Thank you for visiting www.helpme.com, provided by HelpMe, LLC (“HelpMe”). As used herein, the site and all of its content, including that of its subdomains, is referred to as the “Site”.
Your privacy is important to us. To better protect your privacy, we provide this privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) explaining our online information practices and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used at this Site. This Privacy Policy forms part of the Terms of Use, available at http://www.helpme.com/terms.html.
Introduction and Definitions
We are committed to respecting your online privacy and recognize your need for appropriate protection and management of any personally identifiable information ("Personal Information") you share with us.
As used in this Privacy Policy:
“Customer” means any person who asks or submits a question on the Site;
“Expert” means a person who answers a question on the Site; and
“Personal Information” means any information that may be used, either alone or in combination with other information, to personally identify, locate or contact an individual, including, but not limited to, a first and last name, personal profile, a home or other physical address, an email address or other similar information.
Public Information
Any information, video, image, data, text, documents, or other content posted at your direction onto the Site becomes publicly published content (“Public Information”) and will be available to all users of the Site even if such content contains Personal Information. Public Information includes, without limitation, the content of any questions or responses that you post, the signatures of usernames associated therewith, and any personal profiles describing your expertise, experiences, and qualifications. Please note that if you publicly publish your contact information, you may receive unsolicited messages from users and visitors to the Site. We encourage you to publish only information you are sure you want to be accessible to anyone, and HelpMe assumes, and shall have, no responsibility for the consequences of other people viewing or using Public Information.
Personal Information We Collect
Currently, we do not require you to provide Personal Information in order to have access to general information available on our Site. However, in order to provide you with certain services given through the Site, you must create an account (“Account”) and provide us with your email address, your full name, a password that you will use for your Account, and other specified information some of which may include Personal Information. We shall then send you an email to your email address to instruct you how to confirm your registration. In particular:
o For the seamless and accurate delivery of our question and response service, as well as for the purposes of facilitating payments to Experts via PayPal&™, HelpMe will ask you to provide us with your email address.
o Customers who make online payments will be asked for credit card information or a PayPal email address, either of which the Customer may choose to provide.
o Additional Personal Information, including the names and email addresses of third parties, may need to be provided by you in order to use our referral program. Our referral program allows you to recommend potential Experts to the Site, notify others about the Site and HelpMe, and send others copies of a question and response thread for their own convenience and use.
o If you wish to be registered as an Expert, you may be asked to provide us with your full name, contact address, telephone number, professional license and certification details, as well as other payment-related information.
o Your cell phone number and the name of your cell phone company will need to be provided to us if you subscribe to our text messaging service, whereby responses to your questions are sent in the form of a text message to your cell phone.
HelpMe may receive other data about you from third parties and/or from your web browser whose settings may disclose your IP address, browser type and other information related to your internet usage. Such data may be combined by us with the Personal Information that you provide.
The Way We Use Personal Information
If you submit Personal Information to us through the Site, then we will use your Personal Information to improve our services to you, to contact you and to identify and authenticate your access to the Site’s services that you are authorized to access. Additionally, we may transfer and disclose your Personal Information to third-party service providers for the purposes of payment processing, fraud prevention, and customer service. You hereby acknowledge, and consent to, the possibility that some Personal Information may be transferred to other countries around the world, some of which may have differing privacy and data protection laws from those in force in your country.
Because HelpMe publishes testimonials of our service on the Site, we will obtain your consent in advance before publishing any Personal Information (if any) associated with such testimonials.
HelpMe may share Personal Information and non-personally-identifiable information with our subsidiaries, affiliated companies, joint ventures, or other businesses or persons for the purpose of processing such information on our behalf. We require that these parties agree to process such information in compliance with our Privacy Policy.
We may also use your email address to send updates, a newsletter or news regarding our services. You may choose not to receive email of this type by following the unsubscribe procedure located here.
We may disclose your Personal Information or any information you submit via the Site and its services if we have a good faith belief that disclosure of such information is helpful or reasonably necessary to (i) comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, (ii) enforce our Terms of Use, including investigations of potential violations thereof, (iii) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud or security issues, or (iv) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of HelpMe, its users, yourself or the public.
