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| Lead Relevance's Privacy Policy |
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| Privacy Policy for Consumers |
| Your Privacy Rights |
| Last Updated: 9/21/09 |
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Lead Relevance is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tree.com, and respects the privacy of our consumer users and has developed this Privacy Policy to demonstrate its commitment to protecting your privacy. As an individual who is a user of our websites (careerdegreesource.com; educationdegreesource.com; careereducationsource.com), or otherwise as a user of the services provided by Tree.com’s divisions and subsidiaries (including, but not limited to, LendingTree Loans; Home Loan Center, Inc.; GetSmart; LT Realty Services and HLC Escrow, Inc.)(collectively, "LendingTree") this Privacy Policy is intended to describe for you:
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We encourage you to read this Privacy Policy carefully when using our websites or services or transacting business with us. By using our websites, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with the terms of this policy, your sole remedy is to cease using the Lead Relevance services and to refrain from submitting any information to us through interaction with our website(s) or those portions of other parties' websites that are identified by us.
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This policy applies to the information that Lead Relevance receives when you interact with our website(s) It does not govern how any service provider identified on a Lead Relevance website uses the information that it receives, or how the operator of any third party website uses the information that it receives. Those third parties' use of the information that they receive is governed by their privacy policies. |
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If you have any questions about our privacy practices, please refer to the end of this Privacy Policy for information on how to contact us. |
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Tree.com also engages in real estate and real estate brokerage activities through several other divisions or subsidiaries (including RealEstate.com and iNest Realty Inc.), and maintains several real estate-related websites (including RealEstate.com, iNest.com, and Domania.com). The privacy practices and policies relating to Tree.com, Inc.’s real estate related activities are described in a separate document. For information about Tree.com, Inc.’s real estate privacy policies and practices, click here.
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| INFORMATION WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU |
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In General. We may collect personal information that can identify you such as your name and e-mail address, as well as other information that does not identify you. When you provide personal information through our websites, the information may be sent to our servers located in the United States and other countries around the world.
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 Information You Provide. We may collect and store any personal information you enter on our websites or provide to us in some other manner. This includes identifying information (such as your name, home or mailing address, e-mail address, and telephone number), information regarding your interest in educational opportunities and/or programs, online preferences, types of services needed, service providers contacted, reviews of service providers and other personal information (such as your gender ,citizenship, age, military, educational and work experience). We collect the information detailed above that you submit to us and that we determine from other sources, such as your use of certain telephone numbers, your own telephone number, and by other lawful methods.
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| Use of Cookies and Other Technologies to Automatically Collect Information. We and our authorized service providers, advertising companies, and ad networks use various technologies to collect information from your computer and about your activities on our websites (see “Information Collected by Third Parties” below). We and these companies automatically collect information from your browser when you visit our websites. This information includes your phone number, IP address (we may use this for systems administration and troubleshooting purposes) , your operating system, browser type and language, access times, the referring website, resolution of your monitor, the content of any undeleted cookies that your browser previously accepted from us or them (see "Cookies" below) and the referring website address. |
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| Cookies. When you visit our websites, we and these companies may assign your computer one or more cookies, to facilitate access to our websites, to personalize your online experience, and to record information about your visit to websites. Through the use of a cookie, we and these companies also may automatically collect information about your online activity on websites, such as the web pages you visit, the links or advertisements you click, or the other actions you conduct while on websites. Some of our advertisers and third party partners also may use cookies and other technical methods on our site in connection with the services they offer. We have no control over these cookies, and we may not have access to the information these advertisers collect. The cookies do not store any personally identifiable information about you. Most browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies. If you choose to decline cookies, please note that you may not be able to sign in or use some of the interactive features offered on our websites. |
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| Other Technologies. We may use standard Internet technology, such as web beacons and other similar technologies, to track your use on our websites. We also may include web beacons in promotional e-mail messages or newsletters to determine whether messages have been opened and acted upon. The information we obtain in this manner enables us to customize the services we offer our websites' visitors to deliver targeted advertisements and to measure the overall effectiveness of our online advertising, content, programming or other activities. |
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Information Collected by Third Parties. We may allow third-parties, including our authorized service providers, advertising companies, and ad networks, to display advertisements and other materials on our websites, and to deploy technology for our benefit, for example, to load web pages quicker. We and these companies may use tracking technologies, such as cookies, to collect information about users who view or interact with these advertisements and/or connect to our websites. Our websites do not provide any personal information to these third parties. This information allows us and these companies to deliver and gauge, among other things, the effectiveness of targeted advertisements. Some of these third-party advertising companies may be advertising networks that are members of the Network Advertising Initiative, which offers a single location to opt out of ad targeting from member companies. For a list of other third-party advertising companies we typically use, click here.
