The Internet, Privacy, and BD ADVANTAGE

The Internet contains a wealth of information, unfortunately, it may also contain personal details about you that you don't want everyone to know. For example, your real name (lots of people on the Internet use aliases, alter egos or nicknames), street address, phone number, or e-mail address. When you go online, sites you visit may be gathering information about you without your knowledge. At BD ADVANTAGE we strive to help our customers protect their privacy while using our services.

BD ADVANTAGE's Privacy Policy

BD ADVANTAGE's policy is to respect and protect the privacy of our users. This policy statement tells you how we collect information from you and how we use it. Using the Internet should be a fun experience and we want to help you make it so.

The information you provide for your personal BD ADVANTAGE account is shared among the BD ADVANTAGE sites as it is our goal to make your visits to our sites easy and enjoyable. However, be assured that BD ADVANTAGE will not disclose your personal information to third parties without your consent. BD ADVANTAGE may disclose user information in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) BD ADVANTAGE's rights or property, other BD ADVANTAGE users, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities. BD ADVANTAGE may disclose user information when we believe in good faith that the law requires it.

BD ADVANTAGE may share aggregate information about our users with advertisers, business partners, sponsors and other third parties. For example, we will say BD ADVANTAGE's audience is x percent females and y percent males. This data is used to customize BD ADVANTAGE content and advertising to deliver a better experience for our users. It will not reveal your individual identity.

There are cases where BD ADVANTAGE may ask you for personal information such as your name, email address, and birth date. BD ADVANTAGE needs to collect this information for fulfilling prizes, tracking/verifying compliance with BD ADVANTAGE policies as well as federal, state and local laws and/or for editorial and feedback solicitation purposes.

In case you change your mind or some personal information may change (such as your zip code), we will endeavor to provide a way to correct, update or remove the personal data you give us. You can do this by contacting our Customer Support organization here. 

Opting-Out

Information provided at the time of Registration or submission from a guest who is 13 years of age or over may be used for marketing and promotional purposes by BD ADVANTAGE and our affiliates or companies that have been prescreened by BD ADVANTAGE. To keep you in control of your personal information and the communications directed to you, we allow you to opt-out of the following services: sharing your information in our member directory, receiving communications from BD ADVANTAGE about new features or services, and receiving communications about offers from third-party companies that offer a product or service that we think would be of value to you. If a guest objects to such use for any reason, he/she may stop that use -- by contacting us.

Use of IP Address

An IP address is a number that's automatically assigned to your computer whenever you're surfing the Web. Web servers -- the big computers that "serve up" Web pages -- automatically identify your computer by its IP address.

BD ADVANTAGE collects IP addresses for the purposes of system administration, to report aggregate information to our advertisers, and to audit the use of our site. When guests request pages from BD ADVANTAGE sites, our servers log the guests' IP addresses. We do not normally link IP addresses to anything personally identifiable, which means that a user's session will be logged, but the user remains anonymous to us. We can and will use IP addresses to identify a user when we feel it is necessary to enforce compliance with our house rules or terms of service or to protect our service, site, customers or others.

Some services within BD ADVANTAGE, such as certain message boards, may display IP addresses along with the message poster's name and message. Please review each service prior to use and only use those that disclose information you are comfortable with sharing.

Use of Cookies

What are cookies? Cookies are pieces of information that a Web site transfers to an individual's hard drive for record-keeping purposes. Cookies make Web-surfing easier for you by saving your preferences while you're at our site. We never save passwords or credit card information in cookies. The use of cookies is an industry standard -- you'll find them at most major Web sites.

By showing how and when guests use a site, cookies help us see which areas are popular and which are not. Many improvements and updates to the site are based on such data as total number of visitors and pages viewed. This information is most easily tracked with cookies. We use the information from cookies to provide services better tailored to our users needs.

Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. You can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, note that some parts of the BD ADVANTAGE service will not function properly or may be considerably slower if you refuse cookies. For example, without cookies, you will not be able to perform various on-line functions.

You may occasionally get cookies from our advertisers. BD ADVANTAGE does not control these cookies. The use of advertising cookies sent by third-party servers is standard in the Internet industry.

Links to Other Sites

Users should be aware that when you are on BD ADVANTAGE, you could be directed to other sites that are beyond our control. There are links to other sites from BD ADVANTAGE pages that take you outside our service. For example, if you "click" on a banner advertisement or an BD ADVANTAGE search result, the "click" takes you off the BD ADVANTAGE site. This includes links from advertisers, Center sponsors and partners that may use BD ADVANTAGE's logo as part of a co-branding agreement. These other sites may send their own cookies to users, collect data or solicit personal information.

Please keep in mind that whenever you give out personal information online --- for example, via message boards or chat --- that information can be collected and used by people you don't know. While BD ADVANTAGE strives to protect its user's personal information and privacy, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you disclose online and you do so at your own risk.

BD ADVANTAGE's policy does not extend to anything that is inherent in the operation of the Internet, and therefore beyond BD ADVANTAGE's control, and is not to be applied in any manner contrary to applicable law or governmental regulation.

Security

The importance of security for all personally identifiable information associated with our guests is of utmost concern to us. We exercise great care in providing secure transmission of your information from your PC to our servers. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, BD ADVANTAGE can't ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or from our online products or services, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. When credit card information is transmitted we use industry standard, SSL (secure socket layer) encryption.

Your BD ADVANTAGE Account is password protected so that only you can access it and view the member information relevant to the account. We recommend that you do not divulge your password to anyone. BD ADVANTAGE will never ask you for your password in an unsolicited phone call or email. Ultimately, you are responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your passwords and any account information.

Remember to sign out of your BD ADVANTAGE account and close your browser window when you have finished your work. This is to ensure that others cannot access your personal information and correspondence if your computer is accessible to others or if you share a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place like a library or internet café.

Your Acceptance of These Terms

By using this site, you signify your assent to the BD ADVANTAGE Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use our sites. Your continued use of the BD ADVANTAGE sites following the posting of changes to these terms will mean you accept those changes.