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Earnest & Associates ® Data Privacy Statement

Revised and posted as of: July 25, 2018

E&A values your privacy.

This Privacy Statement of E&A LLC d/b/a Earnest and Associates (“E&A” “we” “us” or “our”) outlines how your personally identifiable information and other personal data (your “user information”) will be collected, used, and shared in connection with: i) your access to and/or use of http://www.earnestassoc.com/ and any content, features, services, or other offerings that E&A may provide in connection therewith (collectively, the “Site”) and ii) your engagement with E&A in regards to any sales solicitations, negotiation or service contract execution. This Privacy Statement also describes your choices and rights regarding the use, access and correction or deletion of your user information. By using the Site or engaging with E&A in any sales solicitation or negotiation or execution of an E&A service contract, you consent to the use of your user information in accordance with this Privacy Statement. If you are located in the EU, you will also be asked to provide clear and unequivocal affirmative consent to the collection, processing, and sharing of your user information via cookies and similar technologies. The Site is owned and operated by E&A.

Notice to EU Individuals: this Privacy Statement and its enumerated policies are intended to comply with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 (the “General Data Protection Regulation” or “GDPR”) and provide appropriate protection and care with respect to the treatment of your user information in accordance with the GDPR.

Summary

To enhance, personalize, and support your sales, provision of service or use of the Site experience, among other things, we collect, use, and share your user information. For example, we use aggregated information to develop content targeted to user interests and to generally improve the Site’s user experience. As detailed below, your user information may also be used by E&A and its partners to tailor content and ads, provide social media features (e.g., features that allow you to share content directly to your preferred social media platform), track your preferences, analyze traffic, and provide similar services and content. Also, E&A will use company contact information to facilitate its provision of services to your company for which you have engaged us to perform. E&A is committed to your privacy and will not share any user information with any third party without your consent, except as outlined in this Privacy Statement or as permitted by law. If you have any requests, comments, or questions about this Privacy Statement or your user information, please contact us in the manner provided below.

What this Privacy Statement Covers

This Privacy Statement covers the Site. While you may encounter links on the Site to other websites, such as those relating to our third party sponsors, advertisers, and other partners, please note that these websites are not covered by this Privacy Statement (unless otherwise noted on such site, which may be the case if, for example, the Site is also owned and operated by E&A).

This Privacy Statement does not apply to the activities of E&A third party sponsors, advertisers, and other partners that may collect your user information while accessing or using such third party’s services in connection with your use of our Site (e.g. social media and sharing services). The privacy and information practices of those third parties are not covered by this Privacy Statement. To learn more about such third party policies, we encourage you to read and review the privacy statements of each third party service that you may choose to use in connection with the Site. This Privacy Statement applies only to information collected by us.

This Privacy Statement covers certain information collected by E&A or you have provided to E&A or one of our vendors in association with the provision of sales and/or service activities for which you have interest in engaging E&A to perform. E&A will provide its best effort to limit collection to only that information and sharing of such information essential for us to be able to competently provide the engaged activity. In most cases this information will be limited to the collection of relevant and essential company contact information consisting of one or more of the following: company name, company website address, employee name, employee title or position, employee-company phone number, company address and/or employee e-mail address. Unless mutually deemed essential in order to provide the engaged activity, no other information, personal or otherwise, will be collected by E&A in this regard to such activities.

As a general reminder, please think carefully before you decide to put anything on the internet. For example, if you voluntarily disclose user information in chat areas or bulletin boards (e.g., comments sections), that information could be seen and used by others, and may result in unsolicited messages from others. We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information or other user information you may choose to submit in these public forums. To request removal of your personal information from our blog or community forum, please contact us as provided below. In some cases, we may not be able to remove personal information voluntarily disclosed by you in such forums for legal retention purposes or technical limitations (e.g., the data may not be searchable), in which case, we will notify you if we are unable to do so.

Gathering of Information

Section Overview: We collect user information when: i) you use the Site, ii) you reference any of our digital content or advertising media on the web, iii) we receive contact referrals from our suppliers or other third parties, iv) we purchase company contact data lists or v) needed to provide those sales or service activities you have engaged us to perform. (the “Collection Activities”) Sometimes you may submit it to us yourself, other times it may be collected automatically. You can manage and change your preferences as outlined below.

