Privacy Policy
Updated as of October 28, 2009
Bankratesauthority.com respects your privacy and is committed to safeguarding your personal information. This policy describes the personal information we collect and how we handle and protect it.
Bankratesauthority.com does not require you to create an account or share any personally identifiable information to use the web site: www.Bankratesauthority.com. By visiting, using and/or submitting information to the Web site you indicate your agreement with this Privacy Policy.

Non-Identifying Information We Collect
We automatically receive and record information from your computer and browser, including your IP address, software and hardware attributes, and the page you request. This information is used for security purposes and for the design and assessment of marketing efforts.
Cookies and Web Beacons
We may send a cookie that can be stored by your browser on your computer’s hard drive. We may use the information we obtain from the cookie in the administration of our web site, to improve its usability and for evaluating our marketing effectiveness as described above. Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies. (For example, in Internet Explorer you can refuse all cookies by clicking “Tools”, “Internet Options”, “Privacy”, and selecting “Block all cookies” using the sliding selector). Blocking cookies, however, can also have a negative impact on the usability of many web sites.
We use a third-party tracking service that uses cookies and web beacons to track non-personally identifiable information about visitors to our site in the aggregate (such as page views and referral page information to track the success of our marketing efforts to bring people to our site as well as overall site performance). No personal or sensitive information is transmitted to advertising partners.

Personally Identifying Information We Collect
Sign-up forms found on the Website, such as the form for newsletters and updates, collect information such as name, e-mail address and sometimes telephone number. Contact information from these forms is used to deliver the requested information.  With respect to the newsletters and updates, users may opt-out of receiving such mailings in the future; see the choice/opt-out section below.

Use of Information
If you elect to provide us with personal information, we may utilize such information for marketing purposes, and this use may result in follow-up communications from Bankratesauthority.com and our clients.
The non-personally identifiable information that we collect is used for marketing and sales efforts to better target advertisements and other content in an effort to create a more personally relevant experience and to evaluate the effectiveness of Internet properties. The information is also used to predict responses to advertisements and to help determine how visitors use our web site, and which pages and features are most popular.

Links to Other Web Sites
This web site contains links to other sites that are not owned or controlled by Bankratesauthority.com  Bankratesauthority.com is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our web site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy policy applies solely to information collected by Bankratesauthority.com.

Information sharing
There are some instances in which your personally identifiable and non-personally identifiable information is shared with third parties, as described below.

Partners
Your non-personally identifiable information may be shared with third party partners of Bankratesauthority.com on an anonymous basis, for example, to track clicks on advertisements. We also share aggregated demographic information about our user base with our customers. This information does not identify individual users.

Service Providers and Agents
We partner with other third parties to provide specific services. These third parties are not allowed to use personally identifiable information except for the purpose of providing these services.
Occasionally we hire other companies to provide other services on our behalf, such as handling the processing and delivery of mailings, providing customer support, processing transactions, or performing statistical analysis of our services. We will only provide those companies the personal information they need to deliver the service. They are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information and are prohibited from using that information for any other purpose.

Legally required disclosures
BankRatesAuthority.com reserves the right to disclose personally identifiable information as required by law, and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights or the safety of users and to comply with judicial proceedings, court orders or legal processes served on the web site.

Business Transactions
We may transfer information about you if all or part of our business is acquired by or merged with another company. In this event, we will notify you before information about you is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Security
While BankRatesAuthority.com  adheres to industry-standard security practices, because we do not collect sensitive personal data, your interactions with the web site are not encrypted in transmission or storage.
Choice/Opt-Out

Personally Identifiable Information – Opting out:
Our web site provides users the opportunity to opt-out of receiving our newsletters and updates as well as promotional/marketing information from us.  If you no longer wish to receive information from BankRatesAuthority.com, you may opt-out by following the instructions included with each mailing, or, you may write to us at BankRatesAuthority.com, Attn: Privacy/Legal, 77 S. Bedford St., Suite 450, Burlington, MA, 01803 to opt-out.
When you register as a user on our site you may receive responses to customer support and e-mail acknowledgments. To opt out of receiving these communications, you must opt out of being a registered user.

Non-Personally Identifiable Information – Opting out:
As noted above, our Website collects non-personally identifiable information about your web site activities. You may set most browsers to notify you if you receive a cookie, or you may choose to block cookies with your browser. Blocking cookies may result in a lower quality experience for you while you are visiting the Website.

Children’s Privacy
Our website is a general audience site. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13 and you must be 18 years old or older to register to use the site.

Correcting/Updating/Deleting/Deactivating Personal Information
You may at any time change your information or opt-out of BankRatesAuthority.com use of your personally identifiable information by contacting us by e-mail at privacy@bankratesauthority.com or by mail at BankRatesAuthority.com, Attn: Privacy/Legal, 77 S. Bedford St., Suite 450, Burlington, MA, 01803.

Changes to Privacy Policy
We may revise or update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices. When we make changes to this Privacy Policy, we will revise the “last updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy. If we make any material changes in the way we collect, use, and/or share personal information, we will notify you as required by law, including by sending an email to the email address you most recently provided us in your account, profile or registration, and/or by prominently posting notice of the changes on our website. We recommend that you check our website from time to time to determine whether there have been any changes to this Privacy Policy.

Contact Info
If you have any questions or concerns about this privacy policy, please let us know your concerns by contacting us. You should first contact us via email at privacy@bankratesauthority.com,info@bankratesauthority.com or you may send us correspondence at the following address: Bankratesauthority.com, Attn: Privacy/Legal, 77 S. Bedford St., Suite 450, Burlington, MA, 01803.