Privacy Policy
Privacy Policy – We Are Committed To Your Privacy
This site is owned and operated by GEAR FC. Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At GEAR FC, 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 GEAR FC gathers and tracks.
GEAR FC gathers two types of information about users:
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, to email a friend, and from participation in polls and surveys:
Information GEAR FC gathers through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites. This information allows us to better tailor our content and our advertising to readers’ needs.
Optional Voluntary Information
We offer the following free services, which require some type of voluntary submission of personal information by users:
Electronic newsletters policy (Dispatches)
We may offer a free electronic newsletter to users. GEAR FC 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.
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. GEAR FC 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.
Surveys
GEAR FC may occasionally conduct user surveys to better respond to our customers’ preferences. We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.
Product Reviews
GEAR FC may use an independent service to gather, moderate and publish customer-written reviews of products on our site. Customer review submissions are voluntary and cannot be materially altered by GEAR FC. Any customer information volunteered in the process of submitting a product review is subject to the GEAR FC Privacy Policy and also protected by the following privacy policy, which you can read here.
Children
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.
Usage tracking
GEAR FC tracks user traffic patterns throughout all of our GEAR FC 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).
GEAR FC sometimes tracks and catalogs the search terms that users enter in our Search function. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don’t like based on traffic to those areas. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.
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. GEAR FC uses cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above). Our advertising system delivers a one-time cookie to better track ad impressions and click rates as well as retarget visitors with promotional announcements. Our advertising system and our product recommendation feature may use cookies to collect information on the pages you visit on our site to provide personalized recommendations.
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.
Privacy Policy Use
How the information you gather is used if relevant.
Use of Information
GEAR FC uses any information given by our users to enhance their experience in our site, 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 provide in order to send out electronic newsletters and to enable users to participate in polls, surveys, message boards, and forums. 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. GEAR FC never shares newsletter mailing lists with any third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or partners.
We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don’t like based on traffic to those areas. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. We track search terms entered in Search function as one of many measures of what interests our users.
Sharing of the Information
GEAR FC uses the above-described information to tailor our content to suit your needs. 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
GEAR FC 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 and alerts.
Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas.