Privacy Policy

Our Commitment to Your Privacy

Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At Webstarts.com, we want to make your online experience satisfying and safe.

Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel you should fully understand 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 Gathered by Webstarts.com

Webstarts.com gathers two types of information about users:

Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions. These are voluntary submissions when creating a Webstarts account, such as your name or email address.

Information Webstarts.com gathers through aggregated tracking, derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites. This information allows us to better tailor our content to users' needs and to help us better understand the demographics of our audience. Under no circumstances does Webstarts.com divulge any information about an individual user to a third party unless mandated by law.

Webstarts.com 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:

Free Web Hosting

During the account creation process, the user is required to supply full name, username, password, and email address. Except as specified in this Privacy statement, 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.

"You can access and update your personal information by logging in and visiting your My Account and My Profile areas and following the instructions on those pages, or by contacting customer support. You can delete certain personal information you supplied by visiting your My Profile area. If you delete such information, it cannot be used by us or disclosed to third parties in the future. Even if you delete or change some personal information in our registration database, it may still be stored on other databases (including those kept for archival purposes)."

Any files uploaded or created on the Webstarts system are by nature of being hosted for the public and are thus publicly accessible unless they are stored in the user's optional password protected directory. Files in a password protected directory will only be accessible by means of a username and password which the user will provide.

"Email this to a friend" Service

Our site users can choose to electronically forward a link, page or documents to someone else by clicking "email this to a friend". Users must provide their email address, as well as that of the recipient. This information is used in the case of transmission errors and, of course, to let the recipient know who sent the email.

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. Webstarts.com 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.

Surveys

Webstarts.com may occasionally conduct optional 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 since we do not allow anyone under the age of 13 to sign up.

Usage tracking

Webstarts.com tracks user traffic patterns throughout all of our sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. Webstarts.com 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).

Webstarts.com 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 our users.

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. Webstarts.com 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.

Use of Information

Webstarts.com 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 needs and interests of our users.

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.

Webstarts.com creates aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic patterns. This allows us to more effectively tailor advertising and promotions to our users.
Sharing of the Information

Webstarts.com uses the information described above to tailor our content to suit your needs and help us better understand our audience 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

All payment procedures of Webstarts.com operate on 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.

Although we have established and maintain commercially reasonable security procedures to protect your personally identifiable information, “perfect security” does not exist on the Internet. Furthermore, due to the existing legal regulatory and security environment, we cannot fully ensure that your private communications and other personally identifiable information will not be disclosed to third parties. For example, we may be forced to disclose information to the government or third parties under certain circumstances, or third parties may unlawfully intercept or access transmissions or private communications. Additionally, in the unlikely event we need to investigate or resolve possible problems or inquiries, we can (and you authorize us to do so) disclose any information about you to private entities, law enforcement or other government officials as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate.

No Spyware / Adware

We have a strict policy against spyware and adware and apply this to all Webstarts users as well.

Opt-out Policy

We give users options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices include:

Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas, which completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable information from our users.

Opting to delete and close their Webstarts account at any time for any reason.

Your Consent

By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by Webstarts.com. 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.