Information Collected

In any of the above referenced scenarios your user information may be collected, used, and shared in a variety of manners. As detailed below, the type of user information collected may vary based on how it was gathered, but may include, among other things, name, company name, title/position, company contact phone number and address, email address associated with you or other members of your company essential in our providing the sales or services activities for which we are engaged, and other information that you voluntarily submit (e.g., when setting up an account or submitting a registration or application on the Site, you may submit your contact information, social media account handles, and/or professional information), information automatically collected about your usage of the Site and digital media (e.g., the content that you choose to view), and information about you that our third party partners may share with us if such third party partners have previously received your consent to do so.

Voluntary Submission

E&A may collect user information that is voluntarily provided by you or with your permission. For example, we may ask you for information, such as your e-mail address, when you register for an E&A event or solicitation. You may also provide information to E&A in other contexts, including, for example, a public profile URL. You always have the option not to provide the information we request. If you choose not to provide the information we request, you can still visit most of the Site, but you may be unable to access certain options and services. When you provide information to E&A in any other manner, you agree to provide only true, accurate, current and complete information. We also supplement the data you provide to us with data from data append services such as public or social graph data in order to better serve you with content or promotions.

Cookies

A cookie is a small data file that is written to your computer’s hard drive by your web browser. A cookie file can contain and/or automatically collect information, such as a user identification code or IP address that a website will use to track the pages and number of times you have visited. The data read from these cookies may be linked to personally identifying (PII) and non-personally identifying (non-PII) information.

We and our partners use cookies and similar technologies on the Site and our digital media to personalize and optimize your browsing experience and the Site by:

  • providing you tailored content and advertisements (see below for more information),
  • enabling social media features,
  • safeguarding against spam and malware,
  • analyzing trends, traffic, and user behavior,
  • administering the website,
  • gathering demographic information about our user base as a whole,
  • tracking web and advertising analytics throughout the Site and its affiliate websites,
  • remembering your preferences and voluntarily-submitted information (e.g. custom video playlists, preferences, job title, story ratings, membership status),
  • performing location-related functionalities and analytics,
    participating in market research (e.g., website ratings), and
  • educating ourselves about how we can continue to improve the Site and its various elements.
Cookies fall into the sub-categories below:

Essential Cookies. Certain cookies are used for specific purposes that are essential to your secure use and navigation of the Site. Without them, E&A may not be able to provide core Site functions and features to you, and the Site would not operate as well as you or E&A would like. These cookies collect and use information such as your server preferences, single-session data and corresponding identifier, web beacons and log files (detailed below), and other credential-related information. For EU individuals, essential cookies also help inform E&A whether you require, or have already been served, an affirmative consent request in connection with the GDPR. Essential cookies include analytics cookies, which provide us data that allows E&A to better understand its users and improve the Site based on what we have learned from that data.

Preference Cookies. Other cookies are used to collect and process information about your preferences and similar choices in connection with the Site in order to optimize your browsing experience (e.g., various local preference settings; which geographically-customized version of the Site and related content you may prefer). Preference cookies include social media cookies, which collect information about your social media usage and other data you may have provided in connection with such usage (if you access the Site through a social media website or mobile application, you may have social media cookies). If you wish to modify or change your social media cookies, please visit and review the setting on your social media account(s).

Advertising Cookies. To help support the Site and further tailor your experience, E&A and its advertising partners (and/or their third party analytics providers) also use cookies on the Site to personalize the content and advertisements you may be shown. Such advertisements use cookies to provide you targeted advertisements that may be more consistent with your interests than non-targeted advertisements. Certain E&A advertising partners may also use cookies to monitor or track the performance of their advertising content, including native advertising content. E&A does not provide user information to advertising partners except in connection with the Site or as required by law.

If you would like to manage your cookie preferences or learn more information about this practice and your right to decline (or opt-out of) cookies placed by some or all of these companies, please contact us as described below.

We encourage you to consider keeping your cookies enabled, as if you choose to disable the receipt of cookies from our Site, you may not be able to use or benefit from certain features of the Site, particularly the features that are designed to personalize your experience. To learn more about the use of cookies in online advertising including how to manage or delete please contact us as described below.

