Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy is provided to you by Build A Bid, LLC, an Iowa
limited liability company (“Build-A-Bid”). The purpose of this Privacy
Policy is to provide you information about how we use and protect your
personal information.
Scope
This Privacy Policy describes how we handle your personal information for
our services on the Build-A-Bid website at www.buildabid.com (the “Site”).
This Privacy Policy applies to Build-A-Bid, its parent, affiliates and
subsidiaries, and to the Site.
Subject to the requirements of applicable law, we strive to provide a
consistent set of privacy practices throughout the global Build-A-Bid
community. By accepting the Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service in
registration you expressly consent to our collection, storage, use and
disclosure of your personal information as described in this Privacy
Policy. This Privacy Policy is effective upon acceptance for new users and
is otherwise effective on March 1st, 2007.
Collection
You can browse the Site without telling us who you are or revealing any
personal information about yourself. Once you give us your personal
information, you are not anonymous to us. If you choose to provide us with
personal information, you consent to the transfer and storage of that
information to our servers located in the United States.
We may collect and store the following personal information:
email address, physical contact information, and (depending on the
service used) sometimes financial information, such as credit card or bank
account numbers;
transactional information based on your activities on the Site
(such as bidding and content you generate or that relates to your
account);
Billing and other information you provide to use the Site;
community discussions, dispute resolution, correspondence through
the Site, and correspondence sent to us;
computer sign-on data, statistics on page views, traffic to and
from the Site, and ad data;
other information, including IP address and standard web log
information, and
supplemental information from third parties. For example, if you
incur a debt to Build-A-Bid, we will generally conduct a credit check by
obtaining additional information about you from a credit bureau, as
permitted by law. As another example, if the information you provide
cannot be verified, we may ask you to send us additional information (such
as your driver’s license, credit card statement, and/or a recent utility
bill or other information confirming your address), or to answer
additional questions online to help verify your information.
Marketing
We will not sell or rent your personal information to third parties for
their marketing purposes without your explicit consent. We may combine
your information with information we collect from other companies (such as
demographic data) to improve and personalize our services. If you do not
wish to receive marketing communications from us, indicate your preference
once you sign-in on the Site, similar account status page, or by following
the directions within the email.
Use
Our primary purpose in collecting personal information is to provide you
with a safe, smooth, efficient, and customized experience. You agree that
we may use your personal information to:
provide the services and customer support you request;
resolve disputes, collect fees, and troubleshoot problems;
prevent potentially prohibited or illegal activities, and enforce
our Terms of Service;
customize, measure, and improve our services and the Sites' content
and layout;
tell you about targeted marketing, service updates, and promotional
offers based on your communication preferences; compare information for
accuracy and verify it with third parties.
Our Disclosure of Your Information
We may disclose personal information to respond to legal requirements,
enforce our policies, respond to claims that a listing or other content
violates the rights of others, or protect anyone's rights, property, or
safety.
We may also share your personal information with:
our parent, affiliates or subsidiaries to help detect and prevent
potentially illegal acts and provide joint services (our affiliates will
market only to users who request these services.) ;
service providers under contract who help with our business
operations, such as fraud investigations, bill collection, affiliate and
rewards programs and co-branded credit cards;
other third parties to whom you explicitly ask us to send your
information or about whom you are otherwise explicitly notified and
consent to when using a specific service;
law enforcement or other governmental officials, in response to a
verified request relating to a criminal investigation or alleged illegal
activity. In such events we will disclose name, city, state, telephone
number, email address, User ID history, fraud complaints, and bidding and
listing history and whatever other information we deem relevant or may be
required by law
other resulting business entities should we merge with or be
wholly or partially acquired by business entity. Without limiting the
above, in an effort to respect your privacy and our ability to keep the
community free from bad actors, we will not otherwise disclose your
personal information to law enforcement, other government officials, or
other third parties without a subpoena, court order or substantially
similar legal procedure, except when we believe in good faith that the
disclosure of information is necessary to prevent imminent physical harm
or financial loss or to report suspected illegal activity.
