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WildBlue Communications’ Subscriber Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy
covers all web sites under the wildblue.com domain (such as www.wildblue.net and
help.
wildblue.net) and applies to all customers of WildBlue’s Satellite
Speed Internet service (the “Service”). We encourage you to read the entire Policy
and check this page periodically for any changes or updates. By using the Service,
you expressly consent to the terms of this Policy, as it may be changed from time
to time.
WildBlue is committed to maintaining your privacy and believes that, as a subscriber
to the Service, you are entitled to know 4WildBlue's information practices. This
includes the limitations which 4WildBlue observes in the collection and disclosure
of personally identifiable subscriber information, the type of personally identifiable
information we collect, how we use subscriber information, under what conditions
we may disclose this information, the period during which we maintain it and the
rights of subscribers concerning this information and its disclosure.
If you have questions or concerns regarding this Policy, you should contact WildBlue
at the contact information near the end of this Policy.
Information Collection
WildBlue collects information from you at several different points on the Service.
Some of this information is personally identifiable information, but much of it
is not. Personally identifiable information is information that identifies a particular
person. When you establish an account for the Service we collect information such
as your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, as well as information
used for billing, and payment (including bank and credit card information), and
other information we may need to establish and service an account. During the initial
provisioning of the Service, and any subsequent changes or updates to that provisioning,
WildBlue collects technical information about your computer hardware and software,
satellite modem and/or other service-related devices, and customization settings
and preferences.
WildBlue also collects personally identifiable information about you when you communicate
with us for, among other things, support, maintenance, and billing, send us e-mails,
respond to our surveys or e-mails, engage in chat sessions with us, register for
information, or participate in promotions or contests. In addition, WildBlue may
combine personally identifiable information, which we collect as part of our regular
business records, with personally identifiable information obtained from third parties
for the purpose of creating an enhanced personal database to use in marketing and
other activities related to the Service and our other services.
Information Use and Disclosure
WildBlue considers the personally identifiable information contained in our business
records to be confidential. Applicable law authorizes WildBlue to disclose personally
identifiable information concerning any subscriber if the disclosure is:
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necessary to render, or conduct a legitimate business activity related to, the Service
and Service features or other services provided to the subscriber;
or
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required by law or legal process (as described below in this Policy);
or
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limited to the names and addresses of subscribers for "mailing list" or other purposes
(subject to each subscriber's right to prohibit or limit this disclosure as described
below in this Policy).
In addition, WildBlue
may use and disclose personally identifiable information collected from you your
use of the Service as provided for by applicable law in order to:
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install, configure, operate, provide, support, and maintain the Service;
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confirm that you are receiving the service requested and are properly billed for
it;
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identify you when changes are made to your Service account;
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make you aware of new products or services that may be of interest to you;
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understand the use of, and identify improvements to, our Service;
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detect unauthorized reception, use, or abuse of the Service;
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determine whether there are violations of any applicable policies and terms of Service;
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configure modems and/or other service-related devices; and
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comply with applicable law and take steps to prevent fraud.
WildBlue may also
use and disclose personally identifiable information as provided for by applicable
law in order to perform, for example:
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billing and invoicing;
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administration;
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surveys;
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collection of fees and charges;
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marketing;
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service delivery and customization;
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maintenance and operations;
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technical support;
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procurement of services, hardware or software necessary to the Service or offered
through the Service
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hardware and software upgrades; and
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fraud prevention
In connection with
the activities listed above, we sometimes disclose personally identifiable information
about you to our affiliates or to others who work for us. We sometimes also disclose
personally identifiable information about you to our employees for WildBlue's internal
business purposes, as well as to outside auditors, professional advisors and service
providers, potential business transition partners, and regulators. Typically, we
make these disclosures when the disclosure is necessary to render, or conduct a
legitimate business activity related to the Service or other services we provide
to you. We may be required by law or legal process to disclose certain personally
identifiable information about you to lawyers and parties in connection with litigation
and to law enforcement personnel. We may also disclose certain personally identifiable
information about you to third parties such as, for example, charities, marketing
organizations, or other businesses, in connection with disclosures made for "mailing
list" or other purposes as described below in this Policy.
Legal Disclaimer
We make every reasonable effort to protect subscriber privacy as described in this
Policy. Nevertheless, we may be required by law to disclose personally identifiable
information about a subscriber without his or her consent and without notice in
order to comply with a valid legal process such as a subpoena, court order, or search
warrant. We may also use or disclose personally identifiable information about you
without your consent to protect our customers, employees, or property, in emergency
situations, to enforce our rights in court or elsewhere, or directly with you, and
for violations of the Service's terms of service and policies (including our Customer
Agreement, Acceptable Use Policy and Fair Access Policy).
Transmission of Information
WildBlue transmits personally identifiable and non-personally identifiable information
about you over the Service when you send and receive e-mail, chat, send instant
messages, transfer and share files, make files accessible, visit Web sites, or otherwise
use the Service and its features. Our transmission of this information is necessary
to render the Service.
