Medfinds Privacy Policy
(Effective Date: 04/10/2007)Table of Contents
About the Medfinds Privacy Policy
Information Medfinds Gathers and Tracks
Medfinds Gathers User Information In The Following Processes
            Optional Voluntary Information
            Usage Tracking Information
            Cookies
Use of Information
Sharing of the Information
Security
Opt Out Policy
Access to Personally Identifiable Information
Consent to Medfinds Privacy Policy
TRUSTe license information
 
About the Medfinds Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to the Medfinds Web site, which is owned and operated by Medigrative, Inc.   Any reference to “Medfinds” or “Medfinds.com” refers to any part of the Web sites owned or controlled by Medigrative, Inc. 

The Medfinds Site contains link to partners and other third-party sites.  Once you enter another Web site not owned or controlled by Medigrative, Inc. this Privacy Policy will no longer protect you.   This includes Web sites that you navigate to via links or advertisements on the Medfinds Web site. You should always read the privacy statements of any Web site you are visiting for the first time.

While most of the information on the Medfinds Web site does not require registration to be accessed, many of the features we offer require a membership account.  If you use the Medfinds website without registering for a membership, we will only collect non-personal information that cannot be tracked to you as an individual, through the use of cookies.  We collect non-personal information through the use of cookies to calculate Web site traffic and other statistical analyses.  If you do choose to register for a membership on the Medfinds Web site, you will be required to submit personally identifiable information.

Information Medfinds Gathers and Tracks

Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions. These are voluntary submissions to create a membership account, 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 Medfinds gathers through aggregated tracking information derived mainly through using analytics tools. This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers' needs and to help our advertisers and sponsors better understand the demographics of our audience. Because Medfinds derives its revenue mainly from sponsorships and advertising, providing such aggregated demographic data is essential to keeping our service free to users. Under no circumstances does Medfinds divulge any information about an individual user to a third party.

Medfinds Gathers User Information In The Following Processes

Registration

In order to use this Web site, you must complete the registration process, including the creation of a user name (a valid email address) and password.  During registration you are required to] give contact information, such as name, address, phone number and email address. We use this information to contact you about the services on our site in which you have expressed interest, and to allow patient users on our site to contact you for services you advertise. 

You have the option to provide demographic information, such as gender, to us; we encourage you to submit this information so we can provide you a more personalized experience on our site. 
Medigrative, Inc. is the sole owner of the information collected on Medfinds.com.  Medigrative, Inc. collects personally identifiable information from our users at several different points on our Web site, outlined in detail below.

Optional Voluntary Information

We offer the following services, which require some type of voluntary submission of personal information by users:

Membership accounts.  We offer a variety of membership services to the public, to health care professionals and to professional organizations and schools. Memberships may be terminated at any time by request of the member or at the discretion of Medfinds administration.  Medfinds gathers information from these parties that is voluntarily submitted and may include personally identifiable information.  Personally identifiable information is never shared by Medfinds with third parties without prior user consent. No personal health information will be requested or stored at any time on the Medfinds site.  All transactions and interactions between patients or recipients of medical care and health care professionals listed on the Medfinds site takes place outside the jurisdiction of this Privacy Policy and all other protection offered by the policies set forth by Medfinds.

Member Forums policy.  Users of the site's Message Boards and Forums must register separately for these services (both are free of charge) in order to post messages, although they needn't register to visit the site. During registration the user is required to supply a username, password, and email address. If you use the Member Forum, Event Calendar or blogs on this Web site, you should be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of these forums, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages.  We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these forums.

Polling policy.  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. Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not identifiable to any particular user. Medfinds 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.  Medfinds may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target our content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated demographic information in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers and partners. We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.

Children policy.  We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13.

Usage Tracking Information

Medfinds tracks user traffic patterns throughout all of our sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users.   Medfinds 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).

As is true of most Web sites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files.  This information includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data. 

We use this information, which does not identify individual users, to analyze trends, to administer the site, and to track users’ movements around the site.  We do not link this automatically-collected data to personally identifiable information.

We use a third-party tracking service called Urchin that uses cookies and / or log files to track non-personally identifiable information about visitors to our site in the aggregate such as internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data to analyze trends and to administer the site.

