Privacy Policy
FocusedBuyer.com(WS) and Precious®Payment(PRP), facilitating Purchasing & Trading and Settlement & Payables Processing (respectively "the Services"), are owned and operated by FocusedBuyer LLC and PreciousPayment LLC (respectively "the Companies" and hereafter collectively referred to as "We, Our, or Us") are strongly aware of and committed to protecting Your Privacy. This Privacy Policy (PP) describes how we, the WS, PRP, "the Services" and the "Companies", intend to hold, maintain and manage your Personal Information as well as any of your Nonpublic Information entrusted to us by you (and directed by you as being confidential) so as to keep it safe and secure with confidence of same. Federal Law instructs us to explain to you the actions taken by us to gather, protect and/or share your information. Please carefully review this communication that serves as our briefing to you about our Privacy Policy. Initial Release January 2013.
This Privacy Policy includes:
- What information do we gather?
- How do we collect this information?
- How is this information used?
- How do we keep it secure?
- Use of Trackers
- Advertisements and Ads
- Contact methods
- Obligation disclaimers
- Account removal and legally compelled acts
- Implied consent
- What information do we gather?
There are two important and necessary types of information that are gathered to successfully initiate and execute "the Services" on your behalf. One is Personally Identifiable Information (PII); and the other is Traffic Data Information (TDI) collected in individual, grouped, summarized, segmented or other forms and/or formats for analysis, trending and presentation.
PII consists of ALL INFORMATION you provide throughout your use of "the Services" that is able to identify you as yourself. PII includes, but is not limited to, first and last name, physical street address, city, state, zip/postal code, phone number(s), email addresses, web site security identifiers, etc. as well as specific financial information. This financial data may include company EIN numbers, other Tax Identification numbers, bank routing and account numbers, debit, credit or Procurement Card numbers or other "instruments of payment" account information that you provide to us as well as account balances, payment or transaction history and credit history.
ALL of your PII will be kept in confidentiality unless instructed, authorized and verified differently by you or compelled by legal authorities, concerning legal actions or legal investigations, via authorized and authenticated written, judicial proceeding(s) or instruction(s) to be released.
TDI consists of ALL ACTIVITIES of any and all visitors and users, including you, while navigating on and/or executing transactions through "the Services". TDI is collective information that does not refer to visitors and users as individuals.
Traffic Data Information may include, but is not limited to:
- IP address or addresses (for capturing the visit(s) to and/or use of "the Services"
- Country, Postal, Zip or other codes of users (for capturing general location(s), geographic trends. etc.)
- Visited pages (inside "the Services" and "clicked to" through "the Services" for capturing site navigation flows and interests)
- Web address or addresses of previous page(s) (for capturing how visitors find and come to "the Services" and/or "the Companies")
- Web pages traveled to when leaving "the Services" (for capturing next steps trends and interests)
- Purchases and complete Purchase Order & Payment transaction details (what is being bought, sold and advertised and how it all is being processed within "the Services")
- Age, gender, geographic, and other profiles (for capturing profiles, user statistics, etc. of "the Services")
- Activities of any type or kind within "the Services" (for capturing and monitoring appropriate, authorized or potentially disruptive/illegal actions, etc.)
> Very Important: Please note that "the Services" or "the Companies" will never contact you in any way to ask you for PII such as account numbers, banking information, social security numbers, or other personal identifying information, etc. This information is taken only when you register for web site services, with only your input and will be kept securely by "the Services". If you are contacted or prompted in any way by anyone through any means to provide to them such Personal Identifiable Information, you can expect that it is fraudulent and acting upon it or transacting with it or exposing PII to any person or party in any way could be commercially and/or financially harmful to you personally or to your company.
- How do we collect this information?
The way that we collect your PII is through you and you only. By filling out our registration and the data on our account form(s), your consent to our acquisition of all PII provided is implied. Also, by registering with us you are required to provide only correct and usable PII. If any PII you provide to us is false or incorrect, you assume sole and complete legal and financial responsibility for any resulting problems, no matter the reason provided, the circumstances of the provision or the persons or parties harmed or impacted in any way. "The Services" will assume that all PII you provide is correct until a reason to doubt surfaces or is exposed. If we find that any PII you provide to us is fraudulent, we reserve the right to assume control of your account, its access to "the Services" and its functionality using "the Services" and what happens to it is completely subject to our discretion. Note that even if we do assume full control of your account, the PII (whether it is true or false) contained within it will not be released and Your Privacy will not, unless legally required to do so, be compromised.
