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PRIVACY
POLICY
Effective Date: June 4, 2007
OUR
COMMITMENT TO PRIVACY
We at
The Ponderosa Telephone Co., Ponderosa Long Distance,
Ponderosa Internet and Ponderosa Cablevision ("Ponderosa")
recognize the importance of protecting your personal
information and are committed to respecting the privacy
rights of our customers, visitors, and other users of this
Website (the “Site”). Ponderosa believes that when you use
any Ponderosa product or service, you should understand when
and how personal information is collected, used, disclosed
and protected. We created this Privacy Policy (the
“Policy”) to give you confidence as you visit and use the
Site, and to demonstrate our commitment to fair information
practices and the protection of privacy. This Policy is
only applicable to the Site, and not to other services
offered by Ponderosa nor any other websites that you may be
able to access from the Site, each of which may have data
collection and use practices and policies that may differ
materially from this Policy.
YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS
California customers have a right to obtain a list of all
personal information that Ponderosa may have disclosed to
related companies for marketing purposes or to unaffiliated
third parties for their own marketing purposes. Ponderosa,
as authorized by the Federal Communications Commission, may
share certain customer information between its affiliates
for billing purposes, or to market products and services of
the same type as those purchased by the customer. However,
Ponderosa does not disclose customers' personal information
to unaffiliated third parties for those parties' direct
marketing purposes, as described in California Civil Code
Section 1798.83. A California customer may contact
Ponderosa and request a general list of the types of
information shared and the companies with whom it is
shared. This request may be made by contacting us at
1-800-682-1878 or 559-868-6000, e-mailing us at privacy@goponderosa.com,
or sending any correspondence to Customer Operations
Director, The Ponderosa Telephone Co., P.O. Box 21, O'Neals,
CA 93645.
INFORMATION WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU
We
collect a variety of personal information about users of our
products or services in the normal course of our business,
through the use of "cookies" (see explanation below) and web
server logs. When you visit our Site, you may provide us
with (a) personal information that can be directly
associated with a specific person or entity, such as name,
address, telephone number, email address, or information
about activities directly linked to that person, or (b)
aggregate information that is collected about a group or
category of services or customers from which individual
customer identities have been removed. You should refer to
the rest of this policy to see how we use, disclose, and
protect that information:
A. Personal Information.
We
collect information you give us when you purchase a
Ponderosa product or use our services. For example, in
some cases we may collect
·
Name
·
Mailing address
·
E-mail
address
·
Credit
card number
·
Social
Security number
·
Date
of birth
·
Driver's license number
·
Home
and business telephone numbers
·
Other
personal information (e.g., mother's maiden name)
Additional information is collected also when you dial a
number on your phone. This information is used for
billing purposes so you can be appropriately charged,
and in some cases to investigate fraudulent usages.
B. Automatically Collected Information.
Our web servers automatically receive certain types of
information whenever you interact with us through our
Site. For example, when you visit the Site, our system
automatically recognizes your domain name and IP
address(es), date and time of visits, the type of
browser you use, the website from which your visit
originated, page visits, time spent on web pages, and
other similar “traffic data”. No personal information
about you is revealed in this process.
C. Information from Other Sources.
We
may obtain information about you from outside sources
and add it or combine it with your account information.
For example, we may receive credit information when you
decide to subscribe to one of our services. We may also
use commercially-available demographics and other
marketing information from third parties to help us
better serve you or inform you about products or
services that we think will be of interest to you. We
sometimes receive updated delivery and address
information from our shippers or other sources so that
we can correct our records and deliver your next
purchase or communication more easily. Finally, we may
also purchase lists containing your personal information
(i.e. postal address, phone number(s), email address)
for advertising and marketing purposes.
USE AND SHARING OF PERSONAL and AGGREGATE INFORMATION
The
following explains in detail how we use personal and
aggregate information.
A. Internal Use of Personal Information.
We
will not share your personal information with any third
parties without your consent, except as necessary to
provide you with the services offered by us or to comply
with the law. We may use your personal information to
verify your identity, to check your qualifications, or
to follow up with transactions initiated on the Site.
We may also use your contact information to inform you
of any changes to the Site, or to send you additional
information about Ponderosa. When we use other agents,
contractors, or companies to perform services on our
behalf, we advise them that they are to protect your
confidential information, and not disclose such
information except in limited circumstances.
B. Use of Aggregate Information.
We
use aggregate information to analyze our Site traffic,
but we do not examine this information for individually
identifying information. In addition, we may use
anonymous IP addresses to help diagnose problems with
our server, to administer our site, or to display the
content according to your preferences. Traffic and
transaction information may also be shared with business
partners and advertisers on an aggregate and anonymous
basis.
C. Business Transfers.
Information about our users, including personal
information, may be disclosed as part of any merger,
acquisition, sale of company assets, or transition of
service to another provider, as well as in the unlikely
event of an insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership in
which personal information would be transferred as one
of the business assets of the company.
