Travelotica.com's Privacy Policy

Effective Date: March 28, 2006

The policy below is applicable to Travelotica.com website (the “Service”) and to Travelotica, LLC ("Travelotica") in general.

1. Introduction

The following discloses our privacy policy for this web site: Travelotica.com. Your privacy on the internet is important to us. As part of the operations of the Service, we gather certain types of information about the Service's users. This Privacy Policy (the “Privacy Policy”) explains the types of information we gather, what we do with it and how you may correct or change information that the Service collect. Travelotica.com has established this Online Privacy Policy so that you can understand the care with which we intend to treat your personally identifiable information ("Personal Information") you share with us.

Personal Information means any information that may be used to identify an individual, including, but not limited to, a first and last name, a home or other physical address and an email address or other contact information, whether at work or at home.

We take your privacy concerns seriously and we strive to earn and keep your trust. Online Privacy is a constantly evolving landscape and Travelotica.com plans to take all reasonable efforts to maintain up to date and effective online privacy standards and practices. We have linked every page of our web site to this page for your convenience. Please do not hesitate to contact us with your questions and concerns, you may either e-mail us at privacy@travelotica.com or other methods of contact are provided below.

2. Our Promise To You

We do not share your personal information, including your e-mail address, with other parties. We hate spam as much as you do, so we won't give your information to anyone.

3. Information We Collect

Travelotica.com has contracted with a third-party service provider to help track and analyze usage and volume statistics on this site. The third-party service provider does not collect personal information from site visitors, only general summaries of site activities. This information is used only to improve the site’s quality. This third-party service uses cookies and other tracking technologies (as explained below), neither of which contain personally identifiable information, to help in tracking and analyzing site usage information.

3.1 Cookies

Some of our Web pages utilize "cookies" and other tracking technologies. A "cookie" is a small text file that may be used, for example, to collect information about Web site activity. We use cookies for various purposes, including:

to control ad delivery (for example, to limit the number of pop-up ads you see)
to indicate your subscription status (to check whether or not you are signed in as a subscriber)
to customize and enhance your experience

We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. For the session ID cookie, once you close the browser, the cookie simply terminates. A persistent cookie is a small text file stored on your hard drive for an extended period of time. Persistent cookies can be removed by following the Web browser help file directions.

A cookie may contain information that allows us to track your path through our Web site and to determine whether you have visited us before. However, unless you register with us, it contains no personally identifiable information that would allow us to identify you. Cookies cannot be used to read data off of your hard drive, and cannot retrieve information from any other cookies created by other Web sites. We use cookies in this manner to help us understand how visitors use our site, and to help us to improve our site. Most browsers allow you to control cookies, including whether or not to accept them and how to remove them.

Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but if you prefer, you can edit your browser options to block them in the future. If you reject the cookie, you may still use our website. The only drawback to this is that you will be limited in some areas of our website. Persistent cookies enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our website. Since cookies don't provide us with any information from which we can identify you, we suggest you allow us to place one on your computer.

3.2 Advertising

We use outside ad companies to display ads on our site. Ads may contain cookies, and appear to be coming from our site, but in reality they are coming from our partners who are serving ads on our site. Here is a list of advertising networks with whom we have relationships:

Google.com

These companies may use aggregated statistics about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about travel-related goods and services that you may be interested in. The information they collect does not include your personally identifiable information. The third-party advertising companies may also employ technology that is used to measure the effectiveness of ads. This is primarily accomplished through the use of a Web beacon (a single-pixel GIF), which is placed on our site to collect anonymous information. They may use this anonymous information about your visits to this and other sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of potential interest to you. No personally identifiable information is collected during this process. The information is anonymous and does not link online actions to an identifiable person. If you would like more information and want to explore the option of not having this information collected by third-party advertisers, click here.

3.3 Other Tracking Technologies

Tracking technologies may record information such as Internet domain and host names; Internet protocol (IP) addresses; browser software and operating system types; clickstream patterns; and dates and times that our site is accessed.

We use IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the website, track users' movements, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information. Your IP address may vary each time you visit, or it may be the same, depending on whether you access our site through an always-on type of Internet connection (e.g., cable modem or DSL), or through a dial-up connection (e.g., AOL or Earthlink). Either way, it would be extremely difficult for us to identify you through your IP address, and we make no attempt to do so. If you reached our site by clicking on a link or advertisement on another site, then we also log that information. This helps us to to understand the interests of our users. All of this information is collected and used only in the aggregate; that is, it is entered into our database, where we can use it to generate overall reports on our visitors, but not reports about individual visitors.

Our use of cookies and other tracking technologies allows us to improve our Web site and your Web experience. We may also analyze information that does not contain Personal Information for trends and statistics.

3.4 Unregistered Users

We encourage you to register with us in order to take advantage of Travelotica.com's many personalization features. However, you may choose not to register and take advantage of any feature of our site where registration is not required.

If you do not register, then the information we collect from you is limited, as outlined by the cookies and other tracking technologies information above.

3.5 Registered users

If you choose to register with us, you'll be able to add content to our site. For example, you may post your own reviews, photographs and travel experiences and participate in our discussion forums. In addition, you will benefit from the ability to personalize your Travelotica.com site experience. The benefits of registering will increase over time as we get to know you better and introduce new features. We encourage you to register so that you can experience everything that Travelotica.com has to offer!

If you register with us, we will collect personal information from you in addition to the non-personal information described above. That personal information may include your name, email address, mailing address, telephone number, travel preferences, user name and password. The information we collect may vary, but we only collect the information that you manually enter into our forms. We may store all or some of that information in a cookie file on your hard drive, so that our system will recognize you each time you visit our site. In that way, we can save your preferences from visit to visit and present you with a customized Web site, without requiring you to log into our site every time you visit.

To improve services and enhance personalization, we may periodically obtain information about you from other independent third-party sources and add it to your registration information. Additionally, authorized Travelotica.com personnel may update your registration information to accurately reflect any new information included in communications received from you.

3.6 Your Choice

You may choose whether or not to provide Personal Information to Travelotica.com. If you choose not to provide the Personal Information we request, you can still visit most of Travelotica.com's Web sites, but you may be unable to access certain options, offers, and services that involve our interaction with you.

4. How we use the personal information we collect.

Again, we do not sell, rent or trade any Personal Information you provide when using Travelotica.com. Travelotica.com is the sole owner of the information collected on this site. We will not sell or rent this information to others in ways that differ from what is disclosed in this statement.

We use the personal information we collect to help both of us! As we mentioned above, registering with us allows you to personalize our Web site so that it is most useful to you. It also allows you to log into our site automatically each time you visit, rather than manually typing your user name and password every time. We may also use this information to periodically contact you with news or important information from Travelotica.com or to request your feedback on our site. In addition to these periodic updates, we may email you additional materials, but only if you specifically request them. These might include opt-in newsletters and other materials that you proactively request from Travelotica.com.

We may also use certain information that you provide in order to present you with advertising that you may find interesting. This benefits both of us. It benefits us because advertising helps pay the bills, and we can charge our advertisers more if they know that their ads will be seen by somebody more likely to find it useful. It benefits you because you see advertising that may actually be interesting to you, rather than annoying.

Users of our site are always notified when their information is being collected by any outside parties. We do this so our users can make an informed choice as to whether or not they should proceed with services that require an outside party.

5. Communications from the Site

We do not send unsolicited e-mail. If you are receiving e-mail from us, it is because at some point you, or someone with access to your e-mail account, requested it. You can always opt out of any e-mail we send you simply by following the instructions that appear at the bottom of the e-mail message in question. If you are receiving e-mail from us in response to an inquiry you made, you can rest assured that we will use your e-mail address for no purpose other than to respond to your inquiry.

Note: Do not give out your password to anyone impersonating as a Travelotica.com employee, we will never ask for your password.

5.1 Special Offers and Updates

We send all new members a welcoming email to verify password and username. Established members will occasionally receive information on products, services, special deals, and a newsletter. Out of respect for the privacy of our users we present the option to not receive these types of communications. Please see the Choice/Opt-out sections.

5.2 Newsletters

If you have signed up for our newsletters we may use your personal information to send you notifications about special offers or to tell you about opportunities available from our partners. Although we do not want you to miss any great travel deals, you can always opt-out of any newsletter we send. Please see the Choice/Opt-out sections.