WildBlue uses third parties to deliver some features and functions of the Service,
including customer and technical support, e-mail, instant messaging, and web hosting,
and those third parties collect or transmit personally identifiable and non-personally
identifiable information about you. These third parties are not permitted to use
your personally identifiable information except for the purpose of providing their
services. We will not read your outgoing or incoming e-mail, private chat, or instant
messages, but we (or our third party providers) do store e-mail messages on computer
systems for a period of time. We could be required to disclose these messages and
communications along with other personally identifiable information about you to
comply with law or to protect our Service as described in the Legal Disclaimer section
of this Policy.
We also monitor the performance of our Service and your Service connection in order
to manage, maintain, and improve the Service and your connection to it. We (or our
third party providers) use tools to help prevent and block "spam" e-mails, viruses,
spyware, and other harmful or unwanted communications and programs on the Service.
These tools may automatically scan your e-mails, instant messages, file attachments,
and other files and communications in order to help us protect you and the Service
against these harmful or unwanted communications and programs. These tools do not
collect or disclose personally identifiable information about you.
Service Providers
We contract with third parties to provide specific services and features for the
Service. For example, our newsgroups are provided by a third party. When you use
these particular services, generally you provide your name and specific Service-related
information directly to the third party service provider. If you become a customer
of these third parties directly, then you will be subject to their terms of service
and privacy policies. You should carefully read their terms and policies to understand
how they may use personally identifiable information about you.
Aggregate Information
WildBlue or our contractors may from time to time share aggregate (non-personally
identifiable) information such as the number of Service subscribers who match certain
statistical profiles (for example, the number of subscribers in various parts of
the country) with our advertisers, content providers, or other third parties with
whom we have a relationship. Except as otherwise specified in this Policy, we will
not provide our advertisers, content providers, or these other third parties with
personally identifiable information about you unless we have received your consent
first. Likewise, WildBlue will not share personally identifiable information about
where you go on the Service or on the Web unless we have received your consent first.
We also use aggregate information to better understand how the Service is being
used, to improve it, and for network management, bandwidth usage, maintenance, performance
measurement, and security.
Third Party Advertisers
We may use a third-party ad serving company to serve certain advertisements to you
when you visit this Web site. Our third-party ad serving company may use anonymous
information related to your visit to the Service's Web site to better provide advertisements
to you about goods and services that may be of interest to you. Our third-party
ad serving company does not have access to your name, address, e-mail address or
telephone number unless you or others provide that information to it directly, or
you consent to us providing that information to it. In the course of serving advertisements
to this Web site, our third-party ad serving company may place or recognize a unique
"cookie" or equivalent technology through your browser.
Business Transitions
If WildBlue enters into a merger, acquisition, or sale transaction of all or a portion
of its assets, subscribers' personally identifiable information will, in most instances,
be one of the items transferred as part of the transaction. If, as a result of the
business transition this Policy will be changed, you should refer to the Notification
of Changes to this Policy section. Aggregate information may also be transferred
in connection with a business transition.
Preferences
We store information that you provide to personalize your settings on the Service
so that you don't have to change these settings each time you use the Service. We
do not share your preferences with third parties except for service providers or
other third parties who may provide certain components of the Service.
Cookies
Cookies are small files stored on a computer's hard drive to simplify and improve
a user's Web experience. A Web site may store information in a cookie about your
computer configuration so that it can more efficiently provide information to you
the next time you visit the site. Or, your browser program might save a cookie with
a reference key linking to your username and password on a remote server so that
a Web site's server will automatically recognize you the next time you access the
site.
WildBlue uses cookies to remember your username and password, if you choose to store
them, from the home page of the Service at
www.wildblue.net, as well as to remember
some of your personalization preferences. WildBlue also uses cookies to determine
when your current session on the Service's Web site should be logged out after a
period of no activity, as well as for efficient management of the servers providing
our Web site including when you access the Personal Web Space services. In addition,
WildBlue uses cookies to determine whether you are accessing the website at www.wildblue.net
or features of the Service from our Service or another Internet service provider.
We do this in order to authenticate access to certain features of the Service, and
to enable certain communications between Service subscribers. Aside from this reference
by the cookie, WildBlue does not store your name or other personal information in
cookies.
Some of our business relationships are with vendors who may use cookies (for example,
search engines) or in connection with their own advertisers and other business partners.
However, we have no access to or control over these third party cookies. For more
information about how these vendors and their business partners use cookies, and
how you may be able to "opt-out" of those cookies, read the privacy policy that
applies to each vendor's Web site. This Policy covers the use of cookies by WildBlue
under the wildblue.net domain; it does not cover the use of cookies by any other
party or Web site unless stated otherwise.