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but generally allow users to modify their browser settings to display a warning before accepting a cookie, to accept cookies only from certain websites, and/or to refuse all cookies.

Web Beacons

We use web beacons (invisible images often referred to as pixel tags or clear GIFs) on our Site in order to recognize users, assess traffic patterns, identify preferred content and measure site engagement. We also include web beacons in our e-mail messages, including newsletters, in order to count how many e-mail messages have been opened.

E&A and its partners (including advertising partners) also use web beacons to collect various data provided by your browser while you are on our Site and elsewhere (i.e., outside of the Site) where we may be acting as a 3rd party. This data is collected in the aggregate, but may include or be associated with other non-PII or PII that users have voluntarily submitted.

Log Files

The Site’s web and ad servers log information about a user’s IP address, browser type and the current URL the user is requesting. This information is always provided by a user’s browser and automatically logged by most websites. These log files are stored in a secure location and used in our internal analysis of traffic patterns within our website.

Use of Your Information

Section Overview: Our primary goal in collecting, using, and sharing user information is to: i) enhance your experience on the Site, support the Site, and improve its features, performance, and other elements and ii) facilitate our provision of sales and sales activities for which we have been engaged by you to provide. Your user information may be used for the purposes as outlined below, otherwise, we will not use your user information without a valid legal basis to do so.

To Target Content and Advertising

To develop and provide content and advertising to you that is targeted to your interests, we use the analytics collected by the systems described above to determine which areas of our website or content you prefer based upon the frequency of your visits and engagement with those areas. We may make reasonable assumptions based on your browser provided data to target relevant content and advertising to you on our Site and elsewhere where we may be acting as a 3rd party. We may also make reasonable geographic and demographic assumptions based on your presented IP address to target relevant content and advertising.

To Provide Interactive Communications from the Site

To enhance your experience we may provide you with interactive communications, such as notifications of activity by topic or contributor to the e-mail address that you provide to us.

From time to time we may provide e-mails highlighting new features or, promotions.

To Provide Communications from Third Parties

We respect the privacy of our users and will not disclose or distribute our user list to any third party, and we require our third party, network, Site & Marketing partners to do the same.

Sharing of Information

User information obtained as a consequence of the Collection Activities may be shared with E&A as well as its business partners and vendors providing product/services for resale, hosting and other services for E&A.

We may use third parties to provide credit card processing, e-mail, network and hosting services related to our network and the Site and to assist E&A in its marketing planning and management. We will share your user information only as necessary for the third party to provide that service. These third parties are prohibited from using your user information for any other purpose. With respect to credit card processing, we do not collect, store, or process any credit card information. If you do not want your information to be shared, you can choose not to allow the transfer of your information by not using that particular service. In all cases, these companies are subject to agreements that require them to maintain the confidentiality of your information and they are prohibited from using that information for any other purpose.

In addition, if you provide any personally identifiable information via an advertiser promotion, please be aware you are directly providing your personally identifiable information to that advertiser.

From time-to-time we may provide you the opportunity to participate in surveys on our Site. If you participate, we will request certain personally identifiable information from you, such as your name and e-mail. Participation in these surveys is completely voluntary and you therefore have a choice whether or not to disclose this information.
We may use a third party service provider to conduct these surveys; that company will be prohibited from using our users’ personally identifiable information for any other purpose. We will not share the personally identifiable information you provide through a survey with other third parties unless we give you prior notice and choice.

The Site includes social media features, widgets and/or interactive mini-programs that run on our Site. These features are small content modules that users can embed on sites and may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our Site, or set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our website. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.

We may offer widgets that are hosted on the Site. Use of the widgets is subject to the Site terms of use but downloading or embedding these widgets on other websites is not covered by this privacy statement.

Aggregate, Anonymous Information with Advertisers

E&A may, in order to attract and retain advertisers, use the aggregated, anonymous information that we gather (as well as information from third-party market researchers) to describe our services to partners and to assist our advertisers and sponsors to better understand our audience. We do not disclose personally identifying information about our users to these parties.

