Privacy
(We take it seriously.)
CrowdBurst is here to serve you, not harvest your personal information. Here's the gist of our privacy policy: we use the information you give us only for the purposes you expect (like sending or asking for advice), and we're committed to keeping it secure and private.
Want more details? Keep reading.
This privacy policy addresses the use of your personally identifiable information (PII) on CrowdBurst.com. PII, as used in US privacy law and information security, is information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate a single person, or to identify an individual in context.
We may collect the following types of information:
We may collect personal information from you when you
We may use the information we collect from you in order to:
Your personal information is secure. Our site is built with the industry standard Ruby on Rails framework, which has been thoroughly tested and deployed worldwide on thousands of popular sites. Your data is contained behind secured networks and is only accessible by a small number of CrowdBurst employees, contractors, and/or partners who have special access rights to our system, and are required to keep the information confidential. All of your interaction with our site is encrypted via state-of-the-art Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology (look for the lock in your browser's url bar). Your personal data is stored on secure, password-protected, firewalled servers on the Heroku platform.
Of course, no security system is perfect; you do accept some level of risk when you use our site. Should we experience a data breach on our servers, we will notify you via email and in-site notification within seven business days.
Obviously. Everyone uses cookies! Cookies are not (inherently) evil; they're an integral part of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) the web is built on. Specifically, cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer's hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the site's or service provider's systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information (like your user id, if you're logged in). Cookies are the only way we can remember who you are as you navigate from page to page in our site. We also use cookies to help us compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can improve our service by seeing what works and what doesn't.
We use cookies to:
You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You do this through your browser settings. Each browser is a little different, so look at your browser's Help menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookies. If you disable cookies in your browser, some features of the site may no longer work, but you'll probably get by.
We may disclose your information to our own employees, contractors, or other service providers to the extent required to operate and maintain our website. In extraordinary circumstances, we might also release your information to comply with the law; participate in pending or ongoing legal proceedings; enforce our Terms of Use or other site policies; protect ours or others' rights, property, or safety; or appease the awakened dread Cthulhu.
Some (not all) information that you provide on your personal profile, or when you create content on the site, will be publicly available on the Internet. We can't be responsible for what others do with that information once it's public. This public information may include:
If you're ever surprised by what we share, let us know. You can change this information at any time, or delete your profile entirely :(
We will not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information unless we provide you with advance notice. (We have no plans to do this and can't really imagine why we ever would.) This does not include website hosting partners and other parties who assist us in operating our website so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may provide non-personally identifiable information (like click-throughs and pages visited) to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.
Our site includes some links to products and services offered by a select few third parties who we really dig (for instance, on our Resources page). These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. If they're not up to snuff, let us know.
CalOPPA is the first state law in the nation to require commercial websites and online services to post a privacy policy. The law's reach stretches well beyond California to require a person or company in the United States (and conceivably the world) that operates websites collecting personally identifiable information from California consumers to post a conspicuous privacy policy on its website stating exactly the information being collected and those individuals with whom it is being shared, and to comply with this policy.
In accordance with CalOPPA we agree to the following:
We do not market to children under 13. Go away, kids!
The Fair Information Practices Principles form the backbone of privacy law in the United States and the concepts they include have played a significant role in the development of data protection laws around the globe. Understanding the Fair Information Practice Principles and how they should be implemented is critical to comply with the various privacy laws that protect personal information.
We agree to the individual redress principle, which requires that individuals have a right to pursue legally enforceable rights against data collectors and processors who fail to adhere to the law. This principle requires not only that individuals have enforceable rights against data users, but also that individuals have recourse to courts or a government agency to investigate and/or prosecute non-compliance by data processors.
Some browsers can indicate that they do not wish to be tracked by sending a special Do Not Track (DNT) HTTP header to a website's server. Unfortunately, support for the DNT mechanism is limited. We don't honor DNT because we use Google Analytics, which ignores it. Hopefully someone more important than we are, probably in California, will sort this out soon.
No, we don't allow any third party behavioral tracking.
This website is owned and operated by USBling, LLC, a Georgia Limited Liability Company. If you really want to, you can look up our address with the Georgia Secretary of State. Frankly, we'd rather you just sent us an email.
Basically good, with some evil tendencies. (We try to keep those to a minimum.)