PRIVACY POLICY - COMMITMENT TO YOUR PRIVACY
This site is owned and operated by Top Hat Ventures LLC.
Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At Top Hat Ventures
LLC, we want to make your experience online satisfying and safe.
Because we gather certain types of information about
our users, we feel you should fully understand our policy and the terms and conditions
surrounding the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses
what information we gather and how we use it.
INFORMATION Top Hat Ventures LLC GATHERS AND TRACKS
Top Hat Ventures LLC gathers two types of information
about users:
- Information that users provide through optional,
voluntary submissions. These are voluntary submissions to receive our electronic
newsletters, to participate in our message boards or forums, to email a friend,
and from participation in polls and surveys:
- Information Top Hat Ventures LLC gathers through
aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout
our sites. This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers' needs
and to help our advertisers and sponsors better understand the demographics of our
audience. Because Top Hat Ventures LLC derives its revenue mainly from sponsorships
and advertising, providing such aggregated demographic data is essential to keeping
our service free to users. Under no circumstances does Top Hat Ventures LLC divulge
any information about an individual user to a third party.
Top Hat Ventures LLC Gathers User Information In The
Following Processes:
Optional Voluntary Information
We offer the following free services, which require some
type of voluntary submission of personal information by users:
1. Electronic newsletters policy (Dispatches)
We will offer a free electronic newsletter to users.
Top Hat Ventures LLC gathers the email addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe.
Users may remove themselves from this mailing list by following the link provided
in every newsletter that points users to the subscription management page. Users
can also subscribe to the newsletters at the time of registration.
2. Message boards/forums policy
Users of the site's Message Boards and Forums must register
separately for these services (both are free of charge) in order to post messages,
although they needn't register to visit the site. During registration the user is
required to supply a username, password, and email address.
3. "E-mail this to a friend" policy
Our site users can choose to electronically forward a
link, page, or documents to someone else by clicking "e-mail this to a friend".
The user must provide their email address, as well as that of the recipient. This
information is used only in the case of transmission errors and, of course, to let
the recipient know who sent the email. The information is not used for any other
purpose.
4. Polling
We may offer interactive polls to users so they can easily
share their opinions with other users and see what our audience thinks about important
issues. Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not identifiable
to any particular user. Top Hat Ventures LLC may use a system to "tag" users after
they have voted, so they can vote only once on a particular question. This tag is
not correlated with information about individual users.
5. Surveys
Top Hat Ventures LLC may occasionally conduct user surveys
to better target our content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated
demographic information in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers and partners.
We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third
party.
Children
Consistent with the Federal Children's Online Privacy
Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), we will never knowingly request personally identifiable
information from anyone under the age of 13 without requesting parental consent.
Usage tracking
Top Hat Ventures LLC tracks user traffic patterns throughout
all of our sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about
individual users. Top Hat Ventures LLC does break down overall usage statistics
according to a user's domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information
from the browser string (information contained in every user's browser).
Top Hat Ventures LLC sometimes tracks and catalogs the
search terms that users enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never
associated with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which
areas of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We
do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs
overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.
Cookies
We may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser
files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information
although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you
have specifically and knowingly provided. But the only personal information a cookie
can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can't read data off your
hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. Top Hat Ventures LLC uses
cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above). Our advertising system
delivers a one-time cookie to better track ad impressions and click rates.
You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser.
If you've set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive
the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on
to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in message
boards, forums, polling and surveys.
Privacy Policy Use
How the information you gather is used if relevent.
USE OF INFORMATION
Top Hat Ventures LLC uses any information voluntarily
given by our users to enhance their experience in our network of sites, whether
to provide interactive or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare
future content based on the interests of our users.
As stated above, we use information that users voluntarily
provide in order to send out electronic newsletters and to enable users to participate
in polls, surveys, message boards, and forums. We send out newsletters to subscribers
on a regular schedule (depending on the newsletter), and occasionally send out special
editions when we think subscribers might be particularly interested in something
we are doing. Top Hat Ventures LLC never shares newsletter mailing lists with any
third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or partners.
When we use tracking information to determine which areas
of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not
track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall.
This helps us continue to build a better service for you. We track search terms
entered in Search function as one of many measures of what interests our users.
But we don't track which terms a particular user enters.
Top Hat Ventures LLC creates aggregate reports on user
demographics and traffic patterns for advertisers, sponsors and partners. This allows
our advertisers to advertise more effectively, and allows our users to receive advertisements
that are pertinent to their needs. Because we don't track the usage patterns of
individual users, an advertiser or sponsor will never know that a specific user
clicked their ad. We will not disclose any information about any individual user
except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal
safety of our users or the public.
SHARING OF THE INFORMATION
Top Hat Ventures LLC uses the above-described information
to tailor our content to suit your needs and help our advertisers better understand
our audience's demographics. This is essential to keeping our service free. We will
not share information about individual users with any third party, except to comply
with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of
our users or the public.
SECURITY
Top Hat Ventures LLC operates secure data networks protected
by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. Our security and
privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized
individuals have access to the information provided by our customers.
OPT-OUT POLICY
We give users options wherever necessary and practical.
Such choices include:
- Opting not to register to receive our electronic
newsletters.
- Opting not to participate in certain interactive
areas, which completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable
information from our users
YOUR CONSENT
By using this site, you consent to the collection and
use of this information by Top Hat Ventures LLC. If we decide to change our
privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware
of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose
it.