Personals.Companions.com Privacy Statement About Companions.com and its purpose Companions.com is an entertainment-only online matchmaking service designed to help members and visitors search for potential matches by answering unique questions about who they are and traits they seek in their ideal match. They have the option to add additional free-text information to clarify specific interests in themselves and in the person(s) they are seeking. They also may upload approved self-portraits to their profile to help potential matches determine compatibility. No personal information is allowed in the profile or in any published photographs, including phone numbers, emails or physical addresses of any form other than the general zip code information used in the profile for matching purposes. As part of the process, Companions.com may require information such as valid email address, billing address and phone number for security and billing purposes to identify specific members. This information is strictly private and is never sold or made public without the express written permission of the member sharing the information with Companions.com. We collect credit card, billing address, or bank information only from our paying members. Any visitors to Companions.com are free to browse the site, review the ads, create their free user account and view any free content our site has to offer without sharing any personal information. Public Information and Private Information Companions.com gathers two types of information: information submit to us by visitors and members and information not directly submitted by visitors and members. 1. Information submitted to Companions.com There are two types of user-submitted information we collect: Public and Private. Companions.com defines public information as personal information displayed on the site for user profiles, such as gender, hair color, age, income and height, but can't be linked to a specific user. Private information is defined as any personal information that allows someone to contact a member or visitor other than through Companions.com or allows information to be collected about the member or visitor outside of what is displayed on the Companions.com site. Public: Companions.com is designed to assist our members and visitors find people that meet their criteria. To do so, we must gather personal information, which may or may not include: user-specified Companions.com account name, gender, age, personal description, ethnic background, religion, income range, occupation, personal interests, general geographic location based on zip or postal code. Most information is optional and used only to improve the searching capabilities of the Companions.com site. It is meant to be seen by members and visitors but is not used to identify a specific member or visitor by name, address, or email.. Private: This information is gathered from members and visitors who apply for Companions.com services. This information may include: valid email address, first and last name, birth date, credit card or other payment information, a user-created password, mailing address, zip code and telephone number. 2. Non-submitted information collected by Companions.com This is information we collect that is not personally identifiable, such as web browser type and IP address. This information is gathered for all users to the site to help us determine patterns of usage. Use of Information Obtained by Companions.com Public: Public information entered by the user is intended to be viewed by members and visitors to the site. This information is used for searching and matchmaking purposes. Public information cannot be used to identify a specific member by name, address, etc. Private: Companions uses email addresses submitted by visitors and members to confirm enrollment and to forwarding anonymous e-mails between members. User email addresses are not disclosed to responders. Companions.com may communicate to users via their email address to send updates and opt-in news regarding our site, but the user may choose not to receive any email communications from us, outside of billing and system status updates. Email addresses may also be used to resolve customer service issues. Financial information collected by Companions.com is used to bill members for products and services. All other private information submitted by members and visitors is confidential and will not be disclosed except as required by law or to protect members or visitors of Companions.com. All private information can be updated or deleted by the user at any time. Non-submitted information collected by Companions.com We use IP address and browser-type information in the general administration of Companions.com. Our Policy On Sharing Information Companions.com does not sell, rent, share, trade or give away any of our members or visitors personal information except to the financial institution that processes member credit cards or online checking transactions unless required by law or for the protection of your Companions.com membership. Links From time to time, Companions.com may contain links to other websites through advertisements hosted on the site. Please be aware that Companions.com is not responsible for the privacy practices of other web sites. We encourage our members to read the privacy statements of each web site that collects personally identifiable information and decide whether to share this information with that site. This privacy statement applies only to information collected by the Companions.com web site. Use of Cookies A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's hard drive containing information about the user. Companions.com cookies are not linked to any personally identifiable information while on our site. The cookie persists only until the user closes down the browser window, at which time the cookie disappears. Using cookies helps eliminate the need for multiple logins when using the Companions.com site by temporarily remembering your user logon and password while in the open browser window. If you choose to turn cookies off in your browser, you may still use Companions.com but you may find yourself limited in some of the activities on the site or required to log in multiple times.We do not currently and will not in the future use cookies to collect private information about our members and visitors. Correcting/Updating or Removing Information Companions.com gives users several options for modifying or removing their information from our database please visit the My Account page or contact us. Changes in Our Privacy Policy If we change our privacy policy in any way, we will post a prominent notice with a link to those changes on our top page for our members and visitors. We will also allow notification by email for those members who request to have changes emailed to them. we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If a user disagrees with the privacy policy changes, they will have a choice as to whether or not to allow Companions.com to use their information in this different manner, and we will then use their information as stated in the previous version of the privacy policy under which the information was collected. Security Companions.com makes every effort to protect our users' information. Sensitive information such as credit card numbers submitted via the website are protected by using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption to ensure it can't be intercepted by anyone other than the authorized Companions.com department. Companions.com also restricts who has physical access to your personal information at our office. Only employees who need to perform specific tasks related to your personal information (such as processing the credit card transactions or dealing with a customer service issue) are granted access to this information. These employees are required to sign an employee agreement to hold user personal information strictly confidential and are held personally accountable for this information. If you have any questions about the security at our website, please contact us. Email Choice/Opt-out Members and visitors may be offered the chance to subscribe to various newsletters as part of the Companions.com service. These are optional services and users are given the opportunity to 'opt-out' of this information simply by not checking the subscription box next to these publications. If at any time a user receiving these newsletters decides to cancel, they may log back into their account and change their subscription level to not receive a specific newsletter. Contacting the Web Site If you have any questions about the Companions.com privacy statement, your dealings with Companions.com site, or any other matter related to this web site, please contact us using the Contact form found here or on www.companions.com.
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