Introduction
The Service (as defined in the Terms of Use) uses three types of information: Registration Information, personal Account Information and Energy Use Information.
We limit the collection and use of personal information
Certain areas and features of VisibleEnergy.com are available to you without registration or the need to provide to us any information. However, in order to benefit from the full functionality of the Service, you need to register as a member. To register, you must provide a User Name, a Login ID, an email address, a password and your zip code (collectively the "Registration Information").
Visible Energy makes every effort to allow you to retain the anonymity of your personal identity and you are free to choose a Login ID, email address and password that keeps your personal identity anonymous. You will also need to provide a User Name for the purpose of sharing your Energy Use Information with others.
Access to your Registration Information and your personal data is strictly restricted to Visible Energy employees and contractors, as needed, in order to operate, develop or improve the Service. These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations. They may be subject to discipline, including termination and criminal prosecution, if they fail to meet these obligations.
Personally identifiable information generally includes information that could be used to determine your identity, such as your name, address, phone number, e-mail address (if it contains some part of your name) gender, birth date, occupation, personal interests and other demographic information. With the exception of a Login ID in the form of an email address, which may be provided on an anonymous basis, and your personal Account Information, which is entered only one time by you to secure automatic downloads of your Energy Use Information, Visible Energy does not require any information from you that might constitute personally identifiable information.
Visible Energy requires a Login ID email address from you in the following circumstances:
- Registration for the Service;
- The use of any Forums on VisibleEnergy.com; and
- To respond to any correspondence, such as emails or letters, from you.
We keep your registration information private
Visible Energy does not sell or rent your Registration Information at any time.
Visible Energy uses your Registration Information only as follows:
- to analyze site usage and improve the Service;
- to deliver to you any administrative notices and communications relevant to your use of the Service;
- to fulfill your requests for certain products and services;
- for market research, project planning, troubleshooting problems, detecting and protecting against error, fraud or other criminal activity;
- to enforce Visible Energy's Terms of Use; and
- as otherwise set forth in this Privacy and Security Policy.
In the event that you access the Service as brought to you by one of our co-brand partners, through a co-branded URL, your email address used for Registration on the Service, may be provided to such co-brand partner.
We only use your Zip Code to improve your experience. The Zip Code allows the Service to provide you with accurate automated geographic and climate-zone categorization of your energy use.
Account Information from Third Parties is only seen by you
Your personal Account Information consists of usernames, passwords, and PINs that allow Visible Energy to access your third-party utility accounts on your behalf. Visible Energy does not sell, rent or disclose your personal Account Information. Visible Energy discloses your Account Information only to you and to third-party contractors who help Visible Energy provide the Service to you.
As described in the Terms of Use and with your consent, Visible Energy will from time to time connect electronically to your utility accounts and obtain Energy Use Information from them in order to provide the Service to you. Alternatively, you may provide Energy Use Information by entering it manually or uploading files.
Visible Energy uses your Energy Use Information as follows:
- to offer the Service to you;
- to deliver communications relevant to your use of the Service;
- to deliver information relevant to your interests, such as offers for ways to save from third party product and service providers ("Visible Energy Offers");
- for market research, project planning, troubleshooting problems, detecting and protecting against error, fraud or other criminal activity; and
- as otherwise set forth in this Privacy and Security Policy.
Your Energy Use Information
Your Energy Use information consists of your energy use (in energy units and cost) and information about your home(s) or businesses, such as its age, area, and heating/cooling type.. It is identified to others only by your chosen on-line name and place ID's.
Visible Energy anonymizes and aggregates energy use data derived from Energy Use Information and discloses such data only in a non-personally identifiable manner to:
- Advertisers and other third parties for their marketing and promotional purposes, such as how many users clicked on a particular Visible Energy Offer;
- Organizations approved by Visible Energy who conduct research into consumer energy use;
- Users of the Service for purposes of comparison of your energy use relative to the broader community.
Your Privacy is not for sale
The Service (as defined in the Terms of Use) uses three types of information: Registration Information, personal Account Information and Energy Use Information.We do not and will not sell or rent your personal information to anyone, for any reason, at any time.
Online session and use information is only used to improve your experience
When you visit VisibleEnergy.com, we may collect technical and navigational information, such as computer browser type, Internet protocol address, pages visited, and average time spent on our Web site. This information may be used, for example, to alert you to software compatibility issues, or it may be analyzed to improve our Web design and functionality.
