Privacy Policy

The Gist

Last Updated: 3-10-2010

Your privacy is critically important to us. At AffinityBlue we have a few fundamental principles:

In our content submissions, we aim to make it as simple as possible for you to control what’s visible to the public, seen by search engines, kept private, and permanently deleted.

AffinityBlue (“AffinityBlue”) operates websites including AffinityBlue.com and sparkon.net. It is AffinityBlue’s policy to respect your privacy regarding any information we may collect while operating our websites.

Website Visitors

Like most website operators, AffinityBlue collects non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. AffinityBlue’s purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is to better understand how AffinityBlue’s visitors use its website. From time to time, AffinityBlue may release non-personally-identifying information in the aggregate, e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of its website.

AffinityBlue also collects potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. AffinityBlue does not use such information to identify its visitors, however, and does not disclose such information, other than under the same circumstances that it uses and discloses personally-identifying information, as described below.

Gathering of Personally-Identifying Information

Certain visitors to AffinityBlue’s websites choose to interact with AffinityBlue in ways that require AffinityBlue to gather personally-identifying information. The amount and type of information that AffinityBlue gathers depends on the nature of the interaction. For example, we ask visitors who sign up as a member on sparkon.net to provide a username, email address and demographic information, such as location, gender, occupation, and preferences. In each case, AffinityBlue collects such information only insofar as is necessary or appropriate to fulfill the purpose of the visitor’s interaction with AffinityBlue. AffinityBlue does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below. And visitors can always refuse to supply personally-identifying information, with the caveat that it may prevent them from engaging in certain website-related activities.

Aggregated Statistics

AffinityBlue may collect statistics about the behavior of visitors to its websites. For instance, AffinityBlue may monitor the most popular posts on the sparkon.net site, what applications are most downloaded, as well as other activity on the sparkon.net site. AffinityBlue may display this information publicly or provide it to others. However, AffinityBlue does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below.

Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information

AffinityBlue discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only to those of its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations that (i) need to know that information in order to process it on the behalf of AffinityBlue or to provide services available at AffinityBlue websites, and (ii) that have agreed not to disclose it to others. Some of those employees, contractors and affiliated organizations may be located outside of your home country; by using AffinityBlue websites, you consent to the transfer of such information to them. AffinityBlue will not rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone. Other than to its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations, as described above, AffinityBlue discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only when required to do so by law, or when AffinityBlue believes in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of AffinityBlue, third parties or the public at large. If you are a registered member of an AffinityBlue website and have supplied your email address, AffinityBlue may occasionally send you an email to tell you about new features, solicit your feedback, or just keep you up to date with what’s going on with AffinityBlue and our services. We primarily use our website to communicate this type of information, so we expect to keep this type of email to a minimum. We also provide an opt-out and opt-in option to emails you choose to receive. If you send us a request (for example via a support email or via one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish it in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users. AffinityBlue takes all measures reasonably necessary to protect against the unauthorized access, use, alteration or destruction of potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information.

Cookies

A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. AffinityBlue uses cookies to help AffinityBlue identify and track visitors, their usage of AffinityBlue websites, and their website access preferences. AffinityBlue visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using AffinityBlue’s websites, with the drawback that certain features of AffinityBlue’s websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.

Ads

Ads appearing on any of our websites may be delivered to users by advertising partners, who may set cookies. These cookies allow the ad server to recognize your computer each time they send you an online advertisement to compile information about you or others who use your computer. This information allows ad networks to, among other things, deliver targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you. This Privacy Policy covers the use of cookies by AffinityBlue and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.

Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, AffinityBlue may change its Privacy Policy from time to time, and in AffinityBlue’s sole discretion. AffinityBlue encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. If you have a sparkon.net account, you should also check your profile settings for alerts to these changes. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.