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Aqua Maid Water Systems, Inc.
Privacy Policy
Updated: May 20th, 2008
Please note that the practices of Aqua
Maid Water Systems, Inc., its affiliates, and agents ("Aqua Maid"), with respect
to data collected and used by Aqua Maid in connection with this website and all
other websites of Aqua Maid and its affiliates with
links to this policy (collectively, the “Site”) and Aqua Maid products and services
available or enabled via the Site (“Products and Services”), are governed by this
online privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) as amended from time to time, and not the
privacy policy in effect at the time the data was collected. Please regularly review
our Privacy Policy. If you have objections to the Privacy Policy, you should immediately
discontinue use of the Site and the Products and Services enabled by the Site and
follow the procedure described in the section entitled "Updating your personal information
and privacy preferences". This Privacy Policy does not govern privacy practices
associated with offline activities, websites other than the Site, or Products and
Services not available or enabled via the Site, except as expressly set forth in
the section entitled "Data not collected on this Site." Notwithstanding the foregoing,
to the extent that any terms of the Privacy Policy conflict with the terms of an
existing written (including electronic) agreement between you and Aqua Maid regarding
the use of specific areas of the Site or specific Products and Services (including
Product- and Service-specific licenses, terms of use, or privacy disclosures) (collectively,
“Product Agreements”), the terms of the Product Agreements shall govern.
Aqua Maid is a licensee of the TRUSTe Web Privacy
Seal Program. TRUSTe is an independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is
to enable individuals and organizations to establish trusting relationships based
on respect for personal identity and information by promoting the use of fair information
practices. The TRUSTe program covers only information that is collected through
this Site; it does not cover information that may be collected through software
downloaded from this Site or any of the Products and Services. TRUSTe has not certified
any of the disclosures in this Privacy Policy that relate to the Products and Services.
Aqua Maid adheres to the European Union Safe
Harbor principles as set forth by the United States Department of Commerce regarding
the collection, use, and retention of personal information covered by the Privacy
Policy from the European Union.
The Site and the Products and Services are
intended for adult audiences, and Aqua Maid does not knowingly collect any personal
information from anyone under 13 years of age.
Changes in Privacy Policy
All personal information ("personal information"
is defined as any information that identifies or can be used to identify the person
to whom such information pertains) that we collect and maintain will be subject
to this Privacy Policy, as amended from time to time. Aqua Maid may change the Privacy
Policy from time to time at its sole discretion and will provide notice of changes
in the Privacy Policy and on the home page of Aqua Maid.com. If as the result of such
changes you want to alter the ways in which Aqua Maid is allowed to use your personal
information, you can do so by following the procedure described in the section entitled
“Updating your personal information and privacy preferences.” You will be deemed
to have been made aware of, and will be subject to, the changes to the Privacy Policy
after such notice has been posted with the following exception: if at the time you
provide personal information to Aqua Maid you limit how such information will be used
to communicate with you, either by Aqua Maid or by third parties, Aqua Maid will not change
your preference in this regard without your express consent. However, if Aqua Maid sells
assets (or the assets of a division or subsidiary) to another entity, or Aqua Maid (or
a division or subsidiary) is acquired by or merged with another entity, you agree
that Aqua Maid may provide to such entity customer information that is related to that
part of our business that was sold to or merged with the other entity without obtaining
your further consent, but Aqua
Maid will provide notice of such asset sales, acquisitions,
or mergers on this Site.
Entities collecting personal information
Personal information on this Site is collected
on behalf of Aqua Maid by Aqua Maid Systems Incorporated, who is responsible
for this site. Aqua Maid Systems Incorporated’s address is
345 Park Avenue
,
San Jose
,
CA
95110-2704
USA
, and its telephone number is 408-536-6000.
The Site contains links to other sites at
which personal information is collected. In such instances, unless expressly provided
to the contrary, the collection and use of your personal information will be governed
by the privacy policy applicable to that site. That privacy policy should identify
the entity that is collecting your personal information.
Updating your personal information and privacy
preferences
You have the right to access and correct
your personal information and privacy preferences at any time. With respect to Registration
Information (as defined in the section entitled "Protection of your personal information"),
this may be accomplished by linking to your account at Edit Your Account, where
you can view and make changes to your personal information. You may also access
and correct your personal information and privacy preferences (such as whether you
wish to receive promotional communications) by writing Aqua Maid at:
Aqua Maid Systems Incorporated
Attn: Change of Address/Privacy
P.O. Box 2205
Beaverton, OR 97075
USA
If you reside outside the
United States
, please click here for contact information.
