Americola is committed to safeguarding your privacy online. Please read the following policy to understand how your personal information will be treated as you make full use of our many offerings. This policy may change from time to time so please check back periodically.

This policy will let you know:

1. What personally identifiable information is collected from you;
2. What cookies are and how they are used;
3. How your information is used;
4. Who is collecting your information;
5. With whom your information may be shared;
6. What choices are available to you regarding collection, use, and distribution of your information;
7. How you can access, update or delete your information;
8. How Americola treats your personal financial and health-related information;
9. Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse, or alteration of your information;
10. How Americola protects children's privacy; and
11. What else you should know about your online privacy.

NOTICE: Click here for important information about safe surfing from the US Federal Trade Commission.

What personally identifiable information does Americola collect from me?

Americola collects information in several ways from different parts of our network of web sites.

Some personal information is gathered when you register in our search engine. During registration, Americola asks for your name, email address, zip code, and address. Once you register you are no longer anonymous to Americola - you are given an ID and are able to take full advantage of Americola's search engine directory by keeping your site listing updated.

In addition to registration we may ask you for personal information at other times, including (but not limited to) when you enter a sweepstakes, contest or promotion sponsored by Americola and/or our many partners and when you report a problem with one of our sites or services. If you contact Americola we may keep a record of that correspondence. Americola also occasionally asks users to complete surveys that we use for research purposes. Wherever Americola collects personal information we make an effort to include a link to this Privacy Policy on that page.

What are cookies and how does Americola use them?

A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer's hard drive.

Americola uses cookies to insure that users do not abuse our affiliate program by flooding our site with fake requests. Cookies may also be used to protect our users from people trying to compromise their listings and other site promotion options.

Remember: Advertising networks that serve ads onto Americola may also use their own cookies. This may also be the case for some of our affiliate sites - please refer directly to those sites for more information.

Americola also collects IP addresses to ensure that affiliate requests are unique and genuine, for system administration and to report aggregate information to our advertisers. In addition, Americola Mail may include IP addresses in outgoing mail message headers.

How does Americola use my information?

In order to provide services free of charge, we display advertisements. By knowing a little about you, Americola is able to deliver more relevant advertisements and content, and hence better service, to you.

In our role of delivering targeted advertisements, Americola plays the middleman. Advertisers give us an advertisement and tell us the type of audience they want to reach (for example, males over 35 years old). Americola takes the advertisement and displays it to users meeting that criteria. In this process, the advertiser never has access to individual account information. Only Americola has access to individuals' accounts. This kind of advertisement targeting is done with banner ads as well as promotional email through Americola; however, you will rarely receive special offers via email from Americola. You can change your account preferences at any time and cancel your account entirely to stop receiving advertising.

Americola does research on our users' demographics, interests, and behavior based on the information provided to us upon registration, during a promotion, from our server log files or from surveys. We do this to better understand and serve our users. This research is compiled and analyzed on an aggregated basis. Americola may share this aggregated data with advertisers or business partners.

Who is collecting information?

When you are on a Americola site and are asked for personal information, you are sharing that information with Americola alone.

Promotions that run on Americola may be sponsored by companies other than Americola or may be cosponsored by Americola and another company. Some or all data collected during a promotion may be shared with the sponsor. If data will be shared, you will be notified prior to the time of data collection or transfer. You can decide not to participate in the promotion if you do not want your data to be shared.

Please be aware that Americola Internet access partners, advertisers, and web sites that have links on our site may collect personally identifiable information about you. The information practices of those Internet access partners, advertisers, and web sites linked to Americola are not covered by this privacy statement. Please refer directly to those source sites.

With whom does Americola share my information?

As a general rule, Americola will not disclose any of your personally identifiable information except when we have your permission or under special circumstances, such as when we believe in good faith that the law requires it or under the circumstances described below. Please see the Terms of Service or Use Agreements for each of our products and services for more detailed information about how your personal information may be shared. The following describes some of the ways that your information may be disclosed.