5.3 Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account. However, these communications are not promotional in nature. [Users may opt-out of these communications. Please see our Choice and Opt-out section.]

5.4 Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regards to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone, in accordance with the users wishes.

5.6 Tell-A-Friend

If a user elects to use our referral service for informing a friend about our site, we ask them for the friend’s name and email address. Travelotica.com will automatically send the friend a one-time email inviting them to visit the site. Travelotica.com stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and tracking the success of our referral program. The friend may contact Travelotica.com at cancel@travelotica.com to request the removal of this information from our database.

6. Choice/Opt-out

Our users are given the opportunity to ‘opt-out’ of having their information used for purposes not directly related to the Service at the point where we ask for information.

Users who no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications may opt-out of receiving these communications by following the instructions that appear at the bottom of the e-mail message in question or email us at unsubscribe@travelotica.com and placing the newsletter name and your username in the subject of the e-mail.

You can cancel your registration with us by e-mailing cancel@travelotica.com, and placing your email address in the subject of the e-mail. We will send you an e-mail to confirm your request. After we receive confirmation, we will remove your information from our active database, but some information may remain in our archives.

7. Sharing

7.1 Legal Disclaimer

Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may be required by law to disclose information you have provided in obtaining our travel products or services. We may also disclose information against someone who poses a threat to our interests (such as customer fraud) or whose activities could bring harm to others. In addition, it may be necessary for us to provide customer information to third parties, such as credit card companies, for the purpose of resolving disputes that arise in the normal course of business.

7.2 Aggregate Information (non-personally identifiable information)

Travelotica.com shares only aggregate information with its affiliates, advertisers and business partners. We do not share any information about specific visitors. For example, we may tell potential advertisers that we have a certain number of subscribers to our 'Travel Tips' mailing list, but we would never tell them that you personally are a subscriber.

7.3 Links

This site contains links to other sites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such Web sites. We encourage our customers to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by the Travelotica.com website.

7.4 Business Transitions

In the event Travelotica goes through a business transition, such as a merger, being acquired by another company, or selling a portion of its assets, users’ personal information will, in most instances, be part of the assets transferred. Users will be notified via email 30 days prior to a change of ownership or control of their personal information. If as a result of the business transition, the users’ personal information will be used in a manner different from that stated at the time of collection they will be given choice consistent with our Privacy Policy Updates section.

8. Security

Travelotica.com makes every effort to maintain the security of your account information, and has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information stored in our system. For example, we limit access to personal information about you to employees who we believe reasonably need to come into contact with that information. We also employ processes (such as password hashing, login auditing, and idle session termination) to protect against unauthorized access to your personal information. However, information transmitted over the internet is never 100% secure and there is no way for us to guarantee the security of your personal information.

9. Children's Privacy

This website is a general audience site, and we do not knowingly collect information about children. Should a child whom we know to be under 13 send personal information to us, we will use that information only to respond directly to that child to inform him or her that we must have parental consent before receiving his or her personal information. This Web site meets the guidelines of TRUSTe's Children's program.

Travelotica.com DOES NOT:

collect online contact information without prior parental consent or parental notification, which will include an opportunity for the parent to prevent use of the information and participation in the activity. Without prior parental consent, online information will only be used to respond directly to the child's request and will not be used for other purposes
collect personally identifiable offline contact information without prior parental consent
distribute to third parties any personally identifiable information with out prior parental consent
give the ability to publicly post or otherwise distribute personally identifiable contact information without prior parental consent
entice by the prospect of a special game, prize or other activity, to divulge more information than is needed to participate in the activity

10. Privacy Policy Updates

We reserve the right, at our discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of the Privacy Policy at any time. We encourage you to check the Privacy Policy to remain informed of any changes. If we make material changes that will affect personal information we have already collected from you, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you of the changes and to give you the opportunity to amend or cancel your registration.

You may refer to the "Effective Date" at the top of this document to determine when this Privacy Policy was last updated.

11. Contacting Us

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this Web site, you can contact:

Travelotica, LLC
Attn: Customer Service
5000 Carillon Point Suite 400
Kirkland, WA 98033
U.S.A.

E-mail: privacy@travelotica.com