Using Information from Build-A-Bid
The Site enables you to share personal and financial information in order
to complete transactions. We encourage you to disclose your privacy
practices and respect the privacy of other users. We cannot guarantee the
privacy or security of your information and therefore we encourage you to
evaluate the privacy and security policies of your partner before entering
into a transaction and choosing to share your information. To help protect
your privacy, we allow only limited access to other users' contact
information in order to facilitate your transactions. When users are
involved in a transaction, they may have access to each other's name, User
ID, email address, and other contact information.
As you per the Terms of Service, you agree to use user information only
for:
Build-A-Bid transaction-related purposes that are not unsolicited
commercial messages;
using services offered through Build-A-Bid or
other purposes that a user expressly chooses.
Cookies
We use "cookies" (small files placed on your hard drive) on certain pages
of the Site to help analyze our web page flow, customize our services,
measure promotional effectiveness, and promote trust and safety.
A few important things you should know about cookies are that:
We offer certain features that are only available through the use
of cookies.
We use cookies to help identify you and maintain your signed-in
status.
Most cookies are "session cookies," meaning that they are
automatically deleted from your hard drive at the end of a session.
You are always free to decline our cookies if your browser permits,
although doing so may interfere with your use of the Site.
You may encounter cookies from third parties on certain pages of
the Site that we do not control. (For example, if you view a web page
created by another user, there may be a "cookie" placed by that web page.)
No Spam, Spyware or Spoofing
We do not tolerate spam. Make sure to set your notification preferences so
we communicate with you as you prefer. You are not licensed to add other
Build-A-Bid users, to your mail list (email or physical mail) without
their express consent. To report Build-A-Bid related spam or spoof emails
to us, please forward the email to info@buildabid.com. You may not use our
communication tools to send spam or otherwise send content that would
violate our Terms of Service. We do filter and automatically scan messages
before they are sent for viruses and other illegal or prohibited content
but do not permanently store email messages sent through these tools. If
you send an email to an email address that is not registered in our
community, we do not permanently store that email or use that email
address for any marketing purpose. We do not rent or sell these email
addresses.
Account Protection
Your password is the key to your account. Use unique numbers, letters, and
special characters and do not disclose your Build-A-Bid password to
anyone. If you do share your password or your personal information with
others, remember that you are responsible for all actions taken in the
name of your account. If you lose control of your password, you may lose
substantial control over your personal information and may be subject to
legally binding actions taken on your behalf. Therefore, if your password
has been compromised for any reason, you should immediately notify
Build-A-Bid and change your password.
You can see, review and change most of your personal information by
logging into the Site. Generally, we will not manually modify your
personal information because it is very difficult to verify your identity
remotely. You must promptly update your personal information if it changes
or is inaccurate. Upon your request, we will close your account and remove
your personal information from view as soon as reasonably possible, based
on your account activity and in accordance with applicable law. We do
retain personal information from closed accounts in order to comply with
law, prevent fraud, collect any fees owed, resolve disputes, troubleshoot
problems, assist with any investigations, enforce our Terms of Service,
and take other actions otherwise permitted by law.
Security
Your information is stored on our servers located in the United States. We
treat data as an asset that must be protected and use tools (encryption,
passwords, physical security, etc.) to protect your personal information
against unauthorized access and disclosure. However, third parties may
unlawfully intercept or access transmissions or private communications,
and other users may abuse or misuse your personal information that they
collect from the Site. Therefore, although we work very hard to protect
your privacy, we do not promise, and you should not expect, that your
personal information or private communications will always remain private.
Third Parties
Except as otherwise expressly included in this Privacy Policy, this
document addresses only the use and disclosure of information we collect
from you. If you disclose your information to others on our Site or other
sites throughout the Internet, different rules may apply to their use or
disclosure of the information you disclose to them. Since Build-A-Bid does
not control the privacy policies of third parties, you are subject to the
privacy policies of those third parties. We encourage you to ask questions
before you disclose your personal information to others.
General
We may amend this Privacy Policy at any time by posting the amended terms
on the Site. All amended terms automatically take effect 30 days after
they are initially posted on the Site.