We partner with a third party ad network to either display advertising on our Site or to manage our advertising on other sites. Our ad network partner uses cookies and Web beacons to collect non-personally identifiable information about your activities on this and other Web sites to provide you targeted advertising based upon your interests.

If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you targeted ads, you may opt-out or modify your choices by advising us of such intent by contacting us as described below. Please note this does not opt you out of being served advertising. You will continue to receive generic ads.

To Provide Services You Have Engaged Us to Perform

As necessary to perform services you have engaged us under contract to perform, user information you have provided us may be shared with the necessary personnel within our organization or one of our third party technical service providers whose expertise is required to meet the expected deliverable scope of service. We will inform you in advance of service if a third party service provider is required.

If you wish to not have this information shared with the third party, you may notify us by contacting us as described below and we will either modify the contracted deliverable to avoid having to share this information or attempt to find other resolution that you find acceptable.

In the Event of Sale or Bankruptcy

The ownership of E&A may change at some point in the future. Should that occur, we want to be able to maintain a relationship with you. In the event of a sale, merger, public offering, bankruptcy or other change in control of E&A, your information may be shared with the person or business that owns or controls E&A. Opting out of receiving information from third parties will not affect our right to transfer your information to a new owner, but your choices will continue to be respected regarding the use of your information. You will be notified as described below in “How will I know if the Privacy Statement is changed.”

As Required By Law

E&A may disclose your personal information if required to do so by law such as to comply with a subpoena or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to conform to the edicts of the law, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order or legal process served on E&A or to protect and defend the rights or property of E&A.

Notice to EU Individuals: As outlined in this Privacy Statement, E&A will not process your user information without a lawful basis to do so, as such bases are defined in Article 6 of the GDPR. In general, E&A will process your user information on the legal bases of consent, contract (if you have entered into an agreement with us and such processing is a necessary part thereof), or legal obligation (as noted above). E&A may also process certain user information on the basis of the following legitimate interests, provided that such interests are not overridden by your privacy rights and interests: delivering and continuing to develop and improve the Site, learning from your behavior on the Site (e.g., analyzing traffic) to better serve you and other Site users, helping us modify or enhance the Site and its content, receiving insight as to what users do (and don’t) like about our Site or aspects thereof, and providing a stable, consistent, and secure user experience in connection with the Site.

Security

Section Overview: We care about the protection of your user information and use industry standard safeguards to do so. Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that no data transmission on the Internet is guaranteed to be 100% secure.

Your information is stored on E&A servers located in the United States. We use industry standard physical, electronic, and organizational safeguards to protect your user information against loss or theft as well as unauthorized access and disclosure to protect your privacy. We treat data as an asset that must be protected against loss and unauthorized access. We employ many different security techniques to protect such data from unauthorized access by users inside and outside the company. However, “perfect security” does not exist on the Internet. If you are concerned that your privacy may have been breached, please contact us as described below.

Privacy of Children

Section Overview: The Site is intended for people who are at least 16 years of age.

If you are less than 16 years old, please do not send any user information to us–including information such as your name, address, or e-mail address. We do not knowingly collect (nor do we wish to collect) any personally identifiable information or other user information from children under the age of 16. In the event that we learn we have collected any personal information from a child under the age of 16, we will delete that information from our database and terminate the corresponding account, if any. We encourage you to discuss the Site with your parent or guardian.

Cross-border Transfers

Section Overview: Your user information may be transferred from other countries in connection with your use of the Site. If you access or use the Site outside of the United States, your user information will be transferred to our servers in the United States.

In certain situations, E&A may be required to disclose personal data in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements. If you have an unresolved privacy or data use concern that we have not addressed satisfactorily, please contact us as described below. You may invoke binding arbitration when other dispute resolution procedures have been exhausted.

How to Contact Us

Section Overview: Please contact us if you have any questions or requests.

If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Statement or how to remove or modify your user information or related consents, please feel free to contact us by e-mail at privacy@earnestassoc.com or the following mailing address: Earnest & Associates, Attn: Customer Service – Privacy, 808 Landmark Drive, Suite 110, Glen Burnie, Maryland 21061.

How Will I Know if the Privacy Statement Is Changed?

If we make any material changes we will notify you by means of a notice on this website prior to the change becoming effective. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.