D. Protection of Ponderosa and Others.
We
may disclose personal information where permitted or
required by law to (1) conform to the edicts of the law
or comply with legal process served on Ponderosa, (2)
protect and defend the rights or property of Ponderosa
or the users of the Site, or (3) act under exigent
circumstances to protect the safety of the public or
users of the Site.
E. Customer Proprietary Network
Information (CPNI).
Under federal law, you have the right and Ponderosa has
the duty to manage the confidentiality of information
about your telephone usage, including but not limited to
the types of telephone services purchased, the numbers
that you call, your telephone bill summary, and your
current telephone charges. This information is
sometimes referred to as "Customer Proprietary Network
Information," or "CPNI." Ponderosa does not disclose
this information to unaffiliated third parties, except
as required by law and/or to facilitate billing for
services purchased by customers. Ponderosa may share
your CPNI with its affiliates to market products and
services that are of a similar type to those that you
have purchased from Ponderosa or its affiliates. If
Ponderosa wishes to disclose your CPNI to its affiliates
to market other products or services to you, we will
first notify you of your rights under the law, describe
how we intend to use the CPNI and give you the option to
"opt-out" of such information usage.
F. Access to Information.
We
do not maintain any procedures for you to review or
request changes to the information that we collect about
you, except that you may request that we remove all
information about you from our database generated from
usage of this Site by contacting us as indicated below.
USE
OF COOKIES
From
time to time, we may use the standard "cookies" feature of
major browser applications that allows us to store a small
piece of data on your computer about your visit to the
Site. We do not set any personally identifiable information
in cookies, nor do we employ any data capture mechanisms on
our website other than cookies. We use cookies to collect
information so that we can determine how to improve our
site, complete transactions you request; and to track your
selections in order to make proper recommendations about our
products and services. You can choose whether to accept
cookies by changing the settings on your browser. However,
if you choose to disable this function, your experience at
our Site may be diminished and some features may not work as
they were intended.
Children's online privacy protection act
We are
a general audience site, and do not direct any of our
content specifically at children under 13 years of age. We
understand and are committed to respecting the sensitive
nature of children's privacy online. Ponderosa also
recognizes that many parents purchase products and services
for family use, including use by children under the age of
13, without the knowledge of Ponderosa. Any information
collected from such accounts would appear to Ponderosa as
the personal information of the subscribing adult customer,
and will be treated as such under this Policy. If we make
available offers and products online where a child informs
us that he or she is under the age of 13, or we otherwise
learn or have reason to suspect that a Site user is under
13, we will ask a parent to confirm his/her consent in
advance of further collection, use or disclosure of personal
information from that child. At any time, parents may
review the personal information collected, ask to have it
deleted, and refuse to allow any further collection or use
of the child's information.
PLACEMENT OF ADVERTISING ON OTHER WEBSITES
Ponderosa may place advertisements for its products or
services on other websites, or use third-party ad companies
to place advertisements about our products and services on
other websites. These companies may use cookies and other
technology to measure the effectiveness of our ads. To
measure advertising effectiveness and offer selective ad
content, the ad serving companies may use anonymous
information about your visits to our and other websites.
However, the ad serving companies use an anonymous number to
identify you, not your name, address, phone number, email
address, or anything that personally identifies you. The
use of such cookies is subject to the ad serving company's
privacy policy, not the Policy of Ponderosa.
NETWORK AND INFORMATION
Security
We
maintain a variety of physical, electronic, and procedural
safeguards to prevent the loss, misuse, and alteration of
the information that we obtain from you, but we make no
assurances about our ability to prevent any such loss,
misuse, to you or to any third party arising out of any such
loss, misuse, or alteration.
THIRD PARTY WEBSITE AREAS BEYOND COMPANY'S CONTROL
The
Site contains links to other websites. If you choose to
visit other websites, we are not responsible for the privacy
practices or content of those other websites, and it is your
responsibility to review the privacy policies at those
websites to confirm that you understand and agree with their
policies.
UPDATING THIS Policy
Ponderosa will revise and update this Policy if the law
changes or our practices change. We reserve the right, at
any time, to add to, change, update, or modify this Policy,
simply by posting such change, update, or modification on
the Site and without any other notice to you. Any such
change, update, or modification will be effective
immediately upon posting on the Site. However, if the
change relates to your personal information, in a manner
that is materially different from what was stated at the
time it was collected or stated here, we will notify you via
posting on this page for 30 days before the material change
is made and give you an opportunity to opt out of the
proposed use at any time. It is your responsibility to
review this Policy from time to time to ensure that you
continue to agree with all of its terms.
Contacting Us
If you
have any questions, comments or complaints concerning this
Policy, please contact us at 1-800-682-1878 or 559-868-6000,
e-mail us at privacy@goponderosa.com, or send any
correspondence to Customer Operations Director, The
Ponderosa Telephone Co., P.O. Box 21, O'Neals, CA 93645.
Our representatives will endeavor to contact you within
fifteen (15) days of your inquiry.
561128.2
/ 7024-1000
560304.1/7024-1000
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