Engage Privacy Covenant www.engage.com/privacy/commitment_privacy.cfm

"At Engage, we believe the Internet is an amazing tool for consumers and the publishers and marketers who seek to reach them. But the Internet's potential will never be realized if consumers don't trust the medium - if they believe traveling the Web means sacrificing their privacy. Since our founding in 1995, we've made privacy such a priority that we've become known as the industry leader. That commitment is demonstrated in the 10-point privacy covenant we've made with consumers."

1.  Engage Knowledge's unique technology protects consumer privacy by producing anonymous profiles. Engage's patent-pending anonymous profiling technology allows marketers to reach consumers without ever knowing their personal identity. Our Engage Knowledge system is designed to recognize a consumer's browser, not the person's identity. Engage Knowledge never knows a consumer's name or any other personally identifiable information, such as name, address, social security number, or phone number. Nor does it store IP addresses, which in some cases could uniquely identify a browser. And, because our Engage Knowledge anonymous profiling system uses general information fields (age range rather than date of birth, for instance), it can never connect pieces of data (e.g., gender, zip code, and date of birth) to reveal a person's identity.

2.  Engage is committed to keeping Engage Knowledge anonymous profiles separate from any personally identifiable information. Some companies have contemplated merging data from their anonymous profiling databases with personally identifiable information culled from online and offline sources. Engage has built its business around anonymous profiling because we believe it strikes the right balance between marketing needs and consumer privacy. Engage does not merge its Engage Knowledge anonymous profiling data with personally identifiable information.

3.  Not only are our Engage Knowledge profiles anonymous, but we give consumers an added protection - our system discards specific information about a browser's travels. Engage's technology uses complex algorithms that develop interest scores which, in turn, suggest the relevant products and services that might interest a given browser. As these interest scores are developed in real time, the system simply eliminates the specific information about the browser's Web travels, such as URLs and time stamps.

4.  Engage does not store sensitive or controversial data. Engage devised its profiling system to simply ignore and/or discard any information pertaining to controversial topics, such as sexual preference, adult content, or sensitive medical or financial data.

5.  Engage provides consumers with clear, concise information about its data collection practices. Engage believes consumers should not be kept in the dark about profiling and other technologies. That's why we clearly post our privacy policies, including an explanation of how our targeting services work. And we also require our publishing partners to post notice of these services by providing a link to our privacy policies and by posting a privacy policy of their own.

6.  Engage believes consumers should be able to opt out of Engage Knowledge anonymous profiling. Giving consumers notice is one important privacy protection. But Engage believes they should have even more. We give consumers choice - we require our publishing partners to post a link to our site where a consumer can opt out of our anonymous profiling.

7.  Engage requires opt-in for email services. Because email marketing requires an actual email address, Engage adds a special layer of protection: we host only permission-based, opt-in email services. We require that consumers check a box requesting email or that they supply their email address for the explicit purpose of receiving emails. And we require an explicit opt-in for data sharing to third parties.

8.  Engage is committed to keeping email addresses and other personally identifiable data completely separate from its Engage Knowledge anonymous profiles. In keeping with our promise to keep personally identifiable data separate our Engage Knowledge anonymous profiling data, Engage has built a wall -- both technological and organizational -- between its email services and its Engage Knowledge anonymous profiling services. And we've committed to having these systems audited on a periodic basis to ensure that the data is not merged.

9.  Engage is working to empower consumers through its new "TrustLabels" technology. Engage is actively working with other industry leaders to build a "seal recognizer" into every consumer's browser. This new privacy tool would allow a consumer's browser to recognize whether a third party advertiser has received approval from one of the major privacy seal programs, such as TRUSTe or Better Business Bureau Online. (Network advertisers would earn these privacy seals by adhering to established industry standards for privacy.) If a Web site was not carrying this seal of approval, the consumer would immediately be alerted. The consumer could then decide whether to leave the site or continue at his or her own risk.

10. Engage is committed to working with privacy advocates, privacy seal programs, and industry colleagues to set rigorous standards for Internet privacy. Since its founding in 1995, Engage has worked actively with privacy advocates and industry groups to establish consumer protection standards. We were an early participant in TRUSTe, one of the most widely used privacy "seal" programs. And we've taken a leadership role in self-regulation efforts with the Network Advertising Initiative, the Online Privacy Alliance, the World Wide Web Consortium, the Platform for Privacy Preference, and the Internet Engineering Task Force. We'll continue working with industry leaders and privacy advocates to set standards, educate consumers, and seek new technologies that strike the right balance between the consumer's right to privacy and the potential for personalized marketing.

Added: Aug 05-00

This entire Privacy Covenant is © Engage Technologies, Inc.

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