PRIVACY POLICY
Updated June 27, 2007

CarbonContest.com respects your privacy.  We do not wish to have yours or anyone else’s personal information spread across the internet and in order to uphold this promise we have developed the following policy in regards to any personal or private information that is shared with or posted on to CarbonContest.com. 

Please read this policy carefully.  By visiting CarbonContest.com, you consent to the collection and use of certain information in accordance with this policy.  If you do not agree to the following terms, you must leave CarbonContest.com and discontinue any further use of this Site.

What We Collect
First, if you register with us we require that you share certain personal information with us, such as full name, home address, city, state and postal code, email address and certain habits regarding your energy usage.  We collect this information so that we can ensure valid and unique user accounts are being created.  This information is protected and will not be shared with any third parties in ways that will identify you, but may give general statistics (per capita electricity usage in Denver for example). 

What We will not Do
Here are some things that we will neither publish nor transmit to third parties: your full name, home address and email address.  We cannot stop you from posting this information or giving it out, but we encourage you to think twice before posting or transmitting this information to anyone online. 

Your Personal Control
To give you further control over what information is shared online we have created three (3) tiers of privacy protection for your personal profile.  You may elect to designate information as “private”, “friends and family”, or “public”.  The default setting when you create your profile is “friends” and you may switch this by going to the privacy page under account settings on your profile page.  Regardless of which tier you select, your information may be used by us to contact you when necessary to provide information about and for administration of your account with CarbonContest.com.  

The first tier is available to those users who have not connected with any “friends” nor wish to.  The information you post and the calculation results will be available to only you, except your total energy usage, emissions and any monetary savings will be added to the aggregate, but your individual contributions will remain anonymous.  Also, some non-identifiable energy usage habits may be recorded and shared with certain third parties (such as municipalities, utilities, technology companies) so that they can better serve your energy needs and know how to better invest in conservation.

The second tier allows any information you designate to be seen by any other user who is in your “friends” list.  Certain information must be shared like energy usage and emissions, in order for your friends to compare themselves with you.  You can still keep certain things private, like your energy use breakdown and the city and state in which you live, but not the Country, which must remain public.

The third tier allows the entire “public”, (meaning all registered users with the site) to view your profile and those specific sections of your profile that are designated as “public”.  As other users browse energy usage and emissions from other cities around the globe, they may click on your page to see how they compare with you. 

Security
CarbonContest.com has industry standard security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. While there is no such thing as "perfect security" on the Internet, we will take all reasonable steps to insure the safety of your personal information.

Links to Other Sites
CarbonContest.com contains links to other Web sites. CarbonContest.com is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such Web sites.

We take your privacy seriously and if you have comments or concerns, please write to privacy@carboncontest.com