Autobytel Consumer Privacy and Security Policy
Date Last Revised: January 10, 2008
Autobytel Inc. ("Autobytel") understands your
concerns with privacy and the use of your personal information. Whether you
submit a purchase request for a vehicle or simply browse through our Website,
we assure you that we are committed to protecting your personal privacy.
This privacy policy covers the sites http://www.autobytel.com,
http://www.autoweb.com, http://www.carsmart.com, http://www.car.com, http://finance.car.com and http://www.myride.com and certain other
websites with the myride.com domain, as applicable (individually, a
"Website"). We encourage you to read this Policy carefully before
providing any personal information on our Website. If you have questions or
concerns regarding this Policy, you should contact our Consumer Privacy
Advocate by e-mail at ABTPrivacy@autobytel.com.
1. Information Autobytel Collects and How We Use It
Personal information collected on our Website is used to improve the content
of our Website, customize the content or layout of our Website for individual
users, provide services requested, notify users of updates to the Website,
respond to any questions, problems or complaints, or request feedback and,
subject to the limitations set forth below, to develop new products and
services and to contact consumers for marketing purposes.
Autobytel collects email addresses of consumers who communicate with us or
through our authorized vendors via email. We also collect information about web
pages visited (See Cookies
and Web Beacons below) and other information that is provided by consumers
either on our Website or in response to email communications from us.
We also collect information provided to us by consumers in purchase requests
submitted through our Website or our authorized vendors' websites ("Purchase
Request Information"). Purchase Request Information typically
includes name, address, and phone numbers, email address and specific vehicle
information.
In addition, consumers who express a desire to apply for vehicle financing
provide us with and authorize us or third parties with which we have a business
relationship to obtain from third parties necessary financial information such
as credit reports ("Finance Information"). Finance
Information typically includes name, address, and phone numbers, email address,
age, occupation, income, social security number and other credit related data.
We do not provide financing, but instead transmit those requests to
third-party vendors for consideration.
We may also collect other types of information during registration or in
connection with your other activities on our Website, such as demographic
information and information about or contained in postings you make in forums,
blogs or any other interactive areas of our Website; your answers to surveys,
your participation in sweepstakes, contests, games and promotional offers; and
in any email request you send us for any reason (such as to request customer
service or provide us with comments or feedback).
All information provided by consumers in any of the above-listed ways or
otherwise becomes the property of Autobytel once received by us and may be used
and disclosed as permitted in this Policy.
Invite/Email-A-Friend
If you choose to use our Website to tell a friend about our Website, we will
ask you for your friend's name and email address. We will automatically send
your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the Website.
Autobytel does not store this information. We use this third party information
(email, name) for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and tracking
the success of our invite program.
Your friend may contact us at ABTPrivacy@autobytel.com
to request that we remove this information from our database.
Framed Sections of Our Website
Autobytel maintains relationships with outside service providers for some of
the products and services offered on our Website. Certain of these providers
are found on our Finance, Insurance, Warranty or other pages. The information
these providers make available to you may be presented in a "framed"
format, where the Autobytel border will surround the pages served by the
service providers, or by directly linking the user to the vendors' websites. In
either case, the provider is prominently identified. Please be aware that any
information you provide on such pages is provided directly to those providers
and is subject to their security and privacy policies. We encourage you to read
the privacy policies of these outside providers because their privacy policy
and practices may differ from ours. Our content may be displayed on or through
third-party websites through the use of inline frames or other framing
techniques. We may collect personal information in such framed pages or content
located on or provided by third-party websites. When you submit personal
information to us in this manner, it is treated as personal information under
this Policy. The collection and use of personal information by the third-party
website directly (i.e., outside of our content framed pages) is governed
separately by the privacy policy of those websites.
Browsing on our Website
If you browse through our Website without entering any personal data, we
will gather and store certain information about your visit. This information
does not identify you personally and cannot be linked back to you unless you
decide at some point to identify yourself. However, see Cookies
and Web Beacons below.