Log Files and Web Site and E-mail Management
Like many Web sites, the Service's Web site servers generate log files. These logs
record aggregate (non-personally identifiable) information about site usage such
as Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser types, Internet service providers,
referring/exit pages, pages accessed, platform types, date/time stamps, times of
use, and page views, for example. This information is necessary to analyze trends,
administer the Service's Web site, balance web traffic, evaluate users' electronic
browsing in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate
use.
Communications from WildBlue
Special Offers and Updates
We send all new subscribers to the Service a welcome e-mail and sometimes other
information. Subscribers who would like to receive information from us about products,
services, and special offers, promotions, and features may do so. See the Choice
and Contact Preferences section of this Policy to learn how to opt in or opt out
of receiving these types of promotional communications.
Service Announcements
We send subscribers Service-related announcements from time to time. For example,
we may send you an e-mail announcement about a pricing change, a change in operating
policies, or new features of the Service. You may not opt-out of these Service-related
communications, though you can deactivate your Service account if you wish. If you
fail to check your Service account and primary e-mail address for Service-related
announcements, you may miss important information about the Service, including legal
notices, for example.
Customer Service
We communicate with you to provide requested services and support for questions
and issues relating to your Service account. We will reply to your requests for
customer service by e-mail, phone, discussion forum, or through any other reasonable
means.
Choice and Contact Preferences
Any e-mail relating to special offers or promotions will contain a link or instructions
allowing you to opt out of receiving similar promotional e-mails in the future by
following the opt-out instructions in the e-mail or visiting the Contact Preferences
section of My Account on the www.wildblue.net Web site.
Links
The Service's Web site contains links to other sites. Some of these other sites
may be co-branded with WildBlue and may look like Service features, but WildBlue
is not responsible for the privacy practices of these other sites. We encourage
you to be aware when you leave our Web site and to read the privacy policies of
every Web site that collects personally identifiable information about you, whether
the site is co-branded with WildBlue or not.
Security
WildBlue takes the security of our subscribers' personally identifiable information
seriously. We follow industry-standard practices to take such actions as are necessary
to prevent unauthorized access to personally identifiable information by a person
other than the subscriber or us. However, we cannot guarantee that these practices
will prevent every unauthorized attempt to access, use, or disclose personally identifiable
information.
Correcting and Accessing Information
If your personally identifiable information changes, if you wish to confirm the
accuracy of your personally identifiable information, or if you no longer want to
subscribe to the Service, we provide a way to correct that information and a way
to deactivate a Service account. You can correct some personally identifiable information
through the My Account link at www.wildblue.net. You may also contact us by telephone
at the contact information listed below to correct information or deactivate your
Service account. In addition, you may examine and copy any personally identifiable
information we collect and maintain relating to you at your local WildBlue office
upon reasonable notice and during regular business hours. If you wish to inspect
those records, please contact us by telephone at 1-866-WILDBLUE, giving us a reasonable
period of time to locate and, if necessary, prepare the information for review,
and to arrange an appointment during regular business hours. We will correct our
records if you make a reasonable showing that any of the personally identifiable
information we have collected about you is inaccurate. You will only be permitted
to examine records that contain information about you and no one else. WildBlue
reserves the right to charge you for the cost of photocopying any documents that
you request.
Enforcement
You, as a subscriber to the Service, may enforce the limitations imposed on WildBlue
by applicable federal law with respect to the collection and disclosure of personally
identifiable information about you. You may do so through a civil action under federal
law, in addition to other rights and remedies that may be available to you under
federal or other applicable laws.
Retention of Information
WildBlue maintains personally identifiable information about you in our regular
business records while you are a subscriber to the Service. We also maintain this
information for a period of time after you are no longer a subscriber if the information
is necessary for the purposes for which it was collected or to satisfy legal requirements.
These purposes typically include business, legal, or tax purposes. If there are
no pending requests, orders, or court orders for access to this personally identifiable
information and the information is no longer necessary for the purposes for which
it was collected, we will destroy the information within a reasonable time period
or within a required timeframe established under applicable law, whichever is shorter.
Notification of Changes to this Policy
If we change this Policy (which we may do at any time), we will post those changes
on the homepage of the Service Web site, or in other places we deem appropriate,
so our subscribers are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and
under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We will use information in accordance
with the Privacy Policy under which the information was collected. Your decision
to continue receiving the Service after we make any changes to this Policy shall
be deemed to be your express consent to the changes in the revised Policy.
Contact Information
If you have any questions or suggestions regarding this Policy, or wish to contact
us about your personal information, please contact us at
legal@wildblue.net.
Special Note about Children
The Service is not directed to children under the age of 13, and WildBlue does not
knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age
of 18 on the Service unless expressly specified on the appropriate pages of the
Service website. On those pages, WildBlue or its service providers will provide
a special notice or other information describing any additional privacy protections
that may apply. Children should always get permission from a parent or legal guardian
before sending any information about themselves (such as their names, e-mail addresses,
and telephone numbers) over the Internet, to us or to anyone else.
Last Updated: 07/11/05
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