We may use third party service providers to help us analyze certain online activities. For example, these service providers may help us measure the performance of our online campaigns or analyze visitor activity on VisibleEnergy.com. We may permit these service providers to use cookies and other technologies to perform these services for Visible Energy. We do not share any personally identifiable information about our customers with these third party service providers, and these service providers do not collect such information on our behalf. Our third party service providers are required to comply fully with this Privacy and Security Policy.
We keep your personal information private
There may be separate products and services offered by third parties advertised by us on our site and through the Service that may be complementary to your use of VisibleEnergy.com (e.g., lenders, banks, credit card issuers, communications providers) and these constitute Visible Energy Offers or ways to save. If you choose to use these separate products or services, disclose information to the providers, and/or grant them permission to collect information about you, then their use of your information is governed by their privacy policy. You should evaluate the practices of external services providers before deciding to use their services. These third party Web sites may have different privacy policies than Visible Energy and Visible Energy is not responsible for their privacy practices. If you click on a link to a third party Web site, Visible Energy encourages you to check the privacy policy of that Web site.
Visible Energy may present links in a format that enables us to keep track of whether these links have been followed and whether any action has been taken on a third party Web site. We use this information to improve the quality of Visible Energy Offers and customized content on the Service.
Blogs and other Forums on VisibleEnergy.com
If you use a bulletin board, blog, or chat room 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.
Disclosure of your information to protect our rights or if required by law
Notwithstanding the foregoing, Visible Energy reserves the right (and you, by registering as a member, authorize Visible Energy) to share or disclose your Registration Information and Account information when Visible Energy determines, in its sole discretion, that the disclosure of such information is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against you if:
- You are or may be violating this Privacy and Security Policy or Visible Energy's Terms of Use;
- to prevent potentially prohibited or illegal activities; or
- Necessary or required by any applicable law, rule regulation, subpoena or other legal process.
Your data may be transferred upon acquisition of Visible Energy but only in accordance with this policy. Registration Information and Account Information may be transferred to a third party as a result of a sale, acquisition, merger, reorganization or other transfer (a "Transfer") involving Visible Energy. Visible Energy specifically reserves the right to transfer Registration and Account Information to a third party in connection with a Transfer. Should such a Transfer occur, we will use our best efforts to require that the new combined entity follow this privacy and security policy with respect to your personal information, as and to the extent required by applicable law and require that you receive prior notice if your personal information could be used contrary to this policy.
You can transport or delete your data
You can remove your data anytime you want. When you request us to delete your account for the Service, your data will be permanently expunged from our primary production servers and further access to your account will not be possible. We will also promptly disconnect any connection we had established to your Account Information. However, portions of your data, consisting of aggregate data derived from your Account Information, may remain on our production servers indefinitely. Your data may also remain on a backup server or media. Visible Energy keeps these backups to ensure our continued ability to provide the Service to you in the event of malfunction or damage to our primary production servers.
Cookies and Web Beacons may be used to analyze site usage and improve the Service
"Cookies" are alphanumeric identifiers in the form of text files that are inserted and stored by your Web browser on your computer's hard drive. Visible Energy may set and access cookies on your computer to track and store preferential information about you. Visible Energy may gather anonymous information about you through cookie technology on an aggregate level only. For example, Visible Energy may assign a cookie to you, to limit the amount of times you see a particular Visible Energy Offer or to help better determine which Visible Energy Offers to serve to you. Please note that most Internet browsers will allow you to stop cookies from being stored on your computer and to delete cookies stored on your computer. If you choose to eliminate cookies, the full functionality of the Service may be impaired for you.
Web beacons are images embedded in a Web page or email for the purpose of measuring and analyzing site usage and activity. Visible Energy, or third party service providers acting on our behalf, may use Web beacons to help us analyze site usage and improve the Service.
We work hard to ensure that your data is secure
We use a combination of firewall barriers, encryption techniques and authentication procedures, among others, to maintain the security of your online session and to protect Visible Energy accounts and systems from unauthorized access.
We use authentication to ensure that only you access your account
Authentication is the process you go through on Visible Energy to access secure areas of our Website. This process takes place when you log into your account, the two key components of which are your Login ID and Password.
With regards to passwords, we maintain strict rules to help prevent others from guessing your password. We also recommend that you change your password periodically. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your Login ID and Password. You may not provide these credentials to any third party.
We will notify you of any changes in this Privacy and Security Policy
We reserve the right to modify this policy at any time, so please review it frequently.
If we decide to change our privacy and security policy, we will update the date upon which this policy, including those changes became effective from at the top of this policy and post those changes to this policy, so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
Former Members
If you are a former member, we treat your information in the same manner that we treat information about our current members.