Personalization
Autobytel offers its users the advantage of personalization on our Website
by using Cookies. (See Cookies
and Web Beacons below.) Personalized services are offered in designated areas
of our Website to users who register with us. Autobytel may track consumer
interest in goods and services marketed to users who are members of our on-site
personalization areas. This information is used solely by Autobytel and its
affiliated companies for business purposes.
Special Sections of Our Website
Autobytel offers forums and blogs on its Website. Any information you
disclose in these forums and blogs is available to all Autobytel registered
members and may increase the risk of receiving "spam" or unsolicited
email from other parties. Be careful and use discretion when disclosing
information online.
Other Uses
We share your personal information with third parties in order to identify
products or services in which you may have interest, to improve our user
experience and generally to engage in market research and for other internal
business purposes. We may also aggregate your personal information with others'
information and prepare reports on Website usage, purchase history or other
factors for sale or distribution to others. Those reports are aggregated and
include no personally identifying information. In addition, personal
information provided on our Website may be linked together or merged with other
personal information we obtain about you so that we may better understand your
needs and inform you about our products or services and those of third parties
with which we have a business relationship. Also, if we receive personal
information from third parties with whom we have business relationships, we may
combine this information with the other personal information we maintain about
you. In either case, this Policy governs our use of this information. Finally,
we may use your personal information to send you communications regarding
products or services offered by us or by third parties in which we think you
may be interested unless you have declined to receive these third party
communications. See Your
Right To Decline Communications From Us and Others below.
2. Third Parties That May Receive Your Personal Information
In addition to our own internal uses of your personal information, we may
provide your personal information to non-affiliated third parties under one or
more of several circumstances:
- To provide you with services
or products that you have requested;
- To our advertiser clients
solely to assess the effectiveness of ad campaigns we have provided for
them;
- To contractors or service
providers who may provide services or perform functions on our behalf, in
which case those service providers may use your information only for the
purposes provided and not disclose it to any third party except upon our
direction;
- To enforce our rights or as
required by law or order of a court or government agency; and
- On occasion, and only as
permitted and described below under Your
Right To Decline Communications From Us and Others, to other third
parties who may wish to send you email or postal mail regarding services
or products that you may find of interest or for other reasons that are
disclosed to us and that we believe to be appropriate and consistent with
our commitment to prevent abuse of your personal information.
In addition, we may release personal information when we believe release is
appropriate to protect our users or others from fraudulent, abusive, or
unlawful use of our Website or its services; to protect our rights or property;
to enforce policies or contests, sweepstakes, promotions, or game rules; or if
we reasonably believe that an emergency involving immediate danger of death or
serious physical, economic or other harm to any person requires disclosure of
communications or justifies disclosure of records without delay.
Purchase Request Information and Finance Information
Purchase Request Information is used to transmit to third parties requests
for products or services and to contact consumers regarding vehicles.
Similarly, Finance Information is used to transmit third party requests for
vehicle financing. Typically, in either case the information is transmitted to
dealers, manufacturers, lenders or fulfillment entities, as applicable, who may
be in a position to respond to your request. As part of the request process, we
may verify the information you provide, or obtain omitted address or other
contact or demographic information, from third parties.
Occasionally, in the case of Purchase Request Information or Finance
Information, when Autobytel does not have a dealership or lender available to
assist you, we may forward your request information to a manufacturer or
another referral service for transmission to a dealer or lender. Your
submission of the request authorizes us to do this. Any Purchase Request
Information or Finance Information forwarded in this way becomes subject to the
security and privacy policies that are posted on the websites of those third
parties.
Similarly, Purchase Request or Finance Information transmitted to a dealer,
manufacturer, lender or fulfillment entity becomes the property of that dealer,
manufacturer, lender or fulfillment entity, in addition to Autobytel. The
information is used to process your request and to provide you with information
about goods and services. Any request to opt-out of future dealer, lender,
manufacturer or other third-party communications must be made directly to that
third party.
3. Your Right To Decline Communications From Us and Others
We provide our users with the ability to choose whether to receive certain
communications from us and whether to permit their information to be disclosed
to third parties for marketing or related purposes.
Users who come directly to our Website will not receive those communications
or have their information disclosed to third parties for marketing or related
purposes unless they affirmatively consent or are already receiving such
communications.
Users whose purchase, finance or other requests are submitted through
third-party websites and are referred to us will receive those marketing
communications and their information will be shared with other third parties
unless they elect to opt out of those communications and disclosures.
To opt out of a category of email from us, click on the remove link at the
bottom of the email. Alternatively, you may email Customer Service at consumercare@autobytel.com with
the word "Remove" in the subject line, and we will remove you from
all further email marketing communication within five (5) business days. You
may also opt-out at any time by contacting us at consumercare@autobytel.com.
In addition, we provide you the opportunity to indicate your preferences as
to what types of offerings of products or services you wish to receive from
third parties or – subject to the exceptions below - to opt-out of disclosures
to those third parties altogether. You may update your preferences at any time
by contacting us at consumercare@autobytel.com.
Those third parties who receive your personal information prior to your opt-out
will remain able to send you communications, subject to their privacy policies
and practices.
In each case, even if you decide not to receive offers or other product or
service information, Autobytel and its member dealers or manufacturers,
fulfillment third-parties and other automotive referral services, may use a
phone number, mailing address or email address that you have provided to
contact you regarding a request or content that you have submitted or in
connection with other administrative matters, such as operation of our Website.
Additionally, phone numbers may be used to conduct customer surveys regarding
individual experiences with Autobytel or Autobytel-accredited dealers. Phone
numbers are made available only to Autobytel, its affiliates and member
dealers, lenders or manufacturers or other referral services who receive your
request.
The submission of a purchase or financing request itself is permission for
us to submit your Purchase Request Information or Finance Information (as
applicable) to third parties to fulfill your request. If you request to opt-out
of receiving emails from us and subsequently submit a purchase or finance
request (either directly or submitted through third-party websites and are
referred to us), we will assume that you wish to reinstate your relationship
with us and we will use your information as set forth herein, unless you
subsequently request to opt-out. Each time you submit a purchase or finance
request, this process will restart.
4. Security
Autobytel understands the importance of security for our users. We follow
generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information
submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. In
particular, we use SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption technology to protect
personal data such as credit card information and finance or insurance
information during transmission, and maintain other commercially reasonable
precautions to protect information that we store or retain.
No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic
storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially
acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its
absolute security. We cannot guarantee protection of all information against
interception, misappropriation, misuse, or alteration, or that your information
may not be disclosed or accessed by accidental circumstances or by the
unauthorized acts of others. Furthermore, we have no control over the security
of other websites you might visit.
Your registration information is accessible online only through the use of a
password. To protect the confidentiality of personal information, you must keep
your password confidential and not disclose it to any other person. You are
responsible for all uses of the Website by any person using your password.
Please advise us immediately if you believe your password has been misused or
otherwise misappropriated.
We restrict access to personal information about you to our employees and
third parties who need to know that information in order to manage your account
or provide you with services or information you requested. We review our
safeguards from time to time, and strive to maintain them in a manner
consistent with applicable regulations, if any, that may be in effect from time
to time. Any of our employees who violate these policies and procedures are subject
to disciplinary action.
If you have any questions about security on our Website, you can send email
to us at consumercare@autobytel.com.
5. Children
We do not intend, and the Website is not designed, to collect personal
information from children under the age of 13. If you are under 13 years old,
you should not register with or otherwise provide personal information to our
Website.
6. Corrections or Changes to Your Personal Information
You may also make corrections and updates to your personal information by
contacting consumercare@autobytel.com.
7. Cookies and Web Beacons
Autobytel offers users the convenience of online personalization by using
Cookies. Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that are transferred to your
computer's hard drive through your website browser. When this information is
stored on your hard drive, our system is able to recognize your browser and in
turn customize web page content for you. (See Personalization
above)
Cookies cannot be used to retrieve data from your hard drive, obtain your
email address or obtain personal information about you. When a Cookie is set,
your browser will check it for length, an expiration date, and where it
originated.
We also use a third party tracking service that sets cookies on our Website
to track visits, page views and click stream behavior. The third party tracking
service reports this data to us in aggregate so we can better understand our
users and to improve our Website. This information is not tied to any
individual user. We have no access to or control over these third party
tracking utilities.
If you prefer not to accept cookies, most browsers will explain how to
disable cookies under the help portion of the toolbar or notify you when you
receive a new cookie. However, if you choose to disallow cookies on your hard
drive, our Website will not be able to provide personalization services.
Autobytel may use third party network advertising providers to serve the
advertisements on our Website. Network advertising providers are third parties
that display advertisements based on your visits to this Website and other
sites you have visited. Although the advertising providers do not have access
to the Website cookies, they may set and access their own cookies on your
computer if you choose to have cookies enabled in your browser. Cookies allow
the ad providers to show you advertisements or content in which you might be
interested. Other companies' use of their cookies is subject to their own
privacy policies, not this one. Please click here www.networkadvertising.org
in order to learn more about the information collection practices of some of
the third party ad providers we may use. Please click here http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp
in order to learn more about the "opt-out" procedures of some of the
third party ad providers we may use.
These advertising or other service providers may place "web
beacons" on our Website. A web beacon is a small, transparent image placed
at various sections of our Website or in Web-based documents or in email
messages to monitor user traffic. The web beacon records the number of
click-throughs to the page where it resides and collects users' IP addresses,
time the page was viewed, type of browser used, and existence of cookies from a
previous visit. Among other things, they help to better target advertisements
on our Website. Information collected by web beacons is used only by Autobytel,
its affiliates and authorized vendors. Web beacons may be linked to your
personal information.
8. Business Transfers and Other Transactions
Information about our users and our Website is a business asset of
Autobytel. As we continue to develop our business, we might sell or buy
websites, subsidiaries or business units. In such transactions, personal
information generally is one of the transferred business assets but remains
subject to the promises made in any pre-existing privacy policy. Also, in the
event that Autobytel or substantially all of its assets are acquired, personal
information will of course be one of the transferred assets. In addition,
personal information will be disclosed as part of any creation of a separate
business to provide our Website, or to provide other services or fulfill
products; debt financing, sale or pledge of company assets, or insolvency,
bankruptcy or receivership. We will make reasonable efforts to ensure that the
acquirer of our users' personal information respects the provisions of this
Policy, although this may not be possible in certain legal settings (such as
bankruptcy).
9. Changes or Revisions to This Policy
If we are going to use your personal information in a manner different from
that stated in this Policy at the time of collection, we will notify you via
email. You will have a choice as to whether or not to allow us to use your
information in this different manner. In addition, if we make any material
changes in our privacy practices, we will revise this Policy and update the
date displayed at the top of this Policy to reflect that the policy has been
changed. In some cases we will also email users who have opted to receive
communications from us, notifying them of the changes in our privacy practices.
10. Disclaimer
We take our commitment to protection of your privacy, as set out in this
Policy, seriously. Nevertheless, NOTHING IN THIS PRIVACY AND SECURITY POLICY IS
INTENDED TO CREATE OR PROVIDE ANY RIGHT OF ACTION FOR VIOLATION.
11. Questions or Concerns?
If you have any questions or concerns regarding privacy, security,
opting-out of email offers or understanding how your personal information is
being used, please contact our Consumer Privacy Advocate at ABTPrivacy@autobytel.com.
For any other issues, please contact our customer service department at consumercare@autobytel.com. Our
mailing address is: 18872 MacArthur Boulevard, Irvine, CA 92612-1400.
For the Autobytel Usage Terms and Disclaimers please click here.
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