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| HOW WE USE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT |
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In general. We may use information that we collect about you to:
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| deliver the products and services that you have requested; |
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| manage your customer relationship and provide you with customer support; |
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| perform research and analysis about your use of, or interest in, our products, services, or content, or products, services or content offered by others; |
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| communicate with you by e-mail, postal mail, telephone and/or mobile devices about products or services that may be of interest to you either from us, other Tree.com companies or other third parties; |
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| develop and display content and advertising tailored to your interests on our websites and other websites; |
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| verify your eligibility and deliver prizes in connection with promotions, contests and sweepstakes; |
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| enforce our terms and conditions; |
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| manage our business and |
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| perform functions as otherwise described to you at the time of collection. |
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Job Applicants. If your personal information is submitted through our websites when applying for a position with us, the information will be used solely in connection with considering and acting upon your application. We may retain your personal information for a period of time, but only for the purpose of considering your application for current or future available positions or as required by law. This information may be shared with the other Tree.com, Inc. companies for the purpose of evaluating your qualifications for the particular position or other available positions, as well as with third-party service providers retained by us to collect, maintain and analyze candidate submissions for job postings.
Please review “Your choices about collection and use of your information” below.
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| WITH WHOM WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION |
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| We want you to understand when and with whom we may share personal or other information we have collected about you or your activities on our websites or while using our services.
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| Personal Information. We do not share your personal information with others except as indicated below or when we inform you and give you an opportunity to opt out of having your personal information shared. We may share all types of personal information with:
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| Authorized Service Providers. We may share your personal information with our authorized service providers that perform certain services on our behalf in connection with your request for information. These service providers may include educational partner(s) from whom you requested additional information and/or with the educational partner(s) whose offerings best match your request for information, marketing and customer services firms, credit card payment processors, as well as companies that support contests, sweepstakes, surveys, or other features offered through our websites, or that provide business analysis or website support. These service providers may have access to personal information needed to perform their functions but are not permitted to share or use such information for any other purpose. Those educational partners may have their own privacy policies, and you should review their policies if you have questions regarding how they use the information and personal information they receive from us about you. Such educational partners may contact you via email, telephone and/or regular mail upon receipt of your personal information from us. By submitting your personal information to us, you agree that such submission of information constitutes a purchase, an inquiry and/or an application for purposes of the Amended Telemarketing Sales Rule, 16 C.F.R. 310, et seq. and/or any state law counterparts. Even if your telephone number is listed on the Federal Trade Commission's Do-Not-Call List and/or any state do not call lists, we retain and our education partners retain the right to contact you via telephone.
