PRIVACY POLICY

Effective Date 01/12/2010

This site is owned and operated by The Hartman Group.

Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At The Hartman Group, we want to make your experience online, satisfying and safe.

Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel you should fully understand our policy and the terms and conditions surrounding the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses what information we gather and how we use it.

INFORMATION THE HARTMAN GROUP GATHERS AND TRACKS:

• Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions. These are voluntary submissions to receive our electronic newsletters, to participate in our message boards or forums, and from participation in polls and surveys.
• Information The Hartman Group gathers through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites. This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers' needs.  
• We use the information you provide when placing an order or downloading content only to complete that order. We do not share this information with outside parties except to the extent necessary to complete that order.
• We use return email addresses to answer the email we receive and to send the completed order. Such addresses are not shared with outside parties.
• We use a third party vendor, TailoredMail.com, to manage our online newsletter emails.
• We use a third party vendor, DisQus.com, to manage our comment community.

The Hartman Group Gathers User Information In The Following Processes:

Optional Voluntary Information

We offer the following free services, which require some type of voluntary submission of personal information by users:

Privacy Policy

1. Electronic newsletters policy (Dispatches) 

We will offer a free electronic newsletter to users. The Hartman Group gathers the email addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe. Users may remove themselves from this mailing list by following the link provided in every newsletter that points users to the subscription management page. Users can also subscribe to the newsletters at the time of registration.

2. Polling 

We may offer interactive polls to users so they can easily share their opinions with other users and see what our audience thinks about important issues. Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not identifiable to any particular user. The Hartman Group may use a system to "tag" users after they have voted, so they can vote only once on a particular question. This tag is not correlated with information about individual users.

5. Surveys 

The Hartman Group may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target our content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated demographic information in these surveys with our sponsors and partners. We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.

Children

Protecting the privacy of the very young is especially important. Consistent with the Federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), we will never knowingly request personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 without requesting parental consent. No part of our website is structured to attract anyone under 13.

Usage tracking

The Hartman Group tracks user traffic patterns throughout all of our sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. The Hartman Group does break down overall usage statistics according to a user's domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user's browser).

Cookies

We may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. But the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can't read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. The Hartman Group may use cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above). 

You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you've set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in polling, surveys and ordering.

Privacy Policy Use

USE OF INFORMATION

The Hartman Group uses any information voluntarily given by our users to enhance their experience in our network of sites, whether to provide interactive or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our users.

As stated above, we use information that users voluntarily provide in order to send out electronic newsletters and to enable users to participate in polls and surveys. We send out newsletters to subscribers on a regular schedule (depending on the newsletter), and occasionally send out special editions when we think subscribers might be particularly interested in something we are doing.

The Hartman Group nor our third party email newsletter vendor, never shares newsletter mailing lists with any other third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or partners.

When we use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. 

SHARING OF THE INFORMATION

Except what was stated above about placing an order, we will not share information about individual users with any third party, except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.

SECURITY

The Hartman Group operates secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our customers.

OPT-OUT POLICY

We give users options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices include:

• Opting not to register to receive our electronic newsletters.
• Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas, which completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable information from our users

CONSENT

By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by The Hartman Group. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.

Should you have any other questions or concerns about these privacy policies, please call us at 425-452-0818 or email the compliance officer at salt@hartmansalt.com