08 Feb. 2012
Trade-Area Privacy Policy
This policy tells you about how we use and protect your personal information. To see a summary of this policy, and also for the receipt of additional information, please attentively read the following.You can browse our 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. You express a consent to the transmission and storage of information.
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, buying, selling, item and content you generate or that relates to your account);
- shipping, billing and other information you provide to purchase or ship an item;
- community discussions, chats, dispute resolution, correspondence through our sites, and correspondence sent to us;
- other information from your interaction with our site, services, content and advertising, including computer and connection information, statistics on page views, traffic to and from the sites, ad data, IP address and standard web log information;
- additional information we ask you to submit to authenticate yourself or if we believe you are violating site policies (for example, we may ask you to send us an ID or bill to verify your address, or to answer additional questions online to help verify your identity or ownership of an item you list);
- information from other companies;
- other supplemental information from third parties (for example, if you incur a debt to Trade-Area, we will generally conduct a credit check by obtaining additional information about you from a credit bureau, as permitted by law).
Our primary purpose in collecting personal information is to provide you with a safe, efficient deals. 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 User Agreement;
- customize, measure and improve our services, content and advertising;
- tell you about our services, targeted marketing, service updates, and promotional offers based on your communication preferences;
- compare information for accuracy, and verify it with third parties.
We may also share your personal information with:
- 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 informatio;
- 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 information relevant to the investigation, such as name, city, zip code, telephone number, email address User ID, IP address, fraud complaints, and bidding and listing history;
Your User ID is displayed throughout Trade-area (so available to the public), and is connected to all of your Trade-area activity. Other people can see your bids, purchases, items for sale, storefronts, feedback, ratings and associated comments. Notices sent to other community members about suspicious activity and policy violations on our sites refer to User IDs and specific items. So if you associate your name with your User ID, the people to whom you have revealed your name will be able to personally identify your Trade-area activities. If you access our site from a shared computer or a computer in an internet café, certain information about you, such as your User ID, activity or reminders from Trade-area, may also be visible to other individuals who use the computer after you.
Your password is the key to your account. Use unique numbers, letters and special characters, and do not disclose your Trade-area 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 Trade-area and change your password.
You can see, review and change most of your personal information by signing on to Trade-area. 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. Once you make a public posting, you may not be able to change or remove it. 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.
Your information is stored on our servers located in the Europe.
We may amend this Privacy Policy at any time by posting the amended terms on this site. All amended terms automatically take effect 30 days after they are initially posted on the site. In addition, we will notify you through the Trade-area Message Center.