Askpedia Privacy Policy

Askpedia realizes that privacy is an important issue for our users. This document outlines the type of information that Askpedia (“we,” “us,”, or “Askpedia”) collects when our users use our services, and the steps that we take to safeguard your information.

Information Collected by Askpedia

Askpedia collects various pieces of information on our servers in the United States when you use our services. Some of this information collection happens with your permission and some of it happens implicitly as you use our services.

• Your User Account and User Profile

  When you create an account on Askpedia, we request personal information that includes your first name, last name, password, email address, city/zip code and country information, and gender. You can also choose to provide additional information to populate your user profile. This information includes your user image, self-introduction text, and your personal website URL.

• Your Interest and Knowledge Profiles

  When you view, ask, and answer questions on our website, we will record the questions, answers, and tags to build your interest and knowledge profile. Asking a question or viewing an answered question will add the question tags as interest tags to your profile. Answering a question will add the question tags as knowledge tags to your profile.

• Your Askpedia Session Cookie

  You must enable cookies in your web browser to utilize all of the services on Askpedia. When you visit our website, Askpedia stores a cookie in your web browser that uniquely identifies you to the Askpedia site. If you have not created an account on Askpedia, the cookie will identify you as an anonymous user. If you login using your username and password, the cookie will identify you as a specific Askpedia user on subsequent visits to the website. You may choose to disable Askpedia’s cookies, but you will not be able to use several features of our service.

• Non-Personally Identifiable Information

  When you use our website, we record and maintain a log of requests sent by your browser to our web servers. This information includes information such as the URL that was used to view our website, your PC’s Internet Protocol address, and the timestamp of the request. We also maintain a log of your actions such as asking/answering questions, viewing questions and user profiles, and conducting keyword and location searches. We may use different types of technologies to collect this information, including cookies and single-pixel GIFs.

  Advertisements of third-party advertisers may be displayed on Askpedia. If you choose to click on an advertisement or link, Askpedia may provide non-personally identifiable information to the advertiser and/or web publisher. Also, the advertiser or web publisher may use cookies or other technologies to collect information when you are visiting their web sites. The information advertisers or other third parties collect is governed by their individual privacy policies, not by Askpedia's privacy policy.

• Your Payment Information (optional)

  You can choose to store your credit card information in your user profile so that you don’t have to enter your full payment information when you add money to your account. If you conduct a credit card transaction without explicitly selecting the option to store your payment information, your credit card information will not be stored in our databases.

How we Store and Use your Information

• Private User Account Information

  We will not disclose your user account password, email address, or gender to other users, or to third parties for promotional purposes. We transmit your account password using SSL encryption. We store your password using one way encryption inside our database, which means that it is not visible to Askpedia employees.

  Askpedia uses your email address only for communications such as optional user activity alerts, resetting your password, and other service-related notices. We may share your email address and other account information with third parties who provide Askpedia with administrative services.

• Public User Information

  Your first name, last name, and location will be disclosed in your public user profile on our website, as well as your user image, self-introduction text, and personal website URL, if you choose to provide them. This information will be visible to the public, including registered Askpedia users and anonymous users that visit our website without logging in. Both the questions you ask and the answers you post are public information, and these are displayed along with your user name and location.

• Interest and Knowledge Profiles

  Your interest tags and knowledge tags will become part of an internal profile that will be used to generate question and user recommendations throughout the Askpedia website. This profile may also be used to provide other personalized Askpedia services. Your knowledge tags will be displayed in your public user profile, but your interest tags will be kept private and will not be displayed in your public user profile.

• Non-Personally Identifiable Information

  Askpedia may use non-personally identifiable information we collect to improve the quality of our services - for example, by diagnosing service or technology problems, by assessing and maintaining security, by increasing ad placements on web pages that are receiving more web traffic and presenting you with ads that we think you would be interested in seeing, or by allowing you to log in or access your profile information automatically. We may also use the information to count and recognize returning users. This information will not be made available to third parties for promotional purposes. We may periodically delete this information to minimize the history of your actions on our website.

  Askpedia may conduct research on the non-personally identifiable information collected to determine user demographics, interests, and behavior and may market the Askpedia service by sharing non-personally identifiable information with potential advertisers or partners. If it does so, Askpedia will share the non-personally identifiable information in such a way that users are not identified. For example, we may provide demographic or usage information to an advertiser so they may see how many registered users are from a specific geographic area or clicked on a certain ad in the previous month. Askpedia also may provide your non-personally identifiable information to contractors so that they can perform services for us.

• Security

  Askpedia makes significant efforts to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of the collected information. These measures may include the use of secure server technology. Your payment information involving credit cards and PayPal are transmitted using SSL encryption. If you choose to store your credit card information, it will be stored using industry standard encryption. Be aware, however, that the Internet is not 100% secure. Therefore, we cannot ensure the security of any information transmitted over the Internet, and we accept no liability for any disclosure.

  If you choose not to store your credit card information, all private payment information regarding the transaction will be deleted upon the completion of your payment.

  To increase the security of your information, do not share your passwords with anyone.

• Information Sharing with Third Parties

  Askpedia will not sell or rent any of your personal information to third parties. We may collect aggregate data on our user base, which may be shared with third parties. This information will only be disclosed in aggregate form and will not uniquely identify you to third parties.

  Askpedia utilizes PayPal to process PayPal and credit card transactions. When processing PayPal transactions, we re-direct you to the PayPal service which collects and processes your PayPal authentication information. Askpedia does not retain any PayPal user information. When processing credit card transaction, we pass your payment details using an encrypted SSL connection to PayPal services. Please see PayPal’s privacy policy for more information on their privacy practices.

• Other Sharing of Information

  Askpedia may release information when necessary to comply with the law or a court order or an investigation. Askpedia also may release information to law enforcement to protect its rights, property, or other interests, including those of its customers or users or to prevent illegal activities or violations of Askpedia's Terms of Use.

  In the event that Askpedia, in whole or in part, establishes a partnership with another company, or is acquired by or merged with another company, collected information may be transferred to the partner or the acquiring or merging company.

• Deletions/Corrections/Opt-Out

  You can review and correct your information or delete your account and profile by contacting us directly at support@askpedia.com. You can change your profile information by logging in to your profile.

• Child Protection

  Askpedia does not offer services to, or target, persons under the age of 13. In compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, any information we receive from people we believe to be children under 13 will be purged from our database.

• Links to Advertisers and Other Web Sites

  Askpedia may contain links to other web sites, including advertisers. In addition, user submissions may contain links to other web sites. Askpedia is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of web publishers, advertisers, or other web sites that may be linked to the Askpedia site.

Changes to Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to make changes to this privacy policy. Please check the effective date to determine if the privacy policy has been modified since you last reviewed it. Whenever we make significant changes, we will post advance notices on our website before we actually make the changes. If the changes result in less information privacy, we will send an email notification allowing users to opt out of the changes.

If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy, please contact us at support@askpedia.com.