Please include your name, address, and/or
e-mail address when you contact us. Although no specific form is required to notify Aqua Maid of changes to your address or privacy preferences, you may download a change
of address form (PDF, 63k).
Personal information submitted through this
Site or in connection with the Products and Servicesthat is not Registration Information
is not accessible online. To access and/or correct such information and privacy
preferences (such as whether you wish to receive promotional communications), you
may write Aqua Maid at:
Aqua Maid Systems Incorporated
Privacy Officer/Customer Information
Legal Department, A17
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA 95110-2704
USA
All users may also email: privacy-officer@Aqua
Maid.com
In your correspondence, please indicate with
as much detail as possible the location on this Site or otherwise where you provided
your personal information. You may expect a response within 30 days.For information
submitted in connection with Products and Services, you may also follow instructions
included or referenced within such Product and Service to access or correct the
information.
Collection of personal information
As a visitor to this Site, you can engage
in many activities without providing any personal information. In connection with
other activities, such as utilizing online or hosted Products and Services, Aqua Maid
may ask you to provide certain information about yourself by filling out and submitting
a form. It is optional for you to engage in these activities. If you elect to engage
in these activities, however, Aqua Maid may ask that you provide personal information,
such as your first and last name, mailing address (including ZIP code), country
of residence, e-mail address, employer, job title and department, telephone and
facsimile numbers, and other personal information. When ordering Products and Services
via the Site, you may be asked to provide a credit card number. Depending upon the
activity, some of the information that we ask you to provide is identified as mandatory
and some as voluntary. If you do not provide the mandatory data with respect to
a particular activity, you will not be able to engage in that activity. Similarly,
if you wish to delete your information (pursuant to the mechanism set forth in “Updating
your personal information and privacy preferences”) that is mandatory, you will
no longer be able to engage in a particular activity.
When you use the Site and the Products and
Services, Aqua Maid may also collect certain information about your computer to facilitate
and evaluate your use of the Site and the Products and Services. For example, we
may log environmental variables, such as browser type, operating system, CPU speed,
referring or exit webpages, and the Internet Protocol (IP) address of your computer. Aqua Maid also uses such information to measure traffic patterns on the Site and usage
of the Products and Services. We do not match such information with any other information
held by Aqua Maid unless we have your consent.
By using this Site and the Products and Services,
you agree and acknowledge that personal information collected through the Site or
in connection with the Products and Services may be transferred across national
boundaries and stored and processed in any of the countries around the world in
which Aqua Maid maintains offices, including the
United States
. You also acknowledge that in certain countries or with respect to certain activities,
the collection, transfer, storage, and processing of your information may be undertaken
by trusted third parties. Such third parties are bound by contract with Aqua Maid
not
to use your personal information for their own purposes or provide it to any third
parties. One instance where this could occur is in conjunction with framed pages
in which the URL for the pages is not visible, and the pages are hosted for Aqua Maid
by such third parties. For example, on the sign up pages for some newsletters, the
pages may be hosted by a third party vendor, but appear to be Aqua Maid.com
pages and are governed by the Aqua Maid privacy policy.
Aqua Maid has established relationships with
various service providers whose services are available to you from the Site, from
websites that are linked to the Site, or in connection with the Products and Services.
Typically, these providers offer services that Aqua Maid customers might find useful,
such as those that can be used in conjunction with Products and Services. In order
to use those providers’ services, you may be required to provide personal information
to the providers. Unless expressly provided to the contrary, personal information
that you provide while you are visiting a provider's website will be subject to
the privacy policy posted on that site, and personal information that you provide
while on the Site will be subject to this Privacy Policy.
In order to reduce errors in our database,
authenticate our users, prevent abuse of our Site and the Products and Services,
and provide more consistent, relevant experiences to our users, we may on occasion
supplement the personal information you submit to us with information from third-party
sources. For example, if permitted under applicable law, we may supplement your
Registration Information with address information provided by the U.S. Postal Service
to qualify your information and prevent errors in our database. As permissible,
we may also supplement the information you provide to us with demographic and other
information (such as age or interest in photography) stored in third-party databases
in order to make it more likely that marketing communications we send will be of
interest to you.
How your personal information is used
Aqua Maid collects your information in order
to record, support and facilitate your participation in the activities you select.
