Information We Collect
We collect personal information from you primarily to provide you with an efficient and customized experience while using our services. This allows us to provide you with services and features that will most likely meet your needs, and to customize our service by making the user experience easier and faster.
We automatically track certain information about you based upon your use of the Site. This information is used to do internal research on users’ demographics, interests, and behavior. Collecting this information allows us to better understand and serve our users. This information may include the uniform resource locator (URL) that you just came from (irrespective of whether the location is on the Site or not), which URL you next go to, what browser you are using, and your Internet Protocol (IP) address.
VOC does not sell or otherwise share personally identifiable information with third parties without your consent except in the following instances:
i. unless required by applicable law or pursuant to a court or similar order;
ii. as deemed necessary, in VOC’s discretion, to protect the legal rights or the property of VOC, a member or third party, or to prevent personal injury; and/or
iii. in the event VOC’s Website is required to transfer personally identifiable information to a third party in the event of a sale, merger, assignment, joint venture or other transfer or disposition of a portion or all of the assets or stock of VOC or its affiliated entities (including, without limitation, in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings).
In addition, VOC reserves the right to allow access to its systems to third parties providing necessary technical services when such access is required to provide those services. VOC also reserves the right to provide your personally identifiable information to third parties who provide services on behalf of VOC, provided that such third parties are bound by VOC’s Privacy Policy. Please note, however, that VOC reserves the right to share any personally identifiable or other information about you which you provide to (or which is gathered by) VOC’s Website with any or all of its subsidiaries and affiliates. This information you provided (or which is gathered) as previously described will also be accessible by any web sites of any VOC subsidiary or affiliate.
If you send us personal correspondence such as e-mails, letters, or if other users or third parties send us correspondence about your activities or postings on the Site, we may collect such information into a file specific to you.
Our Use of Your Information
Personally identifiable information about you is used to create aggregated portraits of the VOC’s Website’s audience, portraits which present anonymous statistical demographic information but no personal identifiable information. The aggregated data collected is to improve our marketing and promotional efforts, to statistically analyze site usage, to improve our content and product offerings and to customize our site’s content, layout, and services. We believe these uses allow us to improve our VOC’s Website and better tailor it to meet our users’ needs.
We may use your information to deliver personalized information, e.g. targeted to your interests. Examples of such information may include new services, promotions, and marketing materials. We may use your e-mail address, your mailing address, and/or phone number to contact you regarding administrative notices, new product offerings, and communications relevant to your use of the Site.
We use information we maintain about you together along with your activities on the Site to resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems and enforce the Terms of Service. We may use information about you to facilitate people’s searches which enable other users to locate you. Such searches will only be enabled when you give your express consent to this in the registration form.
We may supplement the information that you provide us with information received from third parties.
Our Disclosure of Your Information
You hereby acknowledge that we may be required to disclose information collected to various government agencies or competent regulatory authorities, and that we may otherwise be compelled to make such disclosure by law or by an order of Court. Furthermore, you authorize us to release appropriate information to law enforcement officials when we, in our sole and absolute discretion, believe it necessary or appropriate in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, piracy, or other unlawful activity.
Our general policy is that we do not sell or rent personally identifiable information about you to any third party. The following describes some ways that personally identifiable information may be disclosed:
Marketing and Promotional
We do aggregate personally identifiable information and disclose such information in aggregate for marketing and promotional purposes. We do not however disclose information that could be used to personally identify you. As such, certain information. e.g. passwords, bank account information, etc., are not disclosed at all.
Co-Branded Services
We may from time to time, partner with a company to provide co-branded services. If you wish to use those services, we may provide some of your personally identifiable information to that other company. You can avoid these disclosures by choosing not to use those companies’ services. We do not control the privacy practices of these other companies and you should evaluate their practices before using their services.
Legal Requests
As stated above, we may be compelled by law, by an order of Court or by regulatory authorities and law enforcement agencies to disclose your personally identifiable information. Therefore, intellectual property rights owners, local, state, federal, and international law enforcement can request and may receive your personally identifiable information in such circumstances.
Public Forums/Chat Rooms/Bulletin Boards
Any information you disclose in these public forum areas becomes public information and is immediately accessible on VOC’s Website, so it is important that you exercise discretion and appropriate caution when deciding to reveal personal information in these areas. VOC may utilize the content of these public forums for promotional activities, enhancing editorial, advertising and similar activities.