The way that we collect TDI is very different than PII. TDI is collected automatically by "the Services", telephone contacts, electronic communications, any and all transaction types, as well as through third parties, such as but not limited to consumer reporting agencies and advertising companies. We collect this information using trackers such as cookies and "clear GIFs", also called "pixel tag" or "beacon". Use of trackers will be addressed in section (5).
Third parties not under the control of "the Services" such as but not limited to consumer reporting agencies, other web sites you interact with and advertising companies, may collect information regarding your use of "the Services", or your navigation according with their or others" advertisements and content. The information that they collect may be used in order to present advertisements or other content that may be of interest to you or other users. Information collected by third parties, how they collect it, how they use and how it impacts you is subject to each individual third party"s own Privacy Policy, not this Privacy Policy.
- How is this information used?
It is necessary to collect your PII and the TDI so that we can make "the Services" work smoothly, efficiently and comfortably.
When we collect your PII, it can be used to:- Operate and improve our Web Site(s)
- Fulfill requests for products, actions, or services
- Communicate with you and help with any inquiries
- Personalize your experience and the content/advertisements provided for you
- Help improve the relevance of the content/advertisements provided for you
- Provide easy access to "the Services" available to you
- Verify the legitimacy of your financial data
- Allow ease of monetary payment(s) between Buyers and Suppliers/Sellers
- We will never sell your PII to any third parties for any reason
Your PII is essential because without it, we would not be able to identify you as yourself. If at any point in time your PII changes, you may edit your profile through "the Services" to accommodate such changes. We may also use the information you provide to us to send you e-mail, fax, or other forms of communication on behalf of "the Services" and its partners, affiliates or other third parties for ongoing business purposes and individual or joint sales & marketing efforts involving products and services. You have the discretion to limit the contact from our partners, affiliates and third parties by contacting us at any time via privacy@focusedbuyer.com.
TDI allows us to accumulate and calculate aggregate numbers of people visiting "the Services" as well as which pages and content happen to be the most relevant and regularly accessed. Collecting TDI allows us to obtain indirect feedback regarding our website's ease of use and popularity, thus giving us the ability to improve our website functionality and our users' service experience. Another use of the TDI is that we may share the data with such third parties as advertisers, advertisement companies, analysis data interpreters, and market forecasters, etc.
The information we collect from you will be held on to as long as you remain a registered Unique User of "the Services". If at any point your customer account is to be deleted, whether it is to be deleted under your request or our demand, your PII will be promptly removed from our active database(s) unless legal action is required or some other binding reason prevents its deletion. You understand, agree and accept that we have the right and reserve the right to retain and/or archive any of your PII indefinitely during the course of any legal event or for any other binding judicial or law enforcement ordered reason.
The TDI we collect does not and will not in any way compromise Your Personal Privacy.
- How do we keep it secure?
There are many ways that "the Services" keep your PII safe and secure. We maintain physical, software, electronic, procedural, process, hiring, and other safeguards to protect your PII. We specifically and purposefully restrict access and/or use of your PII. To protect your PII, access is only allowed for absolutely necessary purposes including essential contact to you concerning issues regarding your use of "the Services", or legally compelled disclosure. And unless we would receive your express direction and approval to disclose it, your PII remains secure in all other circumstances, venues and activities.
- Use of Trackers
Cookies and "clear GIFs" are used by many Internet Web Sites to collect Traffic Data Information and help run the sites smoothly. A cookie is a small amount of data or data file that is sent to your browser from a host server and stored on your computer"s hard drive to facilitate page navigations, the Internet session itself and assist with overall site security. The majority of Internet browsers allow you to block cookies, but doing so may compromise your ability to use features specific to "the Services". We suggest you consider the advantages and disadvantages before you decide to not allow such cookies from "the Services".
A clear GIF is a small graphic image, used frequently together with cookies. Clear GIFs monitor your navigation through "the Services", websites and the links you use to connect to "the Services". A clear GIF can also make your use of "the Services" easier and smoother. These small bundles of data can be used to temporarily permit your computer access to "the Services", avoiding errors and may prompt you to re-enter your sign-in or verification information on subsequent secured pages. Clear GIF use is another common application for collecting Traffic Data Information (TDI).
We will strive to inform our customers with updates around online tracking and its potential impact (through use of "the Services") to their Privacy and new or added options for users to consider choosing around Privacy Protection alternatives. However, you understand, acknowledge and accept that the free placement of others content on "the Services" complicates and makes it an impossible task to review and uncover all of the tracking processes third party sites install on our customers computation devices.