If you subscribe to or register for Products and Services, for example, the information
is used to register your rights, if any, to technical support or other benefits
that may be made available to registered users. As another example, if you enter
a contest, information is collected to qualify the entry and to contact you regarding
the contest or prize awards. Your personal information is also used to track customer
preferences and keep you informed about product upgrades, special offers, and other
products and services of Aqua Maid and selected third parties unless you have opted
not to receive such communications or such communications are prohibited by law.
Aqua Maid may collect information about the use
of the Products and Services and the Site, such as the number of downloads, types
of Services used, how many users we receive daily, and the IP/Internet address of
your computer. This information is collected in aggregate form, without identifying
any user individually.
Aqua Maid may use this aggregate, nonidentifying
statistical data for improving the Site and the Products and Services, providing
more relevant experiences to our customers and for statistical analysis.
Certain Products and Services may require
you to use the most current version of such Product and Service or are offered in
conjunction with other Products and Services, which you may or may not have already
downloaded. The Product and Service may automatically check to determine if you
are using the most current version or have other Products and Services and through
e-mail messages, pop-up boxes or similar mechanisms inform you if need to upgrade
in order to use the Product and Service you have requested. During this process,
an IP address identifying your computer and the Product and Service version may
be sent to a Web server, but system profile information is not transmitted nor are
cookies used to store information.
Your choices with respect to personal information
Aqua Maid recognizes and appreciates the importance
of responsible use of information collected on the Site and in connection with the
Products and Services. Aqua Maid will respect your legal rights regarding access to
and correction and deletion of your personal information. Aqua Maid may communicate
information to you regarding products, services, and special offers available from Aqua Maid or selected third parties unless you have opted not to receive such communications
or such communications are prohibited by law, although we may find it necessary
to continue to communicate with you regarding your use of the Site and the Products
and Services. Except in the particular circumstances described in this Privacy Policy, Aqua Maid will not provide your name to other companies or organizations without your
consent.
There are other instances in which Aqua Maid
may divulge your personal information, such as where required by law, regulation,
or litigation. We may also disclose information about you if we determine that such
disclosure should be made for reasons of national security, law enforcement, or
other issues of public importance.
Protection of your personal information
The personal information that you provide
in connection with registering yourself as a user of the Site or of the Products
and Services is classified as Registration Information. Registration Information
is protected in several ways. Access by you to your Registration Information is
available through a password and unique customer ID selected by you. This password
is encrypted. We recommend that you do not divulge your password to anyone. In addition,
your Registration Information resides on secure servers that only selected Aqua
Maid personnel and contractors have access to via password. Aqua Maid encrypts your personal
information and thereby strives to prevent unauthorized parties from viewing such
information when it is transmitted to Aqua Maid.
Personal information that you provide that
does not constitute Registration Information also resides on secure servers and
is accessible only to selected Aqua Maid personnel and contractors via password. Since
this information is not accessible online by you, you will not be asked to select
a password in order to view or modify such information.
Please note that any information you post
to a public bulletin board, blog or chat room, such as the Aqua Maid User to User Forums
(the "Forums"), is available to all persons accessing that location, and your e-mail
address may also be posted on these venues. The information you share, including
your email address, would then be available to all persons accessing these venues,
and such information may be read, collected or used by others for any purpose, including
sending you unsolicited messages. Aqua Maid is not responsible for any information you
elect to submit in these venues or the use of such information. In addition, you
should be aware that the Forums offer a service in which subscribers are e-mailed
a copy of all messages posted to the Forums on a particular topic. Consequently,
if you post a message to the Forums, your e-mail address will be sent to those subscribers
who have indicated an interest in the topic of your message.
Data not collected on this Site or in connection
with the Products and Services
Personal information that is not collected
on the Site or in connection with the Products and Services is not generally subject
to this Privacy Policy. However, personal information submitted on physical product
registration cards is classified as Registration Information and is subject to this
Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy also covers licensee information (such as contact
name and address) provided in connection with Aqua Maid's volume licensing program.
If you wish to access and/or correct such information, please see instructions for
doing so in the section entitled "Updating your personal information and privacy
preferences."