We may use Anonymous Information (as defined below) and general usage statistics or disclose them to third party service providers to improve our services and enhance your experience with the Site and its services. We may also disclose Anonymous Information (with or without compensation) to third parties, including without limitation advertising partners, for purposes of targeted advertisements and demographic studies. Such advertising servers may use some of the tracking technologies described below.
“Anonymous Information” means information which does not enable identification of an individual user, such as aggregated information about the use of our Site and services.
Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies
Some of our Site pages utilize "cookies" and other tracking technologies, such as web beacons. A "cookie" is a small text file that may be used, for example, to collect information about Site activity. Some cookies and other technologies may serve to recall Personal Information previously indicated by a Site user. Most browsers allow you to control cookies, including whether or not to accept them and how to remove them. You may set most browsers to notify you if you receive a cookie, or you may choose to block cookies with your browser. However, cookies must be activated in order for you to log in to your Account.
Choice
You may choose whether or not to provide Personal Information to HelpMe. The notices we will provide where HelpMe collects Personal Information on the Site should help you to make this choice. If you choose not to provide the Personal Information we request, you can still visit the Site, but you may be unable to access certain options, offers, and services that involve our interaction with you.
Access/Accuracy
To the extent that you do provide us with Personal Information, HelpMe wishes to maintain accurate Personal Information. You may check your profile and add information, delete information or correct any incorrect information we have. You may also send us a request to remove your Personal Information from the Site, and we will use commercially reasonable efforts to implement your request. Please note, however, that we may maintain deleted or modified data for a reasonable period of time for backup purposes or to comply with legal rules and obligations.
Data Security
HelpMe utilizes industry-standard security procedures and practices to ensure your Personal Information is kept safe from unauthorized access or use. We also take reasonable precautions to protect your Personal Information from loss or destruction. To this end, we employ physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards and our datacenter(s) is/are secured with both network- and application-level firewalls. In addition, all Personal Information sent to us is transmitted by us in an encrypted format and hashed by us when stored.
Please be aware, however, that because no computer network or system connected to the Internet is 100% secure, the measures taken and checks put in place by HelpMe cannot guarantee the security of your Personal Information.
Links to Other Sites
Our Site may contain links to other sites. Other sites may also reference or link to our Site. We are not responsible for the privacy or security practices or the content of such other sites.
Children's Privacy
The Site is not structured to attract children under the age of 18 and is intended for adult use only. Accordingly, we do not intend to collect Personal Information from anyone we know to be under 18 years of age, and we reserve the right to delete and remove any Personal Information belonging to persons we believe to be under the age of 18.
In the Event of Merger, Sale, or Bankruptcy
In the event that HelpMe is acquired by or merged with, or sells its business assets to, a third party entity, we reserve the right to transfer or assign the information we have collected from our users as part of such merger, acquisition, sale, or other change of control. In the unlikely event of our bankruptcy, insolvency, reorganization, receivership, or assignment for the benefit of creditors, or the application of laws or equitable principles affecting creditors' rights generally, we may not be able to control how your Personal Information is treated, transferred, or used. In any of the circumstances described in this paragraph, the information will be subject to the privacy policy of the purchaser or assignee.
Commitment and Contact
We are committed to protecting your privacy. Protecting your privacy online is an evolving area, and HelpMe's Sites are constantly evolving to meet these demands. If you have any comments or questions regarding our Privacy Policy, please contact us at support@helpme.com. While we cannot guarantee privacy perfection, we will address any issue to the best of our abilities as soon as possible.
If you have any questions or suggestions regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us by mail at HelpMe, LLC, 237 West 35th, Suite 1101, New York, NY 10001, or click here.
Consent and Modification
By using this Site, you consent to the terms of our Privacy Policy and to HelpMe's processing of Personal Information for the purposes given above. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, please do not use our Site. We reserve the right, at our discretion, and without notice to you, to change this Privacy Policy at any time, which change will be effective 30 days following posting of the revised Privacy Policy on the Site. Your continued use of our Site 10 days following such posting means you accept to be bound by those changes.
Your California Privacy Rights
California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits customers of HelpMe who are California residents to request certain information regarding its disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an e-mail to support@helpme.com.
Please note that we are only required to respond to one request per customer each year.
Last modified: September 25, 2012