- Advertisements and Ads
Advertisements will appear to you during your use of "the Services". These advertisements are provided by third parties not directly affiliated with us. We are not responsible for the content presented to you through these third parties and we do not accept responsibility (legal, commercial, financial or otherwise) for any issues or problems that arise due to these third parties' actions. These advertisements may be general content presentation or specifically customized content by the third party advertisement companies to advertise products and/or services that may be of known or projected interest to you. These companies may use cookies or clear GIFs to track your navigation throughout the use of "the Services" along with placing their advertisements on a page, on selected pages or on every page. These companies will never be given any of your PII to use, but they may be given TDI (including TDI information specific to your profile, excluding any of your PII) for the improved relevance of their advertisements and how their advertisements and their content is then presented to you.
- Contact methods
One of the main reasons we collect your PII is so that direct contact and communications with you can be easily accomplished. The main ways of direct contact and communications are e-mail, postal mail, fax, and by phone. When you sign up there are opt-outs available to you, as well as your choice of preferred contact. To opt out of receiving FB emails, go to My Account/Preferences to edit your preferencs.
Whenever a Purchase Order Contracted Transaction is to occur, there must be some form of payment due to the Supplier/Seller, whether it is you or another party. To process these payments, a Buyer will most likely be required (unless the Buyer uses "the Service" of the Precious®Payment option) to share contact information, confirmed billing address information or other specific financial and account information, necessary to complete the buy/sell transaction, directly with another User or 2nd/3rd Party other than us. In this instance, the information is strictly shared between the Buyers and Suppliers/Sellers/Users/Other Parties, outside of any involvement or control or responsibility of "the Services", and should be restricted for the use of only relevant and expected communications between the parties. The party receiving the PII of the other is not to allow use of the information for any type of actions other than the specific Purchase Order Contracted Transaction settlement for which it was intended. The only exception would be in the unlikely situation where the giving party expressly consents to the receiving party to use the party's PII for other clearly defined purposes. You understand, acknowledge and accept that we are not responsible (legally, commercially, financially, consequentially or otherwise) for any buy/sell direct "party to party" payment settlement issues, problems, and/or disputes, that compromise Your Privacy, involving payment transaction executions including but not limited to security of exchanged PII or illegal or unauthorized use of exchanged PII.
"The Services" will never release your contact information to other parties or other users unless specifically directed and authorized by you to execute such action. Any of your contact information that you personally give (on purpose or accidentally) to other parties or other users is your own responsibility. "The Services" disclaim any responsibility (legal, commercial, financial or otherwise) for any contact disclosure action initiated by or taken by you.
Since the financial information you provide to us may have to be verified, we reserve the right to provide this information to any of our contracted service providers for audit and confirmation of accuracy so as to help prevent fraud and illegalities, avoid contentious bill collecting and disputes, improve our marketing effectiveness, or better our technology services. We require any party such as these, through the use of binding contracts, to only use your PII in connection with the services they provide for us and not for their own benefit. Also, we may be required to contact credit bureaus to report account information, as required or permitted by law.
If a Privacy breach occurs regarding any of your transactions you should notify us immediately at "the Services" via email to privacy@focusedbuyer.com. It is important that you bring to our attention any faulty transactions as soon as possible so that our team may investigate as fully as possible and resolve your issue and potentially connected issues. Please notify us in writing and we thank you in advance for your time, effort and cooperation to do so. A description of the faulty transaction(s) or other error(s) should be included in the information, as well as the transaction date, transaction details including money amounts, and the reason you believe it to be a Privacy breach. Our investigation, of your suspected and communicated to us Privacy breach, will be diligently and thoroughly pursued until an answer has been identified or a resolution has been reached. We will notify you, in due course, when we have finalized our investigation and we will subsequently inform the parties involved of the results and our recommended resolution or our already initiated "action to resolve". If there is no resolution that we find appropriate, we reserve the right to call in a contracted third party authority to look further into the matter and to reset any time parameters for potential resolution.
You understand, acknowledge and accept that "the Services" are made available to you "as is" basis existing hardware and software technologies and we do not take responsibility (legal, commercial, financial, consequential or otherwise) for Privacy breaches due to faulty transactions or the results from those faulty transactions whether or not the error was caused by internal or external technology lapses, internal or external security attacks and/or other forms of Privacy compromise, etc.
To contact authorities at "the Services" with any Privacy questions or concerns, please send us an email to privacy@focusedbuyer.com.
- Obligation disclaimers
Neither "the Services" nor the "Companies" are responsible for your navigation throughout our web site pages. You are solely responsible for your navigation on the web site and throughout "the Services", or any websites you travel to through the means of "the Services". If you travel to a website outside of "the Services" this Privacy Policy no longer applies to your actions and your responsibilities on/at those sites. Each separate website should have a Privacy Policy specific to them.
