage of some of our features.
Web beacons are images embedded in a Web page or email for the purpose of measuring and analyzing site usage and activity. BrightScope, or third party service providers acting on our behalf, may use Web beacons to help us analyze site usage and improve the Service. We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use non-Personal Information about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.
There may be a number of separate products and services offered by third parties (other than agents and contractors of BrightScope) advertised on the website and through the Service that may be complementary to your use of the Service, which constitute BrightScope Offers. If you choose to use these separate products or services, disclose information to the providers, and/or grant them permission to collect information about you, their use of your information is governed by the privacy policy of such third party. You should evaluate the practices of external services providers before deciding to use their services. These third party websites may have different privacy policies than BrightScope and BrightScope is not responsible for their privacy practices. If you click on a link to a third party Web site, BrightScope encourages you to check the privacy policy of that Web site. BrightScope may present links in a format that enables us to keep track of whether these links have been followed and whether any action has been taken on a third party website. We use this information to improve the quality of the BrightScope Offers and the Services.
In addition to the foregoing, BrightScope reserves the right (and you authorize BrightScope) to share or disclose your Personal Information in the following circumstances:
If you use a bulletin board, blog, or chat room on this website, you should be aware that any Personal Information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of these forums, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the Personal Information you choose to submit in these forums.
From time to time, BrightScope may offer you the opportunity to participate in contests, giveaways and other promotions. Any information submitted in connection with such activities will be treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy. From time to time, BrightScope may also ask you to participate in surveys designed to help BrightScope improve the website. Any Personal Information provided to BrightScope in connection with any survey will be used only in relation to that survey. BrightScope may aggregate survey data and disclose such data only in aggregate and in a way that does not identify you personally to:
You can always opt not to disclose information to use, but keep in mind some information may be needed to take advantage of all portions of the website or all functionality of the Service. You may close your account by sending an e-mail to support@brightscope.com. Please note that some information may remain in our private records after deletion of your account. We may use any aggregated data derived from or incorporating your Personal Information after you close your account, but not in a manner that would identify you personally. Public information, which may include Personal Information, may be made available through the Services and posted on the Website even before you register with BrightScope and may remain available through the Services and posted on the Website even after you have closed your account.
BrightScope sends only verified, double-opt-in e-mail newsletters, specifically requested by BrightScope subscribers. Subscriptions to BrightScope.com newsletters are verified by sending an e-mail confirmation to your e-mail address, which requires a positive response before an e-mail address is added to BrightScope's list. BrightScope.com is fully compliant with the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003. Because we provide you the option of receiving our promotional newsletters, BrightScope.com subscribers have the ability to opt-out of receiving these newsletters by emailing us at support@brightscope.com. We also will send users service-related emails which they do not have the ability to opt-out of.
We endeavor to protect the privacy of your account and other Personal Information we hold in our records, but we cannot guarantee complete security. Unauthorized entry or use, hardware or software failure, and other factors, may compromise the security of user information at any time. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your Login ID and password. We recommend that you change your password periodically. You may not provide these credentials to any third party. If you believe that they have been stolen or been made known to others, you must contact us immediately at support@brightscope.com to request a change. We are not responsible if someone else accesses your account through information they have obtained from you or through a violation by you of this Privacy Policy or any other agreement between you and BrightScope. If you have a security-related concern, please contact us at support@brightscope.com.
We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. Use of information we collect is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time such information is used. If we make changes in the way we use Personal Information, we will notify you by posting an announcement on our website or sending you an email. You are bound by any changes to the Privacy Policy when you use the website or the Service after such changes have been first posted.
If you have questions, comments, concerns or feedback regarding this Privacy Policy, send an email to support@brightscope.com.
