Privacy Policy
Rapleaf Respects Your Privacy.
This Privacy Statement is intended to answer questions you may have related to how we handle personal information. We want to explain what information we collect and what we do with it. We have many controls, systems, and procedures that govern how we handle this information and we want you to know about them. We also want to clarify how this information may be shared with other parties and what choices you have regarding the handling of your information.
Rapleaf is a pioneering information provider that believes in the power of transparency, choice, and control when it comes to personal information online. We view privacy and security as fundamental design requirements in our technologies and services and core to our business practices and operations. We collect and index personal and non-personal information from openly available sources on the web, including forums, review sites, social networks, commerce sites, message boards, and other sites where individuals post information about themselves.
This Privacy Statement applies to all websites and domains maintained by Rapleaf, including rapleaf.com, blog.rapleaf.com, and www.rapleaf.com.
Who Should Read This Statement
The following privacy statement addresses potential questions, concerns, and/or interests of three different types of people or groups:
1. Data Subjects: People with Rapleaf profiles.
2. Members: People who have signed-up with Rapleaf to manage their online reputations and privacy.
3. Customers: Organizations who take advantage of Rapleaf’s services to learn more about their users or consumers.
A “data subject” is any person with a profile in Rapleaf’s database. Profiles are created when a member queries his or her own information, or a business customer provides Rapleaf with an email address.
Our “members” are people who have registered with us to use our innovative tools to enhance and control their online reputations and to control the profiles about themselves that we disclose to customers.
Rapleaf’s “customers” are organizations and companies seeking new ways to reach and/or learn more about their own users, subscribers, consumers, etc. We provide our customers with information on our data subjects to gain meaningful insights into their consumers and users for the purpose of improving and/or personalizing their own products and services.
Personal and Non-Personal Information
Rapleaf collects several types of personal and non-personal information either directly from you, as a member of our online services, from business customers, and/or from publicly available sources on the web. These can be described as follows:
Personal Information
We define “personal information” as information that can be used to uniquely identify you or that you may consider sensitive. Most of the information we index comes from openly available sources on the web, including forums, review sites, social networks, commerce sites, message boards, and other sites where individuals post information about themselves. We collect such information when you register and use our service as an individual member. We may also gather personal information about you from our business customers when they provide us with a list of their users’ email addresses to process.
The specific types of personal information that we collect include: email addresses, profile URLs, usernames or screen names, first and last names, addresses, and phone numbers. A profile URL is the specific web address to a person’s profile on a social networking site or commerce site, for example.
Our systems and database are structured around individual email addresses. Rapleaf’s members and business customers provide email addresses to use our products and services. We hold these email addresses in confidence and do not rent, sell, or lease these email addresses to third parties.
Non-Personal Information
Our definition of “non-personal information” is information related to you but that cannot be used to personally identify you. We obtain non-personal information about you when you provide it to us, either separately or together with your personal information, when you access our site. We may also obtain this information from other open web sites or when a business customer provides it to us.
We collect the following types of non-personal information: demographic (e.g., age, gender), psychographic (e.g., interests), and sociographic (e.g., social networking relationships, social networks used). This information also includes non-personal information that we gather as you navigate our website. We log this information when you visit and browse our website. We record details such as browser types, domains, statistics of your visit including page views, and time spent on the website. We use this information to improve our services for you and to our customers.
We do not knowingly collect information about your religion, finance, health, or sexual preference, nor do we knowingly collect information about children. We view these types of information as sensitive and understand they require additional protections under various laws. We encourage you to take extra precautions in posting sensitive personal information via openly available web sites, as this data could be used in ways you may not anticipate or desire. It is your responsibility to review web sites’ privacy policies and set the appropriate profile settings available to you before posting sensitive information online.
We use personal and non-personal information to provide our services to our members and customers as described below.
Uses of Information About Data Subjects
For people who have a profile in the Rapleaf database but who have not visited our site, your profile page is the result of having been the subject of a search initiated in the past by a Rapleaf member or business customer. We use the personal and non-personal information collected about you as a result of that search to respond to the initial search, as well as to respond to any future searches for business customers.