Surveys and Polls
Surveys ask for opinions on various issues and very often these surveys and polls are sponsored or associated with VOC advertisers and partners. There are times we request demographic information (for example age, gender, postcode/zip codes). Most information obtained through surveys and polls is aggregated and used internally or shared with advertisers and partners only in the aggregated form. In the event personal identifiable information is requested as part of the surveys or polls about any of the VOC’s Website Users, such personal identifiable information is never provided to third parties without your consent. In this instance you may expressly choose to receive information from a sponsor/advertiser in which case your information is provide to that sponsor/advertiser only. Some survey answers may be added to your profile as, so we can better provide you with content, ads and offers that are most appropriate for you.
Online Applications/Widgets/Tools
The content on VOC’s Website’s applications/widgets/tools is presented in summary form, is general in nature, and is provided for informational purposes only. The content is not intended in any way to be a substitute for professional advice. Always seek the advice of your subject matter experts or other qualified providers with any questions you may have regarding any conditions related to your situations. Neither the content nor any other service offered by or through our online applications/widgets/tools is intended to be relied on for diagnosis or treatment. Never disregard advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on VOC’s Website.
Any opinions expressed on the applications/widgets/tools are the opinions of the authors. VOC does not assume any liability for the contents of any material provided by applications/widgets/tools available on VOC’s Website. Reliance on any information provided by our applications/widgets/tools, or other visitors to them is solely at your own risk. VOC assumes no liability or responsibility for damage or injury to persons or property arising from any use of any product, information, idea, or instruction contained in the materials provided to you. VOC reserves the right to change or discontinue at any time any aspect or feature of this application/widget/tools.
Information Collected by VOC’s Website through IP Address and Cookies
Your IP address is a number that is assigned by the ISP (Internet Service Provider) to your computer to identify its location. We use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our website and to administer our website. We also sometimes use IP addresses to communicate with Members and possibly ban those Members who are not complying with our Terms and Conditions.
VOC’s Website uses a feature of your Internet Web browser called a cookie to assign a unique identification to your computer. Cookies are files that your Web browser places on your computer’s hard drive. These cookies are used to tell us whether you have visited VOC’s Website before and to help us determine if you came to from a particular Internet link. This information is then used to improve the Site and our service. VOC’s Website does not use cookies to retrieve personal information from your computer unless your browser is set to allow such retrieval.
Other Information Collectors
Except as otherwise provided, this Policy only addresses the use and disclosure of information that we collect from you. To the extent that you disclose your information to other parties, or other sites throughout the Internet, different rules and policies will apply to their use of personal information you disclose to them, and you will therefore be subject to them. We do not control the activities nor the privacy policies of third parties. We therefore encourage you to make full inquiries with those third parties about their privacy policies before you disclose your personal information to them.
Links. The Site may include links to other web sites (the “Linked Sites”) such as to our partners and advertisers. VOC will not share personally identifiable information about Users with the operators of such Linked Sites but may provide aggregate information regarding Users to such operators. VOC does not control the Linked Sites and is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of the Linked Sites.
VOC shall not in any way be liable or to you or to any third party for any loss or damage whatsoever and howsoever caused, which may arise in connection with the activities and privacy practices of the above mentioned third parties or operators of the Linked Sites, as well as the content of any third-party sites, including the Linked Sites.
Security
VOC uses industry standard security enhanced systems in order to prevent third party access to your User information. Although we employ efforts to maintain the privacy of your User information, we cannot guarantee that your User information will not be intercepted by a third party’s illegal efforts to intercept it.
We also have put in place privacy protection control systems designed to ensure that your personal data remains safe and private. Each and every VOC employee must abide by VOC’s privacy and confidentiality policies. Only authorized VOC employees are permitted to have access to your personal information and such access is limited by need. In addition, any company with which we contract to be our agent in conducting our business is required to adhere to confidentiality agreements to ensure that your information remains safe and secure. All VOC employees are required to acknowledge that they understand and will comply with this Privacy Policy. Employees who violate our privacy policies are subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination. We strongly encourage our content, commerce and advertising partners to post clearly their own privacy policies and to have privacy control systems in place to protect your personal information. However, we cannot and do not control the activities of our business partners. As such, be sure to review their privacy policies and contact them directly if you have any questions.
Recommendations
Recommendations are generated solely based on the end-user and/or client’s rating preferences and the preferences of other end-users and/or clients, hence are not generated by us or any of our advertisers.
Incorporation by Reference
This Privacy Policy is incorporated by reference into the VOC’s Website Terms of Service.
Modifications
VOC may update or amend this Policy from time to time. Such amendments and updates will be posted on this page. Please read this page regularly to keep yourself informed of our Privacy Policy and practices.
Contact Information
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or anything else about VOC’s Website, you can contact us here.