Medfinds sometimes tracks and catalogs the search terms that users enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.

Cookies

A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user’s computer for record-keeping purposes. We do use cookies on this site. We do not link the information we store in cookies to any personally identifiable information you submit while on our site. 

We use both session ID cookies and / or persistent cookies.  We use session cookies to make it easier for you to navigate our site. A session ID cookie expires when you close you browser. A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Internet browser’s “help” file.

We may place cookies 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.  Medfinds 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.

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. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in message boards, forums, polling and surveys.

Some of our business partners (e.g., advertisers) use cookies on our site.  We have no access to or control over these cookies.

This privacy statement covers the use of cookies by Medfinds.com only and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.

Use of Information

Medfinds uses any information voluntarily given by our users to enhance their experience in our network of sites, 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 such as name and email address that users voluntarily provide in order to manage accounts, and to enable users to participate in message boards and forums. Personally-identifiable information collected during the registration process, or submitted voluntarily at any point by a user, is used to provide detailed search results for queries of our database. Medfinds operates two separate databases, a provider database and a school database, which contain and return submitted personally-identifiable information as search results.  No personal health information is ever requested by Medfinds.com, and sensitive information such as credit card numbers are not stored on Medfinds servers.

We use tracking information services provided by Urchin to determine which areas of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. 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. But we don't track which terms a particular user enters.

Medfinds creates aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic patterns for advertisers, sponsors and partners. This allows our advertisers to advertise more effectively, and allows our users to receive advertisements that are pertinent to their needs. Because we don't track the usage patterns of individual users, an advertiser or sponsor will never know that a specific user clicked their ad. We will not disclose any information about any individual user except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public. We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our Web site.

Sharing of the Information

Medfinds uses aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic patterns to tailor our content to suit your needs and help our advertisers better understand our audience's demographics. This is essential to keeping our service free. 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.

We use a third-party credit card processing company, PayPal Inc., to provide payment gateway services on our site.  When you sign up for a paid account on Medfinds.com, we will share credit card information, such as name and card number, as necessary for the third party to provide that service. 

These third parties are prohibited from using your personally identifiable information for any other purpose.

Security

The security of your personal information is important to us.  When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number) on our registration forms, we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL).  Medfinds 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. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it.  No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however.  Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

If you have any questions about security on our Web site, you can send email us at info@medfinds.com.

Opt Out Policy

We give users options to control which communications they do and do not receive from Medfinds, including promotional communications and surveys. If you no longer wish to receive our promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each communication or by emailing us at info@medfinds.com.

Opting to cancel your membership account with Medfinds.  You may request to cancel your membership account for any reason and at any time by contacting us at info@medfinds.com or by calling Customer Help at (800) 516-5178 or by sending a written request by mail to: Medfinds.com, 341 B NW 53rd Avenue, Seattle, WA 98107.

Opting not to register to receive our electronic communications.  You may request to have your email address removed from our mailing list for communications and other promotions by contacting us at info@medfinds.com or by calling Customer Help at (800) 516-5178 or by sending a written request by mail to: Medfinds.com, 341 B NW 53rd Avenue, Seattle, WA 98107.

Access to Personally-Identifiable Information

If your personally identifiable information changes, or if you no longer desire our service, you may request to update information that is not manageable through your account administration area, or to cancel and remove your account entirely, by contacting us at info@medfinds.com or by calling Customer Help at (800) 516-5178 or by sending a written request by mail to: Medfinds.com, 341 B NW 53rd Avenue, Seattle, WA 98107

Consent to Medfinds Privacy Policy

By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by Medfinds. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the home page, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.   

We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently.  If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on our home page.

TRUSTe License Information

Medigrative, Inc. is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program.  TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to build user’s trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices.  This privacy statement covers the Web site http://www.medfinds.com.  Because this Web site wants to demonstrate its commitment to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe.

If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact Andrew Brandeis at andrew@medfinds.com or by mail c/o Andrew Brandeis, Medfinds.com, 341 B NW 53rd Avenue, Seattle, WA 98107.  If you do not receive acknowledgement of your inquiry or your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, you should contact TRUSTe at http://www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php TRUSTe will then serve as a liaison with us to resolve your concerns.