The value of having a Rapleaf profile is in its ability to aggregate your profiles on disparate web sites, control your information and privacy settings on these various sites, and control the information Rapleaf shares with its business customers. We encourage you to consider becoming a member. If, however, you are not interested in joining, then you can opt-out of Rapleaf. (See Your Choices and Privacy Preferences below for more information.)
Uses of Information About Members
You may choose to use our service to search your own email addresses to see what personal information is openly available about you online.
As a Rapleaf member who has completed the sign-up process, we use your personal and non-personal information to: (1) assist you in managing your online reputation; (2) communicate with you from time to time; and (3) track your use of our site.
When a customer initiates a search via Rapleaf based on your email address, we will display your membership profile. Results will include the specific personal and non-personal information you permit us to display within our system.
We use your personal information to communicate with you as a member, primarily via your registered email address. We communicate with you in accordance with your preferences and in response to your inquiries, to provide requested services, and to help you manage your account. In addition, you may choose to receive emails when you are rated by others or subscribe to our newsletter. We provide you with ways to unsubscribe from any of the above communications. (See Your Choices and Privacy Preferences below for more information.)
As a member, we may email you about our services, including special alerts, service-related announcements, offers, awards, surveys, contests, promotions, and updates. We opt our members into receiving communications from us. You are always given the option to not receive future communications from us by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the footer of any Rapleaf email.
We use non-personal information to track and monitor aggregate usage of our website and for internal analysis, quality control, and improvements to our service. We collect such information by using cookies and other standard web technologies. (See Log Files and Cookies below for more information.)
Information Uses About Customers
We collect, process, and provide personal and non-personal information to our business customers for use in enhancing their own products and services. Learning more about your interests, values, memberships, activities, and interactions online is increasingly relevant to maintaining the high-quality and personalized experience you value from the organizations, businesses, and technology providers you rely on today.
It is important to recognize that all kinds of organizations make use of online tools, sites, and resources to learn about you as an individual (i.e., user, customer, member, employee, merchant, student, voter). Our goal is to make this a cost-effective and practical process for our customers. By utilizing our pioneering and proprietary technology, these companies and organizations are now in a position to better understand their users and provide enhanced services.
Customers provide us with a list of email addresses to process. We search our database and open network sites for personal and non-personal information associated with these addresses and consolidate the results into profiles that can be used by our customers. Some examples of how our customers make use of our service include:
· Improving communications with their users by crafting more relevant or timely messaging
· Enhancing fraud prevention and authentication measures
· Modifying their website’s user interface and controls
We ensure that information provided, processed, and reported to our customers is done so in a private and secure manner, and we actively work with our customers to ensure compliance with the policies and procedures they have set for privacy and security.
Information Sharing and Disclosure
Except as described in this statement, we will not disclose your personal information outside of Rapleaf. We do not sell, rent, or lease email addresses to any outside third parties nor is it in our interests or those of our customers to see these email addresses used inappropriately to contact you.
Disclosure to Searched Sites
When we search for an email address provided by a member or business customer, our system first looks in our system to see what information we have associated with that address. For an email address not in our system, we search openly available web sites and create a profile page based on the results of those searches. As a result, web sites we search may cache or store that email address in their servers. Rapleaf assumes no responsibility or liability for the information, collection, and disclosure practices of any of these third party sites.
Disclosure to Commercial Partners
We may enter into commercial arrangements to enable partners to provide our service to their users and/or to provide you access to their products and services. As a result, we may share personal and non-personal information with these commercial partners. It is our policy to contractually limit sharing in these instances to only the information required to provide a service, provide notice, and we give you the opportunity to opt-out at any time.
Disclosure to Service Providers
We may use third party service providers for network, security, email, and hosting services for our system. Suppliers and service providers are required by contract to keep confidential the information received on behalf of Rapleaf and may not use it for any purpose other than to carry out the services they are performing for Rapleaf.
Links to Third Party Sites
We may provide links to third party websites not directly associated with Rapleaf. We do not provide these partnering sites with personal information on our members. We encourage you to review the privacy and security policies of any externally linked websites that may be accessed through our sites before you submit any personal information to them. Rapleaf assumes no responsibility or liability for the information, collection, and disclosure practices of any of these third party sites.
