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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 explicit consent.
Please read this privacy policy to learn more about the ways in which
we use and protect your personal information. We want you to fully understand
our privacy practices.
If you have additional questions, you may send email to
privacy@halfvalue.com.
Overview
The privacy practices of this statement apply to our services available
under the domain and subdomains of www.halfvalue.com (the "Site") and
apply generally to our subsidiaries or joint venture websites whose
specific privacy policies are available from our Privacy Central pages.
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.
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 policy may seem long, we have prepared
a detailed policy because we believe you should know as much as possible
about halfvalue's practices so that you can make informed decisions.
All of our subsidiaries and joint ventures operate under similar privacy
practices as described in this Privacy Policy and, subject to the requirements
of applicable law, we strive to provide a consistent set of privacy
practices throughout the global halfvalue trading community.
By accepting the Privacy Policy and the User Agreement in registration,
you expressly consent to our use and disclosure of your personal information
in accordance with this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy is incorporated
into and subject to the terms of the halfvalue User Agreement. This
Privacy Policy is effective upon acceptance in registration for new
registering users, and is otherwise effective on September 27th, 2003
for all users.
Table of Contents
1. An Important Note About Children
2. Information We Collect
3. Our Use of Your Information
4. Our Disclosure of Your Information
Advertisers
halfvalue Community
External Service Providers
Internal Service Providers for Our Operations
Other Corporate Entities
Legal Requests
5. Your Use of Other Users' Information
6. Use of Email & Chat Tools
7. Control of Your Password
8. Accessing, Reviewing and Changing Your Personal Information
9. Other Information Collectors
10. Security
11. Notice
1. A Special Note About Children.
Children (persons under the age of 18) are not eligible to use the Site
unsupervised and we ask that children do not submit any personal information
to us. If you are under the age of 18, you may only use this Site in
conjunction with and under the supervision of your parents or guardians.
2. 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 most likely 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 provide you with a personalized
experience on our site.
If you choose to buy or sell on the Site, we collect information about
your buying and selling behavior. We also collect other users' comments
about you in our feedback area.
If you establish a credit account with us to pay the fees we charge,
we collect some additional information, such as a billing address, a
credit card number and a credit card expiration date and tracking information
from checks or money orders.
If you choose to use our chat service or other message areas or leave
feedback for other users, we will collect that information you provide
to us. 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.
3. 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 User
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 list an item for sale on the Site or open a credit
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.
4. Our Disclosure of Your Information.
As a matter of policy, we do not sell or rent any of your personal information
to third parties for their marketing purposes without your explicit
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.
halfvalue Community. 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. Other people can see your
inventory, items that you have sold in the past, your feedback rating
and associated comments, your postings on the Site, and so on. 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 halfvalue activities.
Although we take utmost caution, others may illegally attempt to automatically
collect your email address from the Site. We describe how to change
your email and User ID below in Section 8. We also provide a number
of ways to allow other users to find out more about you and your site
activities. If you are involved in a transaction, we have features that
allow other users to view your email address and obtain your contact
and shipping information to help complete the transaction. Further,
we may send out notices to you or other community members regarding
suspicious activity or policy violations on the Site.
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, shipping, packaging). 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 privacy
policy. We do not disclose your personal information to external service
providers unless you provide your explicit consent. With your 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 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.
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 halfvalue related
operation, unless you have explicitly 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 halfvalue
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 privacy policy.
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. halfvalue, 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 policy, you will receive prior notice
in as provided in Section 12 ("Notice").
Legal Requests. halfvalue 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
halfvalue 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 buying 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.
5. Your Use of Other Users' Information.
In order to facilitate interaction among all halfvalue community members,
our Site allows you limited access other users' contact and shipping
information. As a seller you have access to the User ID, email address
and other contact and shipping information of the buyer, and as a buyer
you have access to the User ID, email address and other contact information
of the seller.
By entering into our User Agreement, you agree that, with respect to
other users' personal information that you obtain through the Site or
through an halfvalue-related communication or halfvalue-facilitated
transaction, halfvalue hereby grants to you a license to use such information
only for: (a) halfvalue-related communications that are not unsolicited
commercial messages, (b) using services offered through halfvalue 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 consent and the consent of that user. You agree that
other users may use your personal information to communicate with you
in accordance with this Section.
halfvalue and our users do not tolerate spam. Therefore, without limiting
the foregoing, you are not licensed to add an halfvalue user, even a
user who has purchased an item from you, to your mail list (email or
physical mail) without their express consent.
6. Use of Email & Chat Tools.
You may not use the email and chat services that we offer to send spam
or otherwise send content that would violate our User Agreement. We
do not permanently store email messages, chat content or the email addresses
sent from these tools.
7. 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 halfvalue 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 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 as detailed
in Section 8.
8. Accessing, Reviewing and Changing Your Personal Information.
We offer you the ability to automatically review and change the information
you submit to us by logging into the Site and entering in the new information
yourself. Generally, we will not modify your personal information based
on your request because it is very difficult to authenticate your account
manually. You can change your user Id, email address, contact information,
financial information, shipping information and user preferences by
going the preferences and personal information section in Your Account.
You must promptly update your personal information if it changes or
is inaccurate. Once posted, you may not be able to change or remove
any public postings made on the Site including our chat service or other
message areas or the feedback area.
Upon your request, we will deactivate your account, contact information,
billing information, shipping information, and financial information
from our active databases. To make this request, email privacy@halfvalue.com.
Such information will be deactivated as soon as reasonably possible
based on your account activity and in accordance with our deactivation
policy and applicable law.
We will retain in our files some personal information you have requested
to remove to prevent fraud, collect any fees owed, resolve disputes,
troubleshoot problems, assist with any investigations, enforce our User
Agreement and comply with legal requirements as is permitted by law.
Therefore, you should not expect that all of your personal information
will be completely removed from our databases in response to your requests.
However, such personal information will be deactivated from public and
member viewing and will only be available to select halfvalue personal.
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 halfvalue does 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 halfvalue Inc.'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, including encryption
and Secure Socket Layers. 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. Notice.
We may amend this Privacy Policy at any time by posting the amend terms
on the Site. All amended terms shall automatically be effective 30 days
after they are initially posted on the Site.
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