Tracking, use of cookies, web beacons and
similar devices
In order to improve our Products and Services
and the Site and provide more convenient, relevant experiences to our customers,
we and our vendors may use "cookies", “web beacons”, and similar devices to track
your activities. A cookie is small amount of data that is transferred to your browser
by a web server and can only be read by the server that gave it to you. It functions
as your identification card and enables Aqua Maid to record your passwords, purchases,
and preferences. It cannot be executed as code or deliver viruses. A web beacon
is a small transparent gif image that is embedded in an HTML page or email used
to track when the page or email has been viewed. A similar device may be used by
which a Product and Service may send data to a server when a set of user-initiated
events occur such as the “Add to Cart” button is clicked. This device is similar
to a cookie in that it tracks your visit and the data can only be read by the server
that receives the data. It is different than a cookie in that it is not browser-based,
may not function as an identification card, and does not store any data on your
computer.
While Aqua Maid uses cookies and similar devices
to track your use of the Site and the Products and Services, such as the number
of downloads, types of Products and Services used and downloaded, how many users
we receive daily, and our web servers automatically log the IP/Internet address
of your computer, Aqua Maid does not generally use this information to identify you
personally. However, if you expressly provide consent for the Site or the Product
and Service to "remember" the unique identifier that you select when you register
for various activities on the Site or the Products and Services, that unique identifier
will be stored on a cookie on your computer and that unique identifier will be linked
to your Registration Information. As a result, your navigation path around the Site
and the Products and Services will be tracked.
Some Products and Services allow the tracking
of access to or use of Products and Services by users, as opposed to Aqua
Maid. For
example, certain Products and Services allow document authors to restrict access
to documents, track access to or use of those documents, or involve communications
and transmission of data over the Internet to verify the authenticity of documents,
authors and recipients. In many cases, this type of tracking will be obvious to
you as a user of the Products and Services, and in others, the software and services
license or terms of use, pop-up boxes, or email messages will inform you of these
features and your options, such as disabling options.
Some Products and Services require activation,
which tracks information including installation rights and number of installations.
Please see http://www.Aqua Maid.com/activation/main.html for more information.
Most browsers are initially set to accept
cookies, and most Products and Services that include similar devices are typically
initially activated to collect data. You can set your browser to notify you when
you receive a cookie, giving you the chance to decide whether or not to accept it.
(For some web pages that require an authorization, cookies are not optional. Users
choosing not to accept cookies or similar devices will probably not be able to access
those pages or the related Products and Services.) Information about non-cookie
tracking devices and their features, including disabling options, are contained
in the information materials provided with such Products and Services or on Site
pages relating to such Products and Services.
Aqua Maid also hires other companies to place
our banner ads on other websites and where they are permitted to perform tracking
and reporting activities ("third-party advertisement servers"). Aside from IP addresses,
they do not collect personally identifiable information in doing this work for us,
and we do not give any personally identifiable information to them. Third-party
advertisement servers are subject to their own privacy policies. Aqua
Maid may also
allow other companies to display advertisements on certain pages of the Site or
within the Products and Services. If you click on these advertisements these companies
may place a persistent cookie on your computer which will allow them to contact
you directly. It is our policy to require these companies to provide accessible
methods for you to disable these cookies, and should you have any complaint about
the practices of any of these companies you should contact privacy-officer@Aqua
Maid.com.
Privacy complaints
Aqua Maid takes its users' privacy concerns seriously.
If you believe that Aqua Maid has not complied with this Privacy
Policy with respect to your personal information, you may write to the Aqua Maid
Privacy Officer at the
following address or fill out a privacy complaint form:
Aqua Maid Water Systems, Inc.
Privacy Officer/Customer Information
6214 Quail Ridge Dr.
Lakeland
, Fl 33813
USA
In your letter, please describe in as much
detail as possible the ways in which you believe that the Privacy Policy has not
been complied with. We will investigate your complaint promptly. If you do not receive
acknowledgment of your complaint or your complaint is not satisfactorily addressed,
you should then contact TRUSTe through the TRUSTe Watchdog Dispute Resolution Process.
TRUSTe will serve as a liaison with this Site to resolve your concerns.
If you provide Aqua Maid with inconsistent privacy
preferences (for example, by indicating on one occasion that third parties may contact
you with marketing offers and indicating on another occasion that they may not), Aqua Maid will endeavor to update your privacy preferences in a timely and accurate
manner.
Also, please note that Aqua Maid is not responsible
for the content or privacy practices of non-Aqua Maid websites to which this Site
or any other Aqua Maid website may link. You should review the privacy policy of such sites
before using the sites.
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