Disclosure Required By Law
Under certain circumstances personal information may be subject to disclosure pursuant to judicial or other government subpoenas, warrants, or orders. In the event that we are legally compelled to disclose your personal information to a third party, we will notify you with the contact information you have provided to us in advance unless doing so would violate the law or a court order.
Your Choices and Privacy Preferences
We are committed to ensuring the quality and accuracy of the personal information maintained by Rapleaf. After signing in as a member, you can access, review, and change your registration information at any time. You may change your password, username, name, and any other communication preferences within our system. You may access other information collected and processed about yourself and adjust the display settings, including subscribing or unsubscribing to any email communications from Rapleaf.
We also provide anyone the opportunity to permanently opt-out of our services. Upon receiving an opt-out request, we will send a confirmation to the email address you enter. You must respond to this email to complete the process. Click here for additional information or to opt-out an email address.
We provide our business customers with the means to access, review, update, and/or delete information they have submitted to Rapleaf. We ask our business customers to work through their Rapleaf contact to take advantage of any of these mechanisms.
If you have any questions about your choices and privacy preferences, then we invite you to contact us via email at privacy@rapleaf.com.
We do not knowingly collect personal information about children. Our systems are not designed for the use of children under the age of 13. In the event that Rapleaf learns it has collected personal information belonging to someone under age of 13, Rapleaf will delete that information from our database. If you believe that we have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at privacy@rapleaf.com.
Log Files
We gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and click stream data. We use this information to analyze trends, to administer the site, to track users’ movements around the site, to control fraud, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole.
Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that is stored on your computer when you visit our website or other websites through your computer. We use both session cookies and persistent cookies to make it easier for you to navigate our site, improve security, enhance the functionality of certain features, and improve performance.
Rapleaf uses session cookies to enhance the functionality of our services and make it easier for you to navigate our system. This cookie expires when the browser is closed.
We also create persistent cookies for each member so s/he does not have sign in every time s/he returns to our site. This cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time and can be removed by following directions provided by your Internet browser.
To detect and prevent potential abuse of our system and logins, we use persistent cookies to indicate the number of computers you use to login to Rapleaf. These cookies are also used to personalize your experience with and enhance the functionality on our site.
If you set your browser to reject cookies, then you may still use our system, however your ability to use some areas of our site may be impaired.
Rapleaf takes seriously the trust you place in us. To prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, to maintain data accuracy, and to ensure the appropriate use of information, Rapleaf uses a range of procedures to safeguard the information we collect.
While there is always some risk of a security compromise, we tightly control access to personal information through technical, physical, and administrative security measures. By contract, we require third parties with whom we share personal information to implement appropriate security measures to maintain the confidentiality of such information.
Please recognize that protecting your personal information and reputation is also your responsibility. We ask you to be responsible for safeguarding your password, secret questions and answers, and other authentication information you use to access our site. You should not disclose your authentication information to any third party and should immediately notify Rapleaf of any unauthorized use of your password. Rapleaf cannot secure personal information that you release on your own.
Despite Rapleaf’s efforts to protect your personal information, there is always some risk that an unauthorized third party may find a way around our security systems or that transmissions of your information over the Internet will be intercepted.
In the event that Rapleaf goes through a business transition such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, your personal information and non-personal information will likely be among the assets transferred. You will be notified in advance via email and prominent notice on our website of any such change in ownership or control of your personal information. We will require an acquiring company or merger agreement to uphold the material terms of this privacy statement, including honoring requests for account deletion.
This Privacy Statement was last updated July 17, 2008. A notice will be posted as part of this Privacy Statement and on our login pages for 30 days whenever this Privacy Statement is changed in a material way, highlighting both the old and new content in a way that makes the changes easy to understand.
If you have questions about this statement, please send e-mail to our privacy administrator at privacy@rapleaf.com. You can also contact us at this address if you have a question about our handling of your information:
Privacy Administrator
Rapleaf
657 Mission Street, Suite 600
San Francisco, CA 94105