Business Partners & Sponsors: Americola may disclose your personal information to business partners or sponsors, but this is specifically described to you prior to data collection or prior to transferring the data. Some or all data collected during a Americola promotion may be shared with a sponsor. If personally identifying data about you will be shared, we will tell you before we collect or transfer the data.

Many promotions offer opportunities to request additional information from sponsors. By requesting more information, you give Americola permission to transfer your personal information to the sponsor so they can fulfill your request. In many instances, only your email address will be shared. If more information will be shared with the sponsor, you will be notified prior to the transfer.

Americola Shopping: Currently the Americola shopping section is totally run by affiliate sites. This privacy policy does not refer to information that our affiliates may collect. Please refer directly to those source sites for more information, in particular Amazon.com and its group companies.

Third Party Data & Data in the Aggregate: Under confidentiality agreements, Americola may match user information with third party data. Also, Americola discloses aggregated user statistics (for example, 45% of our users are female) in order to describe our services to current and prospective partners, advertisers, and other third parties and for other lawful purposes.

Other: Americola may also disclose account information in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be violating Americola's Terms of Service or may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) Americola's rights or property, other Americola users, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities. Americola may disclose or access account information when we believe in good faith that the law requires it and for administrative and other purposes that we deem necessary to maintain, service, and improve our products and services.

What are my choices regarding collection, use, and distribution of my information?

Americola may, from time to time, send you email regarding our products and services or special promotions from our affiliates and sponsors (however such emails are rare). Only Americola (or agents working on behalf of Americola and under confidentiality agreements) will send you these direct mailings. You may choose to no longer receive these mailings by requesting that your account be cancelled.

You also have choices with respect to cookies. By modifying your browser preferences, you have the choice to accept all cookies, to be notified when a cookie is set, or to reject all cookies. If you choose to reject all cookies you may be unable to use those Americola services that require registration in order to participate.

Americola does not sell or rent user information to anyone. We will notify you at the time of data collection or transfer if your data will be shared with a third party and you will always have the option of not permitting the transfer. If you do not wish to allow your data to be shared, you can choose not to use a particular service or not to participate in certain promotions or contests.

What is Americola's policy on allowing me to update, correct, or delete my personally identifiable information?

You may edit your site listing at any time by using your ID and password (Americola's reserves the right to refuse any such modifications at its sole discretion. Any accounts containing innacurate or incomplete information may be deleted without warning by Americola). Login to your account here.

How does Americola protect my personal financial and health-related information?

We do not currently request personal financial and health-related information.

What security precautions are in place to protect the loss, misuse, or alteration of my information?

You may edit your site listing at any time by using your ID and password (Americola's reserves the right to refuse any such modifications at its sole discretion) Login to your account here.

We recommend that you do not divulge your password to anyone. Americola will never ask you for your password in an unsolicited phone call or in an unsolicited email. Also remember to sign out of your Americola account and close your browser window when you have finished your work. This is to ensure that others cannot access your personal information and correspondence if you share a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place like a library or Internet cafe.

Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or any wireless network can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, Americola cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or from our online products or services, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.

If you believe that your security has been compromised please contact us.

What about children's privacy?

Naturally, the safety of children is very important to us.

Americola is a general audience web site and does not, as a rule, contain links to adult sites.

Children should always ask a parent for permission before sending personal information to anyone online. Americola does not share personal information about users under the age of 13 with third parties and we do not sell or rent personal information about any of our users, regardless of age. In addition, Americola will not send any direct email offers to users who indicate they are under the age of 13.

What else should I know about my privacy?

Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information online - for example on message boards, through email, or in chat areas - that information can be collected and used by others. In short, if you post personal information online that is accessible to the public, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return.

Ultimately, you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your passwords and/or any account information. Please be careful and responsible whenever you are online.

Additional Information

Questions regarding this statement should be directed .