Overview

USA.NET®, Inc., the Global eMessaging Service Provider®, offers customers a complete suite of reliable, highly available, secure and scalable outsourced eMessaging solutions to individuals and enterprises of all sizes. By virtue of operating one of the largest hosted eMessaging infrastructures in the world, online privacy is something we take very seriously. This privacy policy is designed to inform our customers and visitors to our website how we collect and use the personal information you elect to provide to us. Further, our website users from Europe should note that USA.NET is certified on the Safe Harbor List and abides by the principles set forth in the Safe Harbor framework as mandated by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal data from the European Union. Information on the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework is found at http://export.gov/safeharbor/.

If you are a visitor to our website and you choose to register for our services or provide us with personal information, you authorize us to use such information as set forth in this privacy policy.

USA.NET collects only the information necessary to serve our customers

When you visit our website, you may provide us with two general types of information - personal information that you consciously choose to disclose to us on an individual basis, and website use information that we collect on an aggregate basis as visitors browse our website. You may also provide us with the personal information required for us to provide the services that you purchase from us, however we only request the personal information necessary to establish and service our customers' email accounts. This may include, depending on the service purchased:

  • Full name
  • Company name
  • Mailing address
  • Phone number
  • Password
  • Credit card account information for billing purposes

We may also collect information such as gender, age, occupation and income. This information is used in the aggregate only and not on an individual basis, solely to determine the demographic statistics of those using our website or our services.

You may also choose to provide us with a resume in response to available employment opportunities that we post on our web site. We only use the information included on your resume to evaluate you as a candidate for employment.

From time to time, we may use the personal information that you provide to us to notify you about important changes to our web site, our services or special offers that we think you will appreciate. If we co-sponsor a special offer with another company and if you choose to provide personal information relative to the offer, then the information you provide may be used by both us and the co-sponsor. If you do not want to receive emails with this type of content, you may opt out by notifying us at privacypolicy@usa.net or by clicking on the opt out link within the body of the email message.

Visitors to our web site are not required to register or purchase our services in order to use our web site.

Use of cookies

A cookie is a small text document that a web server can store temporarily with your web browser. Each time you visit a web site, that web site's server asks your computer's browser for permission to store a cookie on your hard drive in an area specifically designated for cookies. Cookies are useful for having your computer remember specific information from a particular web site's server to be reloaded the next time you surf that server's web site. Cookies help us gather feedback on our web site to better serve our customers.

A cookie file is not a secret way for a web server to gain access to personal information about you or your computer. Each cookie is marked with information about its destination web site server - your computer will not send cookies to any other web site server. You may elect to be notified each time a web site's server asks permission to store a cookie by amending certain settings in your web browser so that you have the ability to refuse a cookie when it is being served.

Our use of cookies is limited to the following:

  • To learn more about how our visitors use our web site by analyzing usage patterns in the aggregate. We never use information collected from cookies to profile individual visitor behavior.
  • To collect information about how advertisements prompt visits to our web site. In cases where a visitor views an advertisement which leads to our web site, and subsequently fills out our visitor profile requesting information about our services, we combine information about that advertisement collected from cookies with the visitor profile in order to gauge the effectiveness of various advertising campaigns.
  • To keep track of the services you purchase from us and to maintain a list of purchases in your shopping cart.

We may require that you accept cookies in order to access certain of our services or features available through our services. We do not however, require you to accept cookies while visiting our web site. If you set your browser to refuse all cookies, you can still enjoy complete access to all areas of our web site.

USA.NET tracks Internet Protocol ("IP") addresses for your protection

An IP address is a number that is assigned to your computer each time you log onto the Internet. If you purchase our services, the email messages that you send through our services typically contain your IP address in the header information of the email message. IP addresses provide the recipient of your email message with the ability to track your IP address to your Internet service provider or the location of the computer from which you sent the email message.

Disclosure of your information

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with any unaffiliated third party, except as necessary to provide our services. We have in the past and may in the future, enter into strategic partnerships, alliances or other business arrangements with third parties in order to provide and enhance our services. Certain of these third parties may have access to your personal information; however they have committed to restrict access as necessary to provide their services to us or to you.

We have chosen a third party to process our credit card transactions in order to provide enhanced security, reliability and fraud protection mechanisms for your purchases. The credit card information that you choose to provide during your purchase is maintained in our credit card processing company's database for accounting and billing purposes. Unless expressly authorized in writing by you, we do not maintain a copy of your credit card information on our servers. Credit card account numbers you choose to authorize us to maintain in our databases are encrypted and access is restricted.

Under certain situations, we may release your personal information if required by law, or if we believe the disclosure is necessary to abide by law or to protect our web site or users of our services, or to defend our property. We will only disclose the minimum information that we are required to disclose.

USA.NET is a strong advocate of children's privacy

We believe, as a core principal, that it is of utmost importance to protect the privacy of children online. Our services are not intended to be used by, nor do we intentionally collect personal information from, children under the age of 18. We comply with all federal laws and regulations regarding the privacy of children, including the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.

USA.NET is committed to data security

We understand the increasing need and desire of our customers to secure their email messages over the Internet. In connection with the provision of our services, we are a conduit that transports information and that does not access this information other than on a random or infrequent basis as necessary for the performance of our services. Nonetheless, in order to appropriately protect the information transmitted by users via our services, and to prevent unauthorized access and maintain data security of our customer's personal information and email messages, we maintain commercially accepted physical, electronic, administrative and managerial security and enforcement procedures to safeguard against the loss, misuse, corruption and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or destruction of our customers' information or email messages, including the use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption for the transmission of credit card and personal information.

We keep the personal information, other than credit card account numbers, that you provide to us during the registration process on our servers for the period of time that your account is active and for up to one year after your account is terminated or cancelled, at which time all the information is deleted from our servers.

Updating your personal information

If you purchased our services through Net@ddress Messaging Center®, you may access and update the registration data that you provided to us when you set up your account by clicking on the Preferences link on the left side navigation bar and then clicking on Individual Profile from the list of menu items.

For all of our other services, changes to your personal information must be made through your designated administrator or postmaster.

You may also request changes to your personally identifiable information by emailing privacypolicy@usa.net.

USA.NET may make changes to this policy

We review this privacy policy at regular intervals and at least annually for compliance with internal procedures and industry standards. We reserve the right to change to this privacy policy at any time and may not notify you of such changes. If we change this privacy policy, we will post the changes on the Privacy Policy link on our web site located at www.usa.net so that you will always know what information we collect from you and how we use it. We encourage you to check our website frequently for updates.

USA.NET is here to help you

If you have other questions about our privacy policy, please send us an email at privacypolicy@usa.net. If you feel that your concern was not acknowledged or satisfactorily addressed, you may contact European Data Protection Authorities (DPAs).which will serve as an unbiased liaison to resolve your concerns. If European Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) finds USA.NET to be in violation of Safe Harbor principles we will take immediate action to remedy the deficiencies. When requested, in the context of an investigation or complaint, USA.NET will provide a current and certified self-assessment letter indicating that USA.NET’s privacy practices are in effect and that we are in compliance with the Safe Harbor privacy principles.