CareSponsors Privacy Policy
The privacy and security of your confidential information is very important to CareSponsors,
LLC (commonly referred to as "we," "us," or "CareSponsors"). This Privacy Policy
describes what information we collect, how we use that information in providing
our products and services to you and how you may opt out of receiving product updates
and other information from us. If you have questions about this Privacy Policy,
please feel free to contact us via e-mail.
When we refer to "Contact Information" we mean your name, address, telephone number,
employment status, fax number, and an e-mail address. "Personal Non-Public Information"
refers to personally identifiable information about you and transactions in your
account, including your social security number, account numbers, any information
about your assets, accounts, transaction, and tax status.
1. What Information Does CareSponsors Collect?
In order to provide the CareSponsors Service to you, we will ask you to provide
Contact Information and Personal Non-Public Information. We will collect Personal
Non-Public Information about you on applications or other forms, your transactions
with us, correspondence between you and CareSponsors, and in some cases, from consumer
reporting agencies. We collect information about usage of our websites (for instance,
the number of visitors that click on advertisements and links displayed upon our
site) and reserve the right in the future to link such usage information to Contact
Information or Personal Non-Public Information for each customer or visitor to our
websites in order to better understand which information or services are of more
value to our customers. At times, we conduct online surveys to better understand
the needs, profiles, and experiences of our customers and visitors to our websites.
Participation in such surveys is strictly voluntary.
2. How Does CareSponsors Use This Information?
We use your information to service your accounts with us, to communicate with you
about your accounts, and to obtain your views on the quality of our services. We
may also use contact information from time to time to bring to your attention new
products and services that we are offering, and to offer to you other promotional
opportunities. If you do not wish to receive communications about new products and
services, you may elect not to receive this information by updating your Personal
Profile as described below.
3. Will CareSponsors Share My Information With Others?
CareSponsors does not, in conducting its business, sell information about its customers.
We only share your information with third parties as permitted or required by law,
always under strict controls against further disclosure. It is necessary from time
to time to share such information, for example, with outside vendors who assist
us in sending communications, GWN Securities, Putnam Investments, and other third
parties who provide services to you in connection with the CareSponsors Service.
We ask these third parties to keep your information confidential and that they not
use your information for other purposes.
We also have a limited number of financial institutions with whom we share information.
These are certain institutions who are linked to our websites in order to provide
the CareSponsors Service for you. If you open your CareSponsors Account through
one of these third party websites, most likely hosted by such entities as GWN Securities
Corporation and/or Putnam Investments, we may share your contact information and
your Personal Non-Public Information with those third parties in order to protect
you from fraud, to monitor and enhance the success of our CareSponsors program with
that third party and to provide you with new product features. Additionally, if
you open a CareSponsors Account by linking to us from a non-profit organization
website, we may share your name and e-mail address with the company. In all cases,
our agreements with third parties require them to keep your information confidential
and prohibit them from using your information for other purposes.
In addition to the above, we may disclose Contact Information and Personal Non-Public
Information to other affiliated third parties when, in our good faith judgment,
one of the following circumstances exists:
*Where necessary for security purposes, to protect against fraud or unauthorized
transactions, to resolve customer disputes or inquires, or to respond to requests
from persons who are acting in a fiduciary or representative capacity for you, or
who hold a legal or beneficial interest in your account;
*To perform necessary credit checks or collect or report on debts owed to us; or
*As required by applicable law, legal process, or our regulators.
Finally, in the event CareSponsors or substantially all of its assets are acquired,
customer information will be one of the transferred assets.
If you close your account with us, we will retain the information about you and
your account in an inactive status. We will not use Contact Information or Personal
Non-Public Information about inactive customers for any purpose other than as required
in order to carry-out our responsibilities with respect to the inactive account.
4. May I Elect Not To Receive Marketing Messages?
You may choose not to receive information about new products and services from CareSponsors
as well as other information that we provide for the educational benefit of our
customers. To do so, simply click on the appropriate section of the website to contact
us and amend your e-mail preferences to indicate that you do not wish to receive
such information. Even if you choose not to receive such information, you will continue
to receive notification concerning transaction activity in your account for tax
information and other matters relevant to your CareSponsors Account or as required
by law. Your election will remain in effect until you amend your e-mail preferences
by asking us to provide you with ongoing information.
5. How Does CareSponsors Use Cookies?
"Cookies" are elements of data that a website can send to your browser and store
on your computer. Our cookies do not collect or contain personal information about
you or compromise the confidentiality of your personal information. Our system automatically
gathers information about the areas you visit on our site and about the links you
may select from within our site to other areas of the Internet or elsewhere online.
We use such information in the aggregate to understand how our users as a group
use the services and resources provided on our sites. This way we know which areas
of our sites are favorites of our users, which areas need improvement, and what
technologies are being used so that we may continually improve our sites. We reserve
the right in the future to link such usage information to Contact Information or
Personal Non-Public Information in order to securely verify your identity, to personalize
the aspects of your experience on our websites and to better understand which information
or services are of greater value to our customers.
We may share aggregated statistical information with our partners, suppliers, and
other third parties, but we will not share any individual names, personal navigation,
or other personal information.
We may use third party advertising companies to serve ads on our behalf. These companies
may employ cookies and action tags (also known as single pixel GIFS or web beacons)
to measure advertising effectiveness. Any information that these third parties collect
via cookies and action tags is completely anonymous.
You can choose whether to accept cookies by changing the settings of your browser.
You can reset your browser to refuse all cookies, or allow your browser to show
you when a cookie is being sent. You can also erase cookies already stored on your
computer. If you choose not to accept these cookies or if you erase them, your experience
at our site and other websites may be diminished and some features may not work
as intended. For more information on working with cookies, you should consult the
user manual or help function of your specific browser and operating system software.
While you are browsing our websites, you might be directed to websites operated
by third parties. These other websites may send their own cookies to you and collect
data or solicit personal information. We do not control and are not responsible
for what third parties do on their separate websites or how they handle information
about you.
6. Maintenance of Accurate Information.
We strive to ensure that the personal information we have maintained about you is
accurate, current, and complete. We will respond to your request to correct inaccurate
information in a timely manner. If you find that your personal account information
is incomplete, inaccurate, or not current, you should update your account profile
by clicking on that link on the website, or if appropriate, contacting us via e-mail.
7. Security
CareSponsors takes the security of information very seriously and has established
security standards and procedures to prevent unauthorized access to customer information.
We use industry standard means such as physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards,
including data encryption and secure socket layer technology. We update and test
our technology regularly to maintain and improve the protection of our customers'
information. We restrict access to personal information to employees and service
providers for legitimate business purposes to assist in providing services to you.
Employees who violate our privacy policy are subject to disciplinary action.