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| Business Partners/Third Parties. When you express interest in products, services or promotions offered through our websites or our services, we may share your expression of interest with the businesses with which we partner to offer you those products, services, promotions, contests and/or sweepstakes, and, as applicable, their affiliates and third-party finder or marketing companies. When you elect to engage in a particular offer or program, you authorize us to provide your e-mail address and other information to those businesses. These third parties (with the exception of market research vendors we hire to learn more about our service), will not contact you directly without your consent. If you do not want us to share personal information with these entities, please let us know by contacting us via our Customer Care Department or at 1-800-411-TREE, or privacy@lendingtree.com
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| Other LendingTree and Tree.com Businesses. We may share information we collect, including personal information, with other Tree.com companies. Sharing information with Tree.com companies enables us to provide you with information about a variety of products and services that might interest you. All Tree.com companies comply with this Privacy Policy or a similar Privacy Policy. Tree.com companies also will comply with applicable privacy and security laws and, at a minimum, in any commercial e-mail they send to you, will give you the opportunity to choose not to receive such e-mail messages from that company in the future. However, in no circumstance will any Tree.com company share with other Tree.com companies any personally identifiable information that you provide to us if that information bears on your creditworthiness.
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| Special Notice to California Residents. Tree.com companies will not share any personal information about you with other Tree.com companies to the extent prohibited by applicable California law or to the extent your prior consent to share is required by applicable California law.
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| Special Notice to Vermont Residents. Tree.com companies will not share any personal information about you with other Tree.com companies to the extent prohibited by applicable Vermont law or to the extent your prior consent to share is required by applicable Vermont law. |
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Other Situations. We also may disclose your information
| In response to a subpoena or similar investigative demand, a court order or a request for cooperation from a law enforcement or other government agency; to establish or exercise our legal rights; to defend against legal claims; or as otherwise required by law. In such cases, we may raise or waive any legal objection or right available to us. |
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| When we believe disclosure is appropriate in connection with efforts to investigate, prevent or take other action regarding illegal activity, suspected fraud or other wrongdoing; to protect and defend the rights, property or safety of our company, our users, our employees or others; to comply with applicable law or cooperate with law enforcement; or to enforce our websites' terms and conditions or other agreements or policies. |
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| In connection with a substantial corporate transaction, such as the sale of our business, a divestiture, merger, consolidation, asset sale or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy. |
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| Any third parties to whom we may disclose personal information may have their own privacy policies that describe how they use and disclose personal information. Those policies will govern use, handling and disclosure of your personal information once we have shared it with those third parties as described in this Privacy Policy. If you want to learn more about their privacy practices, we encourage you to visit the websites of those third parties. These entities or their servers may be located either inside or outside the United States. |
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| Aggregated and Non-Personal Information. We may share aggregated information (i.e., information about you and other customers collectively, but not specifically identifiable to you) and other non-personal information we collect under any of the above circumstances. We may also share it with third parties, and other Tree.com companies to develop and deliver targeted advertising on our websites and on websites of third parties. We may combine non-personal information we collect with additional non-personal information collected from other sources. We also may share aggregated information with third parties, including advisors, advertisers and investors, for the purpose of conducting general business analysis. For example, we may tell our advertisers the number of visitors to our websites and the most popular features or services accessed. This information does not contain any personal information and may be used to develop website content and services that we hope you and other users will find of interest and to target content and advertising. |
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Third Party Websites. There are a number of places on Tree.com and its companies’ websites where you may click on a link to access other websites that do not operate under this Privacy Policy. For example, if you click on an advertisement or a search result on our websites, you may be taken to a website that we do not control. These third-party websites may independently solicit and collect information, including personal information, from you and, in some instances, provide us with information about your activities on those websites. We recommend that you consult the privacy statements of all third-party websites you visit by clicking on the "privacy" link typically located at the bottom of the webpage you are visiting.
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| HOW YOU CAN ACCESS YOUR INFORMATION |
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If you have submitted a personally identifiable collected information to us, you can update your personal information (or correct factual errors) by contacting our Customer Care Department or privacy@lendingtree.com for assistance. To protect your privacy and security, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections. More information about how to contact us is provided below.
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| YOUR CHOICES ABOUT COLLECTION AND USE OF YOUR INFORMATION |
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| You can choose not to provide us with certain information, but that may result in you being unable to use certain features of our websites because such information may be required in order for you to obtain products or services from us. |
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| Under our Do Not Call policy you may instruct us not to call you for marketing purposes by calling our Customer Care Department at 1-800-411-TREE. We will implement your instructions within 30 days. We have policies and procedures in place and train our employees to honor your request. Please note that we may still need to call you for servicing or other non-marketing purposes. |
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If you do not want us to send you postal mail for marketing purposes, you may remove your name from current and future mailing lists by contacting our Customer Care Department at 1-800-411-TREE.
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| HOW WE PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION |
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We take appropriate security measures (including physical, electronic and procedural measures) to help safeguard your personal information from unauthorized access and disclosure. For example, only authorized employees and authorized third-party service providers are permitted to access personal information, and they may do so only for permitted business functions. We use encryption in the transmission of your sensitive personal information between your system and ours, and we use firewalls to help prevent unauthorized persons from gaining access to your personal information.
We want you to feel confident using our websites to transact business. However, no system can be completely secure. Therefore, although we take steps to secure your information, we do not promise, and you should not expect, that your personal information, searches or other communications will always remain secure. Users should also take care with how they handle and disclose their personal information. Please refer to the Federal Trade Commission’s website for information about how to protect yourself against identity theft.
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| OTHER INFORMATION ABOUT OUR PRIVACY PRACTICES |
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| California Residents. If you are a resident of California, in addition to the rights set forth in this Privacy Policy, you have the right to request information from us regarding the manner in which we share certain categories of personal information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes. California law gives you the right to send us a request at a designated address to receive the following information: |
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the categories of information we disclosed to third parties for their direct marketing purposes during the preceding calendar year |
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the names and addresses of the third parties that received that information; and |
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if the nature of the third party’s business cannot be determined from their name, examples of the products or services marketed. |
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| We may provide this information in a standardized format that is not specific to you. The designated e-mail address for these requests is privacy@lendingtree.com. |
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| Children’s Privacy |
| Our websites are general audience sites, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. |
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| Visiting our Websites From Outside the United States |
| This Privacy Policy is intended to cover collection of information on our websites from residents of the United States as Lead Relevance services are not offered to individuals residing outside the United States. Accordingly, such individuals are not authorized to submit any information to us. In any event, this Privacy Policy may not be applicable in all countries where web sites are accessible, as security policies may vary according to the individual Internet laws in each host country. If you are visiting our websites from outside the United States, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our central database is operated. The data protection and other laws of the United States and other countries might not be as comprehensive as those in your country. Please be assured that we seek to take reasonable steps to ensure that your privacy is protected. By using our services, you understand that your information may be transferred to our facilities and those third parties with whom we share it as described in this privacy policy. |
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| No Rights of Third Parties |
| This Privacy Policy does not create rights enforceable by third parties or require disclosure of any personal information relating to users of our websites. |
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| Changes to this Privacy Policy |
| We will occasionally update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices and services. When we post changes to this Privacy Policy, we will revise the "last updated" date at the top of this Privacy Policy. If we make any material changes in the way we collect, use, and/or share personal information that may impact you, we will notify you by sending an e-mail to the e-mail address you most recently provided us in your account, profile or registration (unless we do not have such an e-mail address), and/or by prominently posting notice of the changes on our websites. We recommend that you check our websites from time to time to inform yourself of any changes in this Privacy Policy or any of our other policies. |
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| Recording of Calls |
We may, occasionally, record the calls placed to our approved Service Providers to ensure that calls are answered in a prompt and professional manner and for other quality control purposes. Whenever there is a chance that a call may be recorded, the caller hears a message advising that "this call may be recorded for quality purposes." The calls are used by us and our approved research vendors and are never made available to the public, but an anonymous transcript or summary may be shared with our approved Service Providers in an effort to help them improve their business practices.
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| How to Contact Us |
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| If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our information-handling practices, or if you would like to request information about our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes, please contact us by e-mail or postal mail as follows:
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| Privacy Officer |
| LendingTree, LLC |
| 11115 Rushmore Drive |
| Charlotte, North Carolina 28277 |
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| privacy@lendingtree.com |
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| © 2009 Tree.com, Inc. All rights reserved. |
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