By registering with "the Services", you accept that any and all unsecured information you release may be read by anyone, anywhere, at anytime and therefore is not Private. We are not responsible (legally, commercially, financially, consequentially or otherwise) for anything you say, do, or express through your own actions even if you are using "the Services" to display your personal opinions. Also, any opinions, communications, or other people you witness or meet on our websites do not represent "the Services" or "the Companies", or any of our partners, suppliers and affiliates. Any spam (spamming), spyware, inappropriate, obscene, or disturbing data that is posted by any of "the Services" users will be promptly removed upon discovery. The repercussion(s) of posting such "threat to Privacy" content is up to the discretion of "the Services.'
Any transactions, actions, etc. that occur through "the Services" are under the jurisdiction of the United States of America. No matter the location of which you access and/or use "the Services", the USA's Internet Privacy Laws apply to any and all actions. If an illegal Privacy action takes place, it will be charged under USA's laws. Neither "the Services" nor "the Companies" take on any responsibility (legal, commercial, financial, consequential or otherwise) if one of their users violates either the USA's or the User's country of residence(s) or of visitation laws.
"The Services" are very committed to the security of your PII, but no security is perfect. There are multiple safeguards to your PII including electronic, physical, software and managerial safeguards. In the case that a third party or other user steals PII (yours or anyones), "the Services" and "the "Companies" take no responsibility (legal, commercial, financial, consequential or otherwise). We are not obligated to recover the stolen information, nor are we obligated to take responsibility for the stolen information or resulting impact. Whenever you give out your PII on the Internet, there is always a risk that parties understood to not have access to or permission to disseminate the PII may illegally get hold of it and/or release it publically. It is understood that "the Services" will take many precautions to prevent such an occurrence, but we cannot guarantee that the absolute security of your PII can be upheld in any instant of bad faith, illegality, unlawfulness or other premeditated crime or accidental technological glitch or compromise.
"The Services" have and reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy without any prior notice to any of their customers or Unique Users. It is recommended that you check for updates to this Privacy Policy from time to time. No matter whether you read the updates or not, you will still be held to their requirements and have responsibility to possibly alter your use of "the Services" accordingly.
In the case that "the Services" or the "Companies" are bought by another company, all the assets currently under either"s current jurisdiction(s) will automatically become the new company"s assets. This includes your PII. This Privacy Policy will no longer be active after such a transfer or acquisition of assets. The new company will have its own Privacy Policy that you must then become aware of, understand, accept and follow.
"The Services" operate through a web site open only (for Privacy Reasons and Concerns) for use by legally adult users. We do not willingly operate with any user known to be a minor. By registering with "the Services", you imply that you are at least 18 years of age. If we find out that you are not at least 18 years of age, we will immediately assume control of your account without any prior notice. What happens to your account and transactions is up to the discretion of "the Services". Again, regardless of an age infraction, we are committed that none of the PII provided and residing in your account will be released without your express direction and approval unless we are legally required to do so.
- Account removal and legally compelled acts
If for any Privacy or other reason "the Services" decide to assume control of your account you will no longer be allowed to access it or use any of "the Services". We may assume control of your account for any reason without prior notice and without giving you reason. We also reserve the right to delete your account without any prior notice. And we reserve the right to delete your account without giving you reason or asking for your consent. All of these acts are protected by our reservation of our rights by this Privacy Policy as well as our Terms of Service and Use Policy. Also, although any of these acts may allow "the Services" to assume control of your PII, there will not be any disclosure of any of your PII whether that information is true or fraudulent.
There are few reasons for any of your PII to become disclosed. Other than events that are out of our control (stealing of your PII or your public disclosure etc.), "the Services" and/or "the Companies" may be required to reveal your PII due to legal reasons. We will cooperate with any written authorized and authenticated legal and/or judicial investigations/instructions and will not withhold any requested information that may help. We will cooperate fully to accommodate required legal actions. Thus, under proper legal circumstances and directives, we have and reserve the right to disclose any information we hold without your consent or notice to you. Be assured, that any information we withhold or disclose must and will abide to both this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service and Use.
- Implied consent
By registering with "the Services", it is implied that you understand, acknowledge, accept and agree to, and will abide by everything in this Privacy Policy. Even if you refrained from reading and comprehending this Privacy Policy, you are required to abide by it and it is understood that by registering you confirm that you have read this Privacy Policy even if you have not.
If you have any Privacy or other questions or concerns, whether they arise prior to your registration or post your registration, please do not hesitate to contact us with queries, comments and feedback at privacy@focusedbuyer.com or info@focusedbuyer.com